My Golf Skills: One Notch Better Than "Horrendous".

The last time I bought golf balls was quite a while ago. At the time, since I labeled my golfing skills "horrendous," I bought an enormous sack of recycled range balls. Although I play a round of golf only about once a month, I've finally depleted the supply enough that tonight I decided to buy more balls for my round tomorrow morning. I went to Academy and grabbed the gigantic bag o' balls, but paused, and thought to myself "I'm not quite the worst any more. I still suck, but not that bad." So indulged and bought the sack of better old, recycled balls. For example, all of these balls are white, whereas in the sack o' crap, you get the occasional orange or yellow ball, and although it's counter-intuitive, it's impossible to find those balls once you hit them.

So now that I'm the best golfer ever, I'll bet any of you a million dollars that I can beat you.*

*I do not have a million dollars. You have to spot me approximately 100 strokes. Let's just save us both time - give me a a million dollars!

Michael Vick: America's Dumbest Citizen.

Link.

You have recently fallen from grace as a famous quarterback worth tens of millions of dollars. You killed some dogs and are on your way to jail for it. You've delivered concise public announcements taking responsibility to hopefully reduce your time served. You have a hard road ahead of you for some illegal things you've done, so you should be on your best behavior in the meantime. So what do you do? LIGHT THAT SHIT UP!













What an idiot!

My Wife's Baking Skills Are Out of Control!

How can you not be impressed by this? It's almost enough to make me shed tears of joy:

I was at a wedding last night so I wasn't able to witness the massive drubbing we issued to the Rice Owls, in which I took particular delight since my dad is a fan and talks smack at a rate that you'd have to witness to believe. Suffice it to say that I'm going to enjoy that victory for a couple weeks and hopefully put myself in a zen state to prepare for the annual TX-OU game in Dallas, which could be interesting, to say the least.

Why People Are Fat.

I was just out front attacking the endless stream of spider webs that accumulate outside the house, and saw a shocking sight. A neighbor, who lives on the left side of the street, pulled to the left side of the street as she approached her house to get her mail out of her mailbox, then pulled into the driveway and into the garage, 20 feet from the mailbox. I'm speechless.

Nebraska State Senator Sues God Over Natural Disasters.

This is the type of story that's too good to be true for bloggers. I want to make fun of it so desperately, but will look the fool if I find out it was merely a hoax, a hack by The Onion on a legit news site. But playing devil's advocate...

When asked later what would provide him satisfaction in this case, Chambers said "Obviously I want the natural disasters to stop. I could also use a few new cars and a haircut." Chambers was then mysteriously bitch-slapped from nowhere, and began weeping.

Suspecting God might have had something to do with Chambers' humiliation, reporters converged at heaven to get His official statement. "I mean, come on. Seriously." Probed for further information, God, obviously disgruntled, just kept muttering, "Seriously. Freakin' dumbass!"

In other news, Nebraskans released a statement declaring themselves the dumbest citizens of the United States, for having elected such an incredible idiot. Additionally, the forecast for the state of Nebraska for the next week ironically calls for a shit-load of natural disasters. God had no comment.

The Austin City Limits (ACL) Festival – Parting Thoughts.

I just returned from the ACL festival. It was three days of awesome music, from which I came away with three main thoughts:

Sunday, Bob Dylan – no one can deny the impact that Dylan has had on rock music, or his songwriting and composition skills. However, as a performer, I highly recommend that you avoid him at this point in time. The final act of the festival could not have been more underwhelming. His voice has become ravaged over time, yielding what my friend Scott described as singing like a gremlin. I’d add to that by saying the gremlin would have to be wasted first. Either way, it was horrendous. But you can’t fault the guy for being old, right? So why not just kick back and enjoy the tunes? Well, apparently before the show began, concertgoers who were semi-close to the stage were informed that the band requested no photography. If you tried to take a picture, you’d receive one warning, and then your camera would be confiscated – permanently. For some reason, the band had no inclination to be seen. The stage was near-black from lack of light. For 99% of the 4-bazillion people that were there, you couldn’t see a thing, and even worse – the camera operators were told not to zoom in on any of the band, so the gigantic screens on the side of the stage were showing the very same panned-back view! It’s fairly annoying when there are a gazillion people at a show to see a performance, but the impression they get from the band is that the band just wants to do their thing and doesn’t really care about what the audience thinks. The net result was that I left after 4 or 5 songs, although on a positive note, was able to get back to my friend’s early enough to drive back last night.

