OVERHEARD: Fair Food

“Next.”

“Yeah, I’d like a deep-fried…”

“You’re being an oxymoron.”

“Pardon me?”

“Everything is deep-fried here. Starting your order with ‘deep-fried’ is a waste of breath.”

“I don’t think that’s an oxymoron. Also: what?”

“Sure it is. Saying ‘deep-fried Twinkie’ is like saying ‘jumbo shrimp’ or ‘watchable Kevin Costner movie.’ It’s pointless.”

“I think you mean ‘redundant.’ And ‘Field of Dreams‘ is a classic.”

“I wouldn’t consider that a Costner vehicle. Timothy Busfield carried that movie.”

“You can’t be serious. I’m pretty sure they found Busfield in a dumpster, mumbling something about ‘Thirtysomething,’ and thought they could save some money by compensating him in Thunderbird and James Earl Jones’ leftover chicken bones. I don’t think they even paid him.”

“Well, ars gratia artis and all that.”

“What does MGM have to do with this? That was a Universal movie.”

“I don’t think so. Sure, it plays well in the US, but what about England? While I think over-dubbing every mention of ‘baseball’ with the words ‘cricket’ or ‘rounders’ or ‘pip pip cheerio’ was a tough, but ultimately fair, decision to make, I’m sure it proved to be a fool’s errand.”

“You’re making that up.”

“True. You got me. I don’t actually know what ‘rounders’ is.”

“You’re making no sense. Plus, Timothy Busfield carried Little Big League. You need to get your baseball movies straight.”

“So you’re telling me you couldn’t sense the sexual tension between Jones and Costner? You could cut it with a knife.”

“Well obviously, but that’s not what I meant. You’re changing the subject. I’m trying to order something, a foodstuff that is a blasphemy against all that is holy and pure, and you’re stalling me. You’re standing in the way of my God-given right as an American to order an amorphous, oil soaked chrysalis of white flour and lard, encasing a metaphorical butterfly of arterial sclerosis and possibly some literal butter and flies. I want to walk away from your booth sweating real bacon. I want my next mandatory blood draw to look like Crisco squeezing through a Play-Dough Fun Factory. I have a dream, a dream of night-long fat sweats, of sleep apnea caused by a 3-pound uvula, of thighs that chafe so badly from constant friction that Catholic monks will show up at my front door, expecting to sacrifice themselves in the service of the leper that resides within. I want to forget what my genitals look like.”

“There have got to be better ways to get on disability.”

“I suppose I could ride that Neverland Ranch Tilt-a-Whirl until a burst aneurism renders me unconscious, and then pray that the carny at the controls calls first aid instead of dragging my listless body into the bushes and treating it like a lonely Scotsman treats a sheep.”

“Two batter-fried mayonnaise éclairs coming right up. You want fries with that?”

It is thus that I begin this, the 14^th edition of…The Week That Was. As follows:

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Deadline Dealios

Okay, so I lied when I said that the deadline was 7/31/10. It’s actually 8/15/10. Adjust your calendars, your rolodexes, and your Memento-like tattoos accordingly.

There have already been a couple trades, which I’ll detail the…um…details of with the ferocity and brevity of an ADHD kid on a bag of skittles. In the first trade, involving the Dirty Pirates and the Whatever Double Ententre Weston Is Using This Weeks, the career deviant and noted marsupial molester Albert “I Like It In The” Pujols was traded for Miguel “.01 Toke Over The Line” Cabrera. I like this trade for a couple reasons: first, it’s balanced, at least from a weight perspective. Though really, I think Al is mostly made of roid-induced muscle, while Cabrera is almost all sloppy fat. Also, they have the same number of letters in their names, as long as you call him “Miggy.” So, I approve.

The other trade, Scotty Five traded Mark “AEIOU and sometimes Whine” Teixiereieiaiai to the Teen Girls for Paul “Does This Go With My Mullet?” Konerko and Earvin “The Wrong” Santana. This could go either way, depending on whether or not Tex ever starts hitting like Tex and less like the anthropomorphic big toe with a crude smiley face sharpied on that he looks like. Either way, Nick probably gains a keeper for next season, while Scott gets two more guys that he can look at with regret and dismay when the end of the season rolls around.

BASEBALL, RAY

The Giants have quieted all the naysayers (similar to the Knights Who Say Ni, only with more of a Latin influence) by continuing to play in a weak division, not hitting, pitching over their heads, and still not making it to first place. Wait, I think I meant the other one.

The Braves on the other hand have rocketed to 5 games up on the East, backed by the power of the Fourth-Best Rookie of the Year, and the All-Star MVP/Second- Or Possibly Third-Best Catcher in the NL. They’ve also managed to patch up LARry-LARry’s desiccated corpse well enough so that they can still roll him out to third for every game and position him such that hard-enough hit balls actually deflect off his stationary and lifeless form and travel all the way to the first baseman on the fly. It’s really a marvel. Bobby Cox should play pool.

The A’s are in the midst of putting most of their players either on the DL or on a nice potty training regimen, and still have managed to stay around .500. This is what GMs generally refer to as the “Jesus Christ, do we sell or do we buy?” line.

The Cubs, luckily, have already made that decision pretty easy. I like to concentrate on the fact that they have three of the top rookies in the majors right now in Starlin “Brown Jesus” Castro, Andrew “I Think I Might Kill A Man With My Fastball And That Man Might Be My Own Catcher” Cashner , and Tyler “I’m Worried That If I Ever Take A Walk I Might Just Spontaneously Die, So I’ll Avoid Them At All Costs And Swing From My Heels” Colvin. I like to concentrate on these particular rookies, because the other 5 rooks in the dugout are horrific, and all the veterans on the team need to take a Centrum Silver before every at-bat just so they can walk all the way to the plate without forgetting why they were going there in the first place. Jesus Christ I hate this team.

FIN

And that’s that, folks. Sorry, no pretty pictures this time; the trial period on “ComicLife” ended a month ago and I’m too cheap to buy it. Feel free to give me a gift for my next birthday. Until then, go ahead and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, as long as whatever ‘em are is legal in all 57 states.

And that’s…the Week That Was.