Sports for the Summer

Marci is a kick ass actress who I met during a writing class. She performed a monologue of mine and killed it. She is also a fantastic writer (Yay for women writers!). Here is her latest work:

Seattle Seahawks: Prosperity or Punchline?

by

Marci Noble

Contributor Written on May 31, 2010

Three guys walk into a bar: a USC fan, a Jets fan, and a Seahawks fan.

“Pete Carroll is the greatest coach since Vince Lombardi!” the USC fan exclaims.

“Seeing as my team was 6-10 the year we had him as head coach, I’d say he’s closer to Lane Kiffin than Lombardi,” moans the Jets fan.

The Seahawks fan just sits there. He knows a year from now the argument will settle itself, but for now has no idea how to contribute.

The USC fan is right that on the collegiate level Pete Carroll set the bar for head coaches across the nation. As the Jets fan pointed out, though, his time in the NFL was not nearly so romantic.

The Seahawks fan wants desperately to shout that Pete Carroll is the greatest thing to happen to football and the Seahawks are going to prove it this year as they make a run for the Super Bowl.

But he can’t.

So should he be the martyr? Should he whine about how Carroll can’t hack it in the NFL and how the Seahawks are doomed to finish below even the Rams?

He can’t bring himself to do that either.

He listens as his buddies argue over Carroll’s credibility and tries to find an angle to take on the subject.

He knows Carroll has spent the past month rotating potentials through his new regime, trying to foster a competitive spirit and find the right formula for a successful team. The Seahawks fan has watched as Carroll spent monumental sums of money for an untried former third string quarterback and mercilessly cut the untried third string quarterback he already had.

He’s watched as Carroll scoured the league for unsigned players selecting many only to cut them a couple weeks later.

He’s let himself get excited about new Seahawks like Lendale White, only to have his hopes dashed by a possible four game suspension and then see him cut altogether.

He’s been excited about superstar Leon Washington, but worries that Washington won’t be able to quite bounce back from such a gnarly injury.

He reveled in the draft selections, but was disappointed to hear that Golden Tate, though enthusiastic, isn’t running the right routes on plays.

Every argument he comes up with seems to have an easily spotted hole.

So what should he say?

He knows the NFC West is weaker than ever.

The Cardinals lost their starting quarterback and butchered the team that made it to the Super Bowl two years ago. The Rams are still the Rams. The ‘Niners biggest headline lately refers to a retired wide receiver’s likeness being prepared for the NFL Hall of Fame.

So it’s not far fetched to conclude that the Seahawks will win the NFC West this year.

But, is it worth mentioning? The Seahawks fan fears that saying so will only garner taunts about a weak schedule and a weak division. And, it would be hard to prove otherwise.

So he just sits there as his friends exchange blows, concentrating on his beer, afraid to make a definitive statement about the team he loves so much. So much is different. There’s so much to be unsure of.

The Seahawks fan knows that the three guys joke is destined to have a punch-line no matter what side he takes. He just hopes the punch-line doesn’t turn out to be the 2010 season.

14 Comments

"I wouldnt worry about Tate, hes a rookie and hes learning not only a new playbook but also a new wr spot. Its only natural that he will run some wrong routes on a few plays. People forget that even running the wrong route he still caught and made plays with the ball.
No worries here".

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"Running the wrong routes in OTA's is nothing to get worried over, theres still months for him to learn the playbook and get ready for the season lol"

Guilty Pleasure: Chapter 1

Warning: This story is not for the faint of heart. Viewers must possess a strong imagination, an even stronger stomach, and a willingness to suspend not just belief, but good taste. If you are like me, you have heard or seen the Twilight phenomenon. You have either a) ignored it completely b) tried to understand it but eventually gave up in frustration c) read some parts of the book or watched a bit of the movie and was a little interested, d) have read every thing Stephanie Meyer has written, but only in a book store or library where you knew no one, or e) all of the above, in chronological order. If you chose e, or just like a good summer vampire story, read on. I'm hoping this will get picked up by Stephanie Meyer for her next series of books, in which I'll be her writing assistant and get introduced to her agent as "the up and coming hot shot writer who needs a book deal immediately".


