Annals Of Andrew, Repeat After Me

My brother Andrew and I were baptized together when I was 16 and he was 24. In order to be baptized, we had to attend a series of classes and memorize the answers to various catechism questions, questions that would be asked of us during the baptism. This posed a problem, because Andrew was never much of a memorizer. I, on the other hand, was a memorizing fool. So Andrew, being a fan of finding the easiest way through any situation, decided there was really no reason to really memorize the answers if he had Suzanne The Memorizing Machine in the pool with him. He just acquainted himself with the general wording of each answer, and was good to go. Does this ring any bells, Andrew?

Q: "What is your only comfort in life and death?"

A: "That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him."

(Of course, Andrew's real answer to that question was "That my sister is better skilled at memorizing than I and cares about the future of my soul, and as such will allow me to ride her coattails through the pearly gates without malice".)

The Sunday morning that we were baptized, as we stood in the pool together in front of the entire congregation and my father posed questions to us, Andrew just looked at me and made various "humunuh, humunuh" sounds and got every fourth or fifth word correct. Because I was a paragon of virtue, I made sure to speak slowly and clearly, giving him the best opportunity to follow along and make it into heaven with me.

Though Andrew is not skilled at memorizing, God did bless him with the gift of comedy. From the creation of a joke to the delivery and timing, Andrew is second to none. So you can be sure that if Andrew had been the one who memorized the answers and I was the one following along, our baptism ceremony would have sounded something like this:







(Andrew told me about "Garth and Kat" the other day, how much their shtick reminded him of games he and I used to play. You can tell that while the scripted gag is that the songs are unscripted, Fred Armisen is doing his best every time to trip Kristen Wiig up.)

More Of The Commish

Since only those in our fantasy football league get to appreciate Andrew's writing skills, and since he's too dumb to have saved any of his prior recap articles, I will from now on post them to my blog for all to enjoy.

SUZANNE MOSLEY: GM OF THE WEEK (10)
... Suzanne Mosley Won Her THIRD GM OF THE WEEK - DoggPound A Close Second With Their Stunning Upset Over The 7-3 Smytherines - First Ever TIE In Philadelphia Challenge History, SpecialEd Is Thanking His QB For The Win This Morning
(TUE 11-17)

GM OF THE WEEK: Suzanne Mosley's Sauteed Mules picked up their third GM of the Week honors this morning after their HUGE win over the league leading 8-2 Mosley Dolphins, 115-101. Their trophy count, QB of the Week and TE of the Week, gave them the edge over the Kennel DoggPound - who scored the UpsetOfTheDecade in their GARGANTUANAMOUS win (only their second of the season) over the second best team in the league, the 7-3 Manassas, VA Smytherines, 130-104, picking up the Team HighScore trophy as icing on the cake!

VEGAS ODDSMAKERS QUALIFY FOR FEDERAL BAILOUT!!! - Nate's DoggPounders have done it again - they now legally own the sportsbookmakers in Vegas - they followed up their first win of the season last week with an unbelievable victory over the Smytherines. With the post-season only a week away, could the Pounders be talking championship???? Since our illustrious Commissioner decided that "everyone is special" thus everyone gets a ticket to the dance, all twelve teams will participate in the post-season. So a team like the lb-ers could hit a hot streak (kinda like the one they're on now) and defy the odds. Alas, could they have captured lightning in a bottle too soon? These two wins would have been better served a little later. Still - this guy is the new Bugsy Siegel ...

TRAILER BOWL ENDS WITH KISSING SISTERS -> Our first ever Trailer Bowl - of course it ended with kissing sisters ... A 114-114 TIE! Whodathunkit? You wouldn't have believed this if it we're the Lifetime Movie Of the Week - but that's reality - always more skankier than Hollywood. Credit SpecialEd's Tom Brady's 29pts to break this unholy affair ... mercy, it ain't right I tell ya ... 'scuse me while I go bathe to get this off of me... yeechkkk ...


............... FINAL GAME OF The REGULAR SEASON ...............
Three Of The Top Four Seeds Are Still In Doubt

Win You Bye, PT I -> 4-6 Golden Knights at 7-3 Smytherines: The Smytherines have just been on a whirlwind rollercoaster ride the last three weeks, knocking off the then league leading Haulers in week 8, running up the score on the HellBandits in week 9, then plummeting to the abyss last week versus the Pounders. They need a rocket lift back to the top against the GoldenKnights if they want a guaranteed ticket to a bye.

