10 Ways to Reduce Our Debt

Our giant national debt is a huge issue. Huge! It has to be, because it's all our Congress talked about all summer. Even the magic of tax cuts hasn't solved our debt issue. We cut taxes all the way back in 2001, and ten years later, for some strange reason, our debt just keeps getting larger. This is a HUGE issue. If there's a problem that can't be solved by tax cuts, Republicans are pretty much out of ideas (no, Rick Perry, praying doesn't count as an idea, I'm only interested in reality based solutions).

Sidenote: Debt wasn't quite such a huge problem when we had white Presidents. It's a good thing the tea party came along when it did. They know that if we don't control the black President's spending, he'll just blow all of our money on grape soda and Tyler Perry DVD's.

Anyway, huge debt or not, I'm not convinced we should be slashing the federal budget. And even if I was convinced, America's intelligence profile indicates that we're too "stupid" to stick to a budget. So, like Homer Simpson, we need more money, and I have ideas.

Bake Sale: Everyone in America bakes a pie. If you can't bake a pie (let's say you don't have access to pie ingredients, or you don't have an oven, or let's say you're an infant), someone else will bake your pie for you. We sell all the pies to Europe, Japan and Australia at a huge mark-up, like $15 a pie. I figure that's at least $10 of profit per pie, times 300 million people (give or take), and that's 3 trillion dollars. Did I mention that any country that refuses to buy our $15 pies gets invaded?

Sloth: We all take month long vacations. That's what Congress is doing, so it has to work. One member of Congress recently explained it on TV by basically saying that's what they always do in August. Oh, OK. Where did we find these people? Is being in Congress so awful that only the craziest, most irrational, least useful people in the country want to do it. I know I've said we get the government we deserve, but holy crap. Who else could cap off two months of gross incompetence with one month of "well deserved" vacation.

Roulette: We take whatever we currently have in the treasury to Vegas and bet it on black. Or red. Whatever. Either way, that's just short of a 50/50 chance of doubling our money right there. After watching Congress take two months to raise our imaginary debt ceiling, wouldn't you take 50/50 odds over whatever our current odds are of solving this problem?

Anarchy: This is what the tea people want, right? If there's no government, there's no debt. Just freedom, horrible freedom. And zombies. I don't know how, but anarchy seems to lead to zombies most of the time. Or maybe zombies lead to anarchy. I guess we'll find out.

Real Estate: How much do you think Canada would give us for Alaska? What if we were willing to throw in Montana, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the top part of Maine? OK, all of Maine. You drive a hard bargain Canada. If they won't buy our land, we go to plan B, holding Justin Bieber for ransom.

New Currency: We could convince the world to switch to a new global currency based on something we already have in abundance. Can you base a currency on fat people? How about abandoned factories? We have tons of those. I explored the downside of cheese based money in an earlier post, but if we encased the cheese in some kind of impenetrable, inedible substance, that could still work.

Robot Hilter: I recently saw Virginia Congressman Jim Moran giving a quick summary of how we got out of the Great Depression. First, there was the New Deal. Then, in 1937, Republicans tried to ruin the New Deal for some reason (it seems stupidity was part of the Republican platform long before the tea people came along, who knew?). Then, along came Hitler and we fought our way out of our economic troubles by killing nazis.

Well, Hitler's already dead, nothing we can do about that. But, Robot Hitler can be alive and kicking just as soon as someone invents him. Of course, there's roughly a 75% chance Robot Hitler takes over the world, becomes Skynet and kills us all. But, if we win, it's mostly smooth economic sailing for like 30 years until Robot Reagan comes along and ruins it all again.

Sidenote #2: Extra benefit of the Robot Hitler plan. We finally have someone who pundits and politicians can fairly compare to actual Hitler.

Ocean's 11: Step 1: We put together an elite team of thieves to go rob all the countries that still have money. Step 2: We use the stolen money to pay those same countries back what we owe them. They'll be especially happy to take it, seeing as all their money just mysteriously went missing. "Gee Japan, I'm sorry all your money disappeared, we'll be sure to keep an eye out for it. On an unrelated note, we just found all these yen at the bottom of the grand canyon. Here you go."