Guilty Pleasure: Chapter 1

"Morning, birthday girl!" Grandpa Charlie beamed as I made my down the stairs. He had a miniature feast in the kitchen. I suspected Sue was involved, as all the food was in plastic containers and could get packed away easily. I sighed quietly as Grandpa passed me a banana. The fruit wasn't terrible, and honestly it was better than anything else. I slowly made my way to the blender. Some human food, like smoothies or milkshakes weren't so bad. At least I could pretend the texture in my mouth was blood. Father always said appearances were the most important thing.

It was pretty easy to keep up appearances with the humans. First, we were in Forks, Washington, a place that seemed to be allergic to the sun. Secondly, the Cullens were the masters of secret keepers. I should know, as I was currently the biggest one. Only a select handful of humans knew I even existed. Father and Grandpa Carlisle home schooled me every day. Since Vampire-human hybrids achieve full maturity in seven years, it would have looked odd to see a grown girl walking into a second grade classroom. Not to mention disturbing when she pulled out a mountain lion carcass from her lunch pail.
As I took a sip of a blood orange and banana smoothie, I heard the soft click of a digital camera. I pretended not to have heard it; it came from the other room. Grandpa C. was trying to sneak up on me. He was under strict orders, no doubt, by Grandma Renee and Grandma Esme. Each time it looked like I aged another year Aunt Alice and Aunt Rosalie would organize the entire family for portraits. The plan was to wait until I reached full maturity before I revealed myself to others. Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Renee knew the truth, sort of: I was a blood relative of Edward Cullen, but they thought he was my adopted father. Even though he was over a century old, he still looked too young to have a teenage daughter. Grandpa bought, or pretended to buy, the "orphaned niece" story when I was barely a year old. As for my rapid aging, well, Grandpa Charlie learned long ago that there are some things you don't need to know.

My increasing thirst for example. I tried not to breathe in his scent as he stood behind me. "Smile!"he teased and I paused, counted for ten seconds, and turned very slowly with my mouth full of shake. I was pretty good at acting like a human. Deliberately I arranged my features to look confused and disoriented. The light flashed in my eyes. "Gotcha!" Grandpa crowed. "Grandpa!" I moaned, "I'm trying to eat here". Grandpa chuckled as I pretended to take another sip. His warm breathe danced across my skin, and I tried to think of other things. Last night's chess game with Uncle Jasper had been increasingly difficult. We were reenacting the final battle scenes of the Civil War for my history assignment. Uncle Charlie walked next to me and put his arm around me. "See? Look at that. You look just like your mother when she turned 16. Shame about the red eye though. Maybe there's a feature on this thing your dad can show me." Charlie continued to mumble with his delectable scent clinging to his skin. Augh! I needed a distraction. My mind immediately fled to Jacob. What was up with him last night? After we had finished hunting, Jacob immediately ordered me to go back. I had never seen him like that before. My mind focused and I could feel myself regaining control. I wondered where he was now. The nice thing about Jacob was that he was always around when you needed him. I took another sip of shake and heard the sound of footsteps approaching swiftly. I sighed with relief. Half a second later the doorbell rang. I felt the heat of Grandpa's body leave me as he muttered "Who could that be?" I quickly put the rest of the food back in the fridge and cleaned up a little; Grandpa was leaving for work and didn't eat this much anyway. I caught up with him in two steps. Grandpa opened the door and there he stood, my own personal body guard. Or guard dog, as he liked to put it. Jacob Black had always been there for my family for as long as I could remember. His was my parent's best friend, and it was usually the four of us. Our coven was pretty big, but most often it was mom, dad, Jake and me. I could always count on him to have a huge grin on his face. Currently he was demonstrating my favorite smile at my expense. Grandpa was showing him the camera. "Nice picture Ness'" he teased. "You look like a monster." "Yeah, can you fix her eyes?" asked Grandpa. I grabbed the tiny camera from Grandpa and handed it to Jacob, making sure our fingers brushed. When our skin made contact, I sent him an image: running herds of elk. His grin stretched wider and he gave a slight nod as he pushed the microscopic buttons. I smiled. The thirst wouldn't last long. Jacob was here, with him around I would always get what I needed.

To Be Continued...

The True Test of Will: My Week as a Raw Food Vegan III

No matter what anyone tells you, a colonic is anything but “fun”. Unless of course, you think someone shoving a garden hose up your butt and cranking it on full tilt is your idea of a good time.


