DESTINY

The most important thing EVER to happen at Legion Field will go down on Saturday. It just had to happen this way. Two CRISIS games each. Rubber match to settle this bitch. We're not making it to .500.



See you in the future.

3E's year in review

Sign you WOULD see in Pasadena...

except those inbreds couldn't come up with it. Well retards, 3E is here to help.

Bling bling is still popular with me

40 things that were popular at the start of the decade that aren't popular anymore.

fuck you vegas

How was Arizona ever a favorite? Why did it take the betting public until just the other day to come to their senses? Whatever.

this just in

Bowl Pick Them 2009: The Chase for .500

One CRISIS victory each. For those scoring at home, Nebraska is now favored over Arizona.

yeah

this exists. Not particularly interesting. It looked stupid and I didn't read any of it. But there it is.

Bowl Pick Them 2009: The Chase for .500

not making a picture. The Chuckwagon is 5-5 and tha Captain is 4-6. I wanted to make a picture, I really did. Can't remember how to cut and paste things. You understand.


CHECK OUT THEM TITTIES.

Post 1,000

Maybe. Blogger's counting is weird. But I think this is our 1,000th post. Congrats, team!

3e endorsed

Family Christmas Fan PseudoFiction

Cousin 1: That Thanksgiving at the beach was fun.

Cousin 2: Yes, it was. We should do that again.

Cousin 3: WE CAN'T.

scene

Change blindness

merry christmas! here's a song about hard fucking.

Bowl Pick Them 2009: The Chase for .500

"You guys fucking blow."
- Santa

3E approves

not obvious but they's corduroy.

Christmas with the Joker

Star Wars review

I can't honestly say I got through all seven of them, but the five minutes I watch of this one was pretty funny.

mammaries

The oldest class schedule still on the BSC website is the last one of any pertinence to us. That last semester was so awesome.

MW 1:00 - Varkham Markham's Western Civ
TTh 9:30 - Design with Bob Shelton
TTh 12:00 - Intermediate Writing with McInturff
TTh 1:30 - Numerical Sucknalysis with Dougie Doug Riley

What a great semester.

Huo Yuanjia

Huo Yuanjia (Chinese: 霍元甲; pinyin: Huò Yuánjiǎ) [Cantonese: Fok Yuen Gap] (c.1868-1910) was a Chinese martial artist and co-founder of the Chin Woo Athletic Association, a martial arts school in Shanghai. A practitioner of the martial art Mízōngyì, he is considered a hero in China for defeating foreign fighters in highly publicized matches at a time when Chinese sovereignty was being eroded by colonization, foreign concessions, and spheres of influence. Due to his heroic status, legends and myths about events in his life are difficult to discern from the facts.

In 1901, Huo Yuanjia responded to a challenge advertised by a wrestler from Russia in Xiyuan Park, Tianjin. The wrestler openly called the Chinese "weak men of the East" as no one accepted his challenge to a fight. The Russian forfeited when Huo Yuanjia accepted his challenge. The Russian told Huo that he was merely putting on a performance in order to make a living and made an apology for his earlier remark in the newspaper.

Between 1909 and 1910, Huo Yuanjia traveled to Shanghai twice to accept an open challenge posed by a British boxer Hercules O'Brien. The two of them had arguments over the rules governing such boxing matches and eventually agreed that whoever knocked down his opponent would be the victor. However, O'Brien never fought Huo, opting to leave town instead.

Huo Yuanjia

I'm sick and tired of paying these dues

untitled

"It needs to be big. Fucking huge. Bigger than MINCED CLAMS!"

-Crazy Uncle Isaac

Maybe I don't wanna be rogered roundly

Avatar review

we suck

Gutterballs

3E bowl pick them: A slightly less brief history

Most of the records are lost in the limbo of history but we can all agree on one thing: I am (still) better than Charles in every way.

2005: Seven CRISIS games. I won five of them. I had won before New Year's Day.
2006: I won on the last day (via tiebreaker) by picking UF over THE ohio state university.
2007: Again, a tiebreaker victory for me.
2008: A new record of 15 CRISIS games. There was no tiebreaker. My picks outscored Charles's picks by four touchdowns yet somehow the Chuckwagon pulled it out.

So, It's 3 - 1. Astute readers will have noticed that I picked all favorites this season. The result: Without me picking the goofy picks I make solely because I want the opposite to happen, there's an all-time low of 5 CRISIS games:

Dec. 23rd: Cal vs Utah
Dec. 29th: UCLA vs Temple
Dec. 30th: Arizona vs Nebraska
Dec. 31st: Oklahoma vs Stanford
Jan. 2nd: South Carolina vs UConn

So, it will likely be over one way or the other before the new year, but I think we can all agree: If it comes down to the PPJ.c, that will be the single defining moment of our generation. I don't know if I could stand to see it in person. Watching it intermittently on tv will be hard enough.