Heel Turn: I loved wrestling when I was a kid. If you didn't, here's how the heel turn works. We invite China out to the ring to "talk" about that little sum of money we owe them. We're the good guys, so China doesn't suspect anything. China's music hits and they stroll on down with a big smile. As China is preening for the crowd...BANG! Chair shot to the back of the head...heel turn!

As Always: Guns n Roses reunion concert. We hold it in America and charge the world to see it. We'd easily make 14 trillion dollars with plenty to spare to pay the boys.

Say Hello To The Bad Guy

I don't watch a whole lot of regular season basketball, and I'm not usually a fan of over-hyped sporting events in general. Last night's Lebronageddon in Cleveland fell into both of those categories, but I knew I had to watch some of it anyway. It was just too damn interesting. How, exactly, would the fans react? Booing? Derisive chants? Would some idiot or group of idiots go too far? I needed to see it.

If it were me, if I were controlling the crowd in Cleveland last night, here's what would have happened. Loud booing all through warm-ups whenever Lebron touched a ball. Then, right when he's introduced, everybody stands and turns their backs to the court. They're wearing t-shirts that say something short but effective on the back, like "Thanks for nothing", or "Cleveland: Still title free since '64", or "How are your mom and Delonte West doing?". They remain standing, backs to the court, for the entire game.

I watched the introductions and the first couple of minutes. The Cleveland fans didn't do it my way, but they did a decent job. Lots of loud booing, at least one clear "ass-hole" chant, good all-around energy. But then, it was just another basketball game, and I got distracted.

First, it was NBC's Thursday night comedies. 30 Rock is killing it lately. 30 Rock is young Mike Tyson to every other TV comedy's Michael Spinks. Also drawing my attention, my number one fantasy football wide out was kicking off in Philadelphia around 8:30. All I have to say about that is, EFF YOU MATT SCHAUB! YOU SUCK!!!

Anyway, I got distracted from the game in Cleveland for a good long time. I went back once around 9, but they were in a commercial. Next time I went back, it was the 3rd quarter and Miami was up by like 49, or 40 million, I can't remember. I immediately thought it was the saddest non-playoff sports crushing I could remember. Especially since the Cavs didn't seem to care that much, it was just the fans that were getting crushed, and they couldn't do anything about it.

Imagine you're dating a girl for like 7 years. She's awesome, maybe a little flaky, and you always wondered if you were more into her than she was into you, but still, she's just awesome. Then one day, she goes on ESPN and announces she's breaking up with you for some douchebag with lots of hair gel and shirts that are way too small for him. Then, after six months of not really talking about you that much and pretending your seven year relationship was nothing special, her and her new douchebag boyfriend come to your house, eat all your food, have sex right in front of you and poop on your carpet.

That's was the vibe I got from the Cleveland crowd by the time I made it back in the middle of the third quarter. Lebron was pooping on their carpet and having a great time doing it and they just had to sit there and take it. I don't know what to say about Cleveland at this point. Let's hope Colt McCoy's quarterbacking skills turn out to be as awesome as his name. Seriously, how much would you pay to trade names with Colt McCoy? Best sports name ever.

On the bright side, I figured out who Lebron is now. He's a bad guy, a wrestling heel. He's Hollywood Hogan, he's NWO 4Life. He ran into the ring, hit the city of Cleveland with a steel chair and mugged for the crowd with Bosh and Wade while we all threw our drinks at them. And you know what? I'm sort of on board with the Lebron heel turn.

Who doesn't like rooting against a bad guy? Plus, Lebron had sort of run his course as a good guy. And basketball needs a new bad guy. Lots of people hate Kobe, but he's starting to make the transition from bad guy to venerable old veteran we all begrudgingly respect. Lebron's a perfect bad guy too. He's big, imposing, not super likable to begin with, seems to be warming to the role, all the good guys will need to work together to take him down.

I'm a big fan of this idea. Of course, I'm not from Cleveland.

