If Gandalf coached the Bengals for this week's game

As I was watching Sunday night's painful Bengals loss to the Jets -- a game best characterized as a good ol' fashioned ass whooping -- I was forced to avert my eyes from the embarrassment and watch the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on TNT. I would turn back to the Bengals game and shake my head in shame during commercials until the 3rd Quarter, when I couldn't watch any longer and focused my full attention on Frodo. This lead to an inspirational conversations with @armonde on Twitter, which lead me to ask, "how would Gandalf coach the Bengals this week?"

1. First, as indicated in the tweet above, Gandalf supports a running game. In the mines of Moria when Gandalf forbade the Balrog from crossing the bridge, he made it clear: "You shall not pass!" The great white wizard would never encourage Frodo to recklessly pass the ring to Sam in the face of a sizeable Orc offensive line. Slow and steady wins the race in Gandalf's book, and he knows that if you depend on your most reliable guys, they'll come through for you.
2. Gandalf doesn't suffer fools on defense. Remember at the walls of Minas Tirith, when he was waving around his staff and telling the soldiers to get their asses back to the wall and not let anyone through. Or, when he knew some unspeakable monster was about to break down the gates, but he told the defenders they would stand their ground regardless? Yeah, Bengals, you need to do that. For serious. 
3. Gandalf supports trick plays. Remember when he cleverly smuggled his staff into the palace in The Two Towers to remove the curse from Theoden, King of Rohan? Bengals, Gandalf would tell you to use trick plays to "draw out the Jets defense, like poison from a wound!" And, those of us watching the game on the teevee, we'd enjoy that too. God knows, we've suffered enough from Bengals shenanigans in 2010.

Using Gandalf's strategies, I think the Bengals could have a good shot at victory. And that is necessary, because I can't handle another game like Sunday's. Worst case scenario, I'll check to see if Harry Potter is on ABC Family.

Awesome photo above found on www.sodahead.com. Seriously, and awesome photo.

New Year, New View?

I more or less quit making New Year's resolutions a long time ago.* Mostly because I like to spend the week from Christmas to New Year's sleeping as much as humanly possible, and the task of formulating actual goals and objectives for the new year just seems like another big suck on time that should be reserved for napping. Plus, I consider myself a pretty pragmatic person; I'm not one to aim for something that's not likely to come to pass. You don't really feel that wooosh of success when the goal you've achieved is getting your hair cut more than twice a year.


Nevertheless, at some point right before or after a nap over the past week, I considered a New Year's resolution involving my intake of television. But there is, of course, a problem: I can't decide if I should resolve to watch more television or less television this year.

If you're one of the five or six readers of WBB, you've either come here for an update on the whereabouts of Joe Torres of Hey Dude! fame or you know me well enough to know that I work 40+ hours a week and I’m a part-time law student. Strangely, that schedule wouldn't seem to leave much time for television. But I still manage to watch probably 12-15 hours of original programming each week. This is made possible by waking up at 6 a.m. every morning (including most weekends) and the strategic use of lunch breaks. My current TV intake is actually less television than I was watching a year ago…as my responsibilities at school and work ramped up, the volume of television I could consume weekly scaled back. A formerly devout fan of The Hills, I no longer watch any reality TV. (Although I'm hearing pretty great things about this Tool Academy show). I really enjoyed watching Fringe during the first half of the first season, but once I missed a couple of episodes, I felt I was too lost to catch up again. I've heard Curb Your Enthusiasm is amazing, but I've just never made time to watch.

But, if I shaved back a couple of hours of television I'm currently watching, imagine the time I could be using for other things--reading, napping, watching movies. Unfortunately, I can't even begin to think of what I would cut, and I discovered two new shows--The Good Wife and Better off Ted--to love over the break.

Suggestions, folks? What are your must-watch shows? And should I cut back my TV intake in favor of having a more well-rounded life?**

*Yep, I'm pretty much just going to skip acknowledging that this is my first post in well over a year.
** The only right answer to this question is "no."

On spending and saving

This is my very first WBB post (kind of a dream come true for me), so please be gentle.

Two quick consumerism-ish thoughts for you:

1) This seems like as inane a way as any to waste about $177 thou. If you ever see me shelling out six figures for something that doesn't have a doorbell, four tires or a lido deck, please feel free to slap me on the head with a fish - it doesn't even have to be a tuna.