Charles Bowl Picks

New Mexico: Fresno St. vs. Wyoming
Wyoming is a terrible football team, while Fresno State is merely bad.
My Pick: FRESNO STATE

St. Petersburg: Rutgers vs. UCF
This is on my short list for most likely to be the most boring bowl game. I'm going to pretend it's a play-in game for Rutgers to get into the Big 10, with the recent expansion talk and whatnot.
My Pick: RUTGERS BABY

R+L Carriers New Orleans: Southern Miss. vs. Middle Tenn.
Southern Miss is better than their record indicates, although they're not terribly good.
My Pick: SOUTHERN MISS

MAACO Las Vegas: BYU vs. Oregon State
I feel like Oregon State is the much better team, and they've won three straight bowl games, but I'm torn because they might (rightly) feel like this is a consolation game for losers. But then, BYU lost badly to Florida State.
My Pick: BEAVERS

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia: Utah vs. Cal
Utah wants to be here more, and Cal got bad at the end of the season.
My Pick: UTAH

Sheraton Hawaii: SMU vs. Nevada
SMU lost to both Washington State and (We are) Marshall.
My Pick: NEVADA

Little Caesars: Marshall vs. Ohio
As you may have noticed, I don't think too highly of Marshall.
My Pick:JOEHIO

Meineke Car Care: North Carolina vs. Pittsburgh
Nothing gets kids from North Carolina pumped up like a bus ride to Charlotte.
My Pick: PITTT

Emerald: Boston College vs. USC
BC has struggled mightily against anybody with a pulse. I don't have the foggiest idea what USC's deal is. Let's go with the team that's actually beaten some good opponents, even if they've lost to some inferior opponents.
My Pick: USC

Gaylord Hotels Music City: Clemson vs. Kentucky
Both of these teams lost to South Carolina. Kentucky as a team wants it more, but C. J. Spiller as a player wants it more; Spiller is better than Kentucky.
My Pick: CLEMSON

AdvoCare V100 Independence: Texas A&M vs. Georgia
I can't imagine either of these teams being terribly excited about this. As much as they've underachieved, Georgia hasn't lost to anybody as bad as TAMU.
My Pick: UGA

EagleBank: Temple vs. UCLA
Temple??? They've got to be excited to be there. Rick Neuheisel is a clown.
My Pick: Temple

Champs Sports: Miami vs. Wisconsin
I will be very surprised if Miami doesn't win this by at least two scores.
My Pick: DA U

Roady's Humanitarian: Idaho vs. Bowling Green
I wish Idaho and Temple had played. The Taters (my unofficial nickname for Idaho's team) gave up 30 or more points seven times.
My Pick: BOWLING GREEN

Pacific Life Holiday: Nebraska vs. Arizona
If King Kong Suh could nearly beat Texas by himself, he can beat Arizona by himself.
My Pick: NEWBRASKA

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces: Houston vs. Air Force
This should be a pretty exciting offensive shoot-out. I think Case Keenum should have been at the Heisman ceremony, although he shouldn't have won it.
My Pick:HOUSTON

Brut Sun: Oklahoma vs. Stanford
Didn't see this one coming in August, did you? Oklahoma is probably not terribly excited about this, while Standford has reason both to be excited (for the bowl) and upset (for Gerhart's losing the Heisman to a player with worse statistics).
My Pick: STANFORD

Texas: Missouri vs. Navy
If Missouri is ready for this game, and I think they will be, they win pretty easily.
My Pick: MISSOURI

Insight: Minnesota vs. Iowa State
Two of the worst offenses in the BCS conferences, if not the country. I'm picking more against Iowa State than I am for Minnesota.
My Pick: MINNESOTA

Chick-fil-A: Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee
I'm probably letting my dislike of Lane Kiffin influence me too much, but Virginia Tech is a pretty good team, and Tennessee is just average. Two of the Hokies' three losses have come to conference champions.
My Pick: VPI

Outback: Northwestern vs. Auburn
SEC speed! This is actually kind of a bad match-up for Auburn, but I think the overall talent difference will mean that doesn't matter much. I also expect Auburn to have a nearly homefield crowd advantage.
My Pick: AUBURN

Capital One: Penn St. vs. LSU
Tough one to pick. I think LSU is a little better, but there's no telling how they'll play. Les Miles versus Joe Paterno is how I'm going.
My Pick: PENN STATE

Konica Minolta Gator: Florida State vs. West Virginia
Florida State has no defense. If West Virginia can just avoid shooting themselves in the foot, they win easily, even against a team that's pumped up for Bobby's last game (serious question: how many players on the FSU roster could Bowden name, if shown their faces? My guess is 60%).
My Pick: WEST VIRGINIA

Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi: Ohio St. vs. Oregon
Oregon has been underrated and unlucky for like eight years now. Ohio State does not have the offense to win this game.
My Pick: DUCKS

Allstate Sugar: Florida vs. Cincinnati
I was going to Pick Cincinatti, because Florida will be so disappointed, but with Brian Kelly leaving, and Tim Tebow leaving, I think the Gators will be more in the game, which gives Cincy little hope.
My Pick: FLORIDA

International: USF vs. Northern Illinois
If Jim Leavitt didn't punch that guy, his players will get behind an embattled, unfairly attacked coach. It sounds like he didn't. Neither of these teams comes in on what you'd call a hot streak.
My Pick: USF

Papajohns.com: Connecticut vs. South Carolina
It's difficult for me to take South Carolina entirely serious as a team.
My Pick: UCONN

AT&T Cotton: Oklahoma St. vs. Mississippi
Losers! Both of these teams failed to live up to expectations, and got whipped by inferior in-state rivals. At least Ole Miss showed signs of life against MSU; Oklahoma State was just embarassing against Oklahoma.
My Pick: OLE MISS

AutoZone Liberty: East Carolina vs. Arkansas
East Carolina has a terrible pass defense. Unless Arkansas turns the ball over several times, there's no reason to think they can't easily outscore the Pirates. Plus, without the magic talisman of East Carolina's midfield logo, they're in trouble.
My Pick: ARKANSAS

Valero Alamo: Michigan St. vs. Texas Tech
I'm seeing people make this a match-up of the best passing games of their respective conferences. If that's the criteria, it's a pretty easy choice which conference I'll take.
My Pick: TEXAS TECH YARRR