Pro Wrestling Re-Mix

A month or so ago I watched three hours of professional wrestling, made fun of it and very much angered at least one wrestling fan with whom I went to high school. I decided, pretty soon after that, I would have a second go at pro wrestling. Reason one, maybe I just caught the WWE on a bad night. I've seen bad episodes of my favorite shows, so why not give it another chance. Reason two, there's a whole other wrestling company I'm taking a look at tonight. Reason three, if it's bad again, it makes for good comedy.

Well, I'm told by TV and various facebook posts that tonight is a big night for WWE (the return of Bret Hart, hey, I remember him) and, new kid on the wrestling block, TNA (debut of Hulk Hogan, I'm going to take a guess and say that his skin will look leathery). Add to that the fact that I'm willfully ignoring all crappy and meaningless BCS bowl games (that means all BCS bowl games) and it's about -52 degrees outside, and this is really the perfect night to stay in my apartment and re-visit wrestling.

I'll be starting with TNA, which gets my full attention for an hour. The last two hours I'll be jumping back and forth and we'll see who does a better job of holding my interest. I'm envisioning this as more difficult than when I jumped between cable news channels. You can jump into a cable news show at pretty much any point and already know what they're talking about. Keith Olbermann says Republicans are bad, Glenn Beck says the Communist/Socialist President and his army of marxist zombies are planning to steal your wallet while you sleep. They're also usually talking about roughly the same things. I expect the two wrestling companies to be putting on very different shows that may be hard to follow if I jump in and out. I guess I'm saying, this could be fun or a mess.

Before I start, TNA's lead-in on Spike TV is MMA. As I tuned in, the winner of the last fight was explaining his winning strategy. "Well, I punched him in the face as hard as I could, he didn't seem to like that one bit, so I punched him more until that ref guy made me stop." I may be paraphrasing. Anyway, on to TNA...

TNA has clearly set its hype phasers to kill, opening with a montage about the history of the company followed by the announcers trying to set this up as the most important moment so far. If they deliver, that's a good opening, if not, this could get ugly. The first thing I see is Taz. I'm already pretty pumped, he's doing commentary. I'd be even more excited if he was wrestling, but I think he broke his neck like 7 times or something, so I'll settle for commentary.

The first match seems to be some kind of steel cage battle royal deal. The cage has a roof, but with a hole in the top, and I think the winner has to climb out of the hole. I won't get into all eight guys, but here are a few things I noticed. One of the guys is named suicide, another is called homicide. I feel like we shouldn't let them near each other, it seems like something bad would happen. Also, some other guy is doing a dead on Macho Man impression. They didn't let him talk, but it was visually perfect right down to the music. Also, the TNA ring has six sides. That's 50% more sides than WWE, so there's that.

The cage they're using has noticeably thick red bars, so it's kind of hard to see what's going on inside. Sounds like good stuff though, lots of crashing followed by cheering from the crowd. There's a lot going on here. First, that homicide dude used a weapon, which apparently ended the match in a no contest. I thought there weren't any rules in a cage match? This caused the crowd to loudly chant "this is bullshit" for like two minutes, with Spike bleeping out the "shit" part each time, so we heard about 70% of the show for a little while there.

Then, in comes Jeff Hardy from the crowd. According to the internets, Jeff was last seen in WWE, and a police station near you. Jeff laid out homicide (with a steel chair, that's what I'm talking about!) and then climbed on top of the cage. Maybe I'm just in a better mood tonight, but I feel like that first segment was like a billion times better than anything WWE gave me last time.

They're really hyping Hulk Hogan. First of all, they're showing us pictures of what's supposed to be Hogan's limo, and we're supposed to believe he has a police escort. More importantly, do people really still get excited about seeing Hulk Hogan? Wasn't he constantly on VH1 for like three years?

Hey! Hey! It's Kevin Nash. Nash and Hall were easily my favorite wrestlers in the 90's. I'd ask where Scott is, but I have a feeling I don't want to know. Long-winded interview from Nash that was somehow still entertaining, that's what I remember. He finished by telling us Hogan isn't alone. 50 bucks says it's Eric Bishoff (editing note from later: Bingo!). A well placed women's division match gave us all a nice break to get some food or something.

