Alright, apparently I have a little catching up to do here. Borsch has been on a roll, and there's one particular topic I want to address in detail. Let's do it!
On May 10, Borsch published a "column" entitled OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Get a whiff of this incredibly stupid idea, which of course is hilarious because the subject matter has to do with a smell! Get it? Quite frankly, though, I didn't feel like torturing either myself or you with another "according to a wire service story" post (aren't they all like that these days?). So I'll give you the highlights:
He says that the idea for an intoxicating spray is from the "Department of There Seems to be No End to Stupid Ideas That Aren’t Mine," which is a title so elaborate that it HAS to be funny. The spray was invented by researchers in France, which of course results in references to: croissants, Maurice Chevalier, and Pepe Le Pew. All on the first page. Such creativity! He wraps things up by saying that there is "a lot of stupidity in this country [America]." He's living proof.
There was also a May 16 column entitled OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Gobs of talented students invade 'The Blob's' bailiwick. He leads things off with this gem: Finally, I now have a connection to “The Blob.” Other than his physical girth? I'm surprised he passed up an opportunity for such self-deprecation. This was a terrible one. Basically, he's squeezing a column out of attending his own daughter's student film festival. He raves about how great she is, and that's about it.
Now here's a bit of news that just about everyone will love: on his twitter, Borsch posted the following on May 13:
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 @welkappeal @RyanHafey My book, "Dancing in My Underwear: The Soundrack of My Life" comes out in June. It has a chapter on the Welk show.
My first thought was one of absolute heart-stopping mind-bending horror: "He found someone willing to publish the crap he writes OTHER than his own newspaper??? The way he phrased it, with the "comes out," sounds like his book was reciving some kind of official release. In a very Borschian move, I immediately went to Google. The top two (and only) results matching the search were by an online company called EduPublisher. Yes, it's true - for just $17.95 (!!!), YOU can be the proud owner of Borsch's book.
Everyone has a soundtrack to their life. But how many people get to talk to the artists who make up their soundtrack? “Dancing in My Underwear: The Soundtrack of My Life” is just such a story. Mike Morsch grew up in the rural Midwest,
Great God in Heaven - he's just recycling the suicide-inducing stories in his columns!
where his parents introduced him to the music of the 1960s and 70s, including such bands as the Beach Boys, The Association, America, Three Dog Night, The Doobie Brothers as well as iconic singers Elton John, Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton-John.
In other words, he had the most generic musical taste possible. "Wow, you listened to Elton John and Barry Maniolow in the 1970s? SO DID I!!!"
Then the career newspaperman moved to the East Coast at midlife and some 30 to 40 years later, had the opportunity to interview the artists that he had listened to as a young child up through his teenage years. The result is a joyous, reflective and sometimes flat-out funny memoir by this longtime journalist. At the heart of it all, Mike shares some of the insights he’s gleaned from interviews with these paragons of modern music. And you’ll hear it in their own voices.
"Joyous"? "Flat-out funny"? Either the person writing this has never read a word Borsch has written... or, more likely, Borsch is writing this about himself.
So sit back, fire up the turntable or click on your iPod and let Mike take you on an unforgettable journey through the soundtrack of his life.
Yep, he's writing this himself. By this point, I'm feeling a whole lot better, because Borsch obviously has not "sold" this piece of garbage to anyone. This is an online self-publishing company (as evidenced by the extremely generic cilp-art cover design). Reading the company's website, they'll "publish" anything, and will actually sell the book if anyone orders it (you have to pay for your own copy). If you really want to go all-out, as Borsch has done, and get your very own book website, they'll do that... for $295 dollars. Hey, Borsch - good luck getting a return on that investment!
I poked around on the book website just to revel in how hard he's trying. The Blonde Accountant's real name is apparently "Judy." Here's a classic:
Meanwhile, you'll come to know a most engaging character in his own right — a man who grows before your eyes from a certified member of "The Eighth-Grade Stupid Shit Hall of Fame" to a loving father and a highly respected member of his profession.
DEFINITELY writing this himself. "Highly respected"? Not according to those I've heard from as a result of this blog. Folks, this is amazing. My question is: do I really want to desecrate the memory of Andrew Jackson and waste almost $20 on this book, just to enjoy how wretched it is?
Thursday, May 17, 2012
He Drinks Beer and Eats (and is Dumb)
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Testing the 'men who drink beer are smarter' theory
Published: Thursday, May 03, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Gee, how many "manly" references are we going to get THIS time?
I read recently that researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago have found that men who have had a couple of beers actually become smarter.
When we delve into the actual "results" of this "study," I think we'll find that this doesn't accurately reflect their findings.
Despite the fact that virtually every woman on the planet would likely disagree with this finding,
Duuuuh, women smart! Men dumb! Funny.
I am originally from Illinois,
NO WAY. Get outta town! He's from Illinois? I'm dumbfounded by this new data.
and I trust any and all research that has been conducted by the institutions of higher learning in my home state when it comes to beer. Institutions of higher learning employ a lot of smart people, and there has always been a lot of beer consumed by college students, so it makes sense that college researchers would study this topic.
Will we get to hear how drunk he was in college, how poor his grades were, his idea for new types of togas, etc? Please say yes!
And despite the fact that I have scores of examples within my own personal history to suggest otherwise,
Thank you, Lord.
I decided to personally test the University of Illinois/Chicago’s theory that beer-drinking men are smarter. Recently, Lee’s Hoagie House in Horsham — right across from the Willow Grove Naval Air Base at 870 Easton Road — was offering the first of three Friday nights of free beer-tasting. (The other two have also been held, but I was unable to make those.)
Which venue screams "class" more: Lee's Hoagie House or Slack's Hoagie Shack? Discuss. I like how he feels the need to specify which beer night he attended, and also to let us know that the other two already happened (because otherwise his legions of readers would be flooding to the Horsham Lee's location, I guess).
The operative words here are “free” and “beer.” The fact that I took advantage of such an opportunity suggests that I am already smart.
Unfortunately, those who read your column would suggest you are anything but.
Still, I wanted to test the theory further. To be fair, the folks at the University of Illinois/Chicago — I’ve actually been there a few times but I was unable to locate the correct building in which to fill out an application to participate in any beer studies — have qualified the research.
Qualities of a Smart Person: (1) Obtains free beer. (2) Cannot find buildings.
Scientists devised a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and asked to find a fourth word that fits the pattern. As an example, the wire service story revealed that the 40 men would be given the words “blue,” “cottage” and “Swiss” and the corresponding fourth word might be something like “cheese.” Never let it be said that cheesy bar games can’t be utilized for legitimate scientific research.
Question: does he - CAN he - really think the "cheesy" pun is amusing? It's not even funny in a groan-inducing "really bad pun" way. It's just lazy and predictable.
Half of the participants in the focus group were given two pints of beer, the other half were given squadoosh, nada, zip, zilcho. Hey, if I’m those guys and I’m asked to participate in a scientific study that includes beer, I’d like to be in the focus group that actually gets the beer.
That's it - I'm going to count the number of times the word "beer" appears in this post. I'm guessing he's hit 15 thus far, minimum. [Editor's Note: It was only 11.]
The end result was that the beer drinkers solved 40 percent more of the problems than those who weren’t allowed in the elbow-bending party. Also, the guzzlers finished their problems in 12 seconds, while the nondrinkers took 15.5 second to solve the problems.
This is hardly scientific.
Since I live quite a ways from Chicago now, Lee’s Hoagie House offered me and others the opportunity to conduct our scientific research locally. Jon Waxman owns the Horsham Lee’s — as well as others in Abington and Blue Bell. He recently installed a big old freezer in the Horsham location — a great advantage to keeping the beer cold — which in my opinion is critical to any scientific research on the beverage.
At this point I believe most of the audience understands that the "joke" of this column is that, under the pretense of science, you just want to drink beer. How much longer must it be dragged out?
I don’t know if Jon is a beer drinker or not because my research only included drinking his beer, not asking any other questions. But if the big freezer and the beer-tasting events are an indication of Jon’s level of smartness, then he’s popped a top or two in his life.
Qualities of a Smart Person: (3) Owns a freezer.
For this research, I joined my pal and fellow columnist Ted Taylor, aka “The Glenside Kid,” and his wife, Cindy, along with a few other locals. The Blonde Accountant joined us, too, because it’s a well-established fact that she and only she is the final judge on my level of smartness under any circumstance, scientific or otherwise.
Ha... ha... ha. She is smart, you are dumb. Formula for comedy = complete.
And besides, I am smart enough to know that if I am drinking, then she is driving. Ted and I sampled, oh I don’t know, maybe 100 little cups of beer. (Actually, it was probably closer to four little cups that amounted to about half a bottle of beer because Ted and I aren’t as young as we used to be.)
Huh? This is like my 5-year-old nephew's attempt at an off-the-cuff joke: "I drank 100 BEERS! I'm kidding, it was just four."
The test results yielded the following results: (1) The beer was cold = Jon is smart; (2) Ted and I drank the beer and then ordered hoagies = Jon is smart; (3) The event featured giveaways, like free Phillies tickets = Jon is smart (although the Phillies have spent the early part of this season trying to prove otherwise);
Alright, I think I get the "joke" here - everything means that Jon is smart. Three examples is enough.
(4) I bought more beer to go with my sandwich = Jon is smart; (5) The University of Illinois/Chicago folks did it all wrong, they should have included hoagies in the research = Jon is smart.
This is almost a textbook example of "running an already-unfunny joke into the ground." Seriously, FIVE repetitions of the same stupid thing?
I believe I am smarter as well. For example, if I was given two pints of brewski and three words like “free,” “cold” and “beer,” I believe I could easily come with a corresponding fourth word. And that, of course, would be “Lee’s.”
No "Blatant Promotion Alert" here? The whole column was a thinly-disguised advertisement for Jon and his restaurant. Pathetic. By the way, by my count, he used the word "beer" 22 times in this column.
Published: Thursday, May 03, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Gee, how many "manly" references are we going to get THIS time?
I read recently that researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago have found that men who have had a couple of beers actually become smarter.
When we delve into the actual "results" of this "study," I think we'll find that this doesn't accurately reflect their findings.
Despite the fact that virtually every woman on the planet would likely disagree with this finding,
Duuuuh, women smart! Men dumb! Funny.
I am originally from Illinois,
NO WAY. Get outta town! He's from Illinois? I'm dumbfounded by this new data.
and I trust any and all research that has been conducted by the institutions of higher learning in my home state when it comes to beer. Institutions of higher learning employ a lot of smart people, and there has always been a lot of beer consumed by college students, so it makes sense that college researchers would study this topic.
Will we get to hear how drunk he was in college, how poor his grades were, his idea for new types of togas, etc? Please say yes!
And despite the fact that I have scores of examples within my own personal history to suggest otherwise,
Thank you, Lord.
I decided to personally test the University of Illinois/Chicago’s theory that beer-drinking men are smarter. Recently, Lee’s Hoagie House in Horsham — right across from the Willow Grove Naval Air Base at 870 Easton Road — was offering the first of three Friday nights of free beer-tasting. (The other two have also been held, but I was unable to make those.)
Which venue screams "class" more: Lee's Hoagie House or Slack's Hoagie Shack? Discuss. I like how he feels the need to specify which beer night he attended, and also to let us know that the other two already happened (because otherwise his legions of readers would be flooding to the Horsham Lee's location, I guess).
The operative words here are “free” and “beer.” The fact that I took advantage of such an opportunity suggests that I am already smart.
Unfortunately, those who read your column would suggest you are anything but.
Still, I wanted to test the theory further. To be fair, the folks at the University of Illinois/Chicago — I’ve actually been there a few times but I was unable to locate the correct building in which to fill out an application to participate in any beer studies — have qualified the research.
Qualities of a Smart Person: (1) Obtains free beer. (2) Cannot find buildings.
Scientists devised a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and asked to find a fourth word that fits the pattern. As an example, the wire service story revealed that the 40 men would be given the words “blue,” “cottage” and “Swiss” and the corresponding fourth word might be something like “cheese.” Never let it be said that cheesy bar games can’t be utilized for legitimate scientific research.
Question: does he - CAN he - really think the "cheesy" pun is amusing? It's not even funny in a groan-inducing "really bad pun" way. It's just lazy and predictable.
Half of the participants in the focus group were given two pints of beer, the other half were given squadoosh, nada, zip, zilcho. Hey, if I’m those guys and I’m asked to participate in a scientific study that includes beer, I’d like to be in the focus group that actually gets the beer.
That's it - I'm going to count the number of times the word "beer" appears in this post. I'm guessing he's hit 15 thus far, minimum. [Editor's Note: It was only 11.]
The end result was that the beer drinkers solved 40 percent more of the problems than those who weren’t allowed in the elbow-bending party. Also, the guzzlers finished their problems in 12 seconds, while the nondrinkers took 15.5 second to solve the problems.
This is hardly scientific.
Since I live quite a ways from Chicago now, Lee’s Hoagie House offered me and others the opportunity to conduct our scientific research locally. Jon Waxman owns the Horsham Lee’s — as well as others in Abington and Blue Bell. He recently installed a big old freezer in the Horsham location — a great advantage to keeping the beer cold — which in my opinion is critical to any scientific research on the beverage.
At this point I believe most of the audience understands that the "joke" of this column is that, under the pretense of science, you just want to drink beer. How much longer must it be dragged out?
I don’t know if Jon is a beer drinker or not because my research only included drinking his beer, not asking any other questions. But if the big freezer and the beer-tasting events are an indication of Jon’s level of smartness, then he’s popped a top or two in his life.
Qualities of a Smart Person: (3) Owns a freezer.
For this research, I joined my pal and fellow columnist Ted Taylor, aka “The Glenside Kid,” and his wife, Cindy, along with a few other locals. The Blonde Accountant joined us, too, because it’s a well-established fact that she and only she is the final judge on my level of smartness under any circumstance, scientific or otherwise.
Ha... ha... ha. She is smart, you are dumb. Formula for comedy = complete.
And besides, I am smart enough to know that if I am drinking, then she is driving. Ted and I sampled, oh I don’t know, maybe 100 little cups of beer. (Actually, it was probably closer to four little cups that amounted to about half a bottle of beer because Ted and I aren’t as young as we used to be.)