Tostitos Fiesta: TCU vs. Boise St.
Offense wins games, defense wins meaningless Fiesta Bowls.
My Pick: TCU

FedEx Orange: Iowa vs. Georgia Tech
Option time! Iowa is not as good, at the end of the season, as they were at the beginning. Georgia Tech's had some weird games, but their two losses didn't come right at the end of the season (well, one did). Whatever. I like Paul Johnson a lot.
My Pick: TECH

GMAC: Troy vs. Central Michigan
This should be a pretty exciting game. I like Central Michigan's high-flying offense better than Troy's, plus the Chippewas are arguably the best team in their state.
My Pick: CMU

Citi BCS National Championship Game: Alabama vs. Texas
I'd like to say that I think Alabama will be overconfident, or Texas will show that they're underrated, etc etc. But the Longhorns have only played two decent defenses, and they struggled against both. Alabama has an exceptional defense and a good enough offense.
My Pick: alabama

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICES

You want winners? I've got winners right here. Laboriously researched.


New Mexico Bowl
Dec. 19th
Fresno St. vs Wyoming

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Fresno
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

St. Petersburg Bowl
Dec. 19th
Rutgers vs UCF

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Rutgers
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

New Orleans Bowl
Dec. 20th
Middle Tennessee vs Southern Miss

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Southern Miss
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Las Vegas Bowl
Dec. 22nd
BYU vs Oregon St.

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Oregon St.
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Poinsettia Bowl
Dec. 23rd
Utah vs Cal

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: California
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Hawaii Bowl
Dec. 24th
SMU vs Nevada

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Nevada
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Little Caesars Bowl
Dec. 26th
Ohio vs Marshall

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Ohio
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Meineke Car Care Bowl
Dec. 26th
North Carolina vs Pitt

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Pitt
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Emerald Bowl
Dec. 26th
Boston College vs USC

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: USC
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Music City Bowl
Dec. 27th
Clemson vs Kentucky

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Clemson
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Independence Bowl
Dec. 8th
Texas A&M vs Georgia

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Georgia
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

EagleBank Bowl
Dec. 29th
Temple us UCLA

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: UCLA
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Champs Sports Bowl
Dec. 29th
Miami vs Wisconsin

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Miami
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Humanitarian Bowl
Dec. 30th
Idaho vs Bowling Green

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Bowling Green
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Holiday Bowl
Dec. 30th
Nebraska vs Arizona

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Arizona
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Armed Forces Bowl
Dec. 31st
Houston vs Air Force

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Houston
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Sun Bowl
Dec. 31st
Oklahoma vs Stanford

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Oklahoma
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Texas Bowl
Dec. 31st
Mizzou vs Navy

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Tha Zou
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Insight Bowl
Dec. 31st
Minnesota vs Iowa St.

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Minnesota
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Peach Bowl
Dec. 31st
Virginia Tech vs Tennessee

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: VPI
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Outback Bowl
Jan. 1st
Northwestern vs Auburn

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Auburn
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Gator Bowl
Jan. 1st
Florida St. vs West Virginia

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: WV
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Citrus Bowl
Jan. 1st
LSU vs Penn St.

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Penn St.
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Rose Bowl
Jan. 1st
Tosu vs Oregon

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Oregon
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Sugar Bowl
Jan. 1st
Cincy vs Florida

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Florida
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

International Bowl
Jan. 2nd
South Florida vs Northern Illinois

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: USF
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

The Original Pizza Bowl
Jan. 2nd
UConn vs South Carolina

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: South Carolina
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Cotton Bowl
Jan. 2nd
Ole Miss vs Oklahoma St.

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Ole Miss
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Liberty Bowl
Jan. 2nd
Arkansas vs East Carolina

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Arkansas
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Alamo Bowl
Jan. 2nd
Michigan St. vs Texas Tech

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: TT
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Fiesta Bowl
Jan. 4th
Boise St. vs TCU

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: TCU
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Orange Bowl
Jan. 5th
Iowa vs Georgia Tech

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: GIT
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

GMAC Bowl
Jan. 6th
Troy vs Central Michigan

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: CMU
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Stupid Bowl
Jan. 7th
Texas vs Alabama

THA CAPTAINZ CHOICE: Alabama
THE WHY FOR: Favored.

Life where it shouldn't be

The top ten places

This reminds of something that I would immediately do if I were president: seed Venus, Mars, and any of the likely moons of the universe with extremophile life, in case the earth should blow up or something terrible. That way, maybe life will survive somewhere else in the galaxy.

Mnemonics

An index thereof!

Not all of these are terribly helpful.

Obey the Game

Obey it!

No more tears

More Irish Jokes!

Q: when was the last good Irish barbecue?
A: 1431, and it involved Joan of Arc

Q: Why don't the Irish Barbeque?
A: The snails keep slipping between the grills.

Q: How do you get an Irish waiter's attention?
A: Start ordering in German.

Q: What's the difference between Ireland and Quebec?
A: Quebec has prettier women and colder beer.

Q: Why do the Irish like smelly cheeses?
A: Well, in a room full of Irish people, you can't really smell the cheese.

Q. What is the first thing the Irish Army teaches at basic training?
A. How to surrender in at least 10 languages.

Q. What is the most useful thing in the Irish Army?
A. A rearview mirror, so they can see the war.

A collection of Irish jokes

Two Irish nuns are driving across the countryside when a vampire jumps onto the roof of their car.

"Quick Sister Josephina!" screams the driver. "Show him yer cross!"

The passenger nun leans out the window and yells "Up yours, cocksucker!"