TNA isn't screwing around tonight, Ric Flair just showed up. I was never a fan of Flair when I was a kid, but the crowd seems pretty psyched. Also, apparently Mick Foley works for TNA. I thought he was another new guy when I saw him, but the computer set me straight on this one. He's trying to get to work, but the bosses don't want him disrupting Hogan's big night. I'm expecting a number of Foley trying to get into the arena bits, and from what I remember about Foley, they could be really funny or totally awful. Good deal.

OK, the crowd does not like this Lashley guy. That seems to be working out pretty well, because his wife just told us Mr. Lashley is leaving TNA, so everyone's a winner. Next up, three of the female wrestlers playing poker, I'd wager all my chips on this turning out to be some kind of strip poker deal. Nailed it! I should write TV. Before they started stripping, they spent a minute or two playing stupid, it was actually pretty funny (the girl with six cards announced she had the A of hearts and the guy with the hat of hearts, I swear it was amusing live). Also, two of these girls appear to be legitimately good looking, which is about 1 and a half more legitimately good looking girls than I saw at WWE.

They appear to be aiming for the Hogan arrival right as 9PM comes and people are tempted to flip over to WWE. If it weren't for the giant red bars blocking the first match, this first hour would be a flawless performance from TNA, I'm really impress...Hey! Hey! Hey Yo! It's Scott Hall! And that little guy I never liked, something-pac, let's just call him Ringo. Apparently they're not letting Scott into the show right now, they'd better not be screwing with me. A minute or two later, we see Hall and Ringo enter through the crowd, I couldn't be more entertained right now (this is where the people who take this too seriously will say that we haven't had any actual wrestling on this show in like 45 minutes, and I'll say I don't care).

Hogan came out to something extremely similar to the old NWO music. On a scale of 1 to 10, my interest level is at about a 13 right now. The Announcer Who Isn't Taz (no way I care enough to find out his name, we'll call him TAWIT for short) says there aren't words for this moment (that didn't stop him and Taz from trying). Hogan talked for a minute and then invited Hall and Ringo into the ring. I'm starting to get the sense these two aren't staying long (I hope I'm right about Ringo and wrong about Hall).

This went on for a while. We started with Hogan, then Hall and Ringo came in (and I'm pretty sure Hall ruined the next surprise, it's nice to have him back). Hall and Hogan didn't seem to be getting along, so Nash came out. Nash didn't seem happy with Hogan either, and then out came Eric Bishoff. Bishoff said everyone has to earn their spot in TNA, which prompted Nash, Hall and Ringo to leave. Hogan and Bishoff talked a little longer about things changing, the segment ended with Sting in the rafters looking uneasy. Finally a commercial followed by another women's match, and I can check in on WWE.

I wandered in just in time to see Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels making up and hugging. Then Hart called out Vince McMahon, who promptly failed to appear. After a commercial, we found out that Vince would call Hart out when he feels like it, later tonight. They have a women's match too, blah, although the first three out are also more attractive than anyone I saw last time.

Back to TNA, they still have the women's match going on. I'll give them this, the TNA women actually seem like they can wrestle a little. Quick flip back to WWE, and it's the Miz. I think the same thing about him I thought last time, really good catch phrase wasted on a really unlikable guy. Meanwhile, TNA has new women's tag champs. They also went back to the card playing girls, who weren't nearly as funny as an hour ago, but were, as promised, less clothed. They were joined by a guy, I know he used to be a WWE guy, I can't remember his name, Val or Cal something. Oh, Val Venus, right. That's a tough spot for ole Val. We spent the first hour seeing all the biggest stars of the 90's arrive one by one, then in hour two we're supposed to get excited about the walking penis joke.

Foley still can't get into the TNA arena, and neither can the Nasty Boyz (don't ask me to describe those two, either you know who they are, or you're better off). Next up for TNA, a tag match featuring Raven, who I've always been a fan of. That match ended immediately. Then we meet the Pope, who refers to himself as "Pope" quite often. Pope gets interrupted by some other guy, I think I'm supposed to know who he is, but I can't place him. Where are the announcers when you need them? Oh, there's Taz. Apparently that guy's name is Orlando Jordan, I still don't know who he is. The Pope gets a 6 out of 10 for mic skills, but his music gets a 10 out of 10.