Huh? This is like my 5-year-old nephew's attempt at an off-the-cuff joke: "I drank 100 BEERS! I'm kidding, it was just four."
The test results yielded the following results: (1) The beer was cold = Jon is smart; (2) Ted and I drank the beer and then ordered hoagies = Jon is smart; (3) The event featured giveaways, like free Phillies tickets = Jon is smart (although the Phillies have spent the early part of this season trying to prove otherwise);
Alright, I think I get the "joke" here - everything means that Jon is smart. Three examples is enough.
(4) I bought more beer to go with my sandwich = Jon is smart; (5) The University of Illinois/Chicago folks did it all wrong, they should have included hoagies in the research = Jon is smart.
This is almost a textbook example of "running an already-unfunny joke into the ground." Seriously, FIVE repetitions of the same stupid thing?
I believe I am smarter as well. For example, if I was given two pints of brewski and three words like “free,” “cold” and “beer,” I believe I could easily come with a corresponding fourth word. And that, of course, would be “Lee’s.”
No "Blatant Promotion Alert" here? The whole column was a thinly-disguised advertisement for Jon and his restaurant. Pathetic. By the way, by my count, he used the word "beer" 22 times in this column.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Shockingly Watching Baseball
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 A manly man bus trip
Borsch has stopped sharing his increasingly infrequent blog posts via his Twitter. I won't take credit for this trend, but... Actually no. I WILL take credit.
I have to hand it the Men of La Salle, the dads’ group at La Salle High School: Those guys certainly know how to organize a manly man bus trip.
Always breaking fresh ground, it appears as though Borsch is going to fill this post with references to beer, farts and meat - all the "man" staples.
Dave Lagner, the chief cook, bottle washer and grand poohbah,
How does he come UP with this stuff??? He's a comic genuis!
put together a great trip to Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sunday.
...because we can't post about anything that's not baseball, I guess.
The excursion included all the things needed for a manly man father-and-son day: luxury buses complete with DVD players and bathrooms (an important aspect for guys); great seats, 12 rows from the field down the third-base line, to watch the visiting Oakland A’s take on the Baltimore Orioles; 72 degrees, blue skies and a slight breeze (not sure who Dave knows to get that pulled off but I suspect he may have dated Mother Nature in his younger days); and a post-game excursion to a manly man joint in the Inner Harbor called “Dick’s Last Resort,” a place that can only be described as “highly entertaining for cavemen,” where the fathers and sons consumed massive quantities of nachos, hot wings and ribs while being mercilessly insulted by the waiters.
Now take a deep, deeeeeeeep breath... and realize that was ALL ONE SENTENCE. In that one sentence, we had two uses of both "manly man" and "father(s) and son(s)." Should I ask why they were "mercilessly insulted by the waiters"? I don't really understand that part.
As a bonus, Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs was on the big screen during the chow down, and the Philadelphia Flyers scored in overtime to take a 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils sending the LaSalle contingent into a frenzy of high-fives and flying spittle, otherwise known as more manly man stuff.
Things We Know Guys Do (so far): Watch baseball. Go to the bathroom. Eat a lot. Spit. This is, obviously, extremely hilarious.
By the way, that’s a picture of me with Dick — taken by my cohort for the day, Son of Blonde Accountant — outside the establishment after the meal. It appears by the looks on our faces that we both had loaded up on too many nachos.
First of all, that's not even a passable impersonation of the statue. Second... damn. He looks bad. Like, real bad. Like "he's been in the sun too long and is melting" bad.
I’ve always enjoyed Camden Yards. It’s a beautiful ballpark and it features “Boog’s BBQ” out on the right field concourse in front of the distinctive warehouse.
ATTENTION READERS: Stop here if you are not sure whether you can handle the excitement of hearing all about Boog Powell, former baseball player! You've been warned.
This is, of course, Boog Powell’s place — a former Orioles first baseman in the 1960s and 1970s who played on some pretty good Orioles teams — and as usual, Boog was perched on a stool near the barbecue pit greeting fans and signing autographs. I’ve seen Boog several times over the years, and there have been times when I thought, “Hey Boog, mix in a salad.” Boog has always been a large fellow, and in past years, it looked like he was eating more of the barbecue beef than he was selling. But this year, Boog has slimmed down considerably and he looks great. And he’s always friendly and accommodating to the fans.
Wow, what a gracious celeb! Friendly to fans, who would have thought?
I had the “Big Boog Beef” sandwich, which is double the meat and indigestion. I was so full that three guys had to carry me from the right field concourse to my seat on the other side of the stadium near third base. The Phillies should offer that amenity to the overeaters in their stadium.
So after the enormous meal described in painful, run-on-sentence detail above, he ate more???
Although many in our group were Phillies fans, most were root, root, rooting for the home team, and the Orioles delivered a walk-off win in the bottom of the ninth by scoring five runs, three of which came on a game-ending home run. It was my first Men of LaSalle father-son bus trip and Son of Blonde Accountant and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Wow, "quite a bit." High praise indeed.
I can’t wait for next year’s trip and another day of manly man activities.
Me neither, sir. Me neither.
Borsch has stopped sharing his increasingly infrequent blog posts via his Twitter. I won't take credit for this trend, but... Actually no. I WILL take credit.
I have to hand it the Men of La Salle, the dads’ group at La Salle High School: Those guys certainly know how to organize a manly man bus trip.
Always breaking fresh ground, it appears as though Borsch is going to fill this post with references to beer, farts and meat - all the "man" staples.
Dave Lagner, the chief cook, bottle washer and grand poohbah,
How does he come UP with this stuff??? He's a comic genuis!
put together a great trip to Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sunday.
...because we can't post about anything that's not baseball, I guess.
The excursion included all the things needed for a manly man father-and-son day: luxury buses complete with DVD players and bathrooms (an important aspect for guys); great seats, 12 rows from the field down the third-base line, to watch the visiting Oakland A’s take on the Baltimore Orioles; 72 degrees, blue skies and a slight breeze (not sure who Dave knows to get that pulled off but I suspect he may have dated Mother Nature in his younger days); and a post-game excursion to a manly man joint in the Inner Harbor called “Dick’s Last Resort,” a place that can only be described as “highly entertaining for cavemen,” where the fathers and sons consumed massive quantities of nachos, hot wings and ribs while being mercilessly insulted by the waiters.
Now take a deep, deeeeeeeep breath... and realize that was ALL ONE SENTENCE. In that one sentence, we had two uses of both "manly man" and "father(s) and son(s)." Should I ask why they were "mercilessly insulted by the waiters"? I don't really understand that part.
As a bonus, Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs was on the big screen during the chow down, and the Philadelphia Flyers scored in overtime to take a 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils sending the LaSalle contingent into a frenzy of high-fives and flying spittle, otherwise known as more manly man stuff.
Things We Know Guys Do (so far): Watch baseball. Go to the bathroom. Eat a lot. Spit. This is, obviously, extremely hilarious.
By the way, that’s a picture of me with Dick — taken by my cohort for the day, Son of Blonde Accountant — outside the establishment after the meal. It appears by the looks on our faces that we both had loaded up on too many nachos.
First of all, that's not even a passable impersonation of the statue. Second... damn. He looks bad. Like, real bad. Like "he's been in the sun too long and is melting" bad.
I’ve always enjoyed Camden Yards. It’s a beautiful ballpark and it features “Boog’s BBQ” out on the right field concourse in front of the distinctive warehouse.
ATTENTION READERS: Stop here if you are not sure whether you can handle the excitement of hearing all about Boog Powell, former baseball player! You've been warned.
This is, of course, Boog Powell’s place — a former Orioles first baseman in the 1960s and 1970s who played on some pretty good Orioles teams — and as usual, Boog was perched on a stool near the barbecue pit greeting fans and signing autographs. I’ve seen Boog several times over the years, and there have been times when I thought, “Hey Boog, mix in a salad.” Boog has always been a large fellow, and in past years, it looked like he was eating more of the barbecue beef than he was selling. But this year, Boog has slimmed down considerably and he looks great. And he’s always friendly and accommodating to the fans.
Wow, what a gracious celeb! Friendly to fans, who would have thought?
I had the “Big Boog Beef” sandwich, which is double the meat and indigestion. I was so full that three guys had to carry me from the right field concourse to my seat on the other side of the stadium near third base. The Phillies should offer that amenity to the overeaters in their stadium.
So after the enormous meal described in painful, run-on-sentence detail above, he ate more???
Although many in our group were Phillies fans, most were root, root, rooting for the home team, and the Orioles delivered a walk-off win in the bottom of the ninth by scoring five runs, three of which came on a game-ending home run. It was my first Men of LaSalle father-son bus trip and Son of Blonde Accountant and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Wow, "quite a bit." High praise indeed.
I can’t wait for next year’s trip and another day of manly man activities.
Me neither, sir. Me neither.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Most Boring Story Ever
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Recalling the 'Great Teenie Beanies Excursion of 1996'
Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Leave it to the French to be snooty with their fast food.
Good to know that cliched ethnocentrism is NOT a thing of the past.
According to a wire service story, McDonald’s is introducing something called the “McBaguette” in an effort to cater to the French people.
What’s next? Is Mayor McCheese going to be replaced by Mayor Pepe LePew?
At this point I'm absolutely baffled - what other stereotypes about the French can he employ? He's used up "snooty" and "Pepe LePew" in the first few paragraphs! He goes on to cite (surprise!) someone else's news story about Nawfal Trabelsi, a McDonald's VP in France, discussing this new food item.
...But Nawfal Trabelsi is a wonderfully cool name because it has both lilt and panache.
Does it? Does it really? Somebody must have gotten a "Word of the Day" calendar.
Which brings me to McDonald’s. My experience has been that once I reached a certain age, I just quit going to McDonald’s. It’s not that I don’t like the food. I believe the place is still in business today because I ate enough cheeseburgers for three decades to keep its stock price inflated to ridiculously profitable margins.
Didn't he also claim responsibility for eating 1/3 of all the Oreos sold over the past half century? This "I'm fat and therefore eat a lot" routine is an endless mine of comedic gold!
These days, I watch what I eat a little more closely...
Please reference the billion articles he has written about hot dogs, Oreos, etc in order to determine the veracity of this statement.
But McDonld’s — the American version and not the French version — has provided me with the defining moment of one of my more memorable road trips.
That's right - everything we've been through so far has been a mere prelude. I'm frightened.
Back in the mid-1990s, my baseball running buddy in Springfield, Ill., was Chris Dettro, a reporter at the newspaper where we both worked. We shared a love of baseball, given to us by our fathers, that at the time, our wives did not share.
He and his baseball running buddy shared a love of baseball? Interesting twist. The commas in the second sentence are terrible mis-placed.
They thought we were knuckleheads, a fact with which we did not entirely disagree.
Chris and I were heavily into baseball collectibles and autographs as well, so we would occasionally travel to baseball card shows and autograph signings. One such road trip took all the way from Illinois all the way to Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island.
That's right - it appears as though this story, just like his two previous stories, is going to be about baseball. What an empty, empty life he leads. Really, after saying "baseball collectibles," is the "baseball" before "card shows and autograph signings" necessary?
So we drove all the way to Long Island, secured the signatures of our boyhood heroes, and headed back to Illinois. Our first stop was at a McDonald’s somewhere in New York.
Believe it or not, I'm cutting out some stuff here. Thus far, the "comedy" of this column has been limited to French jokes and fat jokes.
It just so happened that this was right in the middle of the Beanie Babies stuffed animal craze. At the time, something called “Teenie Beanies” — a smaller version of the Beanie Babies — were being manufactured for a promotion, to be placed in McDonald’s Happy Meals.
If you thought that paragraph was bland and uninteresting, just look at this:
There were 10 Teenie Beanies in the 1996-97 series, including Patti the Platypus; Pinky the Flamingo; Chops the Lamb; Chocolate the Moose (my favorite just because of the creative naming); Goldie the Goldfish; Speedy the Turtle; Seamore the Seal; Snort the Bull; Quacks the Duck; and Lizz the Lizard.
Lists are HILARIOUS! Is "Chocolate the Moose" any more creative than "Chops the Lamb"?
Since we both had young daughters — and there wasn’t really anything at a baseball card show that would interest them — we decided to grab a Happy Meal and get the Teenie Beanies for our girls. I had to buy two since I have two daughters; Chris only had to buy one.
Apparently the number of daughters they each had is vital information. Believe it or not, THIS - not baseball, not cheeseburgers, not the French - is finally the actual topic of this column.
What we didn’t know at the time was how crazy people were going over these things. There were reports, which we didn’t find out until later, that people were actually fighting over them at some McDonald’s locations.
I believe that should be "which we didn't find out ABOUT until later."
Since there were 10 Teenie Beanies characters, we decided to try to collect all 10 before we got back to Illinois. So we started stopping at every McDonald’s we saw along the route home. By the time we hit Pittsburgh, we had added a few hours to our trip, but had secured six of the 10 Teenie Beanies and a bagful of extra cheeseburgers.
I just KNOW that all this boring detail is building up to something gut-busting, and the suspense is killing me!!!
I had taken to storing my Teenie Beanies in one of the empty Happy Meal bags and the extra cheeseburgers I couldn’t eat in another empty Happy Meal bag, both of which I had placed on the floor behind the driver’s seat of the car.
... still killing me!
When it came time to stop driving for the evening somewhere in Ohio, I suggested to Chris that we had put in a lot of effort with both our baseball collectibles and our Teenie Beanies collectibles and that we should take them inside the hotel room with us for safekeeping.
... There's never going to be anything funny, is there?
Chris grabbed a McDonald’s bag and I grabbed the autographed baseball items and we checked into the hotel.
The next morning, it was my turn to drive, so before I got in, I noticed there was still a McDonald’s bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
If the story is this boring and unamusing in print, just imagine (if you can) how atrocious it would be in person.
“Chris, did you bring in the Teenie Beanies last night?” I asked.
“Yes, I have them right here,” he said, holding up a McDonald’s Happy Meal bag.
I looked inside the bag in the car and sure enough, there were the Teenie Beanies, where they had sat all night in view of any criminal in search for the highly coveted collectible. But Chris had done a splendid job of making sure the bag full of cheeseburgers was safely secured inside our hotel room.
WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! What a delightful twist: they thought they brought something inside, but actually left it in the car. Great payoff!
It turns out that we ended up
Stop right there. This, in a nutshell, is why Borsch is possibly the worst published "writer" I have ever stumbled across. These two phrases - "it turns out" and "we ended up" - mean basically the same thing in this context. He could have used either one of them. Instead, he used both. Because his skill with words is just. That. Wretched.
Continue.
stopping at 36 McDonald’s between Long Island, N.Y., and Springfield, Ill., on “The Great Teenie Beanies Excursion of 1996.” Unfortunately, we secured only eight of the 10 Teenie Beanies for our daughters, missing the first two in the series that had been released, Patti the Platypus and Pinky the Flamingo. But it was a good effort by dads who liked cheeseburgers and were trying to make their kids happy.
Let’s see somebody in France put in that kind of effort with the McBaguette.
See, the problem here is that the two things - the McBaguette and their "memorable" road trip - are completely unrelated. That would be like me saying, "I just dominated at Wii Boxing! Let's see Benedict Arnold do THAT!" The fact that his quest ended in failure is entirely appropriate.
The fact that this is one of his "more memorable road trips" makes me wonder just how dull the other ones were...
Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Leave it to the French to be snooty with their fast food.
Good to know that cliched ethnocentrism is NOT a thing of the past.
According to a wire service story, McDonald’s is introducing something called the “McBaguette” in an effort to cater to the French people.
What’s next? Is Mayor McCheese going to be replaced by Mayor Pepe LePew?
At this point I'm absolutely baffled - what other stereotypes about the French can he employ? He's used up "snooty" and "Pepe LePew" in the first few paragraphs! He goes on to cite (surprise!) someone else's news story about Nawfal Trabelsi, a McDonald's VP in France, discussing this new food item.
...But Nawfal Trabelsi is a wonderfully cool name because it has both lilt and panache.
Does it? Does it really? Somebody must have gotten a "Word of the Day" calendar.
Which brings me to McDonald’s. My experience has been that once I reached a certain age, I just quit going to McDonald’s. It’s not that I don’t like the food. I believe the place is still in business today because I ate enough cheeseburgers for three decades to keep its stock price inflated to ridiculously profitable margins.
Didn't he also claim responsibility for eating 1/3 of all the Oreos sold over the past half century? This "I'm fat and therefore eat a lot" routine is an endless mine of comedic gold!
These days, I watch what I eat a little more closely...
Please reference the billion articles he has written about hot dogs, Oreos, etc in order to determine the veracity of this statement.
But McDonld’s — the American version and not the French version — has provided me with the defining moment of one of my more memorable road trips.
That's right - everything we've been through so far has been a mere prelude. I'm frightened.
Back in the mid-1990s, my baseball running buddy in Springfield, Ill., was Chris Dettro, a reporter at the newspaper where we both worked. We shared a love of baseball, given to us by our fathers, that at the time, our wives did not share.
He and his baseball running buddy shared a love of baseball? Interesting twist. The commas in the second sentence are terrible mis-placed.
They thought we were knuckleheads, a fact with which we did not entirely disagree.
Chris and I were heavily into baseball collectibles and autographs as well, so we would occasionally travel to baseball card shows and autograph signings. One such road trip took all the way from Illinois all the way to Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island.
That's right - it appears as though this story, just like his two previous stories, is going to be about baseball. What an empty, empty life he leads. Really, after saying "baseball collectibles," is the "baseball" before "card shows and autograph signings" necessary?
So we drove all the way to Long Island, secured the signatures of our boyhood heroes, and headed back to Illinois. Our first stop was at a McDonald’s somewhere in New York.
Believe it or not, I'm cutting out some stuff here. Thus far, the "comedy" of this column has been limited to French jokes and fat jokes.
It just so happened that this was right in the middle of the Beanie Babies stuffed animal craze. At the time, something called “Teenie Beanies” — a smaller version of the Beanie Babies — were being manufactured for a promotion, to be placed in McDonald’s Happy Meals.
If you thought that paragraph was bland and uninteresting, just look at this:
There were 10 Teenie Beanies in the 1996-97 series, including Patti the Platypus; Pinky the Flamingo; Chops the Lamb; Chocolate the Moose (my favorite just because of the creative naming); Goldie the Goldfish; Speedy the Turtle; Seamore the Seal; Snort the Bull; Quacks the Duck; and Lizz the Lizard.
Lists are HILARIOUS! Is "Chocolate the Moose" any more creative than "Chops the Lamb"?
Since we both had young daughters — and there wasn’t really anything at a baseball card show that would interest them — we decided to grab a Happy Meal and get the Teenie Beanies for our girls. I had to buy two since I have two daughters; Chris only had to buy one.
Apparently the number of daughters they each had is vital information. Believe it or not, THIS - not baseball, not cheeseburgers, not the French - is finally the actual topic of this column.
What we didn’t know at the time was how crazy people were going over these things. There were reports, which we didn’t find out until later, that people were actually fighting over them at some McDonald’s locations.
I believe that should be "which we didn't find out ABOUT until later."
Since there were 10 Teenie Beanies characters, we decided to try to collect all 10 before we got back to Illinois. So we started stopping at every McDonald’s we saw along the route home. By the time we hit Pittsburgh, we had added a few hours to our trip, but had secured six of the 10 Teenie Beanies and a bagful of extra cheeseburgers.
I just KNOW that all this boring detail is building up to something gut-busting, and the suspense is killing me!!!
I had taken to storing my Teenie Beanies in one of the empty Happy Meal bags and the extra cheeseburgers I couldn’t eat in another empty Happy Meal bag, both of which I had placed on the floor behind the driver’s seat of the car.
... still killing me!
When it came time to stop driving for the evening somewhere in Ohio, I suggested to Chris that we had put in a lot of effort with both our baseball collectibles and our Teenie Beanies collectibles and that we should take them inside the hotel room with us for safekeeping.
... There's never going to be anything funny, is there?
Chris grabbed a McDonald’s bag and I grabbed the autographed baseball items and we checked into the hotel.
The next morning, it was my turn to drive, so before I got in, I noticed there was still a McDonald’s bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
If the story is this boring and unamusing in print, just imagine (if you can) how atrocious it would be in person.
“Chris, did you bring in the Teenie Beanies last night?” I asked.
“Yes, I have them right here,” he said, holding up a McDonald’s Happy Meal bag.
I looked inside the bag in the car and sure enough, there were the Teenie Beanies, where they had sat all night in view of any criminal in search for the highly coveted collectible. But Chris had done a splendid job of making sure the bag full of cheeseburgers was safely secured inside our hotel room.
WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! What a delightful twist: they thought they brought something inside, but actually left it in the car. Great payoff!
It turns out that we ended up
Stop right there. This, in a nutshell, is why Borsch is possibly the worst published "writer" I have ever stumbled across. These two phrases - "it turns out" and "we ended up" - mean basically the same thing in this context. He could have used either one of them. Instead, he used both. Because his skill with words is just. That. Wretched.
Continue.
stopping at 36 McDonald’s between Long Island, N.Y., and Springfield, Ill., on “The Great Teenie Beanies Excursion of 1996.” Unfortunately, we secured only eight of the 10 Teenie Beanies for our daughters, missing the first two in the series that had been released, Patti the Platypus and Pinky the Flamingo. But it was a good effort by dads who liked cheeseburgers and were trying to make their kids happy.
Let’s see somebody in France put in that kind of effort with the McBaguette.
See, the problem here is that the two things - the McBaguette and their "memorable" road trip - are completely unrelated. That would be like me saying, "I just dominated at Wii Boxing! Let's see Benedict Arnold do THAT!" The fact that his quest ended in failure is entirely appropriate.
The fact that this is one of his "more memorable road trips" makes me wonder just how dull the other ones were...
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Baseball, but NOT Hot Dogs
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: From flyswatters to diapers, Phils' merch machine in high gear
Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
What better way to follow-up his baseball-centric hot dog article than with a baseball-centric baseball article? He's so FRESH!
Here is when one knows that one's favorite big league baseball team has a big league marketing department: When it starts marketing baby bottoms.
Borsch has a STRONG affinity for discussing the rear ends of children (see his previous column about wiping their "bottoms" with Armor-All). It's mildly disturbing.
That’s right, the Phillies have their familiar logo on just about every other thing, so it makes sense to put the logo on diapers.
I’d like to think there was a marketing person in some Phillies brainstorming meeting that all of a sudden stood up and shouted, "P -- diapers -- boo-yah!"
I had to think about this for a long time before I realized he was making a pee joke. At least, I think he is. It's hard to tell, really.
Since I am a long way from having babies in the house, I would not have known about the Phillies diapers had not the ballclub invited me to its annual food, fashion and merchandise soiree last week at the Citizens Bank Park. This is how good the team’s marketing department is: It knows that journalists will show up for a free meal -- like all good journalists will.
Wow, he's changing things up! A previous article (3/31/10) about this same event focused only on the food. In that article, he made (SURPRISE!) the exact same joke: "All the big club has to do is offer a free meal — in the name of good journalism of course — and there’s not a reporter in Southeastern Pennsylvania who wouldn’t show up for the feedbag."
But add in the children of staff members — a bunch of cute babies and toddlers --
Yep, that's one dash to start, but two to end, that little aside.
and well, we journalists will still take pictures and videos of babies in Phillies gear, even if we have to put down the Schmitter and crab fries for a moment to do it. (Do yourself a favor and go online to see the video of this. Babies are just so darn cute dressed in Phillies gear.)
I hope the video is as boring as a typical Borsch piece - loooooong slooooow pans, odd shakes and twitches, unnecessary zooms, complete silence, etc.
In addition to the diapers, other baby stuff available this season includes socks, headwear and outfits. And the focus just isn’t babies this year.
"This year"... so babies were the only focus last year? And who would think that the team would offer ONLY baby merchandise?
Fans can get a whole bunch of other Phillies items, including a bevy of new bobbleheads, an expanded selection of custom sunglasses, a Panini press/waffle maker, barbecue branders, cutting boards, cookie cutters, martini glasses, golf head covers, garden gnomes (as a gnome guy, I’ll probably get one or more of them for the garden this year) and flyswatters.
Prediction: Borsch will some day write a column about garden gnomes. He likes them, his wife doesn't. Comedy!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted a Phillies flyswatter. Up to this point, I thought the big foam No.1 finger might have been the most, uh, interesting novelty item in the history of baseball merchandising, but I reserve the right to change my mind once I get a good look at the flyswatter.
Wow, finding the comedy in the foam No.1 finger... how does he ever come up with this stuff??? What next, making fun of guys who hold up the "D-fence" posters?
Not that I’m being critical. I think the last thing that a fly sees -- especially those crumb-bum flies from St. Louis -- should be a flyswatter with the Phillies logo as it comes crashing down on its head. If only the Phillies hitters could have hit something beside flies in Game 5 of last year's National League Division Series.
Oh, heavens no! After all, the true mark of a satirist/humorist is to NEVER BE CRITICAL OF ANYTHING. This is classic Borsch - so afraid of offending his precious patrons that he can never say anything bad about anyone (except Sarah Palin).
Of course, a Phillies event wouldn't be a Phillies event without that loveable green goof, the Phanatic. And sure enough, the big galoot showed up and put on a show with the babies and toddlers.
Both "goof" and "galoot" in the same paragraph? He has just used up every single adjective in his vast repertoire.
I must admit, as mascots go, the Phanatic makes me laugh. I find him highly amusing. And I have a soft spot in my heart for galoots, which is why I like the Phanatic and Charlie Manuel. The great thing about being a galoot is knowing you're a galoot, and Cholly and the Phanatic know what's what in that department. It's always good to have a couple of high-profile galoots on the ballclub.
Several points: (1) Someone who "makes you laugh" is usually someone you also "find highly amusing." (2) "Galoot" was used five times in two paragraphs. (3) "Ballclub."
Cholly, already the Phillies' winningest manager, is also the most beloved manager in team history, mostly because he seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Oh, and he delivered a little thing called a world championship in 2008 to a team and city starved for a winner.
...Okay. Most beloved manager in team history? Did he do research on that, run a few surveys or anything? What was this column about again?
As for the Phanatic, well, there already is a statue of him at the ballpark, so I guess we know where he stacks up among the city's elite personalities.
Elsewhere in this paper or on our website, you can read about the new food selections at the ballpark this season. Our newest sportswriter, Nick Iuele, handled that aspect of the event. He's a good kid from North Jersey, but he’s a lifelong Yankees fan. I made sure to let the Phanatic know that so he could stick that great big green nose right in Nick's face. That kind of sums up what we think about Yankees fans around here.
I like how he feels it necessary to tell the readers of his Philadelphia-area newspaper how people from Philadelphia feel about the Yankees.
So there you have it, another baseball season is upon us, and the Phillies have made sure that we fans can dress appropriately and eat heartily while we cheer on the Fightin's to what we hope is another World Series championship.
I don't think an apostrophe belongs in "Fightin's."
Yep, ya can't beat fun at the old ballpark. Nobody knows that better than the Phillies marketing department. It’s clicking on all cylinders … running as smooth as a baby's bottom.
I, personally, would feel embarrassed to write an ending as pathetic as that. Can Michael Morsch honestly - HONESTLY - take any pride in his work? This kind of writing is on the level of a middle school newspaper. How did he get his job? How does he still have it? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
What better way to follow-up his baseball-centric hot dog article than with a baseball-centric baseball article? He's so FRESH!
Here is when one knows that one's favorite big league baseball team has a big league marketing department: When it starts marketing baby bottoms.
Borsch has a STRONG affinity for discussing the rear ends of children (see his previous column about wiping their "bottoms" with Armor-All). It's mildly disturbing.
That’s right, the Phillies have their familiar logo on just about every other thing, so it makes sense to put the logo on diapers.
I’d like to think there was a marketing person in some Phillies brainstorming meeting that all of a sudden stood up and shouted, "P -- diapers -- boo-yah!"
I had to think about this for a long time before I realized he was making a pee joke. At least, I think he is. It's hard to tell, really.
Since I am a long way from having babies in the house, I would not have known about the Phillies diapers had not the ballclub invited me to its annual food, fashion and merchandise soiree last week at the Citizens Bank Park. This is how good the team’s marketing department is: It knows that journalists will show up for a free meal -- like all good journalists will.