---

Doctors have isolated a variation of Alzheimer's called Irish Alzheimer's -- you forget everything but the grudges.

---

These two Irishmen were looking for work. They saw a poster in the Post Office that said the police were looking for two men for murder, so they went down to the police station to apply.

When they got down there they saw a poster that the police were looking for two Pakistanis for rape. One said to the other, "Wouldn't you know it, those damn wogs get all the good jobs."

---

What's a seven-course Irish meal? A potato and a six-pack.

---

An IRA man dies and goes to heaven and is met by St Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter says, 'You can't come in, you've been bad.'

The IRA man says, 'I don't want to come in, you've got ten minutes to get out.'

---

An Englishman, a Scott, and a Irishman walked into a pub. Each ordered a pint of beer. Then a fly landed in each one's beer.

The Englishman, turning slightly green, pushed his beer away and asked for another one. The Scott took the fly out, shrugged, and drank his beer. The Irishman pinched the fly by the wings and yelled, "SPIT IT OUT!" "SPIT IT OUT!"

---

Dunleavy and Brennan were out on a river one morning, fishing from their rowboat without much luck -- and needing something to quench their thirst. Suddenly, Dunleavy landed a large fish, who spoke to the two men: "Sure, if you let me go, I'll grant you a single wish." Before Brennan could speak, Dunleavy blurted, "Turn the river into beer!" The fish said, "Done," and hopped back into the river -- which changed moments later as the fish had promised. Dunleavy proudly said, "So whadya think of me now?" Brennan replied, "I think you're a feckin' idiot. Now we gotta piss in the boat."

---

And did you hear about the Irishman who went to Rome and got so drunk that he kissed his wife and beat the pope's foot to a pulp with a coal shovel?

---

Two nuns are riding their bicycles around Dublin trying to find their way back to the convent, but they're lost. After twenty minutes or so, one says, "I've never come this way before." The other gives a knowing nod, "It's the cobblestones."

Heisman

How bogus.

“The reason that I voted for Ingram, Tebow and McCoy was because I saw them play the most. I never saw Gerhart play an entire game (we work all day Saturday and Saturday night) and only saw a few minutes of Suh’s game against Texas. I refused to vote for somebody based on highlights. And I think you have to represent your part of the country; in fact, there used to be fine print on the paper ballots that instructed balloters to vote “with regard to your region.” However, I think it’s wrong to leave a player off your ballot completely just to help a player from your region, as apparently the case with some Big 12 voters on Tebow year. So I, too, an still unhappy about that injustice.”

Heisman voting

Rules about rumors

To make it easier to spread deception.

NCAA conferences geography

It turns out that the MAC makes the most sense geographically. C-USA makes the least. Ohio and Michigan should have a conference of their own.

Is it weird that Georgia only has two 1-A football programs? Is it weird that Troy is marked in the northwest corner of Alabama? How much does that bother you? A lot? But is that really a big deal? It is. Yes, it is.

from a single crazy eye

Tilt-shift wrestling video

From Tha Captainz Exploration Journal

... because I've never seen ice crystals like these. The way they reflect off the She-Polar-Bear's back makes my already stiff cock ache with blood and semen. This ice cavern is cold and almost blindingly bright from the bioluminescent algae but the inside of the bear is warm and dark.

Exploding inside her, I can only think of one thing. Will we be together forever? No. As the pick-axe penetrates her brain, I swear I see a spirit leave her body and enter mine. Maybe we will be together forever.

One cigarette and a shot of gin for the long hike down the glacier. Finally warm inside. I can't get over those ice crystals...

Bad clients

"I want this site to be really beautiful; a truly iconic web design. Something like Google, YouTube, or MySpace."

---

"The proof just has too much purple. Can you just pull out some of the purple ink? Like 2%?"

Clients from Hell

3E Presents: Catchphrase Friday

You want to be the coolest cat on the block? You've got to have a catchphrase! With the weekend coming up, 3E is here to help. Now, everybody has a friend who likes to tell a big story. Next time they're telling a tall tale about beating up some biker or getting with a hot Asian chick, you lay 'em low with your own little bit of life trivia:

"That's nothing compared to the time me and Wes got caught having a naked tickle fight back stage at a Beyonce concert."

And, if somebody doubts your story, finish up with:

"Well, we was all tripping pretty hard, so the three of us just ended up making out for a while."

Be the coolest guy around this Friday, 'cause it's Catchphrase Friday.

some countries and then some numbers

So they had the group draw for the World Cup last week. You're not an insulated retard. You knew that. 3E will be doing a lavish, no-holds-barred preview over the coming months. You're not an insulated retard. You knew that. Since you might very well be an insulated retard here are the groups. Next to each team is the 3E Power Factor Soccer Edition Enhanced™. What does it mean? Bigger is better. It's science, you clowns.

Group A:
South Africa (- 15)
Mexico (+2)
Uruguay (-4)
France (+9)

Power Factor™ Total: (-8)

Group B:
Argentina (+11)
Nigeria (-7)
South Korea (-12)
Greece (+4)

Power Factor™ Total: (-4)

Group C:
England (+10)
USA (+7)
Algeria (-6)
Slovenia (-13)

Power Factor™ Total: (-2)

Group D:
Germany (+12)
Australia (-3)
Serbia (-1)
Ghana (-10)

Power Factor™ Total: (-2)

Group E:
Netherlands (+14)
Denmark (-5)
Japan (-11)
Cameroon (+5)

Power Factor™ Total: (+3)

Group F:
Italy (+13)
Paraguay (-2)
New Zealand (-14)
Slovakia (-8)

Power Factor™ Total: (-11)

Group H:
Brazil (+16)
North Korea (-16)
Ivory Coast (+1)
Portugal (+8)

Power Factor™ Total: (+ 9)

Group G:
Spain (+15)
Switzerland (+6)
Honduras (-9)
Chile (+3)

Power Factor™ Total: (+15)

Stomp clap

Stomp clap stomp stomp clap

slow loris

adorable

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #7 Mobile Lephrechaun

The best part of this is the amateur sketch.