The bottom line:

At the end of the week, I felt great and didn’t want to leave. The pain in my knees and stomach were gone and I had a ton of energy. Was it as euphoric as the apex of a good coffee high? No. But it lasted all day and I was calmer, in a better mood and less jittery. For once in a good long while, I felt like someone my age should feel, instead of a cranky old man.

At first, I was confused because I hadn’t lost weight like most of the other patients had. Then I looked in the bathroom mirror and realized I had actually put on some muscle mass – something I had previously been told was almost impossible without animal proteins.

Overall, I found the staff at Hippocrates knowledgeable and genuinely motivated to help people. But even more amazing, were the other guests.

We grow up reading books and watching movies that chisel into our psyche the concept that heroes are people who battle and defeat the bad guys and external enemies. But in 25 years of wandering, I’ve never encountered a truly bad person. I have however, found plenty of enemies within.

We all have little voices inside of us that tell us we can get away with not taking care of ourselves – that other people will come to our rescue and we can just postpone our health until later in life when doctors or shrinks will simply ‘fix’ us.

A lot of the guests I met at Hippocrates had lived out this mentality, learning the hard way it is far from the truth. They are at the brink of losing it all – battling diabetes, drug addiction and cancer. Some had even been told that they had a limited amount of time left to live.

But instead of giving up, they took on the responsibility to learn how to take care of themselves – instead of blaming others for their unhappiness and unhealthiness. I watched as they turned and faced their internal enemies: addiction, weakness, depression and illness – to achieve victory over themselves.

They are all my heroes.

Reid Wright received his official degree in BS last year from the University of Idaho, in Moscow Idaho. He is a most excellent journalist.

New York Installment 6: Love, Loss, & What I Wore

One morning, I was lying in bed when I started thinking about this dress I used to wear. I drew a picture of it. I drew another. I decided to draw the dresses to hold onto them, and when I finished I thought, these dresses tell a story.
My Snow White dress: My mom made this dress for me for Halloween. It looked exactly like the dress that Snow White wears in the Walt Disney movie. Even the blue pleated sleeves were puffed. She tied a red ribbon in my brown curls and I carried a basket of apples to victory in the town parade. I wore that dress as long as I could. You could wear it with tennis shoes and run around outside during the summer, or wear to sleep at night. It was the perfect night gown: Having never been store bought, there was no itchy tag or scratchy thread to worry about. Throughout the eighties, I strove to repeat this look. Long shirts or dresses and leggings were the unofficial school uniform, and mine always had a hole or two in the knee from kickball. And of course, tennis shoes.
The year I turned twelve I threw out all my leggings and long shirts, so instead of holey leggings, I could pay $72 dollars to walk around in holey jeans. I didn't see the point in buying expensive sunglasses, I lost/sat on them half the time, and the ones with crystals glued on them were cute. That's the benefit of being a girl. You will not get your sexuality questioned or life threatened if you want to wear crystal encrusted sunglasses.
The only expensive thing I actually wear are (shocking) my tennis shoes. They were pricey even on sale, but that's the thing about good footwear. You get what you pay for. In the words of a 90's spokesmodel "You say that [my being a virgin] like it's a bad thing. You see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet."
My second most expensive purchase was this perfect long shirt (or short dress) that I got at this boutique in Manhattan. The salesmen here are all muscular, tan, hot, and gay. It's like reading the most fantastic novel and the ending reveals it all to be a dream. Anyway, he led me over to the sales rack, where an Israeli woman and I select dresses and wait in line for the dressing room. She's concerned about finding a fashionable dress that won't disrespect her modesty. We convince her to buy a cute dress with a matching belt. I encourage her to go without the leggings. She giggles that it's "too short!"
My only regret is that I didn't buy my leggings sooner. The truly best part of this city is that I can dress like I did back in the eighties and no one bats an eye. New York has very European mentality regarding fashion. They consider denim to be a kind of "farmer's or laborer's style", or to put it bluntly, blue collar stiffs lacking in sophistication. So jeans aren't really seen that much, except on tourists. The best part is walking past models. You know how you will watch a fashion show and think, "Who in real life would wear that"? They do! It's a relief to see it looks just as odd on t.v as it does next you on the street. They look like gladiator drag queens! How do they walk in those heels? I suppose when you have zero body weight you don't have to walk, you just get pushed by the wind.
The thought of going backwards in time to dress myself now might bother some, but if I have one fashion rule, it's this: never change. That said, things change. In hopes of avoiding humiliation, I try to review certain rules whenever I buy something new:
Function before Fashion
High school taught me a valuable lesson about uncomfortable shoes: don't wear them. In 2000 my platform heels were so big I could help people on ladders reach things on shelves. Not only that, they looked like something Baby Spice would have wet herself over. That's the thing about time: what looks good now will make you cringe in ten years.
Hygiene before Function
Without a doubt, my best attribute is my hair. I love it when people play with it, so it should be clean. Also I think that people generally feel better about themselves when they are clean. Even if you're wearing something that should have stayed in Brooklyn, if you are clean, it's not too bad.
When All Else Fails
It was a Friday in the spring, and my father was trying to talk me into coveralls. "Come on" he said, "It's like that rapper Jay Z! Big Pimping and all that!" In the background, a game show blared on the t.v. The host moaned along with the audience. "How embarrassing for our viewer!" When worn in a garage, coveralls are certainly sensible, but out in public I wasn't sure I trusted it. As it turns out, those coveralls are all the rage in New York runways. They call them jumpsuits here, you can get them for a sensible $216, and you can get them in any fabric except denim.
Grown or not, I still feel best dressed like Snow White. The die was cast for me on Halloween, and it could be this way for everyone. My roommate was an alcoholic nurse, and my cousin went as a brain dead pirate. Their drawings probably tell very interesting stories.

