Chad Pennington Sitting out of the NFL for One Year...Umm Chad, You Heard About the Lockout, Right?

Chad after a lengthy autograph session.

ESPN - Scratch Chad Pennington as an option for the Miami Dolphins' -- or anybody else's -- quarterback depth chart next season.  Pennington told the Charleston Daily Mail he plans to skip the 2011 season while he recovers from shoulder and knee injuries and will work for Fox Sports as an analyst. The two-time NFL Comeback Player of the Year, who will turn 35 next weekend, said he might consider returning to the field in 2012. "I'm actually going to take this year off, get healthy and do some work for Fox Sports," Pennington told the West Virginia newspaper. "I'm going to evaluate things and see where I am physically." He signed a one-year contract with Fox Sports and will be paired with Sam Rosen, the Miami Herald reported. Pennington suffered another major injury to his throwing shoulder a few snaps into his lone Dolphins start last season. He tore a knee ligament while playing a pickup basketball game in March.

Newsflash to Chad, the whole freaken league is about to take the next year off bro.  I don't know if Fox is planning on showing Arena Football or something, but you might want to check on the status of that job.

And this is aside the point that 35 year old qb's with no contract, with an udon noodle for an arm and more surgeries than td passes in the past few years, don't really need to announce that they're taking a year off.  Not exactly a line of GM's beating down your door for your services I'd imagine. 

I can never understand why athletes take this path.  You're not fooling anyone, its forced retirement, you're washed up.  Instead of acting so ignorant, how about just taking the high road. Just announce your retirement like a man. You'll get a few congratulations, some applause and then you can move on, rather than allowing people like myself to mock and laugh at you.

21 Year Old Pees in Town Reservoir, Spares Town from Drinking Water Tainted with Dead Animals...Hero

Portland officials say a 21-year-old man admitted urinating in a Mt. Tabor reservoir early Wednesday, forcing the city to take a key water supply off line. Police responded but did not cite the man or his friends. Video surveillance and reports written by police and the Portland Water Bureau will be submitted to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office for possible criminal charges. "It'll kind of depend on what the surveillance video shows," said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a police spokesman. "He's not out of the water yet." Covering Portland's open-air reservoirs has been a politically charged topic in recent years and the Water Bureau is working to comply with federal regulations. Last month the Portland City Council approved an $80 million contract to build a new reservoir  at Powell Butte that will eventually help mitigate closing open-air storage at Mt. Tabor.  David Shaff, administrator for the Water Bureau, said about 7.8 million gallons of drinking water will be discarded because of the incident. He originally said that will cost the bureau about $600,000 in lost revenue but later clarified that his math was very wrong, and that the water would have sold for a retail price of almost $28,500, and disposal fees are expected at about $7,600.  Shaff said the Water Bureau regularly finds dead animals in the same drinking supply but doesn't dump the water. "This is different," he said.  "Do you want to drink pee?" he asked bluntly.  When questioned about scientific data and the small amount of urine in such a large reservoir, he interjected: "Answer the question. It has nothing to do with scientifically. "Most people," he added, "are gonna be pretty damn squeamish about that."  

While Portland officials are off trying to figure out whether or not to bring charges against this 21 year old kid, I've got a word to describe him, Hero. That's right, a hero. Because correct me if I'm wrong here, but apparently if this kid hadn't had the courage to drunkenly piss into the towns retardedly outdated open air reservoir, the good citizens of Portland would still be drinking animal carcass infested water today. 

Fucking gross.  You know what else people may be squeamish about David Shaff? Drinking water with dead racoons, rabies, and aborted squirrel fetuses floating about in it. Just because they didn't know about it until now doesn't mean its not disgusting as hell.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of drinking some kids piss either, but I gotta say, that sounds like the least of your worries here.  I mean do you not treat the water at all? It just collects in a cement recepticle and gets distributed right to the peoples homes? What century are you living in?  The Roman aquedeuct system was more advanced than this...And I'm pretty sure they didn't drink water infested with animals and rat feces...you know fear of the plague, shit like that. 

Wake Up: Women Speaking Out of Place

Air conditioning outside, ladies and gentleman. Big, outdoor air conditioners on the breakdown lanes of highways is the global warming answer.

Poor girl, sshhhh. I know you've put a ton of time thinking about this, thought about it a lot and all, but rest assured Al Gore and his guys got this one covered. Do us a favor, leave the real thinking to the men and we'll figure everything out, ummkay?

You can stick to thinking about things like does this handbag match my halter-top, how much to tip your Korean nail salon lady, and keeping track of your birth control schedule...pay particular attention to that last one, the world isn't ready for you to procreate.