So, Alabama is alright, I guess, as far as states go. But it has its share of idiots and slow news days. Combine the two: magic.

On The Office

1. The Office is the most depressing show on television

Suddenly, a romance that seemed like the natural progression for two quietly charming people revealed itself to be much more depressing.

All of Jim and Pam's witty asides and eyerolls in response to their officemates' antics have stopped being expressions of untapped potential and started to look like passive-aggressive attempts to undermine their peers—who are the only people who will socialize with them.

For audiences, Jim—more so than Pam—has served as a pressure valve for all of the overstimulated personalities on the show by responding to his absurd coworkers the only rational way: with sarcasm and bafflement. The whole point of Jim was that he held the promise that at some point he would get his act together enough to break out of the confines of Dunder Mifflin. He's the relatable protagonist for anyone (read: everyone) who has ever been trapped in a middling situation and found the only defense to be sarcasm and bemusement.

Now Jim has developed into the most depressing archetype: a mediocre man who has already realized his full potential.

Gone is Jim's charming lack of enthusiasm for his job. Now he's proving exactly where a lack of drive is likely to lead you—to the mediocrity of middle management, where one is gripped by the fear of losing whatever corner of inanity you've carved for yourself in the workplace.

2. Jumping the Shark and the Bear Market

The Office avoided this phenomenon by marrying off Jim and Pam rather humbly, by avoiding "very special episodes" and dramatic cliff-hangers. What it couldn't avoid was a Bear Market.

The show, which I still count among my all-time favorites, has lost its teeth.

We just don't hate work anymore. At least not collectively. And it would be imprudent to sit around jawing and joshing about the hassles of the job when so many people would love the same hassles.

The show, then, is a kind of bellweather.

Witness. Two weeks after the financial dizzy spell, one of the show's best episodes aired. Michael goes on a business trip to Winnipeg. Meanwhile, Pam is finally away at art school, living her dream. In the early days, the business trip would have been a pathetic, desolate situation set against the big-city, self-actualizing activity of Pam's graphic design. There would have been a message about the quiet desperation of employment. (And, for good measure, the quiet desperation of Western Canada).

Instead, Winnipeg turns out to be surprisingly fun and Pam fails art school.

In an amazing moment of both downward mobility and romance, she tells Jim, "I'm coming back the wrong way. It's not because of you. I don't like Graphic design. That's it. I miss Scranton. It's not because of you." She smiles.

Sure, Pam has a tall, hunky Polish fella to come back to, but the fact remains that, after five seasons, her career hasn't advanced and the river she'd always looked to as her way out has dried up. But characters trapped in their jobs come to love being trapped.

three(e) hundred dollars

Why is it that I always get a vaguely trashy feeling from the state of Oregon?

Oh, right.

Two links for the Cap'n

1. Cloud of Atlases

2. Flags by Colours

HEY YOU GUYS

IT'S ANOTHER MONDAY

TIME TO START THE WEEK

LET'S DO IT

it coming. get readz.

Eat the evidence

Story here

Flee the law Friday

Laptop steering wheel desk

Check out the comments.

Mario + Queen

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #8 Latarian Milton

Nothing that kid ever does will be as awesome as this.

Get Real.

It's a Ruby Tuesday

3E (unanimously) approves

Autcomplete you?

Autocomplete Me

See if this makes you smarter

Here.

I don't feel any smarter, but I haven't tried very hard.

Iron Bowl

3E wishes you a happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Here at the 3E house, we'll be having our holiday specialty.

Reality TV

Nearly everyone conforms to crude, cartoon stereotype (bitch, gold digger, flamboyant gay, recovering addict, sofa spud, anal perfectionist, rageaholic), making as many pinched faces as the Botox will permit, a small-caliber barrage of reaction shots that can be cut from any random stretch of footage and pasted in later to punctuate an exchange. (Someone says something unconstructive—“That outfit makes her look like a load”—and ping! comes the reaction shot, indicating the poison dart has struck home.) Younger reality stars may have more mobile faces, though in time they too will acquire the Noh masks of the celebrity undead. Their range of verbal expression runs mostly from chirpy to duh, as if their primpy little mouths were texting. The chatty, petty ricochet of Reality TV—the he-said-that-you-said-that-she-said-that-I-said-that-she-said-that-your-fat-ass-can-no-longer-fit-through-the-door—eventually provokes a contrived climax, a “shock ending” that is tipped off in promos for the show, teasers replayed so frequently that it’s as if the TV screen had the hiccups. The explosive payoff to the escalating sniper fire on The Real Housewives of New Jersey was a raging tantrum by Teresa Giudice, who flipped over a restaurant table in a She-Hulk fit of wrathful fury and called co-star Danielle Staub a “prostitution whore” (an interesting redundancy), all of which helped make for a unique dining experience and quite a season finale. Good manners and decorum are anathema to Reality TV, where impulsivity swings for the fences.

The usually insufferable James Wolcott on Reality TV

comics I like

PBF doesn't update anymore, which is sad, because it's great. There's still the archives.

frankly, i'd want my cable bill back for the month.

What a bunch of stand-up guys.