The True Test of Will: My Week as a Raw Food Vegan II:

As the week went on however, my taste buds came out of hiding from semester of salty campus food and the flavors of the food began to come out. By the end of the week, I found myself relishing the complex flavors of the juicy sprouts. The last couple of meals I was unable to finish a whole plate without feeling full.

The premise of a raw food diet is to eat food that is living and uncooked. Almost all of the seeds, nuts, beans, grains and lentils at Hippocrates were soaked and sprouted – allowing them to germinate and begin processes to alter their internal chemistry. In other words, the food is literally alive at the time of consumption.

The program not only fed us healthy food, but subjected us to a regiment of classes on how to take care of ourselves. It was a cruel and unusual joke that they told us to drink water all day and then subjected us to two hour classes without bathroom breaks.

Hippocrates Co-Director Brian Clement PhD L.N.C. walks and talks like a stereotypical self-help opportunist. He wears a crisp suit and tie with hair spray with a trimmed goatee. He is a master of the stage, and the patrons of his classes seemed allured by his presence.

He said that cooking food kills helpful enzymes and chemically alters nutrients into a form that is harder for the body to process. In contrast, living foods contain more nutrients, enzymes, oxygen, and bio-electricity.

While I would personally like to debate some of the finer points of Brian’s lectures (for example, he cited a common misconception that humans only use 3 percent of their brains, any neurologist will tell you otherwise), I agree with many of his fundamental arguments.

He said that we humans have strayed from the diet of our ancestors. We have altered our foods and eating habits so severely in the last hundred years that evolution is unable to keep up.

Food and drug companies are pumping foods full of cheap additives to make products more profitable. At the same time, the companies we work for are training us to spend more time working and less time taking care of ourselves which is more profitable for them at least in the short-term.

Overall, an unhealthy person is more profitable than a healthy one.

“Sometimes I think that what I do is important,” Brian said. “But then I realize that I’m teaching grown adults how to eat right and take care of themselves. There’s something fundamentally wrong with that.”

He also said that food is not a religion, and people should not judge each other as sinner or saint based on what they choose eat. Studies show that for the first time in history, people over 50 years old are actually healthier than those under 30.

The program also included a daily dosage of juices. We had 16 oz of “green drink” three times a day, which consisted mostly of cucumber, celery, and sprout juices. When we fasted on Thursday to accelerate the detoxification process, I was able to go all day on the juices alone – hardly getting hungry at all.

Wheatgrass juice was also taken daily as an important healing agent. It tasted like lawnmower mulch, but had a sweet and refreshing aftertaste (I overheard other people saying that store-bought wheatgrass juice is bitter and hard to drink). I found it to be a great stimulant – almost like a shot of espresso that lasted almost all day. Once, I took it at six in the evening and it kept me up past midnight.