Wow, he's changing things up! A previous article (3/31/10) about this same event focused only on the food. In that article, he made (SURPRISE!) the exact same joke: "All the big club has to do is offer a free meal — in the name of good journalism of course — and there’s not a reporter in Southeastern Pennsylvania who wouldn’t show up for the feedbag."
But add in the children of staff members — a bunch of cute babies and toddlers --
Yep, that's one dash to start, but two to end, that little aside.
and well, we journalists will still take pictures and videos of babies in Phillies gear, even if we have to put down the Schmitter and crab fries for a moment to do it. (Do yourself a favor and go online to see the video of this. Babies are just so darn cute dressed in Phillies gear.)
I hope the video is as boring as a typical Borsch piece - loooooong slooooow pans, odd shakes and twitches, unnecessary zooms, complete silence, etc.
In addition to the diapers, other baby stuff available this season includes socks, headwear and outfits. And the focus just isn’t babies this year.
"This year"... so babies were the only focus last year? And who would think that the team would offer ONLY baby merchandise?
Fans can get a whole bunch of other Phillies items, including a bevy of new bobbleheads, an expanded selection of custom sunglasses, a Panini press/waffle maker, barbecue branders, cutting boards, cookie cutters, martini glasses, golf head covers, garden gnomes (as a gnome guy, I’ll probably get one or more of them for the garden this year) and flyswatters.
Prediction: Borsch will some day write a column about garden gnomes. He likes them, his wife doesn't. Comedy!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted a Phillies flyswatter. Up to this point, I thought the big foam No.1 finger might have been the most, uh, interesting novelty item in the history of baseball merchandising, but I reserve the right to change my mind once I get a good look at the flyswatter.
Wow, finding the comedy in the foam No.1 finger... how does he ever come up with this stuff??? What next, making fun of guys who hold up the "D-fence" posters?
Not that I’m being critical. I think the last thing that a fly sees -- especially those crumb-bum flies from St. Louis -- should be a flyswatter with the Phillies logo as it comes crashing down on its head. If only the Phillies hitters could have hit something beside flies in Game 5 of last year's National League Division Series.
Oh, heavens no! After all, the true mark of a satirist/humorist is to NEVER BE CRITICAL OF ANYTHING. This is classic Borsch - so afraid of offending his precious patrons that he can never say anything bad about anyone (except Sarah Palin).
Of course, a Phillies event wouldn't be a Phillies event without that loveable green goof, the Phanatic. And sure enough, the big galoot showed up and put on a show with the babies and toddlers.
Both "goof" and "galoot" in the same paragraph? He has just used up every single adjective in his vast repertoire.
I must admit, as mascots go, the Phanatic makes me laugh. I find him highly amusing. And I have a soft spot in my heart for galoots, which is why I like the Phanatic and Charlie Manuel. The great thing about being a galoot is knowing you're a galoot, and Cholly and the Phanatic know what's what in that department. It's always good to have a couple of high-profile galoots on the ballclub.
Several points: (1) Someone who "makes you laugh" is usually someone you also "find highly amusing." (2) "Galoot" was used five times in two paragraphs. (3) "Ballclub."
Cholly, already the Phillies' winningest manager, is also the most beloved manager in team history, mostly because he seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Oh, and he delivered a little thing called a world championship in 2008 to a team and city starved for a winner.
...Okay. Most beloved manager in team history? Did he do research on that, run a few surveys or anything? What was this column about again?
As for the Phanatic, well, there already is a statue of him at the ballpark, so I guess we know where he stacks up among the city's elite personalities.
Elsewhere in this paper or on our website, you can read about the new food selections at the ballpark this season. Our newest sportswriter, Nick Iuele, handled that aspect of the event. He's a good kid from North Jersey, but he’s a lifelong Yankees fan. I made sure to let the Phanatic know that so he could stick that great big green nose right in Nick's face. That kind of sums up what we think about Yankees fans around here.
I like how he feels it necessary to tell the readers of his Philadelphia-area newspaper how people from Philadelphia feel about the Yankees.
So there you have it, another baseball season is upon us, and the Phillies have made sure that we fans can dress appropriately and eat heartily while we cheer on the Fightin's to what we hope is another World Series championship.
I don't think an apostrophe belongs in "Fightin's."
Yep, ya can't beat fun at the old ballpark. Nobody knows that better than the Phillies marketing department. It’s clicking on all cylinders … running as smooth as a baby's bottom.
I, personally, would feel embarrassed to write an ending as pathetic as that. Can Michael Morsch honestly - HONESTLY - take any pride in his work? This kind of writing is on the level of a middle school newspaper. How did he get his job? How does he still have it? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Baseball, "Hotdogs" and Mustard - again...
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Lowering the 'boomstick' on hotdogs, Texas-style
Published: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Hot dogs. I find it admirable that he STILL finds ways to break new ground.
Opening Day is just around the corner and that smell you smell is what the French Canadians — who once had a baseball team in Montreal — used to call Odeur de Hotdog.
Good lord, could he have found a more round-about way to introduce his topic?
I couldn’t find the French word for “hotdog,” but I didn’t search the Internet far and wide because, well, it’s a hotdog and I don’t really care what it’s called in other languages as long as there is mustard within arm’s reach.
Mustard! Be careful there, Borsch - don't HILARIOUSLY spill any of that on your shirt!
Besides, Montreal lost its baseball franchise to Washington, D.C., some years ago, and Nationals officials are trying a new marketing approach this season by prohibiting us Phillies fans from buying tickets to their ballpark and eating all their hotdogs. But that’s an issue for another time.
May I ask a question - how do these two facts relate to each other? (1) Montreal's baseball team went to Washington, and (2) Washington doesn't want as many Phillies fans in their stadium. The way he presents it, both are part of one central "issue."
With the start of a new baseball season, however, hotdogs will again be in the conversation.
This isn't how the word "however" works. Usually it sets up a contrast: "I usually hate sports; however, I enjoyed that hockey game." You can't write, "People speak French in Montreal. However, we can now talk about hotdogs." By the way, isn't "hot dogs" actually two words?
Dollar Dog Night has been a regular promotion at Citizens Bank Park for a while now and as has been reported in this space over the years, Phillies team officials usually want to know in advance when I’m coming to the ballpark so they can order an extra truckload of wieners for the game.
Because he's FAT! Get it? This is why he's got his own published humor column, folks.
Not to be outdone, though, are the good folks in Texas. We all know that — blah, blah, blah — everything is bigger in Texas — blah, blah, blah — for the Y’all and Ma’am Crowd and — blah, blah, blah.
I would like to know what the "blah blah blah" parts represent. Really, isn't the saying just that "everything is bigger in Texas"? Am I missing some other part of the phrase?
All we here in Philly know was that the Texas Rangers didn’t have enough gallons full of $100 bills in their 10-gallon hats to keep Cliff Lee in a Rangers uniform and he ended up back in Phillies pinstripes.
I laughed out loud when I read this sentence. It is maybe the worst collection of English words I have ever seen. Gallons full of $100 bills? I didn't know you could "fill" a gallon with something. Isn't a gallon what fills something else? The best part is, Borsch probably thought this was soooooo clever.
Still, Texas’ need to be bigger and better at everything has reached the ballpark concession stand. According to a wire service story,
Lamentably I was unable to find the exact story that Borsch copied the remaining 70% of his column from. However, every single article I spotted featured the "everything's bigger in Texas" cliche that Borsch passed off above.
the Rangers this season are offering their own culinary heart attack — a two-foot-long, one-pound, gourmet hot dog that feeds three to four people and costs $26. It’s as big as one of the mini-baseball bats one can buy at the ballpark, for less than the price of the hotdog, I might add.
Can "culinary heart attack" be a Borsch original? I doubt it.
Of course, I admire that kind of effort in the name of hotdog competition, although some of the accoutrements that accompany this story are a little iffy. For example, ballpark chef Cristobal Vasquez has created the monstrosity that includes a Coney Island-style wiener, topped with shredded cheese, chili and sautéed onions. It’s served on a bun that according to team officials is made of “exotic bread flown in from France.”
Can "accoutrements" really accompany a story?
The fact that ballparks actually have something called a “ballpark chef” on the payroll is slightly disconcerting, although that fact wouldn’t prevent me from trying to scrape together $26 (parking at Citizens Bank Park is only $15, by the way) and tackle this bad boy hotdog.
What is "disconcerting" about that? He's disturbed or upset by the fact that a chef works there? I'd be reassured, knowing that the food would be of high quality. But I'm not a "professional" writer.
No less than a hotdog authority like Rangers team president Nolan Ryan — yes, that Nolan Ryan, baseball hall-of-fame pitcher and owner of seven no-hitters during his playing days — calls it a “wild dog.”
Oh, THAT Nolan Ryan? Come on - if people know who Cliff Lee is, it's a pretty safe bet they'll know who Nolan Ryan is without the condescending dashed-off aside.
“It has to be a tremendous wiener,” Ryan said in the wire service story. “And then we’re getting some kind of exotic bread flown in from France. I don’t know what kind of condiments you put on that. But I do want to look at it.”
I'm sorry, but didn't Borsch just say that the bread "is made of 'exotic bread flown in from France'"? Is Ryan the "team official" cited above? Did he forget that he had already used that quote in his column?
I’d love to see the team’s beat writers ask Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. to comment on the state of the hotdogs for this coming season. Given his penchant for wheeling and dealing, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that Amaro has already had preliminary discussions with the Rangers to trade for the monster hot dog.
So in the same paragraph we go from "hotdog" to "hot dog." Consistency! Also, Amaro would never be interested in this hot dog - it's too young to be on the roster here in Philly.
The only snafu for the Rangers is what to call the hotdog.
Now it's "hotdog" again. Consistency!
At this point, it’s going to depend on where the Texas fans purchase the hotdog. If they eat at the Captain Morgan Club at the ballpark — sigh, do we really need to sell naming rights to each piece of the ballpark? If so, I’d like to put in a bid to have my name on the latrines —
Poop joke! Classy.
the big weenie is called a “Champion Dog.” If fans purchase it at the concession stands throughout the ballpark, it will be known as “The Boomstick.” (That’s apparently a nod to Nelson Cruz, the Rangers’ big thumper, who when he hits a home run, fans call it “lowering the boomstick.”)
That sounds retarded: "Nelzon Cruz... who when he hits a home run, fans call it..." Terrible writing. TERRIBLE. Borsch is also uncharacteristically passing up many, many chances to make a penis joke.
When a team can’t get the name of its hotdogs straight, well, we all know that only decreases its chances of making it to the World Series.
Get out the mustard, let’s play ball already.
The Rangers went to the World Series the past two years in a row. The Phillies haven't sniffed the WS during that span. What, again, is the connection between hot dogs and the post-season?
I suspect this won't be the last baseball/hot dog/mustard story we'll get this season. Prepare yourselves, folks!
Published: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Hot dogs. I find it admirable that he STILL finds ways to break new ground.
Opening Day is just around the corner and that smell you smell is what the French Canadians — who once had a baseball team in Montreal — used to call Odeur de Hotdog.
Good lord, could he have found a more round-about way to introduce his topic?
I couldn’t find the French word for “hotdog,” but I didn’t search the Internet far and wide because, well, it’s a hotdog and I don’t really care what it’s called in other languages as long as there is mustard within arm’s reach.
Mustard! Be careful there, Borsch - don't HILARIOUSLY spill any of that on your shirt!
Besides, Montreal lost its baseball franchise to Washington, D.C., some years ago, and Nationals officials are trying a new marketing approach this season by prohibiting us Phillies fans from buying tickets to their ballpark and eating all their hotdogs. But that’s an issue for another time.
May I ask a question - how do these two facts relate to each other? (1) Montreal's baseball team went to Washington, and (2) Washington doesn't want as many Phillies fans in their stadium. The way he presents it, both are part of one central "issue."
With the start of a new baseball season, however, hotdogs will again be in the conversation.
This isn't how the word "however" works. Usually it sets up a contrast: "I usually hate sports; however, I enjoyed that hockey game." You can't write, "People speak French in Montreal. However, we can now talk about hotdogs." By the way, isn't "hot dogs" actually two words?
Dollar Dog Night has been a regular promotion at Citizens Bank Park for a while now and as has been reported in this space over the years, Phillies team officials usually want to know in advance when I’m coming to the ballpark so they can order an extra truckload of wieners for the game.
Because he's FAT! Get it? This is why he's got his own published humor column, folks.
Not to be outdone, though, are the good folks in Texas. We all know that — blah, blah, blah — everything is bigger in Texas — blah, blah, blah — for the Y’all and Ma’am Crowd and — blah, blah, blah.
I would like to know what the "blah blah blah" parts represent. Really, isn't the saying just that "everything is bigger in Texas"? Am I missing some other part of the phrase?
All we here in Philly know was that the Texas Rangers didn’t have enough gallons full of $100 bills in their 10-gallon hats to keep Cliff Lee in a Rangers uniform and he ended up back in Phillies pinstripes.
I laughed out loud when I read this sentence. It is maybe the worst collection of English words I have ever seen. Gallons full of $100 bills? I didn't know you could "fill" a gallon with something. Isn't a gallon what fills something else? The best part is, Borsch probably thought this was soooooo clever.
Still, Texas’ need to be bigger and better at everything has reached the ballpark concession stand. According to a wire service story,
Lamentably I was unable to find the exact story that Borsch copied the remaining 70% of his column from. However, every single article I spotted featured the "everything's bigger in Texas" cliche that Borsch passed off above.
the Rangers this season are offering their own culinary heart attack — a two-foot-long, one-pound, gourmet hot dog that feeds three to four people and costs $26. It’s as big as one of the mini-baseball bats one can buy at the ballpark, for less than the price of the hotdog, I might add.
Can "culinary heart attack" be a Borsch original? I doubt it.
Of course, I admire that kind of effort in the name of hotdog competition, although some of the accoutrements that accompany this story are a little iffy. For example, ballpark chef Cristobal Vasquez has created the monstrosity that includes a Coney Island-style wiener, topped with shredded cheese, chili and sautéed onions. It’s served on a bun that according to team officials is made of “exotic bread flown in from France.”
Can "accoutrements" really accompany a story?