Joran Vander Sloot Knocks up Girlfriend during Conjugal Visit

Fox News - Joran van der Sloot -- the Dutch man accused in the murder of a Peruvian woman and the main suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway -- has gotten his girlfriend pregnant while behind bars, the Daily Mail reports. The U.K. paper reports that van der Sloot's girlfriend was frequently seeing him for conjugal visits, going to his jail cell to do "chores" and bringing him candy. His girlfriend reportedly works at the same Peruvian casino where he met Stefany Flores, the woman he is accused of murdering in June 2010.

Ladies and Gentleman, example 1A of why woman will never inherit the earth.  

This guy is convicted of murdering one broad, under serious, OJ Simpson like suspicion for another, and this dumb piece of cooz decides he's a good candidate to be her baby-daddy, getting knocked up with his conjugal visit jail baby.  

And just to top it off, the girl he's convicted of killing, is some chic he was fucking in the same hotel that his girlfriend worked at.  So just to run down the checklist, that's: Strongly suspected of murdering one teenage girl, had affair with some girl he met on the casino floor in the same hotel you worked at, promptly murders said girl.  Is that everything?  Did he club any baby seals along the way? Wouldn't want to leave any other potential turn-ons.

Now, I'm not saying all woman have this complete a lack of self-worth, but there are just enough of them out there to ensure that their species never rises as a whole to the status of men.  Sure you've made great strides, but for ever Condoleeza Rice, there's another psychotic young girl, so hungry for attention that she'll get knocked up by Dutch murderers, or send dozens of wedding proposals to a wife and baby murdering creep like Scott Peterson. 

PS...Abort that kid, seriously, abort it.

Dr. Jack's Summer TV Preview

The summer television season has never been something people look forward to. At least people who actually like leaving their house. For years it seemed like it was just the time when all the shows you watched during the school year would air their repeats. However, the dawn of the high quality cable show has changed things. Many cable shows now premiere the new season, or the series, as the temperatures rise into the 90’s.

This summer is no different, even though the “summer” show I look forward to the most (“Mad Men”) will not be premiering until 2012. But AMC and other networks are still returning some of their best shows and a few interesting new series will premiere as well.

Here is a list of 10 shows I am looking forward to in order of premiere date.

“The In-Betweeners” (BBC America)

Premiere Date – Saturday, June 18^th, 11pm

So in England, they call seasons “series” (this will be the 3^rd and final series premiere) and the “series” only last six episodes each. I don’t know why they do that any more than I understand why they like drinks at room temperature or hate dental hygiene. What I do know is the Brits know comedy. The shows about four teenage boys trying to get laid and giving each other shit 24/7. It’s almost like what you’d expect the “South Park” kids to grow up into if they were British and none of them were overweight. I’ve already seen the season (I have my ways) but I highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys raunchy sophomoric humor.

“Falling Skies” (TNT)

Premiere Date – Sunday, June 19^th, 9pm

You know how “The Walking Dead” opened up an undetermined time after the zombies took over the world? Well this opens up six months after aliens take over the world, so pretty much the same thing. I’m not overly excited for this; in fact I doubt I’ll watch more than the premiere. But I will give it a shot and would say the same should go for any fan of sci-fi television. In terms of the cast, Noah Wyle from “ER” is the star and Moon Bloodgood plays his wife (click here to listen to me rant about her in Terminator Salvation, and also discuss the original Hangover with my friend Eric). Oh, and some guy named Steven Spielberg is executive producing. No one attached to this project (including Spielberg) got me really excited for this until I saw Will Patton is in it. I love Will Patton. I dare you to compare his performances in “Armageddon” and “Gone in Sixty 60 Seconds” against any other wingman performance in the history of cinema.

“The Challenge: Rivals” (MTV”

Premiere Date – Wednesday, June 22^nd, 10pm

I’m not going to waste your or my time. You either watch this or you don’t. And if you watch it, you live it. This ain’t a game to us anymore! This is Rivals baby!

After looking at the list of teams, I have to say I’m a little disappointed. The only two I’m really looking forward to are Wes/Kenny (my pick for the winner) and CT/Adam because CT could literally cook and eat Adam and I wouldn’t be shocked. I might stop what I was doing when I heard it, but shocked? No.

“Wilfred”/”Louie” (FX)

Premiere Date – Thursday, June 23^rd, 10pm/10:30pm

Let’s knock both these out in one since they’re airing back to back. I’m throwing this down; FX is my favorite cable network right now. AMC comes close, but I didn’t watch “Rubicon” and have fallen out of love with “The Killing” very fast. I’d give a slight advantage to a “Mad Men”/”Breaking Bad” combo over “Sons of Anarchy”/”Justified”, but the rest of FX’s stuff combined is much better than “The Walking Dead” on its own. Plus, FX is killing comedies right now. I’ve been on the “Sunny” bandwagon since it left the station and “Archer” quickly became one of my favorite shows as well. So despite my distaste for Elijah Wood (except for “Green Street Hooligans”, that movie kicks ass) I am giving “Wilfred” a chance based on the network’s track record. And I love Louie C.K.’s standup so much I’d watch him take a dump on paper, which I did when I say a movie he wrote called “Pootie Tang” in the theater. See, I got jokes too!

