A Totally Honest Review of The Office book by Andy Greene

 What I learned from The Office book:

1. Steve Carrell is a GAWD. Don’t ever cross this saint or he’ll kill you with kindness. He once rode a bicycle with a flat tire into the Grand Canyon to rescue an ailing Golden Retriever puppy. His tears are made of lemonade. When life gives him lemons, he cries. 

2. Greg Daniels is a TV savant who worked on many of your favorite shows and seems like a normal comedic genius.

3. There’s a bunch of characters on The Office that you don’t remember and might not even recognize if they walked up to you at the mall and told you they were on The Office and handed you a stapler (to confirm that they were, in fact, on The Office cuz everyone knows all the actors from the show carry around a stapler at all times – Rainn Wilson even has one of those trench coats that drug dealers have but when he opens it it’s staplers and mini staplers and tape and paper clips and Gorilla Glue and all the standard fare from the workplace) – you wouldn’t believe them and would report them to the sitcom authorities. There are too many characters on The Office. 

4. No one was famous before the show and now everyone is famous from the show – John Krasinski and Steve Carrell win the race to most famous though.

5. Speaking of John Krasinski, he’s a real down-to-earth dude who used to play video games and hang out and the crew thought he was nice and approachable. Some may call him a young Steve Carrell but with more bangs and guffaws. 

6. Michael Scott was irreplaceable – he was Jordan to The Office’s Chicago Bulls. Creed was Phil Jackson. Dwight was Pippen. Jim was Steve Kerr. Pam was Steve Kerr’s wife. Andy was Toni Kukoc. Phyllis was a cheerleader.

7. The show is tied to reality TV – the camera guys came from Survivor. The Office is like Survivor but Jeff Probst is the fax machine and no one ever leaves the show and there’s no helicopter rides and the only island is in the kitchen.

8. The Office is the best show ever and you become a cooler person having watched the entire series multiple times (at least according to The Office fan cults). 

A Totally Honest Review of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

First I’m gonna guess the cast (or at least just cast the show myself) - I haven’t looked it up, I swear.

Eleanor - Emma Stone Theodora - Amanda Seyfried Luke - Chris Hemsworth Doctor - Bradley Whitford

Mrs. Montague - Meryl Streep Arthur - Willem Dafoe

Alright I just looked it up and it’s a bunch of random people I’ve never heard of, oh and Carla Gugino. 

That was a fun exercise - anyway, I just finished this book and it was pretty good - a solid page-turner. It’s tough to get scared by a book though cuz you can just put it down and look out the window or go grab some string cheese, which is a definitively unscary treat. I think the best way to watch a horror movie is in theaters cuz then you’re all in on the experience and it’s dark in the theater and just a good environment for surprise scares and sudden loud noises and you can throw your popcorn all over the row in front of you and blame it on being startled. You gotta concentrate real hard on a book if you wanna get scared by it or you could read it in an abandoned Albertsons at midnight. 

I also enjoyed reading a book that was published before my parents were born - in 1959. It’s interesting to see how people talked and wrote differently in another time - don’t get confused when they say things are gay. It feels like you’re reading a time capsule that was discovered, buried beneath a pile of Twilight fan fiction in a Borders Books (just googled it and turns out Borders closed its business in 2011 - guess they went the way of the Dodo book...is that what Doctors Without Borders is all wrapped up about?) 

Good book, fun read, appropriate holiday timing.

Grade: A-

Fantasy Football Wrap-up #2

 Oh Preston, my Preston

Why hast thou drop thy hammer on thy league like a mighty oaf laying waste to, beset upon, beside thou over a tender turkey leg on the annual Givingthanks? 

Who shall, nay might take it upon thy being to step up to the plate, take a few good hacks and knock good sir Preston off thy podium?

Be it Lady Miss Pink Panther, led into battle by young sir Kyle(r) of the Allen, Texas Murrays, wielder of dual-bladed battle axe, legs of a centaur, arm of an ox and mind of a brilliant ox.

Be it gentleman Hawkeye, keeper of Derrick of Henry, roller of Tide, bender of limb of defender and signer of monster contract extension.

Be it Purple Eater of Man, thine tight end drawn to the evil forces of reality television, polluter of innocent mind, provider of fortune for sirs Probst and Seacrest.

Or perhaps be it Fantasy Football Team, thine quarterback a champion of Super proportions, saint Patrick, surely thy Eagles and Jets wish young saint Patrick would doth thou green.

The remainder of the league watches on from thou’s abodes, twiddling thy thumbs and dreaming of a championship trophy on thy mantle, the whistle of the teapot bringing them back to thy present moment, before thou realizes thou hast no more tea bags, but Safeway awaits, aisles of tea bags of all kind populating thy shelves, decaf too. 

Perry the Pig

Perry’s favorite sport was football. His mom and dad always told him that they used the skin of his pig peers to make the football but that couldn’t deter his love of the game. 

“Red 71! Bald eagle! Blink 182!” Perry’s parents would hear him yelling quarterback quips in his room (which his mom liked to refer as “a bit of a pigsty”). 

Perry even went out for the school football team at Crusader High but lost the starting quarterback competition to Dale Chapman. Perry got the last laugh, though, cuz he got Dale’s girl - Kylie Dakota - the lead cheerleader for the Cheetahs. When Kylie laid eyes on Perry at the school field trip to the local farm, it was all over for poor Dale, left clawing at his ex’s elbow figuratively and literally for a bit. When the coaches told Perry to “Be the ball”, he knew what they meant more than anyone else on that field.

His favorite player was Tom Brady (even though he took the air out of some of his friends and almost murdered them). One time, he was at a New England Patriots game with his mom and dad, wandering around the bowels of the stadium when a mysterious hooded but sleeveless figure snatched him into the shadows. Coach Belichick wrestled Perry to the ground and tossed him into a state of the art Football Making Machine. 

The machine whirred and bumped along, clunking and kerchunking as various numbers and digital codes flashed across the screen in bright colors. Suddenly, a slightly deflated football was spat out as Belichick smiled just in the corner of his mouth, satisfied with his work here. Perry had been Wilson-ized.

The Patriots were hosting the Steelers and Tom Brady was searching through the locker room for his favorite ball when Coach Belichick walked in, holding a beautiful new football. They nodded at each other, the coach pitching the ball to his quarterback like a loaf of bread. 

Perry was gonna get to experience being in an NFL kickoff - he was ready for some football.

Fantasy Football Wrap-up

 Tenacious D posts another monster week despite a lawsuit from Jack Black and Kyle Gass waiting in the wings. Moose gets off the snide (can a moose do that?) while Hawkeyes get the unlucky 13. Pink Panthers win as Kyler Murray and Christian Kirk dominate the Cowboys Monday night while a distraught Jerry Jones purchases yet another yacht in protest during his annual Yachtoberfest. Matt continues to be the best team with a tight end who had a Bachelor-style reality TV show (honorable mention to the truTV cult hit Just Jonnu’ing, which came in third in the network ratings to Impractical Jokers and Practical Serious People.) FFT gets the low score despite Patrick Mahomes’s stellar State Farm commercial work (cut to Chris Paul staring forlornly at a sunset-reflected pond). Commish gets a 7 but can take solace in Clyde Edwards-Helaire being three of the best players in the league. Viking Man scores low as he skips rocks across a sunset-reflected pond, missing Alvin Kamara on his bye week. WHAMMY takes a lowly 5 but still prides himself on being the only Anchorman-based team name. Angels & Outlaws brings up the rear but wins most likely to share a name with a Netflix original.