Brian said the nutritional and medicinal properties of wheatgrass were not discovered by science, but by instinct. Hippocrates founder Ann Wigmore observed that cats and dogs ate grass when they are sick, so she did the same to recover from her own illness. She placed several kinds of grass in front of neighborhood pets and observed that they would consistently sniff the other grasses and then eat the wheat grass.

Decades later, scientists are finding evidence that wheatgrass is an excellent blood purifier, cleanser and detoxifier. Hippocrates is the only natural health organization to have large amounts of scientific blood test data on its patients showing significant improvements in illnesses and cancer because of wheatgrass treatment, Brian said.

Wheatgrass can also be taken rectally, where it helps colon health and is absorbed into the body more quickly and efficiently. They gave us a class on how to perform daily enemas and wheatgrass injections and then passed out enema bags to everyone. My sister held up hers to me and declared, “I was OK until THIS.”

I decided to go through with it for the sake of science. I’d come this far and felt I had to go along with the program 100 percent to see if it worked or not. After the initial unpleasantness of the enema (I’ll spare you the details), I felt quite good. The rectal wheatgrass injection gave an energy boost comparable to a double mocha, but it was more mellow and longer in duration.

The wheatgrass and sprouts are grown in trays on-site at the Hippocrates greenhouse, and they gave us instructions on how to grow our own. Obviously, this is exponentially cheaper than paying $10 a pound for the stuff at a natural foods store. Also, growing your own eliminates the need for environmentally harmful plastic packaging and the carbon emissions associated with shipping foods from places like Canada or Mexico.

The program also included a series of therapies at the spa. They zapped me with a series of infrared, electromagnetic, and crystal energies that I will never understand. What I did understand, was the Swedish massage, which was nothing short of divine. The masseuse pressed her fingers hard into my neck and shoulders, which were hard as wood.

“This is where you keep your stress,” she said merrily.
“Oh,” I said. “I was wondering where I put that.”

(Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!!)

Ask The Playwright: Submission Three

Dear Rose Russo,

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you have a short scene for two actors written by the Great Andrew S.

Sincerely,

Ossur Esor

Dear Ossy,
But of course! And be sure to enjoy one of the playwright's music muses as well.

~Rose Russo

A Scene

Andrew S.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=5857832

I got bored last night. Not sure where I'm placing this. maybe just a skit. maybe part of something bigger. who knows. tell me what ya think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A HOLDING CELL.

A young man, DANNY is sitting on a wooden bench in a police station holding cell. There's a corridor along the cage disappearing around a corner. From the corner comes PAUL who is all amounts of pissed. A cop stands at the corner watching the conversation.

PAUL: What the fuck Danny??
DANNY: (immediately rises) Paul! Holy Shit!
PAUL: Why are you in there?
DANNY: (chuckles)
PAUL: Why are you laughing?
DANNY: Paul I--
PAUL: Shut up.
DANNY: What?
PAUL: Why the fuck are you in there?
DANNY: They didn't tell you?
PAUL: Danny!
DANNY: Stop yelling at me! Christ!

Pause.

PAUL: (He's calmed a tad) Go on.
DANNY: Okay. (breathes) I'm at the house. I'm working on some pages and drinking some wine--
PAUL: Ugh.
DANNY: Can I finish? (Paul concedes) Okay. I'm working on my story--you know the one where with the three brothers and they break into a rich guy's house to rob the place but end up kidnapping his son? (no response) Paul? You know, my screenplay?
PAUL: I'm listening.
DANNY: Well, I'm towards the end now where they accidentally kill the kid and they all get caught-- (to Cop) I said they got caught. (to Paul) They get caught right, and they all have these different fates at the end; you know like one of them goes in quietly, one of them goes all Sam Peckinpah-bloody berserk, one gets killed by the mob--
PAUL: The mob?
DANNY: It's a twist. So I wanted to do some research--
PAUL: Oh god.
DANNY: What?
PAUL: Please tell me you didn't kill a kid.
DANNY: What the hell is wrong with you?
PAUL: Did you kill anyone?
DANNY: No! No I didn't kill- (composes himself and whispers) No I did not kill anyone. And I take it as a personal insult that you would think that. I went down to the police station and just asked some questions to the guy at the desk.
PAUL: (Pause) What did you say to him? (No response) DANNY. What did you say to him?
DANNY: (Pause) How much time would you get if you robbed a house and accidentally kidnap a kid who eventually dies to circumstances beyond their/you're control?

