So Near So Darfur

Are you ready? Are you ready for the Phile, the web's most updated blog. So, have you been enjoying the Olympics? I couldn't believe China has ordered restaurants to remove dog from their menus for the duration of the Olympics. That’s not good news for some fast food restaurants like Dog O Bell . . . McDognalds . . . and Ken-Puppy Fried Chicken. There are some sports in the Olympics that there never used to be. Beach volleyball? How is that a sport? Beach volleyball used to be a few girls playing volleyball and the boys would say, "Hey — there's some girls playing volleyball . . . wanna go over there?" Then they break the swimming up into different strokes. Can’t you just swim as fast as you can? It turns out the Chinese faked part of the opening ceremonies. They made the fireworks look more lively. It’s the same technology they use for John McCain. According to rumors, John McCain and Barack Obama are both trying to get Angelina Jolie’s endorsement. John Edwards is just trying to get her number. Not such a great week for Tom Cruise. He has been replaced in a movie by Angelina Jolie. Producers decided to go after a star that men lust after . . . rather than a star that men lust after. John McCain has been accused of stealing policy ideas from Wikipedia. That’s ridiculous — everyone knows John McCain doesn’t know how to use the Internet. Barack Obama said he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone over 70 . . . and McCain said Obama was just pandering to the youth vote. The Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, wrote a letter from jail saying he’s angry that his cabin is now on display in a museum. Well, they think that’s what the letter says . . . everyone’s afraid to open it. Sources say Colin Powell is getting ready to endorse Barack Obama. Bad news for John McCain, but at his age, you’ve got to expect colon problems. Cindy McCain sprained her wrist. Doctors say it’s nothing serious — she probably did it cutting John McCain’s meat into little tiny pieces. Newly declassified documents show that Julia Childs, a famous chef, was a spy. I like to spy on things in my kitchen . . . then I interrogate them in my tummy.

THE PEVERETT PHILE TOP TEN LIST

From the home office in Groveland, Florida, here is this week's top ten list:
Top Ten Signs You're At a Bad Summer BBQ
10. The hamburger in your bun just winked at you
9. Instead of grill marks on the meat you see tire marks
8. It's Taliban vs. Al-Qaeda in the volleyball game
7. Lindsay Lohan won't stop complaining that she doesn't like meat
6. The host asks how "gamey" you like your squirrel
5. The invitation says "BYOBBQ"
4. The guy cooking asks you want a thigh, leg or arm
3. The "grillmaster" is using his own sweat to baste the baby back ribs
2. No one could afford fuel for the grill
And the number one sign you're at a bad summer BBQ
1. It's in February

R.I.P.

Bernie Mac: Are you seeing this America? This man's in a box in the ground!
Isaac Hayes: They say this cat Hayes is a dead mother- (Shut your mouth!) No, really, it was on the news (Then we can dig it!)

DOUCHE OF THE WEEK

He obviously went to the Brett Favre School for Public Speaking... US swim legend Mark Spitz won't be on hand in Beijing if Michael Phelps breaks his record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics -- because, he says, no one bothered to invite him.
Spitz said the International Olympic Committee, a US television network or FINA -- the international body that governs world swimming -- should have brought him to the Games this year, with Phelps making a go at his record. "I never got invited. You don't go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am," Spitz told AFP in Hong Kong. "I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost -- it is." Spitz became one of the most famous athletes in the world at the 1972 Munich Olympics, winning seven gold medals -- with seven world records -- in what many consider to be one of the greatest achievements in all of sport. Phelps is aiming to better that mark in Beijing, hoping to bring home eight golds. And Spitz, now 58 and grey and without his trademark moustache, cannot understand why he wasn't asked along to see the show. "They voted me one of the top five Olympians in all time. Some of them are dead. But they invited the other ones to go to the Olympics, but not me," he said. "Yes, I am a bit upset about it." Now a stockbroker and motivational speaker, Spitz also thinks he could have won eight golds himself in Munich if only he had had the chance. "I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too," he said. Spitz, whose brief stint in show business in the 1970s never quite matched his success in the pool, said he attended the Athens Olympics four years ago -- when Phelps also tried to break the record. "They did not once put my face on television," he recalled. "But as soon as the swimming was over, and Michael Phelps didn't break my record, every time I went to beach volley, they put my face on the volleyballs." Spitz said it would have been a great idea if he could be the one presenting the gold medals to Phelps, who has for years been candid about his ambition to eclipse the mark of seven golds. And Spitz thinks Phelps will succeed -- for one very good reason. "He's almost identical to me. He's a world-record holder in all these events, so he is dominating the events just like I did," Spitz said. "He reminds me of myself."

