Living the Horse Track Dream

Guess who got to ride in the official car with the start gate attached to it at the horse track.



HINT: It was me.

Has the Whole World Gone Crazy?

First off let me say that I voted for Obama and am excited about him taking office. For the first time in my life our president will not have a humorous accent. While this might be a disappointment for Saturday Night Live, I think it's good for America. Well, I guess Reagan didn't really have an accent, but you could visualize (audialize?) him yelling "Yeehaw" as much as the others.

It's not that I don't think having an occasional yeehaw-yelling president is good thing, but it was time for a break...change, if you will.

Somehow though, Obama has turned into more celebrity than politician. Maybe it was the cool campaign artwork or the way he simplified his campaign slogans down to two simple words that didn't confuse anyone.

One thing's for sure, people love to make witty puns from his name. Obama Mamas, Obamanation, Barack the Vote, Obama Mia, and the very embarrassing Barackstar just to name a few.

The whole thing is out of control right now. Like the worst of flash-in-the-pan fads, his face is everywhere and on everything.

Novelty t-shirt shops which once had entire racks dedicated to the Taco Bell dog and "Show me the Money" shirts now have Obama. There are a lot of really bad ones out there too. I think the one that made me think things had gone overboard was the one with Obama, arms folded, smiling in front of the White House with a sign that read "Under New Management."

I mean, I'm as thrilled as the next guy that George W. is leaving town, but let's try to maintain our composure. Obama seems to be a classy guy and out of respect to him I think we should refrain from buying this crap.

There are Obama bobbleheads, Obama shot glasses, jewel-encrusted Obama jackets and let's not forget the Obama commemorative coin collection which is being pitched by Obama sound-alike Montel Williams. Even I got suckered in by the surrealism of it all and bought myself a delicious Obama chocolate bar.

Then there are all these people flooding Washington DC for the inauguration not so they can actually see the ceremony (because we all know there are a lot of distant and obstructed views in a crowd of 4 million), but so they can tell you they were there. I'm in America and that's "there" enough for me.

The success of the campaign has spiraled out of control. Maybe we should have waited for him to actually take office and do something before we began our celebrity worship of him, but I guess that kind of hope is just too audacious.

How dumb will we all look if we throw this kind love at the guy and he ends up being the worst president ever? Of course the bar for "worst president ever" has recently been set at an all-time low, so I'm fairly certain that's not going to happen, but still we should try to control ourselves.

While I'm optimistic about Obama being great leader, no one can live up to the hype that we've created for this guy and it will be interesting to see how it all goes down.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this chocolate bar and hope for the best.

Magician Should Disappear (for reals this time)

Stupid Criss Angel has been in the news too much recently. I guess he's marrying a Playboy bunny or something, but even that doesn't make me like him.

I should mention that I'm a huge fan of magic. I'm a sucker for Penn & Teller. I spent many hours of my childhood forcing people to pick a card and pulling quarters come out of other people's ears. There have been numerous occasions when I nearly purchased one of these. And , yes, I have visited a website called hobbytron.com.

So I like magic. There used to be a time when I even liked magicians... but not like more than a friend or anything. Seriously though, check out how awesome Harry Blackstone Jr. was:

It's kinda hard to tell from the photo, but he's totally making that light bulb levitate while simultaneously making it glow. Plus, he can totally hide up to a dozen decks of cards under his lapels. Who doesn't want to party at the Magic Castle with Blackstone Jr?

Anyhow, that's what a magician should look like.

Not like this:

I'm tellin' ya, I love a good magic trick, but Criss Angel makes me not even care if he's using real swords.

Somewhere along the way magicians went from friendly tuxedo-clad gentlemen to shiny overly-shiny sleazeballs (Vegas's Lance Burton, GOB from Arrested Development) to cocky a-holes with with extremely poor fashion sense.

David Copperfield was bad enough, but now his name is Criss Angel and he's got a necklace made of crosses and handcuffs. At least almost-as-annoying David Blaine doesn't have a wiggedy Hot Topic hat...but I don't like David Blaine either.

And what happened to t-shirts? Criss Angel isn't the only guilty one here. There are millions of you out there. Why does every t-shirt have to have cryptic silk screening all over it. Is that a skull? An eagle? An upside-down tree? Whoa, you must really be a rebel because your shirt's printing starts on the front and works its way up and over the left shoulder...and here I am with a stupid logo front-and-center on mine.

Include Ed Hardy shirts in there too.

Outside of dressing like Mystery from VH1's the Pick-up Artist, Criss Angel is also a crappy magician. Of course, I'm a fan of card tricks and sawing people in half. I've never been a fan of the overly drawn out and produced magic trick where the magician does something stupid like make a casino disappear or set himself on fire for 3 hours. These are Criss Angel's specialty.

And when Criss Angel does his dumb tricks...errr illusions he really wants you to think he's amazing. Unlike like ol' Blackstone Jr. who would trick your eye and give you smile, Criss Angel acts like he is the baddest man on the planet because he just walked on some plexi-glass and made it look like he was walking on water. NEWS FLASH: he wasn't. Go ahead and trick us, but don't try to convince us it isn't a trick. You are not a "Mindfreak"...even though I don't know what that means. For the record, I don't care to.

All i want him to do is get a hair cut, take off the chains and pull a damn rabbit out of a non-wiggedy hat.

I guess there's chance Criss Angel's whole image is his best trick. Maybe he just appears to be the world's biggest douchebag. But I've seen this guy do "magic" so I know he's not that good.

Felt good to get that off my chest.