2) I've figured out a great way to save money on a Weber grill. Follow these instructions and see if they work for you:

• Go to your nearest Home Depot and proceed directly to the "special services" counter.
• Get in line behind a 70-year-old dude who keeps changing his mind about how many 50-pound bags of sand he wants to buy. And then talks it over with his wife. And changes his mind some more. For like 35 minutes.
• Have a young woman stand in line behind you. Be sure she's in a rush so that when the 70-year-old dude takes 35 minutes to order his sand, the woman asks to speak with a store manager and then - when the store manager decides not to come to her rescue - she yells that Home Depot has lost her business! and storms out of the store.
• Proceed to the counter and smile politely as the clerk - without prompting - offers you a 10 percent discount on your grill and accessories as a thank-you for your patience. (On Weber's entry-level propane grill, that's about a $40 savings.)
• Order the grill and request Home Depot's free grill assembly service. Plan to pick up the assembled grill the next day.
• Show up the next day and find out that the grill has not been assembled.
• Smile politely as the clerk - again without prompting - offers to refund another $20 to your credit card for the inconvenience. And then, for some reason, actually refunds $21.95.

Six simple steps and more than $60 in savings. Think of it as my new year's gift to you.

We're back

So, WBB has been on hiatus for well over a year, but we've decided it's time to bring this delightful gift to blogging back. I have no idea how often we'll update, or what we'll talk about, but we've added an awesome new contributor -- one escalator operator.

So here's to 2010 and the awakening of a great beast.

Blagojamess FTW!

Ok, so clearly I've been doing a crap job of posting to World's Best Burger. I think once the Romney campaign died, so did my will to blog. After all, now that I have the president I wanted, who will I mercilessly make fun of in 2009. 

Anyway, Blogojevich is a possibility (you know, I'm not sure if I spelled that right, and I don't care).

What kind of dumb ass -- accused of trying to sell a Senate seat -- then goes on to appoint someone to that Senate seat. Regardless of how great the guy appointed is, the whole thing is tainted. Mother Theresa would be tainted by a Blogojappointment. 

I'm going to say taint again: taint. taint. taint. taint. It's a terrible word, and the best one out there to describe this situation. 

Good luck getting this appointment through the Senate confirmation process. 

A Novel Idea

As you've likely noticed, by the severe lack of blogging happening here at WBB, we've got a lot of stuff going on these days in our offline lives. Loree is in law school and working full time. I'm working full time, teaching and participating in FAR too many extracurricular activities. And, in my case, I got so burned out on the election so early that I haven't had much to say.

Anyway, Jon and I were taking a walk and discussing the plot of the novel I will write to make us millionaires this afternoon, and I figured it would be worth while to open up this novel writing concept to the full WBB crew. So, without further ado -- here's my novel idea -- The John Dillinger Fan Club -- after the jump.

So, now you're thinking... WTF Laura, why John Dillinger? Well, dear friends, John Dillinger was a bad ass during the depression, as I learned by watching the History Channel on my Saturday night. And surely he deserves a fan club of 12-year-olds who plot a bank heist in Sioux South Dakota in 1935.

Jon though, being the person he is, tells me that while this sounds like a great story, it will not make us millions, nor will it produce a summer box office smash. Therefore, the following elements have been added:

• The kids don't live in 1935 -- they live in 2035 -- and they're called Crypto Kids who hack banks and give money to the poor in a twisted version of John Dillinger meets Robin Hood.
  
• They have a "dude" in Jakarta (because all good novels and movies made for TV have a dude in Jakarta)
• The kids have a vendetta against Lehman Bros. because it turns out that the original Lehman Bros were the descendants of John Dillinger's love child. And John Dillinger wouldn't be as big of dick head as Lehman Bros has been to the world.
  

So, the Crypto Kids in the John Dillinger Fan Club are apparently going to funnel money through a dude in Jakarta stolen from Lehman Bros and give the money in $1 increments to everyone in the world via electronic transfer.

So much for my period piece. Please add on to this amazing plot that will soon make me millions. I promise to dedicate the movie to all of you.

Oh Sarah (To the tune of "Oh Sheila")

Seriously, Sarah Palin -- can't you just go quietly and graciously into the night instead of continuing to embarass yourself and humanity on this "media tour" of yours? Please?

This song is for you. Although a version that actually says "Oh Sarah" would be nice, I just think we need an excuse to listen to the sounds of Ready for the World.