The fact that ballparks actually have something called a “ballpark chef” on the payroll is slightly disconcerting, although that fact wouldn’t prevent me from trying to scrape together $26 (parking at Citizens Bank Park is only $15, by the way) and tackle this bad boy hotdog.
What is "disconcerting" about that? He's disturbed or upset by the fact that a chef works there? I'd be reassured, knowing that the food would be of high quality. But I'm not a "professional" writer.
No less than a hotdog authority like Rangers team president Nolan Ryan — yes, that Nolan Ryan, baseball hall-of-fame pitcher and owner of seven no-hitters during his playing days — calls it a “wild dog.”
Oh, THAT Nolan Ryan? Come on - if people know who Cliff Lee is, it's a pretty safe bet they'll know who Nolan Ryan is without the condescending dashed-off aside.
“It has to be a tremendous wiener,” Ryan said in the wire service story. “And then we’re getting some kind of exotic bread flown in from France. I don’t know what kind of condiments you put on that. But I do want to look at it.”
I'm sorry, but didn't Borsch just say that the bread "is made of 'exotic bread flown in from France'"? Is Ryan the "team official" cited above? Did he forget that he had already used that quote in his column?
I’d love to see the team’s beat writers ask Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. to comment on the state of the hotdogs for this coming season. Given his penchant for wheeling and dealing, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that Amaro has already had preliminary discussions with the Rangers to trade for the monster hot dog.
So in the same paragraph we go from "hotdog" to "hot dog." Consistency! Also, Amaro would never be interested in this hot dog - it's too young to be on the roster here in Philly.
The only snafu for the Rangers is what to call the hotdog.
Now it's "hotdog" again. Consistency!
At this point, it’s going to depend on where the Texas fans purchase the hotdog. If they eat at the Captain Morgan Club at the ballpark — sigh, do we really need to sell naming rights to each piece of the ballpark? If so, I’d like to put in a bid to have my name on the latrines —
Poop joke! Classy.
the big weenie is called a “Champion Dog.” If fans purchase it at the concession stands throughout the ballpark, it will be known as “The Boomstick.” (That’s apparently a nod to Nelson Cruz, the Rangers’ big thumper, who when he hits a home run, fans call it “lowering the boomstick.”)
That sounds retarded: "Nelzon Cruz... who when he hits a home run, fans call it..." Terrible writing. TERRIBLE. Borsch is also uncharacteristically passing up many, many chances to make a penis joke.
When a team can’t get the name of its hotdogs straight, well, we all know that only decreases its chances of making it to the World Series.
Get out the mustard, let’s play ball already.
The Rangers went to the World Series the past two years in a row. The Phillies haven't sniffed the WS during that span. What, again, is the connection between hot dogs and the post-season?
I suspect this won't be the last baseball/hot dog/mustard story we'll get this season. Prepare yourselves, folks!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Lies, Lies, Lies
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
Spent 2 1/2 hours pushing stories on social media and engaging audience. Wasn't that long ago bosses didn't want us online during work day.
Posted at 5:30 PM yesterday. Wow! Sounds like Borsch is jumping right into the digital age! Although I'd question exactly what "audience" (his 5 readers?) he is "engaging" (nauseating?), I'll take his word for it...
...or will I???
At 4:53 PM, he posted the following in response to some guy's tweet about Roy Halladay:
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
@Plesac19 That's the way we felt about Doc in Philly last year before Game 5 of the NLDS. It didn't work out for us.
Engaging the audience... with baseball! At 4:30 PM he posted this:
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
Seems to me that the obvious choice to play second base in Chase #Utley's absence is Cliff #Lee. Even when he's pitching.
Crackin' baseball jokes! Hilarious. And, apparently, engaging for his vast audience. Now get this exchange - and keep in mind, he's spent "2 1/2 hours" today "pushing stories on social media."
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
Brandon Laird and George Kontos among those sent to the minors. #Yankees
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (3:33 PM)
@heelsonthefield I did a story on Kontos a few years ago when he was in Trenton. Then he got traded. When did he comes back to the Yanks?
"When did he comes." Nice.
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
@mmorsch35 The Yankees also called him up in September.
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (3:44 PM)
@heelsonthefield I thought he went to the Pirates in the deal the Yanks made for the oft-injured rightfielder (can't remember his name).
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
@mmorsch35 In the Burnett trade?
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (4:04 PM)
@heelsonthefield BTW, here's my latest on "The Rotation" by Salisbury and Zolecki: http://bit.ly/GDYwRD
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (4:04 PM)
@heelsonthefield No, in the Xavier Nady trade from a few years back. I thought George was part of that deal.
Stories Pushed On Social Media: 1
Time Spent Bullshitting On Twitter About Baseball: 1 hour, 10 minutes
But wait! At 3:46 and 3:48 PM, he "pushed" his fascinating story about "The Rotation" (by Todd Zolecki and Jim Salisbury) to two different people! ...Too bad those two people were, in fact, authors Todd Zolecki and Jim Salisbury.
At this rate he might reach, like seven people in those 2 1/2 hours - and he might just get to the bottom of that George Kontos mystery, too!
I'm sure the bosses are pleased with that time management.
Spent 2 1/2 hours pushing stories on social media and engaging audience. Wasn't that long ago bosses didn't want us online during work day.
Posted at 5:30 PM yesterday. Wow! Sounds like Borsch is jumping right into the digital age! Although I'd question exactly what "audience" (his 5 readers?) he is "engaging" (nauseating?), I'll take his word for it...
...or will I???
At 4:53 PM, he posted the following in response to some guy's tweet about Roy Halladay:
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
@Plesac19 That's the way we felt about Doc in Philly last year before Game 5 of the NLDS. It didn't work out for us.
Engaging the audience... with baseball! At 4:30 PM he posted this:
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
Seems to me that the obvious choice to play second base in Chase #Utley's absence is Cliff #Lee. Even when he's pitching.
Crackin' baseball jokes! Hilarious. And, apparently, engaging for his vast audience. Now get this exchange - and keep in mind, he's spent "2 1/2 hours" today "pushing stories on social media."
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
Brandon Laird and George Kontos among those sent to the minors. #Yankees
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (3:33 PM)
@heelsonthefield I did a story on Kontos a few years ago when he was in Trenton. Then he got traded. When did he comes back to the Yanks?
"When did he comes." Nice.
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
@mmorsch35 The Yankees also called him up in September.
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (3:44 PM)
@heelsonthefield I thought he went to the Pirates in the deal the Yanks made for the oft-injured rightfielder (can't remember his name).
Jessica Quiroli @heelsonthefield
@mmorsch35 In the Burnett trade?
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (4:04 PM)
@heelsonthefield BTW, here's my latest on "The Rotation" by Salisbury and Zolecki: http://bit.ly/GDYwRD
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35 (4:04 PM)
@heelsonthefield No, in the Xavier Nady trade from a few years back. I thought George was part of that deal.
Stories Pushed On Social Media: 1
Time Spent Bullshitting On Twitter About Baseball: 1 hour, 10 minutes
But wait! At 3:46 and 3:48 PM, he "pushed" his fascinating story about "The Rotation" (by Todd Zolecki and Jim Salisbury) to two different people! ...Too bad those two people were, in fact, authors Todd Zolecki and Jim Salisbury.
At this rate he might reach, like seven people in those 2 1/2 hours - and he might just get to the bottom of that George Kontos mystery, too!
I'm sure the bosses are pleased with that time management.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Hawaii(an) x 27
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Flower show short on Hawaiian shirts, ‘Five-0’ music (VIDEO)
Published: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Remember the days when I thought Borsch had lost it and I could retire in peace? They seem like so long ago...
My tickets have arrived for the Beach Boys, whose 50th anniversary tour is stopping in Camden in June. And it goes without saying that I need a new Hawaiian shirt to wear to the concert.
For the love of God, STOP TALKING ABOUT THE BEACH BOYS. Hall and Oates will get jealous!
As has been detailed in this space over the years, I used to be quite a fashion plate with my collection of Hawaiian shirts. Unfortunately, The Blonde Accountant is not too keen on Hawaiian shirts. But she married me anyway, and then began a systematic Mike Makeover that resulted in all the Hawaiian shirts being purged from my closet, never to return. Or so she thinks.
Know what else has been "detailed in this space" time and time again? How he has terrible fashion sense and his wife disapproves of it. Can we hope for a Chuck Taylors reference just to sweeten the pot?
But with the Beach Boys getting back together, the time is perfect to start rebuilding my Hawaiian shirt collection. However, we should probably keep this between us, because I wouldn’t want The Blonde Accountant to find out and scuttle my plans before I even get a chance to do some advanced scouting on the Hawaiian shirts.
Just for the record, his past four sentences have started with the following words: "But," "or," "but," and "however." You think this would indicate some alteration in the "wife hates his Hawaiian shirts" scenario - and you'd be wrong. He likes said shirts - but she got rid of them. Or not! But he's buying more. However, don't tell her. Borsch continues to use the (baseball) term "advanced scouting" when I'm pretty sure it's "advance scouting."
The first opportunity for some of that advanced scouting happened last week at the 2012 Philadelphia International Flower Show. This year’s theme was “Hawaii: Islands of Aloha.”
Too bad the Phillies’ Shane Victorino — a native Hawaiian — wasn’t able to attend the flower show because of his spring training commitment in Clearwater, Fla. He surely would have been named Flower Show Grand Poohbah.
Did you know that Shane Victorino is Hawaiian? Borsch does! Did you know that the show "Hawaii Five-O" was filmed on location in Hawaii? Read on to find out how often he can mention that!
Now I’ve sleepwalked through the flower show for several years, so I know the drill. It’s always pleasant enough, and I like to look at the displays for about an hour. But then the cement floor of the Pennsylvania Convention Center starts to raise seven kinds of heck with my back and knees and I get eight kinds of cranky.
From a March 2, 2010 article: "The only problem I ever have at the flower show is that the cement floor of the convention center plays seven kinds of hooey with my knees." If he can somehow mention hot dogs and spilling things, we'll have just about every Borsch cliche in the book!
The Hawaii theme this year, though, offered me some hope. I know from dragging my sorry hind end to past shows that there is a whole section of vendors at the flower show. I figured since everything was Hawaii-themed this year, there had to be at least one Hawaiian-shirt vendor in the house.
Not only that, but I figured the theme was sure to encourage other like-minded mopes to break out the Hawaiian shirts and dust them off for the first time this spring.
"Like-minded mopes"? Does wanting to wear a Hawaiian shirt qualify you as a "mope"?
And I anticipated that the “Hawaii Five-0” theme song would be playing on a continuous loop, at least in the convention center men’s rooms.
... Since only men like "Hawaii Five-O." I guess.
Well, that was wrong. On all accounts.
The phrase is not "on all accounts," it's "on all counts." Can we get an "irregardless," maybe?
Not only wasn’t there a vendor selling Hawaiian shirts — at least not one that I found — there were only about five guys in the crowd of 8 billion flower show attendees that day (we always seem to pick the most crowded day every year to go to this thing) wearing Hawaiian shirts. And I didn’t hear one “Book ’em Dano!” all day.
Perhaps people aren't as ignorant about Hawaii as you are, you know? Maybe they appreciate the islands for their beauty and culture, not for tacky shirts and a 1970s TV show?
Apparently, I’m not the only guy in the greater Philadelphia area who has a wife who hates her husband’s Hawaiian shirts and won’t even let him wear one to a Hawaii-theme flower show that he likely didn’t want to attend in the first place. I had tried to compensate for that oversight by wearing a stylish pink and white striped shirt, despite its lack of adherence to the show’s theme.
Wouch, that "Apparently" monster was one of his worst sentences ever.
At the very least, there should have been a moratorium placed on No Hawaiian Shirts Allowed Rule that wives have obviously imposed on husbands of this area.
Shouldn't that be "a moratorium placed on THE No Hawaiian Shirts Rule"?
It’s a flower show with a Hawaiian theme for crying out loud. Hawaiian shirts should have been standard issue for all the guys.
Alright, as of this second I'm going to tally every time the word "Hawaii" or "Hawaiian" is used here. He's probably already over ten. [Editor's Note: He was already over twenty]
The closest thing I could find to anything Hawaiian that I wanted to purchase was called a Good Luck Bamboo Pot. While standing at that vendor’s booth perusing the pots and wondering if buying one would bring me better luck in finding a new Hawaiian shirt, a woman standing next to me picked up another plant and shook it in my face.
Uh-oh, get ready for a ZANY exchange! Will he use "countered" where it's not appropriate?
“Do you know what this is!” she shouted at me, like she knew at my age I was beginning to get a little hard of hearing.
Usually you use a question mark when someone is asking a question, don't you?
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“Well, don’t you work here?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” I said.
“But you have on such a nice shirt,” she said. “I thought you worked here.”
Wow, given his usual propensity to use "replied slyly" and "demanded angrily," this "asked" and "said" exchange is practically Hemingway-esque.
See, that makes no sense to me at all. Had I been appropriately attired in a Hawaiian shirt, then the woman could have conceivably assumed that I just might be working at the show.
Witnessing the whole exchange, The Blonde Accountant had a smirk that suggested, “Hey, if I would have let you wear a Hawaiian shirt to this thing, then you would have had to figure out a way to sell that woman that plant.”
What? Someone assumed he worked there WITHOUT a Hawaiian shirt. If he wore the shirt, would he be REQUIRED to work there? Is that what's implied? This really doesn't make much sense.
Ahhh, phooey.
The flower show did offer one respite for the Cro-Magnon-inclined — a Man Cave. It’s a dandy concept by the flower show brain trust to accommodate the husbands who get dragged along to the event. And although this Man Cave featured big screen TVs, cold adult beverages, craps and blackjack tables and attractive women in short skirts, I would suggest at least one change for next year: A real Man Cave wouldn’t allow wives and children inside its man-friendly confines.
I've read this paragraph several times now, and I keep asking myself the same question: is it supposed to be funny? "Du-huh, guys are cavemen who like sports and booze." Really?
And next year, if a guy comes into the Man Cave wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he drinks free for the duration of his flower show stint.
Cue the “Hawaii Five-0” theme music for heaven’s sake.
For the record, that was twenty-seven uses of "Hawaii" or "Hawaiian."
Published: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Remember the days when I thought Borsch had lost it and I could retire in peace? They seem like so long ago...