AUGUST 15TH IN HISTORY

1057
Macbeth is killed in the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. He had been king of Scotland for 17 years.
1935
Will Rogers, the most famous man in America, dies near Barrow, Alaska when his sea plane plunges into a lagoon. At the time, he and one-eyed aviator Wiley Post were surveying possible flight paths between Seattle and the Soviet Union.
1969
Woodstock begins on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York. Tickets are $18 for three days of counterculture musical acts, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Sha-Na-Na.
1994
International terrorist Carlos the Jackal is jailed in France. The assassin was turned over by the Sudanese government after he checked into a Khartoum hospital for varicose vein surgery on one of his testicles.

LOGAN AND I GO TO THE MOVIES

Star Wars: Clone Wars
Having alienated every actor with whom he's ever worked, George Lucas has now decided to make animated Star Wars movies. Clone Wars basically treads the same ground asthe animated shorts from Cartoon Network (called, um, "Clone Wars"), only with computer animation and fewer good ideas. Remember when Mel Brooks made Spaceballs? Well, George Lucas has decided to cut out the middle man and make his own Star Wars parodies. Not laughing? Too bad, because Clone Wars thinks it's hilarious. (Seriously—was anyone clamoring for more jokes in their Star Wars movies?) The only one laughing is Lucas. At you. Fan boys, your god has not only abandoned you, he's now going around telling everyone what idiots he always thought you were. If the rationalization for the prequels was that they were "meant for kids," then this piece of half-assery must be meant for the even slower kids. Anakin Skywalker's new padawan is a mall rat teen who gives things "cute" nicknames. "Skyguy"? "Snips"? "Stinky"? "R2-y"? Oh, you read that right. She calls R2-D2 "artooey." Feel free to go ahead and fall on your replica light saber any time now.
Oh, and another thing: Did you know Jabba the Hutt had a CROSS-DRESSING GAY UNCLE? Well, he does. And no, we're not joking. Yuck it up, Lucas. Joe Jackson didn't shit this hard on childhoods. From 1 to 10, I give it a 3, but Logan loved it.

CANNED LAUGHTER

Q: Why didn’t Barbie ever get pregnant? A: Because Ken came in a different box.

BALLIEST SPORTS CHEATS EVER

The Spanish Rig the Paralympics
One thing people would never sully with deception is the Paralympics (which is like the Special Olympics, where people with disabilities compete). Right? Who would stoop as low as that? The short answer: the Spanish. In an act of desperation so pathetic it inspires pity, some of the players on the Spaniards' gold medal-winning Paralympic basketball team turned out not be disabled at all. Yes, that "South Park" episode and that Johnny Knoxville movie both turned out to be based on a true story.
Undercover journalist, Carlos Ribagorda, blew the lid off the scandal. You may assume that only one or two of the overall squad was ineligible, but that would be underestimating the desperation of the Spanish. A whopping 10 of the 12 members of the basketball squad had no mental difficulty. They were just athletes that sucked enough to not make it into the Olympic team. Did itwork? The Spaniards were disqualified from the basketball competition and stripped of their title. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing in other Paralympic events, and we're going to accept that the rest of them were disabled. The alternative, which is that most of their athletes were normal and yet only finished third overall, is too sad to contemplate.

WHO'S WATCHING THE WATCHMEN?

One of the trickiest aspects of a Watchmen movie is Rorschach's secret identity. In the book, you're kept guessing as to who is under that shifting mask -- and when you find out who's really under it halfway through, it's a nice little shocker. He's not the badass you expect, for one, nor is he a stranger. The real Rorschach has been there all along.
In a fantasy world, the casting could have remained secret, making it one hell of a surprise when his mask is taken away. But this is the real world of movie casting and marketing, and so a name and face has to be attached ... and really, it's just another reminder you should read the book so you can enjoy the surprises firsthand. Even so, a glimpse of the man under the mask has surfaced on JoBlo, who snagged a screencap from G4. Apparently, G4 was busy showing the people at home all the coolness of Watchmen -- and one of the things they revealed was Jackie Earle Haley without his face. For devotees of the book, it should be reassuring, especially as I heard people wondering aloud how Zack Snyder planned to "fix" the bald Haley. (Count me impressed on the greasy detail of his clothes.) Watchmen opens March 6th, 2009.

There you go, phans, another entry of the Phile. The next entry will be posted next Thursday. Yes, it's back on Thursdays! I want to hit 5000 views by Thanksgiving, so please spread the word, not the turd. Until then... I broke a thousand hearts, before I met you, I'll break a thousand more baby, before I am through, I wanna be yours pretty baby, yours and yours alone, I'm here to tell ya honey, that I'm bad to the bone
Bad to the bone, B-B-B-Bad, B-B-B-Bad, B-B-B-Bad, Bad to the bone.