Back to WWE and Hart is talking to Chris Jericho. I came in on the tail end of Hart insulting Jericho. I miss the funny Jericho, can we bring him back? Somebody start a telethon. Then we get DX. Last time, they were having some kind of leprechaun problem, but now they seem to have made up and they're hanging out with the leprechaun. They have that Santino Marella guy doing a Jericho impression. He was funny last time and he's funny now. Unfortunately, his day ends with a leprechaun attack.

Guys are getting attacked backstage at TNA, it's a real whodunit. I just noticed something funny, TAWIT is wearing a full tuxedo and Taz is wearing a bright orange jacket. That just struck me as hilarious for some reason. Next, we're gonna hear from Jeff Jarrett. Meanwhile, WWE has DX vs. Super Giant Man (they call him Big Show, I say my name is better) and Jericho.

We're in the middle of hearing from the TNA champion, AJ Styles, when Bishoff comes in and tells him he's defending his title tonight. AJ seemed not unhappy about that. I have to hand it to Bishoff, he's good on TV. The crowd is welcoming Jarrett back. Which begs the question, where'd he go? I did some research and found out he left after shacking up with the ex-wife of Kurt Angle (another top TNA wrestler). Except, unlike most wrestling stories, this appears to have actually happened, in real life. I'm starting to feel like I should have been watching this show before tonight. Jarrett talked for a while, but then Hogan told him he has to earn his spot like everyone else. I didn't love that segment, even if Hogan just set the record for most times saying brother in two minutes, but it ended with Foley finally getting in.

Meanwhile, DX beat Super Giant Man and Jericho, and SGM doesn't look too happy about it. Apparently this means Jericho can't come to Raw anymore. Right after, Randy Orton offers to help ole Vince Mcmahon deal with Bret Hart later. How interested was I in this? I went back to TNA before we found out Vince's answer.

Back at TNA, this Samoa Joe guy looks like he gets to the gym about as much as I do. He's wrestling Abyss, who's like a bigger, weirder Mick Foley. Seriously, I always thought the only thing between me and a pro wrestling career is my refusal to get into shape. Samoa Joe has given me hope. And he won the match by using a chair (once again, that's what I'm talking about! Did TNA steal all WWE's chairs?) Also, Lashley's wife wants a meeting with Hogan and more guys got beat up backstage.

Sidenote: This blog is already long enough, but I have to mention this. I'm flipping between Spike TV and USA. One of the channels in the middle is FX, which is currently showing Snakes On A Plane. Next time you have the opportunity, you HAVE to see this movie. It's even better on regular TV with the curses dubbed out. Here's an example of one of my favorite dubbed lines; "I'm sick and tired of these monkeyfighting snakes on this monday to friday plane". It's easily the funniest movie ever, and it's not even close.

Back to WWE, and one of the few bright spots from my last WWE adventure is the now the champion. I'm a big fan of Shamus. Big Irish guy, complete with realistic accent and cool music. And he just completely destroyed some guy. He spent more time staring menacingly at the crowd than he did wrestling. I think that might be all we see of the champ tonight. Oh well. On the other hand, I haven't seen that Cena guy at all, which is perfectly fine with me. Win some, lose some.

Two straight things from TNA I feel like we didn't need. First, Jeff Hardy leaving the arena and giving a painting to some teenage girls. (Huh?) Then, the Nasty Boyz wrecking team 3D's (formerly the Dudley Boys) locker room (Why? It's like they're trying to start a rivalry, but there's no way those two guys are in any kind of wrestling shape). Time for the TNA main event, Styles v. Angle.

Like last time, I haven't commented too much on the actual wrestling, because I don't know that much about it. But I'll say two things about this TNA main event. First, about three minutes in some masked guy randomly attacked the champ. I assume they're going somewhere with that. Second, I have to say the wrestling from TNA is pretty solid, much faster and less plodding than the WWE matches. And really, that's a pretty good description of the difference between the two shows as a whole. There's just a lot more going on with TNA. After Styles won, they finished with Foley confronting Bishoff, then getting his ass kicked by Nash, Hall and Ringo. Hogan comes in at the end and the audience is left wondering if Hogan really has a handle on Bishoff and the old NWO guys. Well done all around.

