Lets Play Ball

The NFL Playboy Association & the Owners Association announced a new collective bargaining deal today ending a six month long clusterfuck, which was threatening to restore Sundays and Mondays to American families. The agreement was 6000 pages long and neither side claimed full knowledge of it but seem to have signed it just because ABC was threatening to do Desperate Housewives re-run on Sundays. Speaking on the occasion, NFL commissioner Goger Roodell said “In order to repay the fans for their unflinching support and commitment to the game, all teams will observe “5 dollar Chalupa” day on opening day of theseason.On this day, fans will be able to enjoy a Chalupa for $8 and roar in support of their favorite team.” Bisele Gundchen, spokesperson for the NFL Playboy Association said ” Nothing excites me more than seeing athletic and muscular men in compromising positions. Sundays are back Baby!! “

Experts at Touchdown Fetish magazine have identified the following as the most important changes to the game.

• Coaches who die during the Gatorade Bath will be not be eligible for workers compensation.
• Rookies under the age of 21 or with a GPA over 3.6 will be automatically suspended for the season.
• In order to help the NFL reduce its ecological footprint, the environmentally conscious Bay Area teams Raiders and Niners have pledged not to score during the entire season.
• As a part of our “NFL cares” initiative, tailgating parties will be made strictly vegan.
• It is now mandatory for players to sanitize their hands with Gem-X Aloe Hand Sanitizer  prior to every snap.
• There is a 25% reduction in all fines and penalties if you like NFL on Facebook.
• Non-white players appearing in a game in the State of Arizona are likely be shot in their belly buttons.
• Quarterbacks will be required to wear helmets even when they are having sex and wear condoms even when they are playing.
• Meaningless numbers on player jerseys will be replaced with last four digits of their Social and their Mother’s maiden name.
• Every fantasy team will have at least one Victoria Secret Model.
• Players are allowed only 3 F bombs per minute and anyone who violates the rule will be fucking punished.
• Five touchdowns or two wardrobe malfunctions are guaranteed in every Super Bowl until 2018.
• Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will accept that he is an asshole on national TV.
• Players are allowed to tweet lewd photos only with NFL logo.
• Players with fake birth certificates will be banned for life and trained to run for President of America.
• Anyone carrying reports on Brett Favre will be waterboarded.

Tim Tombrowski, a die-hard Steelers fan  and season ticket holder exclaimed “I am indebted to the league and to the Steelers. To show gratitude, I will clean up the entire 20F section in Heinz Field with my terrible towel after every home game. Go Steelers!!”. Conservative voice Pat Buchanan touched on a very important and often neglected aspect of the game  “Everyone expects this to be a fun season but lets pause for a moment and pray for the safety, security and virginity of the cheerleaders in the game.”

​God Bless Football and God Bless America.

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An untimely pain in the butt

Words(especially mine) do not do justice to the beauty of the beaches and the colors of the twilight sky in Maui. The beaches are not as cold as the ones in Northern California.  I recommend the beach resorts in Western Maui just because there is a running trail quite close to the beach with an uninterrupted view of the ocean and the running is quite exceptional.

Just when things felt perfect, Mr. Murphy had to play his cards. After two days, for the first time in seven years, I picked up an injury. I pulled my gluteus maximus( buttocks in pure English) not while running but while putting the little one in the stroller.  I had to haul myself to the spa (maiden appearance at the spa) in the resort for a deep tissue massage. Gentlemen, be very careful if you ever have to enter a spa. There is an unnerving tranquility about the place and you are treated very respectfully as if someone is going to illegally harvest your kidneys and feed it to the koi fish.

The massage therapist at the spa was straight out of Haight and Ashbury – did not own a microwave or cellphone, thought Food Inc was the best movie ever made and does not drink Coke or Pepsi in spite of being an Iowan – a self-proclaimed old fashion hippie. The best part of the session was there were no serious complications. But I was advised against snorkelling or scuba diving – one of which I was planning to do. The irony of the situation was that I had just begun reading Christopher McDougall’s bestseller – “Born to Run”, a book that talks about the exceptional running abilities of a tribe in Mexico and how humans were born to run.

I soon realized that there is justice in this world. Maui was experiencing the worst high tide in 16 years and no snorkelling/scuba tours went out. Thank you, Al Gore for making the oceans spill over.

Flying High

You would normally expect someone flying to Maui for a vacation to be overjoyed but I was going through an assortment of fear and excitement. This was my ten month old daughter T’s first flight. TSA played their part to add to the fear factor by re-checking our luggage twice as they identified T’s butt wipes and toy drums as a major security hazard. When we finally arrived at the boarding gate huffing and puffing, we were keeping a 747 full of passengers( wildly exaggerated) away from their vacation.  I could just smell the disapproval of my fellow passengers walking along the aisles of the plane.

We bought a separate ticket for T. So she was fully excited to be seated as an equal along with everyone else.   She even paid full attention to the safety procedures demonstration. The air hostess were impressed. We got her ready for takeoff. Parenting Tip:  We used the CARES harness instead of a car seat in the plane and it worked like magic. Although, a separate seat was an overkill on this half-empty plane.

I am almost always asleep or drunk during takeoff. But this time, I was wide awake as I was preparing to hear that loud wail from T. I was beginning to rehearse the Gayatri Mantra hoping for divine intervention. But the wail never came. She aced the take off like a veteran.

Rest of the flight was fortunately eventless. T continued to be the chic- magnate. All the women in the flight wanted a piece of her when she was on walks with daddy. I guess that’s my perception.

Talking about perception, there were quite a few babies on board with us. I was left wondering where did they all come from? Where they always there in all my previous travels too? Am I acknowledging them now because I have one too? It is really true when that we see what we want to see.

Besides babies, I saw a lot of e-readers. Expectedly, I saw a few iPads but I also saw a equal number of kindles and other tablets . The iPod seems to have died. 7-8 years ago, you might get into a plane without a ticket but not without an iPod. RIP, the game changer!!

Maui is so unlike United States in many ways. The airport itself is very uncomplicated and in some ways reminded me of the old Bangalore airport. Sugarcane juice and tender coconut was being sold along the roadside. The first dose of  being a part of United States hit me when I saw a Safeway and this ruined five-eighth’s of my vacation.  Travel Tip: if you have booked a car through Alamo, change your booking now. Horrible staff! and the fleet is even worse.