My tickets have arrived for the Beach Boys, whose 50th anniversary tour is stopping in Camden in June. And it goes without saying that I need a new Hawaiian shirt to wear to the concert.
For the love of God, STOP TALKING ABOUT THE BEACH BOYS. Hall and Oates will get jealous!
As has been detailed in this space over the years, I used to be quite a fashion plate with my collection of Hawaiian shirts. Unfortunately, The Blonde Accountant is not too keen on Hawaiian shirts. But she married me anyway, and then began a systematic Mike Makeover that resulted in all the Hawaiian shirts being purged from my closet, never to return. Or so she thinks.
Know what else has been "detailed in this space" time and time again? How he has terrible fashion sense and his wife disapproves of it. Can we hope for a Chuck Taylors reference just to sweeten the pot?
But with the Beach Boys getting back together, the time is perfect to start rebuilding my Hawaiian shirt collection. However, we should probably keep this between us, because I wouldn’t want The Blonde Accountant to find out and scuttle my plans before I even get a chance to do some advanced scouting on the Hawaiian shirts.
Just for the record, his past four sentences have started with the following words: "But," "or," "but," and "however." You think this would indicate some alteration in the "wife hates his Hawaiian shirts" scenario - and you'd be wrong. He likes said shirts - but she got rid of them. Or not! But he's buying more. However, don't tell her. Borsch continues to use the (baseball) term "advanced scouting" when I'm pretty sure it's "advance scouting."
The first opportunity for some of that advanced scouting happened last week at the 2012 Philadelphia International Flower Show. This year’s theme was “Hawaii: Islands of Aloha.”
Too bad the Phillies’ Shane Victorino — a native Hawaiian — wasn’t able to attend the flower show because of his spring training commitment in Clearwater, Fla. He surely would have been named Flower Show Grand Poohbah.
Did you know that Shane Victorino is Hawaiian? Borsch does! Did you know that the show "Hawaii Five-O" was filmed on location in Hawaii? Read on to find out how often he can mention that!
Now I’ve sleepwalked through the flower show for several years, so I know the drill. It’s always pleasant enough, and I like to look at the displays for about an hour. But then the cement floor of the Pennsylvania Convention Center starts to raise seven kinds of heck with my back and knees and I get eight kinds of cranky.
From a March 2, 2010 article: "The only problem I ever have at the flower show is that the cement floor of the convention center plays seven kinds of hooey with my knees." If he can somehow mention hot dogs and spilling things, we'll have just about every Borsch cliche in the book!
The Hawaii theme this year, though, offered me some hope. I know from dragging my sorry hind end to past shows that there is a whole section of vendors at the flower show. I figured since everything was Hawaii-themed this year, there had to be at least one Hawaiian-shirt vendor in the house.
Not only that, but I figured the theme was sure to encourage other like-minded mopes to break out the Hawaiian shirts and dust them off for the first time this spring.
"Like-minded mopes"? Does wanting to wear a Hawaiian shirt qualify you as a "mope"?
And I anticipated that the “Hawaii Five-0” theme song would be playing on a continuous loop, at least in the convention center men’s rooms.
... Since only men like "Hawaii Five-O." I guess.
Well, that was wrong. On all accounts.
The phrase is not "on all accounts," it's "on all counts." Can we get an "irregardless," maybe?
Not only wasn’t there a vendor selling Hawaiian shirts — at least not one that I found — there were only about five guys in the crowd of 8 billion flower show attendees that day (we always seem to pick the most crowded day every year to go to this thing) wearing Hawaiian shirts. And I didn’t hear one “Book ’em Dano!” all day.
Perhaps people aren't as ignorant about Hawaii as you are, you know? Maybe they appreciate the islands for their beauty and culture, not for tacky shirts and a 1970s TV show?
Apparently, I’m not the only guy in the greater Philadelphia area who has a wife who hates her husband’s Hawaiian shirts and won’t even let him wear one to a Hawaii-theme flower show that he likely didn’t want to attend in the first place. I had tried to compensate for that oversight by wearing a stylish pink and white striped shirt, despite its lack of adherence to the show’s theme.
Wouch, that "Apparently" monster was one of his worst sentences ever.
At the very least, there should have been a moratorium placed on No Hawaiian Shirts Allowed Rule that wives have obviously imposed on husbands of this area.
Shouldn't that be "a moratorium placed on THE No Hawaiian Shirts Rule"?
It’s a flower show with a Hawaiian theme for crying out loud. Hawaiian shirts should have been standard issue for all the guys.
Alright, as of this second I'm going to tally every time the word "Hawaii" or "Hawaiian" is used here. He's probably already over ten. [Editor's Note: He was already over twenty]
The closest thing I could find to anything Hawaiian that I wanted to purchase was called a Good Luck Bamboo Pot. While standing at that vendor’s booth perusing the pots and wondering if buying one would bring me better luck in finding a new Hawaiian shirt, a woman standing next to me picked up another plant and shook it in my face.
Uh-oh, get ready for a ZANY exchange! Will he use "countered" where it's not appropriate?
“Do you know what this is!” she shouted at me, like she knew at my age I was beginning to get a little hard of hearing.
Usually you use a question mark when someone is asking a question, don't you?
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“Well, don’t you work here?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” I said.
“But you have on such a nice shirt,” she said. “I thought you worked here.”
Wow, given his usual propensity to use "replied slyly" and "demanded angrily," this "asked" and "said" exchange is practically Hemingway-esque.
See, that makes no sense to me at all. Had I been appropriately attired in a Hawaiian shirt, then the woman could have conceivably assumed that I just might be working at the show.
Witnessing the whole exchange, The Blonde Accountant had a smirk that suggested, “Hey, if I would have let you wear a Hawaiian shirt to this thing, then you would have had to figure out a way to sell that woman that plant.”
What? Someone assumed he worked there WITHOUT a Hawaiian shirt. If he wore the shirt, would he be REQUIRED to work there? Is that what's implied? This really doesn't make much sense.
Ahhh, phooey.
The flower show did offer one respite for the Cro-Magnon-inclined — a Man Cave. It’s a dandy concept by the flower show brain trust to accommodate the husbands who get dragged along to the event. And although this Man Cave featured big screen TVs, cold adult beverages, craps and blackjack tables and attractive women in short skirts, I would suggest at least one change for next year: A real Man Cave wouldn’t allow wives and children inside its man-friendly confines.
I've read this paragraph several times now, and I keep asking myself the same question: is it supposed to be funny? "Du-huh, guys are cavemen who like sports and booze." Really?
And next year, if a guy comes into the Man Cave wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he drinks free for the duration of his flower show stint.
Cue the “Hawaii Five-0” theme music for heaven’s sake.
For the record, that was twenty-seven uses of "Hawaii" or "Hawaiian."
Monday, March 12, 2012
Borsch Discusses Food... Again
Outta Leftfield: Asparagus rules — or not — on the Rubber Chicken Circuit
Published: Thursday, March 01, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
I actually missed this one when it was first released (to overwhelming critical acclaim, no doubt) due to a bad link on Borsch's Twitter. Thankfully, reader "Anonymous" put me back on the trail. Right off the bat, I'm going to predict at least one "smelly urine" joke in this column.
Apparently I am in the minority when it comes to asparagus. In technical terms, I consider it “blechie,” a view not shared by the majority of my friends.
See, where I come from, we don’t have a lot of banquets. It’s not that we don’t honor extraordinary people in the Midwest with a banquet.
Ooh, a reference to his Midwestern upbringing! If there's one thing that people in the Philadelphia suburbs love, it's Midwestern humor.
We do. It’s called a chili supper at the American Legion hall. And if the honoree is lucky, there will be a yee-haw band there and quite possibly a “stomp” dance contest where the winner can take home that most valuable of prizes: a $10-off coupon from the Tastee Freez.
(It should come as no surprise to know that I actually won a “stomp” dance contest at an American Legion hall in southern Iowa in 1983, although I did pull a hamstring and break three toes on my partner’s left foot in the process.)
He mentions this contest in an October 5, 2010 column:"As an adult, I did once win an American Legion dance hall contest with my first wife... We were living in a remote rural area of southern Iowa at the time..." Amazingly, he doesn't repeat the same "pull a hamstring" joke.
The name of the Tastee Freez can change from town to town in the heartland. In Peru, Ill., it’s called “The Gloo” — hickspeak for “The Igloo” — which in addition to ice cream, serves the messiest, greasiest and most wonderful cheeseburgers and tenderloin sammiches on the planet. I wonder if the greater Philadelphia region is in its delivery area?
What does this have to do with anything??? We've wandered so far down this rabbit trail that we've almost reached Watership Down.
But out here in the Northeast,
I would argue that "up here" works better than "out here" when describing the Northeast.
the Rubber Chicken Circuit is alive and well. I end up going to a lot of banquets, the most recent of which was last week and honored the retirement of Abington’s Oscar Vance, who is hanging it up after what was described in the speechifying as 112 years as Montgomery County chief of detectives. I must admit, Oscar looks to be in pretty good shape for a man of 140.
Note how Borsch attempts to steal that "Vance is old" joke from whoever originally made it at the banquet. Also, "I end up" through "detectives" is one really long, really bad sentence.
Now I know not to get my expectations up too high when it comes to banquet food. I’ve been to banquets with as many as 800 attendees (the Philadelphia Sports Writers). There were only 400 people at Oscar’s banquet. And I know it’s difficult to prepare and serve several hundred meals at a time.
We'll be getting to the funny part any second now. I can feel it.
But man, the vegetables at a banquet seem to me to be the most insufferable part of the meal. Most of the time, the meat and taters/rice are decent to relatively good (the portions are never big enough for a guy like me, but that’s another story).
Ooh, ooh, can we analyze every part of the meal in agonizingly tedious detail? We CAN? Oh joy! I like the extremely original "I'm fat" joke, too.
Carrots and string beans seem to be the most popular vegetable choices for banquets. And, I guess, asparagus falls into that category, because that’s what we were served at Oscar’s banquet.
What category? The carrots and string beans category? And because asparagus was served at one banquet it becomes one of "the most popular choices"? Note what an awkward and clumsy way that was to introduce asparagus - you know, the topic of his column that we're only getting to a third of the way in.
Asparagus — or Asparagus officinalis as it would be called in a Roadrunner cartoon —
Um... no. You see, in a Roadrunner cartoon, they make up funny fake Latin names for things. "Asparagus officinalis" is the actual Latin name for asparagus. I suspect that he obtained this information from his old friend Wikipedia.
doesn’t even sound good. But it is good for you. It’s low in calories and sodium, is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc and serves as a dandy dietary fiber. And everybody knows just how important dandy dietary fibers are to one’s disposition.
Yep! Per Wikipedia: "Asparagus is low in calories and is very low in sodium. It is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fiber." Come on, Borsch. That was a blatant one.
I should probably eat more asparagus, but I just can’t stomach it. I feel the same way about asparagus that President George H.W. Bush feels about broccoli and first lady Michelle Obama feels about beets. Yuck. Patooey.
He used the term "can't stomach it" and passed up another opportunity to make a fat joke about himself? I'm shocked.
But I assumed I was in the majority opinion about asparagus. Taking the issue to experts on Facebook, I commented that I thought three out of every four people didn’t like asparagus. I based my opinion on that most scientific theory: The Yuck Factor.
His four Facebook friends are an unending source of inspiration.
Turns out many of my friends are asparagus eaters. One called it “the Rolls Royce choice for green vegetables at a banquet.” And I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the words “Rolls Royce” and “asparagus” in the same sentence. A cousin suggested that possibly asparagus would be more appealing to me if it were prepared differently: “Maybe balsamic marinated as a salad-like side dish would fit your fancy better.”
Uh, no thanks, cuz.
"Cuz"? Is he an Italian sports radio host now?
My informal and limited poll
"Informal and limited" could basically sum up his entire career.
generated six asparagus supporters and two who sided with me. That certainly blew my three-out-of-every-four-people-hate-asparagus theory, but it did prove once and for all that Facebook is a valuable social tool when discussing the important issues of the day.
He used this same "important issues of the day" joke about Oreos, too.
I can only imagine how much social engagement I could muster on Facebook if I started a thread about rubber chickens.
Do you really "start a thread" on Facebook?
What a good ending! I would point out that "rubber chicken circuit" is more a comment on the consistency of the chicken than a reference to actual rubber chickens, but I'm not a nit-picker like that.
This was a really bad column (does that go without saying, at this point?). We start out with an awkward side-story about dance contests in Iowa, blunder into how he doesn't like asparagus but other people do, and end with a "joke" about rubber chickens that makes little-to-no sense. Never mind the fact that Borsch is never funny - he's not even coherent!
Published: Thursday, March 01, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
I actually missed this one when it was first released (to overwhelming critical acclaim, no doubt) due to a bad link on Borsch's Twitter. Thankfully, reader "Anonymous" put me back on the trail. Right off the bat, I'm going to predict at least one "smelly urine" joke in this column.
Apparently I am in the minority when it comes to asparagus. In technical terms, I consider it “blechie,” a view not shared by the majority of my friends.
See, where I come from, we don’t have a lot of banquets. It’s not that we don’t honor extraordinary people in the Midwest with a banquet.
Ooh, a reference to his Midwestern upbringing! If there's one thing that people in the Philadelphia suburbs love, it's Midwestern humor.
We do. It’s called a chili supper at the American Legion hall. And if the honoree is lucky, there will be a yee-haw band there and quite possibly a “stomp” dance contest where the winner can take home that most valuable of prizes: a $10-off coupon from the Tastee Freez.
(It should come as no surprise to know that I actually won a “stomp” dance contest at an American Legion hall in southern Iowa in 1983, although I did pull a hamstring and break three toes on my partner’s left foot in the process.)
He mentions this contest in an October 5, 2010 column:"As an adult, I did once win an American Legion dance hall contest with my first wife... We were living in a remote rural area of southern Iowa at the time..." Amazingly, he doesn't repeat the same "pull a hamstring" joke.
The name of the Tastee Freez can change from town to town in the heartland. In Peru, Ill., it’s called “The Gloo” — hickspeak for “The Igloo” — which in addition to ice cream, serves the messiest, greasiest and most wonderful cheeseburgers and tenderloin sammiches on the planet. I wonder if the greater Philadelphia region is in its delivery area?