Saturday, Muse – I first saw Muse live in 2004 at Coachella, and was blown away so much that I ran out to buy their album IMMEDIATLEY after the performance. I have seen them a couple times since, including EdgeFest recently, where I wrote about how “Muse Rocked So Hard, They Broke the Barricade.” On Saturday, I didn’t catch the beginning of their set because I watched the Arcade Fire, who were fantastic. Their climax of “Lights Out” and “Rebellion (Lies)” was absolutely mind-blowing, and I was truly impressed, until I sprinted the ¾ mile to the stage where Muse was headlining and couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. I only saw the last 25 minutes of Muse’s set, but I have to tell you that for most of the concertgoers, they stole the festival. Their set was an assault on the senses – their stadium-brand of hard rock combined with a truly impressive spectacle of lights and lasers that perfectly complimented their music. Although I was far back from the stage due to having arrived late, I was in awe of how captivating they were. On the walk home, I discussed with my friends how much money Muse made Saturday night – like Coachella in 2004 for me, I don’t understand how a single person who saw that could walk away and not want to rush out and buy all their albums. If you’ve never seen Muse live, for the love of God, get to it!

Friday, Bjork – this was the highlight of the festival for me. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a certain something you feel when you see an artist for the first time that just cannot be matched. I had never seen Bjork before, nor did I ever think she’d show up in Texas again, which was a big motivator for my attending the festival in the first place. In short, she was absolutely amazing. She appeared on stage wearing what I described to friends as “a big, gold, poofy thing” and proceeded to remind me why she’s one of the most unique, powerful presences in the music industry today. Even for those who aren’t fans, her voice is undeniably unique and powerful, and her style is so exotic that you can’t help but be impressed. Of course, I’m a huge fan, so I was simply melting at how wonderful the performance was. I used to wonder what she’d sound like live since her voice is so powerful on record, but sure enough, her live performance was equally flawless and captivating. The last song Bjork performed before the encore was “Hyperballad,” my favorite, and I think I actually shed a tear it was so beautiful – a feat I haven’t experienced since early Radiohead concerts. To top it all off, the breakdown at the end of “Hyperballad” was so crazy that one of her speakers actually caught on fire. It couldn’t have been more fitting. When she returned, she said in her nymph-like speaking voice “one of our speakers caught on fire!” to which the crowd cheered loudly, and she responded “but you don’t care,” and laughed cutely about it. The crowd went crazy – we could have stayed there all night.

50 Cent: The One-Liner of the Month!

This video is worth it for the final line alone.

Kathy Griffin Is a RACIST! I Mean, er...

Link.

In case you haven't heard, comedian Kathy Griffin recently accepted an Emmy and made fun of the typical "Thank you, Jesus!" acceptance speech. In the link above, she's actually being compared to Don Imus. Which makes me shake my head and say "WHAAAAT?"

Let's examine the facts:

Don Imus made racist comments about black people.

Kathy Griffin made fun of a religion in an acceptance speech.

I'm still not getting this. But Scatterbrain would like to officially say GO KATHY! That was one of the best acceptance speeches I've ever seen. The fact that apparently many Catholics out there are getting disgruntled about a joke makes it even more delicious. And even if it wasn't a joke, who cares? She can believe whatever the hell she wants. Deal with it. If a few controversial words about Jesus are enough to shake someone's faith, they weren't a real believer in the first place.

Kanye West Wins Award for "Biggest Douchebag".

After the MTV VMA's yesterday, Kanye West expressed disapproval over the fact that he wasn't chosen as the recipient of a VMA at this year's festivities. In a delightful surprise after the show, he was awarded the "Biggest Douchebag" award by MTV. A tearful Kanye clutched his moonman and said "I love you guys - you really had me going. But to win this award, it just means so much to me. I mean, I thought that it was impossible for a black person other than myself, Diddy, Cee-Lo, Outkast, Beyonce, Whitney, Tupac, Dre, Mariah, TI, Alicia, Mary J., wait...what was I talking about? Oh yeah, MTV hates black people. Well, they did, until they gave me this award. It's about time, you dumb crackers."

West then went on a diatribe about how he's the greatest hip-hop artist of all time, but most shifted their attention to Britney Spears, who reportedly farted.

