How To Waste A Lunchbreak

October 12, 2007 | Comments (0) | by Rich Funk

Like most other Cub fans, now that the season is over, I’m having a hard time filling the time that used to be put toward learning everything new and interesting about North Side baseball.

But fear not, true believers! There’s always that one friend who’s always helped you out in the past, and will continue to do so. It’s the greatest thing Al Gore ever invented. Yes, I’m talking about The Internet.

There’s too much internet for me to cover here today, so I’d like to take you through one man’s steam of consciousness impressions and thoughts of the World Wide Web during a well-deserved lunch break.

12:00 – I open a new internet browser window. Yahoo.com pops up. Let’s see what’s going on in the world today. Yahoo asks me if the new Elizabeth movie is ‘Golden’. I can tell them with 100% accuracy that I don’t care. Isn’t Cate Blanchett in the new Indiana Jones movie? I’ve gotta check it out.

12:03 – Over to IMDB.com, possibly one of the greatest websites of all time. After a quick search, I find out that yes, Cate Blanchett is in fact in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She’s also going to be in the new Brad Pitt movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Maybe she’s starting a new phase in her career where she only stars in movies with absolutely terrible names. As I’m looking at this page, I realize that Cate has been in 22 movies since she did the first Lord of the Rings movie in 2001. Speaking of, what’s the Hobbit sidekick from those movies up to these days? Not the one that ended up on Lost, but the other one? It turns out that his name is Billy Boyd, and since his time in the Rings movies, the only recognizable thing he’s done was a voice in Seed Of Chucky. Do they give out awards for “Least Successful Person Coming Out Of A Landmark Movie That Should Have Jumpstarted Their Career”? No? Damn…

12:10 – Enough movie stuff. Let’s move on over to ol’ reliable, ESPN.com. The frontpage story is something about the SEC. Probably 3000 words that can be summed up by saying “The SEC is good”. No other noteworthy items, so I’m headed to Page 2. As much as I think that 75% of the things on Page 2 are crap, I can’t help but look. Page 2 is like interspecies erotica…you look because you think you may find something worth looking at, but most of the time, you feel sick to your stomach after looking. The lead item on Page 2 is some kind of cartoon about Rex Grossman going to school. It is safe to say that there is no way this will not be the funniest thing I see all day.

12:17 – The comic is pretty good. Not fantastic, but solid. It’s in Trent Dilfer territory: it doesn’t take any risks, so it’s not exciting, but not disappointing either. Going back to the Page 2 homepage, I see a story about over-hyped regular season games, such as the Dallas-New England game this weekend. This is part of the reason I hate Page 2. On any given day, they have about 3-4 of these stupid “lists” up. Every time anything happens in sports, they make a list of 10 other times that it happened. I’m pretty sure they had a column called “The Top 10 Meaningless Homeruns Hit By The Losing Team In The Late Innings Of Clinching Playoff Games” in honor of A-Rod’s homer in Game 4 against the Indians.

12:26 – I remember that earlier this week, I had what was probably the most delicious thing I’ve had in a long time: The Baskin Robbins Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Sundae. I decide to see just how bad it is for me. I head on over to the Baskin Robbins Nutritional Info page (Should this page even exist?) and take a look. This bad boy clocks in at a whopping 1,400 calories. Damn. Now I did eat the thing over the course of 2 days and didn’t even finish the whole thing, but I still love that I live in a country where I could conceivably ram almost an entire day’s worth of calories down my throat in about 5 minutes.

12:32 – Speaking of “Why I Love America,” I decide to head over to YouTube to check out a clip that the Saloon’s own Chip Wesley suggested to me. You have got to check out Night Man, possibly the best song of all time. I don’t watch It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, but after seeing this clip, I think I have to start. I’ve heard that it’s the closest thing to Arrested Development that’s on TV now, and that’s all I need to know.

12:37 – I remember that last night while watching The Office, I saw a few of those Sonic commercials. You know, the ones where two people are sitting in the front of a car having an incredibly witty conversation that no real person would ever have in real life? Anyway, they have this new thing at Sonic that’s basically a bunch of steak and bacon shoved into a hotdog bun. I think I need one as soon as possible. I check on Sonic.com to see where the closest one is. It’s 80 miles away. Son of a bitch! The fact that it’s so far to get to a Sonic combined with the fact that White Castle does not exist west of the Mississippi makes me hate California just a little bit. That and gas prices. And the price of homes.

12:43 – I decide to Google “No White Castle In California” to see what comes up. The first result is someone on 126Ask.com asking why there are no White Castle’s in California. Some anonymous person replies with the answer, “Same reason we don’t have Del Taco in Connecticut. =(” Wow…thanks for that answer. Douche. I find the same question asked on Yahoo! Answers. A user with the name “Coonfister” gives the answer “Mexicans. 10 points please!” Somehow, I am not surprised. The last result I check is an online petition to bring White Castle to California. I’m all for the people making change, but I don’t think people are going to take your online petition seriously if you name it “Ger some white castles in California”. 84 people have signed. I’m #85.

12:49 – I decide to have a little fun and see what other kinds of results I can get from Google. I search “Why does Rex Grossman Suck So Bad?” I get 10,400 results. I guess there are a lot of reasons. Going back to Yahoo! Answers, I get the following reasons:

“he likes to suck balls”
“It comes natural. I told him to play tennis. –God”

I also find out that there’s a website called Bitterfans.com. I have to check it out.

12:54 – Before I can do anything else, I get an e-mail from work that says there is still leftover pizza in the break room. Peace out.

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