What does this have to do with anything??? We've wandered so far down this rabbit trail that we've almost reached Watership Down.
But out here in the Northeast,
I would argue that "up here" works better than "out here" when describing the Northeast.
the Rubber Chicken Circuit is alive and well. I end up going to a lot of banquets, the most recent of which was last week and honored the retirement of Abington’s Oscar Vance, who is hanging it up after what was described in the speechifying as 112 years as Montgomery County chief of detectives. I must admit, Oscar looks to be in pretty good shape for a man of 140.
Note how Borsch attempts to steal that "Vance is old" joke from whoever originally made it at the banquet. Also, "I end up" through "detectives" is one really long, really bad sentence.
Now I know not to get my expectations up too high when it comes to banquet food. I’ve been to banquets with as many as 800 attendees (the Philadelphia Sports Writers). There were only 400 people at Oscar’s banquet. And I know it’s difficult to prepare and serve several hundred meals at a time.
We'll be getting to the funny part any second now. I can feel it.
But man, the vegetables at a banquet seem to me to be the most insufferable part of the meal. Most of the time, the meat and taters/rice are decent to relatively good (the portions are never big enough for a guy like me, but that’s another story).
Ooh, ooh, can we analyze every part of the meal in agonizingly tedious detail? We CAN? Oh joy! I like the extremely original "I'm fat" joke, too.
Carrots and string beans seem to be the most popular vegetable choices for banquets. And, I guess, asparagus falls into that category, because that’s what we were served at Oscar’s banquet.
What category? The carrots and string beans category? And because asparagus was served at one banquet it becomes one of "the most popular choices"? Note what an awkward and clumsy way that was to introduce asparagus - you know, the topic of his column that we're only getting to a third of the way in.
Asparagus — or Asparagus officinalis as it would be called in a Roadrunner cartoon —
Um... no. You see, in a Roadrunner cartoon, they make up funny fake Latin names for things. "Asparagus officinalis" is the actual Latin name for asparagus. I suspect that he obtained this information from his old friend Wikipedia.
doesn’t even sound good. But it is good for you. It’s low in calories and sodium, is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc and serves as a dandy dietary fiber. And everybody knows just how important dandy dietary fibers are to one’s disposition.
Yep! Per Wikipedia: "Asparagus is low in calories and is very low in sodium. It is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fiber." Come on, Borsch. That was a blatant one.
I should probably eat more asparagus, but I just can’t stomach it. I feel the same way about asparagus that President George H.W. Bush feels about broccoli and first lady Michelle Obama feels about beets. Yuck. Patooey.
He used the term "can't stomach it" and passed up another opportunity to make a fat joke about himself? I'm shocked.
But I assumed I was in the majority opinion about asparagus. Taking the issue to experts on Facebook, I commented that I thought three out of every four people didn’t like asparagus. I based my opinion on that most scientific theory: The Yuck Factor.
His four Facebook friends are an unending source of inspiration.
Turns out many of my friends are asparagus eaters. One called it “the Rolls Royce choice for green vegetables at a banquet.” And I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the words “Rolls Royce” and “asparagus” in the same sentence. A cousin suggested that possibly asparagus would be more appealing to me if it were prepared differently: “Maybe balsamic marinated as a salad-like side dish would fit your fancy better.”
Uh, no thanks, cuz.
"Cuz"? Is he an Italian sports radio host now?
My informal and limited poll
"Informal and limited" could basically sum up his entire career.
generated six asparagus supporters and two who sided with me. That certainly blew my three-out-of-every-four-people-hate-asparagus theory, but it did prove once and for all that Facebook is a valuable social tool when discussing the important issues of the day.
He used this same "important issues of the day" joke about Oreos, too.
I can only imagine how much social engagement I could muster on Facebook if I started a thread about rubber chickens.
Do you really "start a thread" on Facebook?
What a good ending! I would point out that "rubber chicken circuit" is more a comment on the consistency of the chicken than a reference to actual rubber chickens, but I'm not a nit-picker like that.
This was a really bad column (does that go without saying, at this point?). We start out with an awkward side-story about dance contests in Iowa, blunder into how he doesn't like asparagus but other people do, and end with a "joke" about rubber chickens that makes little-to-no sense. Never mind the fact that Borsch is never funny - he's not even coherent!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Copy-And-Paste Column
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Milking a topic for what it’s worth: The Oreo turns 100
Published: Tuesday, March 06, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
I should have known.
In the interest of offering you critical information that you can utilize in your everyday life — as this space so often does, especially during the wacky political season — the Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday this week.
Long-time Borsch readers will know that this political season is only "wacky" because it's the Republican primary.
According to a wire service story,
This means he stole 90% of his content from said wire service story.
a woman by the name of Becky Tousey, corporate archivist for Kraft Foods who is apparently also known as the “Oreo historian,” revealed that the cookie has maintained the same advertising focus since its inception — that it is fun to eat.
The story (which I found) uses the phrase "maintained the same theme in its advertising over the years." This is the most effort Borsch will put into his copying from here on out. I really question whether "inception" is the proper word to use when referring to a cookie.
This, of course, raises the question: Kraft Foods actually employs someone as a “corporate archivist” and expert “Oreo historian”?
Cool. I believe I may have eaten enough Oreo cookies over the course of my lifetime to actually qualify as an “Oreo historian.” I plan to revise my resume to reflect such an accomplishment.
Did you like that "I eat a lot of Oreos" joke? I hope so. You'll be seeing it again. And again. And again.
Here are some other fun facts about the Oreo, according to the wire service story:
This is code for "the remaining 75% of the article is someone else's work."
— The cookie takes 59 minutes to make and consists of 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes on each side. Each cookie also has 90 ridges.
From the story: "The cookie, which takes 59 minutes to make, consists of 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes on each side. Each cookie has 90 ridges."
— The cookies are made of 29 percent crème and 71 percent cookie. They are produced in 21 bakeries around the world, and Kraft estimates that more than 500 billion Oreos have been sold since 1912.
You guessed it! From the story: "Oreos are made from 29 percent creme and 71 percent cookie. They are made in 21 bakeries around the world. Kraft Foods estimates that more than 500 billion Oreos have been sold since 1912." Changing punctuation = NOT copying. Kids, take note.
— I believe I am personally responsible for eating at least 1.5 billion of those Oreos, which puts me second on the All-Time Cookie Eater leader board behind, of course, the Cookie Monster. Oddly enough, I’ve never looked at them closely enough to realize that each cookie has a pattern that contains 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes. What that proves, I think, is that the cookies don’t stay in my hand long enough for me to get a good look at what’s on them.
HA! He eats large quantities of food. Funny. There's an entire, massive paragraph later based solely around this joke, but adds the fact that he drinks a lot of milk to the mix. Double HA!
— Market research reveals that 84 percent of men ate the cookies whole while 41 percent of women pulled the cookie apart.
Per the story: "...market research found that while 84 percent of men ate the cookie whole, 41 percent of women pulled the cookie apart.".
Count me among the 84 percent. I just ate a bunch last weekend and didn’t pull any of them apart. Of course, I’m pretty sure I am practicing the wrong technique there. Even though the women represent only a 41 percent minority of puller-aparters, it’s likely that we men have been doing it all wrong for the past 100 years.
What in hell is he saying here, exactly? Obviously he's doing his usual "men are stupid" thing, but does that mean that 59% of women are also stupid? Does he think that 41% of the entire population, who happen to all be women, pull the Oreo apart? If so, what happened to the 16% of men who do? Really, if Borsch ever reads this (and I know he does), I hope he explains what he was going for.
— Apparently nobody has been credited with coming up with the Oreo idea. However, Ms. Tousey, the “Oreo historian,” believes the name came from combining the “re” in “crème” and the two “o’s” in “chocolate.” I don’t mean to be critical, but that seems like a pretty thin theory for someone with the exulted title of “Oreo historian.” That cookie needs a better backstory.
Borsch says "apparently" because, per the story: "No one has been credited with coming up with the Oreo idea". Tousey's theory about the origin of the name is practically word-for-word, too.
— In 1921, the Oreo biscuit became the Oreo sandwich. In 1937, the name changed to the Oreo crème sandwich. I had no idea is was a biscuit or a sandwich and I’m still not sure why the original bakery — the National Biscuit Co. out of Manhattan — didn’t just name the cookie “The Best Dadgummed Cookie You’ll Ever Dunk in a Glass of Milk.” That certainly could have made for a better backstory if you ask me.
It's been a long time since he's used "dadgummed." And how exactly does a different name for the cookie create a "better backstory"?
— The popular cookie — its Facebook page currently has more than 25 million fans — has had five design changes and been marketed by three companies: the aforementioned National Biscuit Co., which became Nabisco, and now Kraft Foods. I remember is mostly as a Nabisco product.
"I remember is mostly"? Some executive editors didn't proofread!
According to company officials, a limited-edition Oreo with a confetti-sprinkled crème center that tastes like birthday cake has been unveiled for the 100th birthday of the cookie. Swell. Now I have to buy more cookies and milk.
Borsch does a good job of exactly repeating the wire service story again: "...a limited edition cookie with a confetti-sprinkled creme center that tastes like birthday cake."
Now, there might not be anything strictly wrong with repeating your source material word-for-word for the majority of your own column (although I doubt it). But it's further evidence that our favorite author is lazy, slipshod, and unoriginal - and unwilling to admit to it.
Given the history and popularity of the Oreo, it’s little wonder that it has lasted this long. The cookie has become part of the American fabric.
Which, of course, makes it a fitting topic for the next political debate. It’s about time our politicians started talking about something really important — like the best cookies of our time.
... What? Pathetic, sir. Truly a pathetic attempt to frame your copy-and-paste "column" within the context of the primaries (and how in the world he thinks the two topics should even be tenuously tied together is beyond me).
A reader posting under the name of "Kelly Simmons" left the following comment on Borsch's column: Yummy post! I fear for the future of the Republic.
Published: Tuesday, March 06, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
I should have known.
In the interest of offering you critical information that you can utilize in your everyday life — as this space so often does, especially during the wacky political season — the Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday this week.
Long-time Borsch readers will know that this political season is only "wacky" because it's the Republican primary.
According to a wire service story,
This means he stole 90% of his content from said wire service story.
a woman by the name of Becky Tousey, corporate archivist for Kraft Foods who is apparently also known as the “Oreo historian,” revealed that the cookie has maintained the same advertising focus since its inception — that it is fun to eat.
The story (which I found) uses the phrase "maintained the same theme in its advertising over the years." This is the most effort Borsch will put into his copying from here on out. I really question whether "inception" is the proper word to use when referring to a cookie.
This, of course, raises the question: Kraft Foods actually employs someone as a “corporate archivist” and expert “Oreo historian”?
Cool. I believe I may have eaten enough Oreo cookies over the course of my lifetime to actually qualify as an “Oreo historian.” I plan to revise my resume to reflect such an accomplishment.
Did you like that "I eat a lot of Oreos" joke? I hope so. You'll be seeing it again. And again. And again.
Here are some other fun facts about the Oreo, according to the wire service story:
This is code for "the remaining 75% of the article is someone else's work."
— The cookie takes 59 minutes to make and consists of 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes on each side. Each cookie also has 90 ridges.
From the story: "The cookie, which takes 59 minutes to make, consists of 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes on each side. Each cookie has 90 ridges."
— The cookies are made of 29 percent crème and 71 percent cookie. They are produced in 21 bakeries around the world, and Kraft estimates that more than 500 billion Oreos have been sold since 1912.
You guessed it! From the story: "Oreos are made from 29 percent creme and 71 percent cookie. They are made in 21 bakeries around the world. Kraft Foods estimates that more than 500 billion Oreos have been sold since 1912." Changing punctuation = NOT copying. Kids, take note.
— I believe I am personally responsible for eating at least 1.5 billion of those Oreos, which puts me second on the All-Time Cookie Eater leader board behind, of course, the Cookie Monster. Oddly enough, I’ve never looked at them closely enough to realize that each cookie has a pattern that contains 12 flowers, 12 dots and 12 dashes. What that proves, I think, is that the cookies don’t stay in my hand long enough for me to get a good look at what’s on them.
HA! He eats large quantities of food. Funny. There's an entire, massive paragraph later based solely around this joke, but adds the fact that he drinks a lot of milk to the mix. Double HA!
— Market research reveals that 84 percent of men ate the cookies whole while 41 percent of women pulled the cookie apart.
Per the story: "...market research found that while 84 percent of men ate the cookie whole, 41 percent of women pulled the cookie apart.".
Count me among the 84 percent. I just ate a bunch last weekend and didn’t pull any of them apart. Of course, I’m pretty sure I am practicing the wrong technique there. Even though the women represent only a 41 percent minority of puller-aparters, it’s likely that we men have been doing it all wrong for the past 100 years.
What in hell is he saying here, exactly? Obviously he's doing his usual "men are stupid" thing, but does that mean that 59% of women are also stupid? Does he think that 41% of the entire population, who happen to all be women, pull the Oreo apart? If so, what happened to the 16% of men who do? Really, if Borsch ever reads this (and I know he does), I hope he explains what he was going for.
— Apparently nobody has been credited with coming up with the Oreo idea. However, Ms. Tousey, the “Oreo historian,” believes the name came from combining the “re” in “crème” and the two “o’s” in “chocolate.” I don’t mean to be critical, but that seems like a pretty thin theory for someone with the exulted title of “Oreo historian.” That cookie needs a better backstory.
Borsch says "apparently" because, per the story: "No one has been credited with coming up with the Oreo idea". Tousey's theory about the origin of the name is practically word-for-word, too.
— In 1921, the Oreo biscuit became the Oreo sandwich. In 1937, the name changed to the Oreo crème sandwich. I had no idea is was a biscuit or a sandwich and I’m still not sure why the original bakery — the National Biscuit Co. out of Manhattan — didn’t just name the cookie “The Best Dadgummed Cookie You’ll Ever Dunk in a Glass of Milk.” That certainly could have made for a better backstory if you ask me.
It's been a long time since he's used "dadgummed." And how exactly does a different name for the cookie create a "better backstory"?