The WWE main event is the Vince McMahon/Bret Hart conversation. Next week's Raw guest host is Mike Tyson. Here's a question I thought I'd never have an answer to. What would have to happen to make me not interested in seeing Mike Tyson on live TV for two hours? Anyway, Vince and Bret talk for a while. Vince is thanking Bret and saying nice stuff, presumably something bad is about to happen. And there you go, Vince gives Bret the ole groin kick. We finish with a shot of Bret looking angry, but frankly, not as angry as I'd look if I just got kicked in the groin.

Let's do some final grades. WWE gets a C-. They get points for the Irish champ and creative use of a leprechaun, but what I saw of the show wasn't any better than last time. Granted, I didn't see a ton of WWE tonight, but that's because TNA was much better at holding my interest. TNA gets an easy A-. Three solid hours of TV. Even the crowd was better. You can say it isn't a fair comparison, huge night for TNA, regular Monday for WWE. I'll grant you that. But still, I saw two shows tonight, and they weren't in the same league, not even close.

What The Hell Happened To...

...Pro Wrestling?

I loved pro wrestling when I was a kid, loved it. When I was like 10 years old, if I could have quit my life and picked anyone else to be, I probably would have picked the Ultimate Warrior (who, in case you haven't heard, is completely insane now. Apparently painting your face and acting like a lunatic every night eventually makes you go crazy. Who knew?) Even in high school and early in college I watched a lot of wrestling. I didn't care if it wasn't real, it was fun and entertaining, more so than a lot of the other crap on TV. Now, I never watch wrestling, and I haven't for a while. I'm not sure why. I don't remember ever thinking "screw this, I'm done with wrestling." I never made a conscious decision to stop watching, I just slowly stopped paying attention to it, until it sort of faded away, like old married couples do to each other.

So, here's the plan. Tonight, I'm watching Monday Night Raw and keeping a little journal here of what I see. Raw starts at 8 tonight. Usually that'd be a deal breaker because House is on, but since Jennifer Morrison has apparently left the show, I'm somewhere around 40% less interested (OK, maybe more like 99%, we'll see how it goes), so I can easily pay attention to both shows. Since I have Chris Johnson and Andre Johnson on my fantasy team, I may also throw in some Monday Night Football comments, but mostly Monday Night Raw. What I really want to find out is this: Did anything really happen to wrestling, or did something just happen to me?

And here we go. It seems I've picked an awesome night to do this. Not only am I getting an extra hour, but I'm getting all the stars of Raw, Smackdown and ECW in one big Thanksgiving spectacular (by the way, I'll be using the internets to identify who all these stars I'm seeing are, because if I just keep calling everyone "that angry looking dude", you won't know who I'm talking about). I'm pretty confident that I won't find myself, at any point tonight, thinking how glad I am they didn't have to cut this show down to just two hours.

They're coming to us live from Hershey, PA, or as announcer Michael Cole just called it, Chocolatetown, USA. First up, here comes Randy Orton. I feel like I've heard of him. He looks pretty angry, he's also the former WWE champion. So far, I'm learning that Jesse Ventura is tonight's Raw guest host. The internets helped me a out little here too. Earlier this year, Raw went away from having one guy pretend to run the show every week and, instead, they bring a different celebrity (a term they use quite loosely) on each week to pretend to be in charge. I'm sure this leads to many well thought out plot ideas that make perfect sense. Anyway, after doing some typical bad guy stuff, like insulting the crowd, Randy invites Jesse to come out and talk to him.

Ventura announces that he ain't dressed like no governor tonight, he's dressed like wrestling (the people of Minnesota must be so proud). Then he goes on to say he's the governor of revolution (I thought he wasn't a governor tonight, I'm so confused). We're taking the long route to finding out what tonight's big theme is, it's some kind of battle royal to decide who the number one contender will be. These two guys couldn't have less chemistry working together. Also, Ventura's wearing a shiny, sort of snake skin printed jacket and what appear to be swimming goggles, and Randy looks like he fell into a vat of tattoo ink and couldn't get it all cleaned off.