No Celebrities Can Beat Me at Tennis.

Yesterday, watching the US Open final, I was once again intrigued to see which celebrities would show up to watch the match and what the commentators would say about them. The source of my intrigue, though, is speculating about who can kick who's ass at tennis. Namely, I'm pretty sure I can lay a massive beat-down on 90% of those celebs. Djokovic's box contained Robert DeNiro, for example. Something tells me I'd smoke DeNiro 1 and 1. Dustin Hoffman? Double-donut. The guy is too short - I'd just spin it over his head.

Two celebs intrigue me the most, because their skill level is such an enigma - Gavin Rossdale (former lead singer of Bush, married to Gwen Stafani, was sitting next to Federer's girlfriend) and Scott Adams (Dilbert). Both of these guys are fairly well-publicized as tennis nuts and also seem to be in fairly good shape. If I were rich, in great shape, and loved tennis as these guys do, I'd play virtually every day, and my hitting partners would be no less than club-pro level in skill. I can't afford to pay a pro $40/hour for a lesson every day, but they theoretically can. Or let's be serious - if you're them, you might have taken some lessons in the past, but since you are now a rich, famous tennis player, I seriously doubt you now have to pay to find a hitting partner.

I've tried looking up Scott Adams and Gavin Rossdale on USTA's site to see if they have official results, rankings, or ratings. There are too many results for the former and nothing for the latter. Since I've actually been pondering their skills for multiple years (yes, I'm that pathetic) and haven't been able to come up with anything, I can only logically conclude I can kick their asses big-time.

Scatterbrain: home of the guy that can beat Scott Adams and Gavin Rossdale at tennis.

P.S. Scott/Gavin - If you disagree, I triple-dog-dare you to fly me out to your location of choice so I can issue a beat-down.

"The Descent."

The Descent is the best horror movie I've seen in years. It's the type of movie that's classified as horror but is really just a fantastic movie that happens to be scary, in the same vein as the Alien movies and The Shining. Topically, the film is about a group of girls that goes spelunking, and things start going wrong. What makes the movie so good is that it focuses on relationships, tragedy, and acceptance (or lack thereof). I'll refrain from further discussion since much of the impact of this film lies in your interpretation of what happens.

One final note - get the unrated director's cut. The principal difference is that it contains the original movie ending. Apparently the ending released in theaters in the U.S. was slightly edited (I obviously didn't see this in theaters), which is a shame because I can't imagine the movie ending any way but the original way the director intended.

The World's Richest Dog.

I can't help but call attention to this ludicrous story. Something tells me that whoever ends up taking care of this dog is going to charge the dog $100,000 every time they have to scoop up a steaming load.

"You want dinner? That'll cost you a grand for each morsel of food."

CARNEGIE MELLON SCREWS THE POOCH!

Students demand satisfaction, decide they'd be better off simply learning from trained monkeys.

Figure 1 - Without Chad, they might as well give up. Trained monkeys prepare to teach class Monday.

PITTSBURGH, PA - In a move shockingly stupid to some and criminally stupid to others, the powers that be at Carnegie Mellon University inexplicably decided to let go of their best teacher, Chad Hermann.

"We had big problems with Chad," one professor on the review board was overheard exclaiming, "that guy was not only a teacher, but was well-loved by the students. Come on now - I don't have time for those little bastards - I've got shit to do, like stroke my books."

Another mentioned "Chad was voted as one of the top MBA professors in the country by BusinessWeek, which clearly drags attention away from whores like myself. Look at the PhD, baby. Look at it!" (he then strangely began weeping)

We attempted to contact the Dean of the Tepper School of Business, but were told he was busy "worshipping the devil, I mean, working" by his admin. Our spies captured this image:

The students remain both perplexed and pissed off, and demand satisfaction. The hallways of school are alive with activity; one corner features groups of students with pictures of the Dean, challenging themselves to discover every different descriptor featuring "douche" known to man: "doucherocket," "megadouche," "Dr. Douche," "The Douchess of York," etc. Others were busy releasing streams of curse words previously unheard of in our world, and unprintable even in the pages of Scatterbrain. Others, crestfallen and weary, resigned to their rooms to immerse themselves in their books to help take the pain away. "I might as well get back to studying now," one student noted, "it's not like anyone else is going to teach me this now."