Written by Lars Hancock

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Attention loyal readers of Out of Bounds who happen also to be members of Al Qaeda or any similar terrorist organization:

Please, whatever you do, do NOT attack the lovely city of Miami.

You see, to us infidels, Miami is our cultural, economic, and societal heart. Everything we value in our blasphemous culture is embodied in Miami, and should you, say, detonate a large thermonuclear device within its city limits, you would deal a severe blow to us from which we would never recover. Losing the nation’s finest citizens, all of whom live in Miami, leaders universally loved and respected such as LeBron James, Ozzie Guillen, and, um, er, Gloria Estephan, would cripple our culture beyond repair. I’m pretty sure should you destroy Miami that Zionists and infidels worldwide would surrender to you, and adopt shia law.

So please, if you must attack, anywhere but Miami.

Oh, and there is no reason to read the rest of this column. It is filled with blasphemy against Allah that would only encourage you to attack Miami, may Allah praise it. So again thank you for sparing the veritable soul of the infidel, Miami.

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So I was watching opening night, which was actually the third game of the season, and bore witness to the giant glob of radioactive pigeon shit in which the Miami Marlins play. The obscene tackiness of the whole place was nauseating, and made me hate the vile city and denizens of Miami more than I already did, a feat I thought to be impossible. From the moment where Ubaldo Jiminez threw out the first pitch sitting next to that serpent Jeffery Loria (or was it Muhammad Ali, I couldn’t tell from the velocity and accuracy on the pitch) to the moment in the bottom of the 4^th where most of the fans left the game to the end of the broadcast, I was overwhelmed with the toxicity of Miami, Miami culture, and Miami fans.

Don’t get me wrong, Miami has made some excellent comtributions to society, all tightly clustered in the mid to late 80s.  There was Scarface, using the filth that pervades that town as a backdrop to one of the most brilliantly violent films of all time. And there was Miami Vice, which used the filth that pervades that town as a backdrop to one of the most brilliantly violent TV series of all time. And there was Will Smith’s Miami, which is awesome only because Smith is from Philly.

But outside of inspiring Zubas, teal, white jackets, and other fashion abortions that have long since been retired, Miami is a sinking pit of a city full of shallow immoral and unloyal individuals that is a giant zit on the ass of society. Everything that the Marlins’ stadium is represents them, and everything that it is is an anathema to baseball, society at large, and my eyesight.

Speaking of Opening Day, how about those Indians? At time of press Masterson has gone 8 solid innings, only throwing 99 pitches and striking out 10. I’m sure Wedge, er, Hargrove, er, Acta has him coming in for the ninth instead of his closer-in-name-only Jose Mesa, er, Joe Borowski, er, Chris Perez, who hasn’t been effective since Alan Hale (may Allah praise him) was alive. Because “Pure Rage” was the fan-coined nickname of what they felt seeing him come out of the bullpen strictly to ascribe to a specific formula. No, our manager wouldn’t do that. And even if he manages to blow this lead, the rest of the pen is so solid that they could hold the Jays scoreless at least 15 innings. And the offense is good enough to get runs in more than just one inning tonight, right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure this one is in the bag.

Either that or it’s going to be a long season.

Anyway, off to the questions.

Why is it in Chipotle a) the damn company feels compelled to offer no seating and b) people waiting in line BEHIND YOU feel entitled to split the group up and reserve seats before their food is ready? -jb

Mmm… Chipotle…

If you ever want to teach your kids the mathematical concepts of permutations and combinations, take them to Chipotle, or Taco Bell, or any traditional formulaic Mexican restaurant. You have two or three types of meat, two types of beans, rice, two or three types of salsa, and two to three presentation techniques (taco, burrito, salad, etc.). Out of that simple and easy to plan formula, you get a menu with hundreds of delicious options.

Chipotle has taken all the mystery out of this for the consumer by custom assembling the mass produced components in front of you. When they were able to deploy the mass customization model, they improved the efficiency of their supply chain and of their production line. The amount of people they can feed in an hour is enormous, and they want to cram as many burritos into the ever-widening ass of America as they can.

If you had the expectation of sitting there, you would likely leave when you realized you weren’t able to sit. This would limit the number of meals they could serve by the number of seats they had, and necessitate Chipotles the size of Jacobs Field (yeah, you heard me right) in order to seat everyone they could feed in a sitting. What a horrible waste of resources to build something that big just for seats. No, instead, they intentionally limit the number of seats to something around the Cavs’ projected win total with a roster featuring Donald Sloan, Anthony Parker, Omri Cassipi, Luke Walton, Lester Hudson, Samardo Samuels, Manny Harris, Antawn Jamison et al, intentionally to discourage you to get your order to go. Less labor, more dollars per square foot, more front end sales. Brilliant.

As for people splitting up their party to reserve seats, are you hating the fact they are smarter than you, or that they have friends who will dine with them, and thus reserve seats? Maybe it’s your deodorant. Limited resources mean only the strong survive. It’s kind of their version of the Hunger Games.

You used the phrase "right as rain' in your column this week.  The only other person who uses that is the Oracle from The Matrix.  Have you been to see her recently?  What did she say?  If you have not seen her yet, what do you think she would tell you?  Are you, indeed, The One?