Next segment. Kofi Kingston in a qualifying match for the battle royal we get to see later. Kofi seems to be oscillating between looking happy and jumping around and looking tough and mean. They may still have some character development work to do there. He's wrestling some guy named Dolf Ziggler. Dolf seems to be doing a Mr. Perfect impression (they didn't actually let him talk, but visually, it was pretty dead on). You can tell this match doesn't matter because the two announcers (the previously mentioned Cole and the ridiculous Jerry Lawler) are spending most of it talking about Jesse Ventura and Randy Orton and how good the show is gonna be tonight. Eventually, Kofi gets the win with some kind of super street fighter spinning kick.

Cut to the backstage Thanksgiving spread, which is absolutely getting destroyed by 11PM. In the presence of the soon-to-be-on-the-floor Thanksgiving food, we get an address from The Miz. I remember this guy from the Real World. Back then, he was one of the most unlikeable people on TV. It seems not much has changed. Too bad too, because he finished by telling us that he's The Miz, and he's awesome. Pretty good catch phrase wasted on a pretty hopeless guy. Some people are just intolerable, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Another battle royal qualifier, and here comes Sheamus. Big Irish dude with cool entrance music. Obviously, I'm a big fan. Apparently he kicked Lawler in the head last week, I like him even more. He's wrestling the other Irish guy, Finlay, who I think I remember from WCW. Sheamus's skin is so pale the camera can't actually pick him up, we're just seeing tights and red hair. Apparently they're trying push Sheamus on the fans a bit, because they just let him destroy Finlay in like two minutes. Then he makes sure we know he's a bad guy by beating on Finlay some more after the match. Wrestling announcers are really good at that fake somber tone, like they're watching something genuinely terrible happen.

Another little vignette in front of the Thanksgiving food. I have a bad feeling we'll be seeing these all night. I'm noticing my first trend. When I used to watch wrestling, the talking segments were interesting and funny. The talking I've seen so far tonight has mostly been poorly written and uncomfortable. I can't decide yet if they've decided to intentionally not have a funny show, or if they're just trying to be funny and failing. My point was just amplified by another unbearable Orton and Ventura segment. It's like they're making those two do it over until they get it right.

Here comes CM Punk. More solid entrance music, but I get the sense the crowd doesn't like him. Apparently Mr. Punk is straight edge, which means he's no fun (OK, that was mean). That's funny, because if you showed me a picture of him and asked me, straight edge or meth head, I'd definitely go with meth head. He's off on some tangent about calling the crowd fat. Then he calls his opponent for the night a turkey (get it? it's Thanksgiving. Now that's comedy). We'll see him wrestle John Cena next.

Here comes Cena, and I really can't describe the sound the crowd made for him. Imagine 10,000 children cheering as loud as they can while, simultaneously, 10,000 grown men with way too much time on their hands boo lustily. It was really quite something. This has the feel of a long match during which, as a non-fan, I'll be pretty bored. It looks like Cena's been appointed the new Hulk Hogan. He gets beat up for a while, then he gets a second wind and waives his arms around and stuff and gets the victory. By the way, are free tattoos part of the WWE health plan? This Punk guy is covered in them. Finally, Cena wins the match with something called the attitude adjustment. Also, apparently, I can't see him. I don't know what that means, but the fans do, so OK.

And now we're watching a replay of the first crappy Ventura/Orton segment. But then, hey! it's Vince McMahon. Vince is talking to Ventura, still nothing funny yet, but they're plugging Ventura's new TV show pretty hard. I could tell you about it, but it'd probably be easier to just say that you don't want to watch it, trust me. At the end, we find out that Vince and Jesse are going to do some announcing together today, like the old days, this isn't a terrible idea. I'd stick around for this, but the talking is still more uncomfortable than entertaining. We're about an hour and fifteen minutes in, I haven't laughed once.