Long pause.

PAUL: Do you hear yourself right now?
DANNY: The guy overreacted.
PAUL: You sound like a crazy person.
DANNY: So I didn't say it exactly right--
PAUL: YOU SAID NOTHING RIGHT! In that entire bullshit illogical sentence did you say anything remotely right!
DANNY: You're overreacting.
PAUL: There are cops all over our place shifting through shit they don't need to be looking over.... my shit!
DANNY: Oh Mr. High & Mighty over here.
PAUL: (to Cop) Can I hit him? Just once? Please Officer!
DANNY: Oh fuck you. Thought you zen pussies were all against violence and what not.
PAUL: Do not demean my beliefs Danny. I'm warning you.
DANNY: Shove a yoga mat up your ass.
PAUL: Activities I do to stay in shape are my business and my business alone!

Awkward subject. Long pause.

DANNY: I'm sorry I told you to shove a yoga mat up your ass.
PAUL: (Beat) This is what the internet is for. You know that right? You can just wikipedia that shit can't you?
DANNY: (offended) Wikipedia? Really? Do I not have integrity as a writer? Should I just cull my facts from anywhere? I got an idea; let's just pull random snapple cap facts out of a top hat! That's just as good, right?
PAUL: Danny--
DANNY: When I wanna know how a baker makes a certain kind of pastry, I ask a god damn baker. Okay? I went to who thought could give me answers. Alright? Sue me!

Paul pinches the bridge of nose, obviously hating that in some weird way, Danny makes sense.

PAUL: (turns to cop) My friend is stunningly retarded, sir. Could you please let him out?


END.

(*Bloggers Note: Please, when giving feedback, avoid phrases like "I didn't like that" or "Why did you do that?" Simply tell us what worked for you and/or what was unclear in the play. Your opinion is welcome, but I want this to be a place for encouraging creativity, not squashing it with unhelpful feedback. Thanks!)

Leaving Las Vegas: Travel Guide

Warning: Do not read Kevin's following blog with a full bladder. Spontaneous laughter will ensue. You might not make it to the bathroom.