PS - ask her if the Browns will ever win the SB.. –Love Child of Shawn Kemp

The saying may be an anachronism in today’s times, which I guess underscores the undeniable fact that I’m old. It’s funny how many old sayings which have absolutely no relevance on today’s world yet still persist as adages. “Having an axe to grind” refers to an old story by Ben Franklin, of all people, in which a person had a duplicitous motive in befriend a professional axe grinder, namely, that he needed his axe sharpened and wanted him to do it for free. How the hell is that relevant in today’s society? “Jumping on the bandwagon” – back in the days of P.T. Barnum, the circus has a specific wagon that contained the band, and he paraded it through town to attract attention. When is the last time you ever saw a bandwagon (okay, for me it was tonight, there was a band on top of a bus driving through town. But I live in Austin, and people are weird here. But I did take notice…)? Politicians of the day noticed the attention and went through town on a bandwagon, and jumping on it meant you were supporting them, an act today which would get you a nice beatdown by the Secret Service. Yet we still use the term for that douchebag neighbor who wears every colors but brown and orange during the football season, depending on the standings.

In order to answer your question, though, I reached out to my friend Tommy, who is an Oracle dba, and thereby as close to “the Oracle” as anyone I know. I hadn’t talked to him recently, but he’s doing well. Wife, two and a half of kids, dog, and a hamster. He’s glad you asked about him. His answer on the Browns, and I quote: “three people just won mega millions, so anything is possible.” Nothing you could go all Back to the Future 2 on to make money, but hey, anything’s possible, right?

By the way, Back to the Future 2 was a horrible movie. Not quite as masturbatory and melodramatic as any of the Matrix series, more just a banal pile of played tripe. And if I was a character from a movie, I’d probably fancy myself to be The Stranger from High Plains Drifter, but more honestly say I’m Gilbert from Revenge of the Nerds, or something like that.

What the fuck is up with "scientology"?

Scientology is exactly why April Fools Day sucks balls.

To me, Scientology was a Trading Places type of bet between L. Ron Hubbard and some unknown science fiction writer that L. Ron could create a complete religion from a pile of completely unbelievable bullshit, and get the elite of Hollywood to follow it. And L. Ron won his dollar, oh boy did he.

I’m not going to even get into the inane things Scientology believes – South Park did a better job on them than I could ever in the space allotted to me here. In order to believe that, you need to be incredibly weak of mind, unable to ask critical questions, willing to follow the crowd anywhere like a lemming on meth, and yearning to belong and have a modicum of human contact. In other words, Hollywood!

Scientology is a hilarious joke, well, it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so brutal and exploitative. Like throwing a cherry bomb down the toilet, toilet papering trees, or covering the toilet with saran wrap. Funny at first, but a needless mess afterward.

If you're a Scientologist and you’re offended by this, good. Your “religion” is stupid and fabricated.

This to me is why starfuckers get under my skin. Why do you watch the Oscars as vapid stars glad hand each other over their accomplishments in vapidity? Why do you care who they screw, or if they are eating dinner at the table next to you? They’re incredibly vain, shallow, and stupid people. They believe shit like Scientology! Why do you idolize them? Ugh.

Could we not retire the national debt by legalizing marijuana, regulating, and taxing it? My uncle wants to pay his fair share. -pod

Yes, we could.

By legalizing a harmless drug with an antiquated cultural stigma on it, we could solve a number of the problems in this nation, and in other nations. We could remove the enforcement of marijuana laws, freeing up cops to keep the city safe, eliminating a whole set of “criminals” from our jails who we have to house, feed, massage, provide cable TV, and generally allow to live better than 98% of the world. We would reduce demand for harder drugs, thereby reducing the profit there and correspondingly the number criminals associated with them. We could make the Detroit Lions’ 2011 draft look good.

By drawing pot out of the hands of criminals and into those of legitimate businessmen, you would transfer the billions of dollars of revenue accordingly, and allow for the taxing of it. Mexican drug cartels would lose power and money, and US street gangs would find a similar loss. Less bad people with money is always good – just think of the NFL without Dan Snyder or Jerry Jones.

The real question is: why don’t they legalize it? And there is no good answer other than no politician has the balls to do such.

They are afraid of the vocal minorities of loudmouthed social conservatives who would profess legalization of pot as a de facto endorsement of drugs to children, a leap of logic so broad that Evel Knievel wouldn’t even be so stupid to try it in his day. Fact is, the original push to make marijuana illegal was fueled by our old friend racism, as a way of discouraging Mexican communities in America, and the maintenance of the illegality is akin to keeping a Jim Crow law on the books because it “does society good”.

Barry O (the president, not the wrestler) used to blaze quite a bit, and he doesn’t have the stones to push for legalization (or anything else for that matter). Clinton wouldn’t even admit to smoking. Bush did coke, which shows why coke should remain illegal. I just wish one of the feckless stuffed shirts that we elect to run this nation were as wise as you pod.

Pod’s uncle for President!

 

Please email questions to lars.hancock@yahoo.com , or DM them to me in the forae to LarsHancock.

 

Wikipedia: Miami ( or ) is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625. →