Written by Lars Hancock

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Hello sports fans, this is Lester Sessions filling in for Lars.

Right now our friend Lars is in Haiti, a country so poor that when its basketball team is beating the team from Darfur, the Darfur crowd chants “that’s alright, that’s OK, you’re going to work for us someday”.  Said another way, if you lived in a refrigerator box insulated by toilet paper and held together with scratch-n-sniff stickers the good people of Haiti would view it the way Willis and Arnold viewed the Drummond residence.  Haiti is poor, it’s destitute, it’s a mess.

But Lars and his crew, along with countless others, are trying to change that.  They believe that time, money, and effort can provide a foundation of hope for Haiti that will one day lead to prosperity. 

They are fighting the good fight and I wish them all the best, but I worry for them.  As Red (that would be Morgan Freeman’s character) from The Shawshank Redemption said “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Exhibit A in supporting Red’s thesis:  Your Cleveland Browns. 

Let’s take a look at the hope we’ve had for the Browns through the lenses of time, money, and effort.

It’s been 17,000+ days since the Browns were champions.  Don't get lulled into a false sense of happiness because the 17 reminds you of Brian Sipe.  Our great depression is three times longer than The Great Depression.  The entire world went broke, then fought a war, then recovered in one third of the time since the Browns last won a championship.  The Browns have had plenty of time.

If you were hungry would you give $50 dollars to a billionaire for a dog crap sandwich on rye?  Of course you wouldn’t.  But it’s a totally different story of the rye is brown and orange.  What’s more disgusting, the crap sandwich or the fact that we would pay for it?  Either way you need a large bottle of Pepto.  The Browns are owned by a billionaire.  He has multiple billions of dollars. And we keep giving him more.  Billions and billions and billions of dollars is more than enough to fix this problem.  So the Browns don’t have a money problem.

Have you ever been at a Browns game and as you watch yet another three-and-out it hits you that you put significantly more effort into your tailgating that morning than the Browns have put into the running game.  Or passing game.  Or special teams (save Josh Cribbs) for that matter.  Of course you have.  So what do you do?  You take some of the extra time you have at the game (thanks NFL for the ridiculously long TV timeouts) and give some of your money to the billionaire so you can get drunk to the point where you won’t remember the effort needed to climb the W. 3^rd Street hill after watching the Browns lose another game which you hoped they would win a mere 3 hours before that time.

You’re probably wondering why all the negativity from a Browns fan [pause for laughter]?  But this is no laughing matter.  Luckily I have a solution.  Browns fans must unite together like Dead Head wannabes at a Phish concert. And we’ll stick it to the Browns.  I call for a total boycott of for the home opener this year.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, goes to the game, parks in the parking lots, or buys gear from the Browns.  We’ll show them what we can do with our time and effort.  And how we can deny them of our money. 

We’ll make signs and we’ll march.  And we’ll chant slogans – “Cleveland Browns must learn to play, make the playoffs or we don’t pay!”  As we march through the city and our critical mass grows we’ll be a uniting force for the entire city.  Imagine the scene as the mob grows so big that it’s possible a West Sider may actually meet an East Sider.  We could be a force that not only changes the Browns, but changes the entire city!

Who am I kidding?  Our only hope this year is that Lars comes back with some voodoo magic and goes Pedro Cerrano on our opponents.

Questions?  Who has questions?

Am I an abomination for not being obsessed with FB? I do have a professional FB, do very little personally, use the net for news, research, e-mail, & TCF mostly… -pod

Hey pod, do you have a pitchfork? If not, get one.  Keep it nearby so that anytime you are tempted to log into FB you can simply gouge yourself in the forehead with the pitchfork because that is a much more pleasant experience.  Do you really need to know that Mike, the kid you sat next to in high school chemistry and who you have not talked to since you convinced him to give you $5 if you pretended to have manganese in your eye and had to use the eyewash station, had chicken paprikash for dinner and although it was good he still can’t make it as good as his mother makes it?  If the answer is yes I suggest changing the target of your self inflicted pitchfork wound to your carotid artery.   And Mike, stop it.  Nobody cares.

Lars, why do Chinese restaurants feel the need to put soggy broccoli in with my General Tso's chicken? Really they're just cheating me out of 3 pieces of chicken. Some ole bullshit. –Cerebral_Downtime

In 1642 the Ming dynasty teetered on the edge of defeat at the hands of Quin Lo Chaun and his opposition forces which originated in what is modern day Mongolia.  Ki Lip Tso of the Ming army was, at this time, what would be the equivalent of a Captain in the United Sates armed forces.  Captain Tso was the senior officer in charge of a rag tag group of men who were old, tired, and beat down from years of fighting.  They were also the last line of defense between the raiders lead by Quin Lo Chaun and the seat of the Ming Dynasty.

Tso’s men were out numbered, out gunned, and prepared to die.  But Tso would have nothing of it.  He knew he had about a week to prepare for the battle.  In addition to engineering defensive positions and increasing his armament with the natural resources in the area, Tso realized that one key to victory would be the health of his men.  He ordered them to work hard during the day but to get plenty of sleep at night.  Nutrition was a major challenge.  The only thing nature had to offer was Mein Chaw which was an indigenous plant which produced a sub par tasting floret.  But what it lacked in taste it made up for in instant energy for all who consumed it.  Legend has it that the powers of Mein Chaw inspired the Popeye character.

When Quin Lo Chaun attacked Tso’s men they were the bigger, faster, stronger army.  But they were caught off guard by the ferocity of Tso’s defense.  Tso and his men were victorious and the Ming dynasty continued its dominance in the region for decades to come.

The victory propelled Tso through the ranks of the Ming army where he eventually became a general.  Upon his death a holiday was commissioned to commemorate Tso and the battle against Quin Lo Chaun.  Over the years, with no definitive record of its origins, the dish General Tso’s Chicken became a traditional meal at this holiday.  It consisted of chicken and Mein Chaw.  As the years went on and Mein Chaw became less available to the masses the people of China substituted broccoli for the Mein Chaw.  The broccoli was overcooked and soggy to represent the Mein Chaw of the original recipe.

That tradition has made its way over the Pacific and is alive and well with us today.  Whenever I order General Tso’s Chicken I am always reminded of the great victory which was led by such a great man.

Did Ronnie Reagan and The Dream Team join forces to cripple the USSR? –e0y2e3

Yes.  They used a time machine to go from 1992 back to 1989 to bring and end to the Soviet Union.  I will now use said time machine to go forward in time to next week to tell Lars welcome back, you were missed.

This has been Lester Sessions filling in for Lars Hancock.