“True Blood”/”Curb Your Enthusiasm”/”Entourage” (HBO)

Premiere Date – Sunday, June 26^th, 9pm/Sunday, July 10^th, 10pm/Sunday, July 24^th, 10pm

You know my favorite thing on “True Blood” is? It’s not the nudity. It’s not the violence. It’s not the underrated humor. It’s certainly not Sookie and Bill. It’s Hoyt and Jessica. I don’t need to defend myself to you; I just want you to know what I think the best part of the show is.

I’m sad “Curb” is ending but I also think it’s time and I’m interested to see how this season in New York is going to work. I don’t want Larry to just leave and be placed with a bunch of new characters. But I also don’t want some dumb reason for characters to follow him to NY like it’s “Saved by the Bell: The College Years”.

I will have another post coming during the summer about “Entourage” and its run’s similarity to a certain NBA career. For right now, just know it’s coming in July, it will be its last season, and it might be followed by a movie after that. Oh, and that movie will suck.

“Rescue Me” (FX)

Premiere Date – Tuesday, July 12^th, 10pm

I know I already touched on FX, but I wanted to give “Rescue Me” its own slot since this will be its final season. “Rescue Me” was one of the first cable shows I really got into and quickly became appointment viewing for me. While it’s nowhere near as good as it was (although anything is better than Season 4 was) it’s still bears a close enough resemblance to the first three seasons that I enjoy it. I had heard it will end its 7^th season on 9/11/11 marking the ten year anniversary of 9/11, which has been a key theme throughout the series. A friend of mine brought up a good point though; the writers will have to rewrite whatever they had so far since the news of Bin Laden’s death. I’m sure that will be taken care of and am looking forward to the series finale because no matter how bad the season was, “Rescue Me” always delivered with the finales.

“Breaking Bad” (AMC)

Premiere Date – Sunday, July 17^th, 9pm

I gave “Breaking Bad” a shot over a year ago and didn’t care for it. It was just too depressing for me and I couldn’t see myself watching that every week. Then AMC starting re-airing the episodes starting from the beginning and I tried again. The show was very different after the first season and I am now totally hooked. It’s by no means a happy show, but it’s a lot less in your face depressing and the storylines have become so much more complex and interesting. I highly recommend this show; especially if you love crystal meth which CW’s research says is most of you.

So there you have it. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable summer. One last thing, I know it’s difficult to stay indoors when the weather is so nice. But please don’t neglect TV’s people, they need love too.

-Dr. Jack

Hooters Girl of the Year Wants to Become an Astronaut...It's Nice to Dream, Isn't It?

HOOTERS: Hooters Girl of the Year Morgan Meyer of the Maryland Heights restaurant will be among 100 contestants from around the world competing in the 15th Annual Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant. Meyer, 26, will compete for $150,000 in cash and prizes along with the title on June 25 at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami. Meyer is the Hooters Girl of the Year for 2011. The competition will be broadcast on TV at all Hooters around the country — locally at 8 p.m. — the night of the pageant. It will also be on Fuel TV and on SPIKETV on July 22. According to Aleshire, Meyer says she also has a "geeky" side and is an avid Star Wars fan who would love to work for NASA as an astronaut. She also volunteers with the Red Cross and the Women's Shelter and Help Center.

An astronaut, huh? That’s really aiming the sights high, no?  Sure you don’t want to go for something more reasonable like secretary or trophy wife?

Actually, now that I think about it may not be that unreasonable, if strippers get away with saying they’re just taking their clothes off and rubbing their goods all over you to pay for college tuition than I guess it’s reasonable to assume the hooters girls are paying off astronaut training.  I mean it seems to fall in line with the natural hierarchy of things.  They don’t actually take of their clothes so it makes sense that their goals are a bit higher.

And in case you’re wondering, by that logic a prostitute’s excuse would be working for her GED.

KFC Selling Large Buckets of Soda to Help Find a Cure for Diabetes

KFC is so American I can't even stand it. Diabetes? Pssshhh.  We'll knock that out with soda by the gallon.

And you know what? I respect the hell out of them for it.  For once we're placing the burden of caring for these people squarely on themselves.  You want to drink over sized buckets of soda-pop until you're so diabetic your foot needs to be removed and you go blind?  That's cool, but we're going to tax you an extra dollar on every comically large coca-cola you buy.