Win You Bye, PT II -> 5-5 RoopDogs at 7-3 Sauteed Mules: With the champagne of last week's win still stuck in their hair, the Mules need to get one more win to qualify for the highly coveted bye week in our post-season tournament. The RoopDogs are coming off a humiliating tie - and the Mules better watch out, because these Dogs have followed up every loss since week 5 with a win.

Win You Bye, PT III -> 7-3 Haulers at 8-2 Dolphins: Just four weeks ago this matchup was being heralded as a ChallengeCup Preview ... alas the Haulers suffered two losses since then and are now in a world-sized struggle just to get a ticket to bye. AND THEY HAVE TO BEAT THE LEAGUE'S BEST TEAM TO GET ONE!!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH (in my best Grover voice) ... well, at least the Mules have proven that it can be done - oh, and so too the LittleRupples of this world. It can be done - all you have to do is believe in yourself. Don't worry about the scoreboard. If you do what you love, the points will come, they say. You can bet the Haulers will be trying all sorts of Kabbalah crap to conjure up a win this week ...

Win You Just Might Bye, PT IV -> [i]4-6 Destroyers at 6-4 SpecialEd: Yup, SpecialEd theoretically has a shot at a bye ticket, as long as any of the above three top teams tank it - going by the upsets we've seen in recent weeks, I'd say its a virtual lock. All SpecialEd needs to do is stop the up and coming Destroyers - who were just a fingernail's width away from a fifth straight win last week (someone decided to bench 50pts worth of RBs - that could have netted them 148pts and a possible GM of the Week, too!)

My Best Birthday Present

When I was 8, I wanted a boy barbie doll. My brother Andrew, who was 16, decided to make me one. This wasn't unusual, Andrew was always making me things. He's the creative Lewis, with music, art, and humor oozing out of his pores.

So Andrew took one of my female Barbies and made a man out of her for my birthday. He gave her a butch haircut and a mustache.

But this wasn't just a regular Barbie. This was Growing Up Skipper. She was a pre-teen Barbie with a flat chest, perfect for turning into a male, right??

Wrong. Very wrong. Why, you ask? Watch this video to find out:




Oh yes! Andrew had made Hermaphrodite Barbie. (Not sold in stores.)

I didn't realize at 8 years old how much I'd wish I still had her at 35 years old. My greatest regret.

The Annals Of Andrew, Part 2

Now for the Commodore 64 Summer Olympics story...

As you learned yesterday, my brother Eric gave me a portable C64 when I was in my preteens. Along with the machine, he gave me tons of games. One of those games was Epyx's Summer Games. In this game, you'd choose a player and the country your player was representing. Then you'd take the player through a series of Summer Olympics competitions.

The game featured an opening ceremony with doves, and at the end your players would be ranked and the Gold medal winner's national anthem would be played as they all stood on the podium. That is how it came to be that Andrew and I could hum the national anthem of most every country in the world. Of course, we've since forgotten how they all went, except for one country. Epyx. Oh, Epyx isn't a country, you say?? In this game it was, and we'd fight over who got to be from Epyx, because their national anthem was the coolest. It had a syncopation, which wasn't easy to accomplish back in the days when songs on the computer were made up of blips and beeps. (in the link above, you can see the Epyx flag)

Andrew and I played this game for hours on end. We'd play until our fingers were bleeding, and I can't believe that the A and D, and J and L keys on my keyboard survived the beating. You see, that's how your player would run. You'd hit the A and D or the J and L keys, depending on which player you were, as fast as you could, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The faster you could hit the keys, the faster your dude would run or swim. I'd practice so hard when Andrew wasn't around. I'd play a one player set, and try to figure out all the tricks. But of course, Andrew always won.

Now, if you saw the picture of the C64 screen, you can imagine how funny it must have looked...the two of us, him over 6 feet tall and me not far behind, sitting in front of that tiny screen for hours, hunched over and sharing one keyboard, hitting those keys as fast as we could over and over.


I'm sure Andrew's got some funny Summer Games memories, maybe he'll post some in the comments...