The Prisoner

The original one is on AMC's website. Pretty awesome, especially for me since I have not seen the series all the way through. The video has been a little choppy for me, but that's probably more a function of my service provider, which is a comcastrophe, rather than AMC.

Excerpts from Tha Captainz Exploration Journal

...and after that the big cats learned it was better - for their own sake - to leave Tha Captain alone.

Climbing again now. Always higher. Maybe it's the lack of oxygen but it absolutely and completely takes my breath away just to make a feeble attempt to try to maybe half-understand the majesty and the all-encompassing grandeur of the wonder that is these high moors.

An elk. A rare treat. I'm reminded subtly of my tryst in the great Canadian wilderness. I'm downwind of him and his musk is absolutely intoxicating. When I dream it is almost as rare a treat to be able to ride upon the back of such a beast. A twig snaps under my foot as I approach my would-be steed. He wants to run but he can't bring himself to do so. Closer. Closer. I can smell his breath. My pulse quickens. My blood feels as thick as napalm and twice as hot. I reach out. His fur bristles like a million tiny erections. I see a tear form in his steely eye. He knows his death is near but he knows it will not come in vain. I climb atop him. Onward, proud warrior, onward...

Skulled.

Arguing

A public service announcement.

1. A List of Fallacious Arguments

2. 38 Ways to Win an Argument

Nothing to do, nowhere to go-o-o-o

Finish your week right.

Awesome

Saudi women

But unlike most other cultures, daughters also have to contend with constant supervision of their every move. A job that some brothers feel falls on their shoulders. No matter what age a woman is, many families believe that as long as she is single, she is a liability. This translates into horrific intrusions of privacy and personal freedom. In one extreme case, a family I know has no locks on any of the doors including the bathroom doors, so that to insure the daughters cannot seclude themselves and do anything inappropriate; pre-approval of clothing, whether at home or when leaving the house, is common.

A friend of mine once told me she had to sit for over two hours in an uncomfortable position because she had pajama pants on and was afraid her father, who had come early from work, would see them. And this is not only with teenage girls, but also adult women… even divorced mothers. So what’s a girl to do in this situation? Many go by the Arabic saying that translates into “a woman has only three places in this world: her family’s home, her husband’s home or her grave”.

So the majority wait patiently for their knight to rescue them, others commit suicide and a few run away.

The Ideology of Control

Big Ben on Twitter

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

It is finished.

klick 2 embiggen!

Literally

Summer learning loss is one of Duncan’s major arguments for reworking the standard school year.

Children, he said, “get to a certain point academically in June and over the summer, they lose that.”

By September, he said, “it’s literally taking a step backward.”

Literally, A Web Log

Redesigned NFL helmets

Here. The ones he does for the Redskins and especially the Patriots are stupid, but the one for the Bucs is pretty sweet:

Different strokes for different folks

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #9 Rotten Library

We've mentioned it before, but the rarely-updated Rotten Library never gets old. It was the first website that I fell into the click-a-link forever timewaster. The writing is sharp and crisp, the illustrations are nearly perfect, and most of the articles are exactly long enough to fell complete but still want more. Wikipedia has mostly taken the role of time-stealing-clicking now, but Rotten showed me the way.

Some of my favorites:

Everything in Crypotzoology

An extended, elaborate argument that Al Qaeda is connected to the Assassins cult

On the silly Matrix Trilogy

But really, it's all good stuff.

I've thought this for a while

But before the debate goes any further, there's a fundamental question that needs to be investigated. Why do football players wear helmets in the first place? And more important, could the helmets be part of the problem?

"Some people have advocated for years to take the helmet off, take the face mask off. That'll change the game dramatically," says Fred Mueller, a University of North Carolina professor who studies head injuries. "Maybe that's better than brain damage."

The first hard-shell helmets, which became popular in the 1940s, weren't designed to prevent concussions but to prevent players in that rough-and-tumble era from suffering catastrophic injuries like fractured skulls.

But while these helmets reduced the chances of death on the field, they also created a sense of invulnerability that encouraged players to collide more forcefully and more often. "Almost every single play, you're going to get hit in the head," says Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Jake Long.

What nobody knew at the time is that these small collisions may be just as damaging. The growing body of research on former football players suggests that brain damage isn't necessarily the result of any one trauma, but the accumulation of thousands of seemingly innocuous blows to the head.

Is it time to retire the football helmet?

middle finger

No Millsucks in the playoffs. Cuntingdon got in though, and we hate them almost as much.

Have fun cleaning our toilets, jerks.

possible new logo. thoughts?

How to write badly well

Present your research in the form of dialogue

‘My god,’ said Geoff, ‘so it’s true. We hold in our very hands the original draft of the hitherto unknown third treaty of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III himself.’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Sally. ‘Who would have thought when we set off this morning for this remote Swiss village that we would end the day in possession of the very document which marked the birth of modern European statehood?’
‘Certainly not me!’ laughed Geoff.
’Nor me!’ guffawed Sally.
‘And to think,’ Geoff extemporised, ‘the Ratification of the Treaty of Münster occurred exactly three hundred and sixty-one years ago today!’

How to write badly well

Breaking news

So, The Who is apparently going to play Super Bowl XLIV, after recent Super Bowl halftime performances by Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Prince, the Rolling Stones, and Paul McCartney. 3E has obtained this exclusive list of upcoming acts.

2011: The Eagles
2012: The Pretenders
2013: Pink Floyd
2014: Blue Öyster Cult
2015: Cream
2016: Deep Purple
2017: The Monkees
2018: Chuck Berry

Finally picked the cover for my dissertation

That's the made-up name Photoshop uses for every dissertation cover.

fast in the eye-gougingly slow sense

Go here, scroll over the "Beamer Ball" and "Speed-Inspired Design" items, and tell me what's wrong with those sentences.