Next up, another battle royal qualifier, this one's a six man tag. It's too bad, because these guys each look pretty ridiculous, but they're all out there together, so it's hard to pick one to mock. I guess I'm saying, I don't think we're looking at any future big stars right now. That was quick, the three black guys won. Is it racist that I've seen four black wrestlers tonight and three of them were just on the same team? I honestly don't know.

Hey, it's DX. I remember these guys. Apparently they've run afoul of a leprechaun. That was easily the funniest segment so far, but that's not saying much. It looks like they've toned these guys way down since I last saw them. I'm starting to notice another trend. It seems they're now gearing the show toward two audiences. Children, and adults who take wrestling way too seriously. I'm not sure this is a recipe for success.

Orton's back again, he's wrestling some guy named Evan Bourne. I get the sense Evan's one of those guys who jumps around a lot, but isn't allowed to talk. More importantly, Ventura just invented the word persistency. This guy was a Governor, of a real state, not like the "Governor of Pain" or something. Listen Minnesota, Al Franken was strike two, one more of those and we're selling you to Canada. Predictably, Orton and his tattoos just destroyed that Bourne kid, good persistency out of Orton there.

They're making a sequel to John Cena's awful Marine movie. I'm not kidding. We're getting a look at an extended trailer. Even better, Cena's not even in the sequel, some other wrestler is. What a disaster, I'd rather get my ass kicked by a bar full of actual Marines than see that movie.

Time for the WWE women's division. They've got some of the ladies dressed up as pilgrims. When we get back from commercial, I assume we'll see the others dressed up as indians(yup). They should find the guy who thought this was a good idea, take him out behind the arena after the show and shoot him. I really don't know what to tell you about this, so I'll just say, I don't particularly care for fake breasts and 10 pounds of make-up, but if you do like strippers, you'd love this. So there.

Next up, our friends DX vs. the Hart Dynasty. DX comes out waiving around glow sticks like they're at a rave. Something has gone horribly wrong here. The Hart Dynasty looks like a new Hart Foundation, and I can't say I like their chances. They've got a girl with them though, so there's that. OK, we're past two hours now, I haven't seen anyone go through a table, I haven't seen anyone get hit with a chair, I'm even starting to wonder if they'll be destroying the Thanksgiving spread. What happened here?

After DX wins, they get a visit from Chris Jericho, who is one half of the unified tag team champions. Jericho used to be legitimately funny and entertaining, so, of course, they've got him playing Mr. serious guy. Honestly, he looks bored with himself. He still has his cool Canadian accent though, they can't take that away from him.

Next up is Batista. I would describe the initial crowd reaction as indifferent. He got roughly the same reaction I would get if I got past security and wandered out to the ring. He's talking about whatever it is he did last night at survivor series. Good for him? By the time he was done talking, I think he almost got someone in the arena to pay attention to him. Luckily for everyone, he got interrupted by Kane. That's one big, scary looking, dude right there. He says some tough guy things and chases ole Batista out of the ring. I think everyone's pretty grateful.

Next up, a tag team match. The first team is two black guys called (I'm not kidding) Cryme Tyme. Wow, just, wow. The other team, two guys called Legacy. If I had to pick a word to describe them, I think it would be oily. Yea, those guys look slippery. This seems to just be bathroom break filler time while they set up for the main event. Quick win for Legacy over (sigh) Cryme Tyme. I'm just glad that one's over.

Who is this Santino Marella guy? He was easily the best thing about this show. The writing for his segment wasn't any better than anyone else's, but he did a solid job with it. I think I actually cracked a smile.

The main event is up next, but I can't take it anymore. If my job was to torture terror suspects, I'd tape their eyes open like in Clockwork Orange and make them watch Raw. I'm done, I'm tapping out, WWE has beaten me.

Here's what I found out. This was some of the worst television I've ever seen. Maybe the great stuff they were doing in the 90's set the bar at a level they can't possibly get back to. Maybe steroid concerns forced them to choose between great entertainers and great athletes, instead of being able to turn great entertainers into great (or at least passable) athletes. Either way, I don't think 10 year old me or 15 year old me would have sat through the last three hours. So, am I the one that changed? I don't think so. What the hell happened to pro wrestling? I don't know, but I hope it never happens to me.