I kind of wish all of our vices worked like this.  Like just tack on an extra $2 per pack of cigarettes specifically earmarked for those idiots and their future cancer treatments, or an extra couple bucks per 30 pack of beer or bottle of vodka for drunk driving defense lawyers. 

This country would be a much simpler place if everyone just contributed to supporting their own self inflected ailments.

An Open Letter to Vancouver: If You're Going to Act Like Savage Assholes, Just Own It Already.

Seriously, I've never seen a bigger group of flip-flopping ass hats than these Vancouver loons.  Look, you're either a peaceful, love thy-neighbor, granola eating, hippy community, or an angry, anarchist, rioting band of mother fuckers.  You can't be both though.  It happened in '94 when you lost, you had violent Olympic protests, and now its happened again.  Sooner or later you've just got to be honest with yourself.  You're a bunch of barbarians.  I know you like to think you're morally superior to us repugnant Americans, but in reality its just not true. 

I mean one minute you have a bunch of whiny fans complaining about Bruins fans after Boston home games treating Canadians poorly because we taunted and chanted mean things about your players calling us rude assholes, the next you're writing frigen pen-pal letters to the Boston Globe to apologize for all the violent riotings and stabbings and shit.  Quit apologizing to us, we don't give a fuck. Its your city, you guys have to deal with the clean it up.

And quit trying to blame it on a "small minority."  A small minority isn't thousands of people, crazy anarchists, dudes setting fires, dudes running through fires, people getting knocked out, chicks getting finger blasted in the street while being protected by swat police, looting, 100's of arrests, and a dozen or so car fires.  That's not a small minority. To the point where you have to bring in a legit Swat Battalion and impose martial law its safe to say its the majority.  

Finally, quit pretending you didn't see this coming. You have a history of these kinds of events.  You clearly have a size-able and quite serious anarchist population in your midst.  Additionally, you have a Royal Mounted Police Corp that is basically opposed to any show of force beyond sternly worded messages urging everyone to remain calm.  Here's a hint when dealing with crazed skinheads dousing cars in gasoline, you may need to billy-club there ass.  I don't think asking them nicely to put the match down is going to do the trick...call it a hunch.  

So that's it. Sincerely from America, we don't care if that's how you want to go about living your life, but don't come lying to us about how that's  not what you're really like.  You are what you are. Own it and move on, we have.

Modern Day Pirates Have Their Own Stock Exchange...And I'm Pretty Sure It's More Rational Than Wall Street

A Burgeoning Fortune 500 Company, and You Can Get in on the Ground Floor!

WSJ - Pirates are on a hot streak this season. World-wide, the first quarter of 2011 saw 142 recorded attacks, up from 67 in that time last year. Off the coast of Somalia there were 97, as against 35 last year. Why? Despite some efforts by Western powers to patrol the Horn of Africa, pirates are still able to access capital, as any successful business must. The world's first pirate stock exchange was established in 2009 in Harardheere, some 250 miles northeast of Mogadishu, Somalia. Open 24 hours a day, the exchange allows investors to profit from ransoms collected on the high seas, which can approach $10 million for successful attacks against Western commercial vessels. While there are no credible statistics available, reports from various news sources suggest that over 70 entities are listed on the Harardheere exchange. When a pirate operation is successful, it pays investors a share of the profits. According to a former pirate who spoke to Reuters, "The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials. . . . We've made piracy a community activity."

No joke, someone from the Obama administration may want to get a couple of these Pirate traders on the phone and see if they can't help unravel this mess we got on Wall Street these days.  Because while the US and the rest of the world have been in financial free fall for the past few years, apparently capitalism has been alive and flourishing in Mogadishu and the seas off of Somalia.  

In fact, not only has it been flourishing, but they've taken it upon themselves to create a truly free market enterprise built on community values and performance based results.  There are no "golden parachutes" send offs, no exorbitant CEO bonuses for under-performing companies, and no bailouts required from innocent tax payers, in fact there probably aren't tax payers.

What you've got is a true pay for performance organization.  A pirate pitch's his plans and skills, rounds up investors and weapons and goes about his business, if business is good everyone profits, if business is bad, not only doesn't said pirate get a bonus, he probably gets killed. There is simply no room for under performing pirates in today's market.  

And the best part is people from Somalian Main street and Wall Street alike are cashing in.  You don't need some fancy financial degrees to be a part of the game.  You don't know about Pirating? That's fine volunteer some time, organize a RPG collection fundraiser, there's room for everyone in the Pirate game, no one gets shut out and everyone profits.

That used to be the American way.