The rest of the lovely threads can be found here.

Buffet Guide

Man, in college, I was all about some buffet value.

Meals leading up to the buffet have been debated for ages. My recommendations are a large dinner the night before consisting mostly of light breads and vegetables to expand the stomach. It is also advantageous to drink plenty of liquids, preferably water. This also varies greatly on what time of day your buffet meal is going to be. For a breakfast buffet your larger meal should be the lunch prior with a small dinner. The morning of I would suggest a very small meal containing some sugar in order to get your metabolism up and running. Eat nothing more throughout the day. Liquids are advised, preferably water, as almost a mandatory health concern due to the high sodium content you are about to consume.

Anvil launching

I bet fewer people make fun of him than would normally make fun of someone named "Gay Wilkinson." Because he shoots anvils.

Cell size

Heah.

It's Hate Week.

Grrrrrrr.

Best part of ATHF: The Movie

Awesome

Little Peopel: a tiny street art project

Scam

The typical white van speaker scam involves one or two or three individuals, who are usually casually dressed or wearing uniforms. They drive an SUV, minivan or a commercial vehicle (usually a white commercial van, which may be rented inexpensively) that often displays a company logo. To find suitable targets, the van operators set up their con in moderately-trafficked areas, such as parking lots, gas stations, colleges, or large apartment complexes. Alternatively, they may target people driving expensive cars and wave them down. The marks (victims) are usually affluent young men, college students, or others thought to have large amounts of disposable income.

The operators often claim that they work for an audio retailer or audio installer and that, through some sort of corporate error (warehouse operator mistake, bookkeeping mistakes, computer glitch, etc.) or due to the client changing the order after supplies were purchased, they have extra speakers. Sometimes, it is implied that the merchandise may be stolen. For varying reasons they need to dispose of the speakers quickly and are willing to get rid of them at "well below retail" prices. The con artists will repeatedly state the speaker's "value" as anywhere between $1800 and $3000, prices often purportedly verified by showing a brochure or a magazine advertisement. They will usually also have an official-looking website verifying their claims.

White van speaker scam

The Office according to The Office

Sample:

In Season Three, the Dunder-Mifflin executives decide to merge the Stamford and Scranton branches, laying off much of the latter, including Michael Scott. His counterpart, the competent-sociopath Stamford branch manager, whose promotion is the premise of the re-org, opportunistically leverages his impending promotion into an executive position at a competitor, leaving the c0mpany in disarray. The Dunder-Mifflin executives, forced to deal with the fallout, cynically play out the now-illogical re-org anyway, shutting down Stamford and leaving Michael with the merged branch instead. The executives (David Wallace and Jan Levinson-Gould) are obviously completely aware of Michael’s utter incompetence. But their calculations are obvious: giving Michael the expanded branch allows them to claim short-term success and buy time to maneuver out of having to personally suffer longer-term consequences.

You could just move to the North Pole

Paleo-Future: a look into the future that never was.

looks like sugar on a hard piece of meat

I'm against tattoos in general, anyway

Nice.

3E product reviews

It's fuckin' good!

sweet mercy it all makes sense

Nick Satan was born on Halloween.

happy halloween, chumps II

happy halloween, chumps

fruits of mah labors.

One orange, one retarded. It's the standard I expect of my peppers and, someday, my children.

Trivia Question: What was the first song ever recorded in the MP3 format?

Answer:



See also:

those poor cats

this doesn't seem as funny as it did a long time ago. Still.

this is to teach you how to dance

Arnold is serious

See here

Buttered

I laughed. From The Auburner.

Hamburger

He does some mediocre stand up, but he says hamburger over and over and people love it. It's befuddling.

IGN's top 100 NES games

Any such list that has the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on it is automatically invalid.

still no words

can has new album today.

football announcers

Happy Birthday, Big Fella.

Finally, we have a way to remember The Juicebot's birthday. It's the day after the Blog's birthday!

Happy Birthday, Blog!

One year ago!

I couldn't be more proud.

It's a Soul Train Saturday

Ice-skating bear kills circus director

Not much to add to that headline.

Sci Fi idea

Faster-than-light travel, wormholes, transporters, putting people in stasis so a trip only feels like a few days or hours: all that stuff doesn't work to get people moving long distances across space. The fastest we can actually get people going with rockets and ship-bound propulsion is not very fast, only a small fraction of light speed. Instead, the only way to get ships going fast (that is, close to light speed, which at an interplanetary scale is still pretty slow) is to create massive rings around stars that use photosynthetic energy to rapidly accelerate a ship, then release it to wherever it is supposed to go; gravity will be the brake at wherever it is going. Because people are going to be on these things for years, they've got to be big, which means the accelerators have to be big and thus difficult and time-consuming to build.

It takes months or years to get from one habitable planet to one of these star-bound accelerators, and then years from one solar system to another. So communication is slow, and actual contact is even slower. Wars revolve around controlling these accelerators, because that's what lets you get to other solar systems, but it takes months to make any kind of move even on these relatively nearby targets. So wars are long, Hundred Years War long, and people are in the midst of wars whose origins are older than anyone alive, which nobody can really remember.

Best Vita and Acknowledgements Ever.

Fulltext.

Vita

Sean Andrew O'Neill was born. After being born, he grew and grew and grew, until one day, he stopped growing. Along the way, he befriended a green iguana. He has a mother, a father, a brother and a girlfriend.