Leaving Las Vegas by Kevin (http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=8010168&blogId=389259951 It's close now. So close I can taste it, like the sweet aroma of freshly baked pizza moments before you bite into it and scorch your tongue because you just couldn't wait any longer. For three and a half years I have been aching for this moment to arrive - the moment I extricate myself from this sprawling urban tragedy. I see it in my sleep, the lights disappearing behind me, fading into a dim glow in the desert night as I speed north up US-93 for probably the last time; and into a city roughly twice the size with a whole new set of annoyances. To commemorate this moment, I am going to make an attempt to give Las Vegas a good name. I mean, I have lived here for quite a while, it couldn't have been ALL bad, right? Here is my list of the Top 5 best things about Vegas. 1. Gated Communities My house is situated in a tiny community of close knit neighbors. When you have fifty houses crammed onto a plot of land the size of most standard American driveways, you have to be friendly with those around you. It's a nice, fuzzy feeling when you walk to your car in the morning (because the HOA doesn't allow you to park in front of your own house) and you see a neighbor walking to his car and, in a good neighborly fashion, you both divert your eyes to the ground and quicken your pace. Another benefit of gated communities is, of course, the gate. I feel secure knowing that gate is there to keep out unwanted people, except for the waves of solicitors, weirdos, junkies, lost drivers, and newspaper people who sneak in behind residents or when the gate is broken. The gate is also helpful in keeping residents from getting out of the community. For example, the HOA charges residents $40 for an electronic opener, which I am not about to pay. There is only a keypad to open the gate from the outside, and the sensors in the ground are not sensitive enough to pick up people, groups of people, people on bikes, or people on motorcycles inside. So guess how you get out if you don't want to drive? You guessed it! Climb over the fence. Talk about security! I'm glad those HOA dues go to a good cause! The third selling point of Las Vegas gated communities are the sporadic denizens. You can randomly wake up one morning, walk outside and BAM. The entire street is different: all new cars, new people scurrying inside to avoid being seen, new FOR SALE signs. It's great. One month, five new families will arrive on the block, and four weeks later, once we're bored of them, they'll default on their mortgages, pack their shit in the middle of the night and skip town. We can almost make a game out of guessing who's next to go. 2. Golf Courses I've known for a while now that there was some correlation between the course par and the IQ of the people who play there, and then one day it hit me: they are equal. For example, near my house is ritzy Summerlin, an enormous cluster of compact houses that people pay big money for. Like paying $200,000 for a Scion xB, know what I mean? Anyway, on any given day I can be driving down, oh let's say Rampart, and out of the blue a huge, black, chromed out Escalade will swerve across nine lanes of traffic to get in the right turn lane. Realizing that he made a mistake, he will then swerve back, nearly killing all of us a second time, and then "Oops! Right the first time!" swerve back, making a last minute screeching, up on two wheels turn into a Country Club and flipping the rest of us off! Usually this would make me seethingly mad, but I just remember to plug in my formula. Let's see, he just turned into Country Club A, which has a par of 71. If 71 = IQ, and an IQ of 71 is considered "Borderline deficiency," then I can suddenly understand his torpid driving performance. The city of Las Vegas is well aware its number of exceedingly wealthy yet dismally deficient humans, which is why they have made sure to irrigate at least one golf course every two blocks. Talk about looking out for your citizens. 3. Low Crime Rate Despite what you might be seeing on CSI, Las Vegas is a very calm, safe place to call home. For example, there are only 1,286 registered sex offenders currently residing in Las Vegas. Let's compare that to a city of similar population. Say, Seattle, which has 477 registered sex offenders. Okay, so it seems a little unbalanced. But compared to Los Angeles, which has over 3,400 registered sex offenders, Vegas looks pretty good. The fact that Los Angeles has roughly 2,000,000,000,000 times the population is beside the point. Sex offenders aside (those guys only hang out in parks and at libraries, so what gives, right?), Vegas is pretty safe. In 2006, there were only 152 murders, 718 rapes, 6,680 reported assaults and 19,677 auto thefts. Let's compare this to that ticking time bomb of Seattle again - because, frankly, LA sucks and once you go west of the Rockies, who really cares? In 2006, Seattle reported a startling 30 murders, 129 rapes, 2,326 assaults and a mind boggling 8,147 auto thefts. Hmmm... it seems that Vegas is still a bit higher. But compare it to the entire country of Canada, which boasted a whopping 605 murders and 160,000 stolen cars in 2006. That's right, Canada had nearly FOUR TIMES the number of murders as Las Vegas in 2006. Where do you want to live now? 4. Fun Factor! Las Vegas is a city all about fun. You can go to night clubs, where people who are hotter and cooler than you stand around looking hotter and cooler than you. You can hit up the casinos, where everybody else will win the money that you lose. Or, you can go for a leisurely stroll in the park and be instantly immolated by the sun. If you're looking for a good family time, you can take your children to the Southern Nevada Zoo, where they will cry non-stop as they watch exotic animals slowly die in the heat from lack of care or water. Here are a couple of snippets from reviews, in case you don't want to take just my opinion: "Horrifying may be an understatement." "A REAL DUMP." "The worst zoo I have ever been to!!!" "Do not go." "Would not go back ever." "Awful." "The animals are suffering." "They call that a zoo???" "Great!" If you still crave more after all of this excitement, you can hit up any one of the major metropolitan areas surrounding Vegas - they are only a minimum of four hours in any direction. 5. I've been sitting here for about thirty minutes now, trying to think up the perfect topic for number five. But it's just not coming to me. I think because there are so many great things about this town that my mind is just being overwhelmed. I'll just start typing and let the city speak for itself: City planners: That's not smog! It's the sweet smell of suburban sprawl! Las Vegas Metro Police: We sit around masturbating so you don't have to! UNLV: What the hell does that stand for again? Realtors: Really? You'll pay a million for THIS? Native Paiutes: I swear that community is closer than it was yesterday. Casinos: You = $$$ Escalade Drivers: Watch how fucking fast I can make this--screeeeeeeeeCRASH!!! News Anchors: So today... uh, today the, uh, local ... uh... Locals: We're not tourists! We're local, we're special! CAN YOU HEAR US!!!! L O C A L!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAH! Adiós Fabulous Las Vegas! I'll miss you like a debilitating, cramp-inducing lower-intestinal parasite.