Acknowledgments

Many are those whom I would like to acknowledge in this section. In fact, it would be more prudent to try to list those which I would not like to acknowledge. However, I am a traditionalist and as such will adhere to the custom of naming those to be recognized.

To start, my family must be thanked. My mother and father, Mary DeStefano and Timothy O'Neill, and my brother, Padraic O'Neill, for all of their love, support, and time wasted putting up with and entertaining me. I would also like to thank all of my extended family, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins. I would especially like to thank my Uncle Larkin for convincing me that the empty set is indeed in the power set of any set.

Many of the professors at Ohio University are deserving of a hearty thanks. Some of those are Dr. Todd Eisworth, Dr. Kaufman, and Dr. Arhangel'skii. I would also like the thank the faculty and sta in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics here at Auburn. Especially my comittee members and my advisor, Dr. Smith, for any ideas they have contributed to this thesis and all their other efforts in helping me achieve my degree. Further, any students of mine here at Auburn should also consider themselves thanked.

The employees of Little Italy Pizzeria.

301D

My friends, past, present, and future, must all must be thanked for participating in and/or putting up with my antics.

Finally, Christi Morrow is very deserving of acknowledgment. Thank you for putting up with the distance and being loving and understanding these recent years. Please note that this is only a partial list. Add yourself if you feel that you are deserving.

I have left you space:

three straight football posts

This is good. Excerpt:

As I continue to watch Michigan’s quarterback run the read option against the Gophers, I now find myself wondering if this play is authentically simple or quietly complex. The read option is a combination of three rudimentary elements of football: spreading the field, running a back off tackle, and the quarterback keeper. It would be an easy play to teach and a safe play to run, even for junior high kids. But it’s still new. It didn’t really exist in the 1970s and ’80s, and when I first saw it employed in the late ’90s, it seemed like an idiotic innovation. It seemed like a way to get your quarterback killed without taking advantage of your tailback. I had always believed teams could not succeed by running the ball out of the shotgun formation. I thought it would never happen. But I was wrong. And I suspect the reason I was wrong was not because I didn’t understand what was happening on this specific play; I suspect it was because I felt like I already understood football. I had played football and written about football and watched it exhaustively for twenty years, so I thought I knew certain inalienable truths about the game. And I was wrong. What I knew were the assumed truths, which are not the same thing. I had brainwashed myself. I was unwilling to admit that my traditional, conservative football values were imaginary and symbolic. They belonged to a game I wasn’t actually watching but was still trying to see.

Officiating

I'm not surprised that Steward Mandel sounds like an obnoxious tool in the latest College Football Mailbag at SI. But:

I've watched the videos, and they were obviously bad calls. You know what else they were? The type of bad calls that take place in almost every single football game.

[...]

I hate to break it to you, people, but bad calls are like airline delays -- they're going to happen.

You know what else is going to happen? Car accidents. Adultery. Irritating, under-qualified sports writers. But that doesn't mean that they're acceptable, or people should just ignore them, or act like they don't matter. Bad calls, especially in close games, devalue the sport and the efforts of those involved. They should be fixed, not brushed off by chubby idiots.

Minnesota mascot serious about mockery

your calenders are dangerously undermarked.

New Russian Circles today. No words, all histrionics.

Exactly as awesome as it sounds

Bullets at one million frames per second



My favorite part is the ice.

If the Mountain West were a literary genre, it would be the one that everybody predicted before the season

Yep, that's about what it should look like. No funny business here. If the ACC ends like Newhart, the Mountain West ends however Two and a Half Men will end.

If the ACC were a literary genre, it would be Mexican magical realism

Played today, the ACC title game would be Boston College (who has been overall outscored by ten points in the league for the year) and Virginia (who has a better record against the Atlantic Coast Conference than against the Colonial Athletic Conference). This will change next week, when a zebra blocks a field goal to lift Georgia Tech over Virginia, and BC has to forfeit their last forty wins due to improperly labeled import beer. In week twelve, Ralph Friedgen wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette, and the whole season will turn out to have been a dream.

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #10 Peanut Butter Jelly Time

We took a little break because I forgot. Anyway, back to 3E's list of things on the internet. Not a lot to say about this entry. It's iconic as all get-out.



Then you get internet media references to regular media references to internet media.



It's peanut butter jelly time all the way down.

This video also gets bonus points because, come on, it's always peanut butter jelly time.

Antibacterial soap

For starters, there is little proof that the antibacterial soap you buy at the drug store actually kills the most-dreaded microbes: S. aureus (staph) and E. coli. Plus, living in a disinfected bubble can actually be bad for your health and the environment. Many experts believe that too much sanitization weakens the immune system and may create lethal superbugs that are antibiotic resistant. If that's not enough, the bacteria-killing chemicals go down the drain and into our waterways, harming wildlife and potentially ending up back in our bodies where they can present health risks.

Although you have likely heard at least some of this before, you probably still reach for the antibacterial soap to clean your bathroom and wash your hands. The psychological draw is undeniable. In fact, scientists' warnings have not dampened the burgeoning market. Antibacterial products are a one billion dollar industry and make up nearly 80 percent of all liquid soaps. In 2003, there were fewer than 200 antibacterial products on the market; currently there are over 3,000.

The biggest--and most publicized--concern is whether antibacterial products, like the overuse of antibiotics, will eventually create more of the untreatable bacteria we fear. By creating a hostile environment, antibacterial agents promote strains of bacteria with certain mutations that allow them to survive. These superbugs are also more likely to be immune to antibiotics. The most commonly used antimicrobial in soaps--triclosa--has already shown resistance to S. aureous.

Antibacterial soaps: Unnecessary risks, no benefits