— The popular cookie — its Facebook page currently has more than 25 million fans — has had five design changes and been marketed by three companies: the aforementioned National Biscuit Co., which became Nabisco, and now Kraft Foods. I remember is mostly as a Nabisco product.
"I remember is mostly"? Some executive editors didn't proofread!
According to company officials, a limited-edition Oreo with a confetti-sprinkled crème center that tastes like birthday cake has been unveiled for the 100th birthday of the cookie. Swell. Now I have to buy more cookies and milk.
Borsch does a good job of exactly repeating the wire service story again: "...a limited edition cookie with a confetti-sprinkled creme center that tastes like birthday cake."
Now, there might not be anything strictly wrong with repeating your source material word-for-word for the majority of your own column (although I doubt it). But it's further evidence that our favorite author is lazy, slipshod, and unoriginal - and unwilling to admit to it.
Given the history and popularity of the Oreo, it’s little wonder that it has lasted this long. The cookie has become part of the American fabric.
Which, of course, makes it a fitting topic for the next political debate. It’s about time our politicians started talking about something really important — like the best cookies of our time.
... What? Pathetic, sir. Truly a pathetic attempt to frame your copy-and-paste "column" within the context of the primaries (and how in the world he thinks the two topics should even be tenuously tied together is beyond me).
A reader posting under the name of "Kelly Simmons" left the following comment on Borsch's column: Yummy post! I fear for the future of the Republic.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Hmmm...
Mike Morsch @mmorsch35
Date night. Dinner and theater. Deciding now on which shirt I would like to spill dinner.
Is he baiting me? I think he's baiting me. I can only hope that an enthralling "we ate here, it was pretty good" post is upcoming.
Date night. Dinner and theater. Deciding now on which shirt I would like to spill dinner.
Is he baiting me? I think he's baiting me. I can only hope that an enthralling "we ate here, it was pretty good" post is upcoming.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Articles in Stasis
Terri Clark loves getting up close with audience
Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Oh, joy! Two Borsch trademarks: hogging an interview with a minor celeb, and talking about a concert at the Sellersville Theater. Will the intimacy of the venue be discussed, possibly with a "living room" reference?
On her last visit to the Sellersville Theater 1894, Terri Clark was very much aware of the intimacy the theater offers its performers, so much so that it made her worry about her eyebrows.
To paraphrase the creepy General from White Christmas: We have established the fact that the Theater is intimate. Can now discuss something - anything - else about this venue?
“The crowd seemed so much more up close to me,” said Clark, known for such No. 1 hits as “You’re Easy on the Eyes” and “Girls Lie, Too.” “They’re like in your lap. This time, I just need to make sure I pluck my eyebrows so they won’t be able to see the strays.”
You are close to the audience there. I get it.
Proper unruly hair maintenance aside, fans will once again get an up-close- and-personal look at Clark during her already-sold-out stop here for the “Roots & Wings” unplugged acoustic tour at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.
What does "proper unruly hair maintenance" mean? Seriously. What does "proper" apply to? Does "unruly" apply to the maintenance or to the hair?
Although there is new music included, the show will have a similar vibe to the one the Canadian singer-songwriter performed at ST94 in October 2010. It will be just Clark and a handful of guitars onstage, singing and engaging with the crowd that appears to be sitting in her lap.
From Borsch's November 1, 2010 story about said concert: "...show that she hopes is 'like sitting in a living room at a party with someone who has a guitar in her lap.'"
Clark then describes this show, which she says will be even better than her last one (and, presumably, even more intimate).
That’s taking it up to an ever higher level, considering what Clark was dealing with the last time she was in Sellersville. She had lost her mother, Linda, to cancer just six months earlier.
Borsch mentions this in his November 1 2010 article AND his January 4 2011 article, both about the same concert. I'm beginning to wonder if we are going to learn anything about Ms. Clark that we didn't know 1 1/2 years ago.
Clark said with this new CD — her eighth studio album, which includes the song “Smile,” written for her mom and one that she sang in the 2010 show here even before it had been recorded — she took more of a fun and lighthearted approach to making the album.
Watch out, folks - it's the Borsch Dash! Can't figure out a way to smoothly integrate information into your story? Just jam unrelated bits of trivia between a pair of dashes! Make the dashed-off aside longer than the sentence containing it! The beauty of this strategy is that the information doesn't necessarily have to relate to the surrounding narrative. For instance:
"Ms. Clark - who once ran naked through the National Mall - is a big fan of smooth jazz."
JOURNALISM!
Just last week, Clark — already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year — scored a JUNO Award nomination for “Roots & Wings” for country album of the year. The JUNO Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands.
This is just lazy writing. The sentence could very easily have been written: "Clark, who is already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year, scored a JUNO Award nomination... last week." This is further proof that Borsch never re-reads or edits his articles.
Clark, who has been an independent artist since walking away from her record deal with Sony/BMG in 2008 and doesn’t get much, if any, play time on U.S. radio now, has been able to create buzz for her new music through social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
See? See that? Why couldn't he have done that before? Of course, this particular sentence is already pretty bad without the dashes.
As for the ST94, Clark liked it the last time and said she’s going to like performing there again.
“The show I did there in Sellersville was one of my favorite ones on the last tour and that’s why we’re coming back,” she said. “I find the audience in that part of the country is so engaged in the singer-songwriter vibe. They really appreciate the organic side of things so much.”
From his last article: "...the northeast hillbillies in the crowd — whom Clark suggested could be considered more “sophisticated” than hillbillies in other parts of the country -..."
That doesn’t mean, though, that Clark won’t ever take to the road again with her band, even though she likes the unplugged gigs quite a lot.
“I might start staggering every other year — doing an unplugged tour and then going back and doing a band tour,” she said. “That keeps things fresh for me as well as the fan base. I did the same show for 15 years. That’s the whole reason for doing this [unplugged] tour. But I don’t want the fans to get this show now for the next 15 years. I want to bounce back and forth and keep it fresh for everybody.”
Yeah, that's the end of the article.
I found this fascinating. Except for a few sentences, you could switch the "previews" he wrote in 2010 and 2012 and not be able to tell the difference. Intimate venue, mother's cancer, alone on stage. Tell me, Mr. Borsch: is it satisfying to know that your "craft" has not evolved in the least over these two years?
By the way... if the show is already sold out... this preview seems a tad unnecessary, doesn't it?
Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Oh, joy! Two Borsch trademarks: hogging an interview with a minor celeb, and talking about a concert at the Sellersville Theater. Will the intimacy of the venue be discussed, possibly with a "living room" reference?
On her last visit to the Sellersville Theater 1894, Terri Clark was very much aware of the intimacy the theater offers its performers, so much so that it made her worry about her eyebrows.
To paraphrase the creepy General from White Christmas: We have established the fact that the Theater is intimate. Can now discuss something - anything - else about this venue?
“The crowd seemed so much more up close to me,” said Clark, known for such No. 1 hits as “You’re Easy on the Eyes” and “Girls Lie, Too.” “They’re like in your lap. This time, I just need to make sure I pluck my eyebrows so they won’t be able to see the strays.”
You are close to the audience there. I get it.
Proper unruly hair maintenance aside, fans will once again get an up-close- and-personal look at Clark during her already-sold-out stop here for the “Roots & Wings” unplugged acoustic tour at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.
What does "proper unruly hair maintenance" mean? Seriously. What does "proper" apply to? Does "unruly" apply to the maintenance or to the hair?
Although there is new music included, the show will have a similar vibe to the one the Canadian singer-songwriter performed at ST94 in October 2010. It will be just Clark and a handful of guitars onstage, singing and engaging with the crowd that appears to be sitting in her lap.
From Borsch's November 1, 2010 story about said concert: "...show that she hopes is 'like sitting in a living room at a party with someone who has a guitar in her lap.'"
Clark then describes this show, which she says will be even better than her last one (and, presumably, even more intimate).
That’s taking it up to an ever higher level, considering what Clark was dealing with the last time she was in Sellersville. She had lost her mother, Linda, to cancer just six months earlier.
Borsch mentions this in his November 1 2010 article AND his January 4 2011 article, both about the same concert. I'm beginning to wonder if we are going to learn anything about Ms. Clark that we didn't know 1 1/2 years ago.
Clark said with this new CD — her eighth studio album, which includes the song “Smile,” written for her mom and one that she sang in the 2010 show here even before it had been recorded — she took more of a fun and lighthearted approach to making the album.
Watch out, folks - it's the Borsch Dash! Can't figure out a way to smoothly integrate information into your story? Just jam unrelated bits of trivia between a pair of dashes! Make the dashed-off aside longer than the sentence containing it! The beauty of this strategy is that the information doesn't necessarily have to relate to the surrounding narrative. For instance:
"Ms. Clark - who once ran naked through the National Mall - is a big fan of smooth jazz."
JOURNALISM!
Just last week, Clark — already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year — scored a JUNO Award nomination for “Roots & Wings” for country album of the year. The JUNO Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands.
This is just lazy writing. The sentence could very easily have been written: "Clark, who is already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year, scored a JUNO Award nomination... last week." This is further proof that Borsch never re-reads or edits his articles.
Clark, who has been an independent artist since walking away from her record deal with Sony/BMG in 2008 and doesn’t get much, if any, play time on U.S. radio now, has been able to create buzz for her new music through social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
See? See that? Why couldn't he have done that before? Of course, this particular sentence is already pretty bad without the dashes.
As for the ST94, Clark liked it the last time and said she’s going to like performing there again.
“The show I did there in Sellersville was one of my favorite ones on the last tour and that’s why we’re coming back,” she said. “I find the audience in that part of the country is so engaged in the singer-songwriter vibe. They really appreciate the organic side of things so much.”
From his last article: "...the northeast hillbillies in the crowd — whom Clark suggested could be considered more “sophisticated” than hillbillies in other parts of the country -..."
That doesn’t mean, though, that Clark won’t ever take to the road again with her band, even though she likes the unplugged gigs quite a lot.
“I might start staggering every other year — doing an unplugged tour and then going back and doing a band tour,” she said. “That keeps things fresh for me as well as the fan base. I did the same show for 15 years. That’s the whole reason for doing this [unplugged] tour. But I don’t want the fans to get this show now for the next 15 years. I want to bounce back and forth and keep it fresh for everybody.”
Yeah, that's the end of the article.
I found this fascinating. Except for a few sentences, you could switch the "previews" he wrote in 2010 and 2012 and not be able to tell the difference. Intimate venue, mother's cancer, alone on stage. Tell me, Mr. Borsch: is it satisfying to know that your "craft" has not evolved in the least over these two years?
By the way... if the show is already sold out... this preview seems a tad unnecessary, doesn't it?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Double-Dipping Confusion
My return may end up being a brief one, if this is the kind of product I have to deal with...
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Stick a fork in those Super Bowl buffet double-dippers
Published: Tuesday, February 07, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
This column is not only insufferably long, but suffers from the following defects:
1.) Overall confusion on the definition of the term "double-dip"
2.) Variations on the term "double-dip" are used no less than 14 times
3.) Seinfeld covered this topic fifteen years ago
The highlights:
I am not a double-dipper, at least not in front of anyone. In my younger days, though, I was notorious for drinking directly out of the milk jug. That was, until I got caught one time and spent the next three days picking plastic out of my ear, unceremoniously put there by someone who was drinking out of the same jug, only not directly.
... What? Re-write that last sentence, but this time, have it make a lick of sense. Does it surprise anyone that he drinks milk directly out of the jug? It shouldn't. He probably also spills milk on himself and snorts it out of his nose.
But my dad was a shameless world class double-dipper — the Kobayashi of Double-Dipping as it were — and it was his dinner table indiscretions over the course of many years that eventually convinced me that I would, for the most part, not follow in his footsteps.
Please note - at no point in this column does Borsch provide a definitive explanation of exactly what "double-dipping" is, despite using the phrase in almost every pharagraph. As it turns out, he seems a little confused on the definition himself.
And my pop wasn’t even subtle about it. When it came time for seconds — or even after the meal was over — he would take his fork and pick right out of the bowls of food that were left on the table.
One wonders how someone could, in fact, be subtle about getting up, walking back to a buffet table, taking additional food, and sitting back down. And just so we're clear - "double-dipping" apparently means using your own utensil to pick food out of communal bowls.
Per Urban Dictionary: Favorite behavior of crude diners. Involves dipping your... chip into a sauce, taking a bite... and then re-dipping the half digested item back into the sauce.
This drove my ex-wife completely stark-raving crazy-go-nuts, so much so that she would go to great lengths to make sure my dad’s fork didn’t poison anyone else’s food at the table. This was after I had politely asked my dad to stop doing it and he had politely promised to comply only to forget and revert back to old habits every time Thanksgiving rolled around.
If you're curious as to why this woman is his ex-wife, you haven't been paying attention.
Here’s how bad it eventually got: One Thanksgiving at our house, my ex had prepared the entire meal with all the trimmings, which anyone who undertakes the preparing of the Thanksgiving meals knows is no small task.
To minimize the effectiveness of my pop’s double-dipping, she prepared a series of extra, smaller bowls of each of the meal’s offerings. My dad got his own platter of turkey, his own bowl of mashed potatoes, his own dish of green-been casserole and his own pumpkin pie.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Just to make sure that he includes as much dull, plodding detail as possible, this story goes on for TWO MORE PARAGRAPHS. Sheer torture.
These days, I am fortunate in that I am the only one in my house who will eat leftovers. Once the meal is finished, if there is any food left, I am secure in the knowledge that if I choose to double-dip, it is affecting only me. The greatest advantage to that arrangement, of course, is the fact that I get all the leftovers, which is perfectly fine with me.
He's operating on the theory that, if he just uses the terms "leftovers" and "double-dip" enough, it will magically transform from "not funny" to "very funny." He's like a modern-day humor alchemist.
It seems to me, though, that policing the double-dippers at a well-attended Super Bowl party may be a bit more problematic than it would be at one’s own dinner table. There can be a lot of kibitzing, imbibing of spirits and mulling about at a Super Bowl party and policing the food area between expensive commercials can be challenging, especially amidst all the distractions from goofy monkeys, cute babies, cute dogs, Elton John, Madonna, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Seinfeld.
I literally can't believe we're still talking about this. This topic has no interest. It almost has negative interest - the more I read about it, the less I wish I knew.
The column then undergoes a strange transformation - our earlier definition of "double-dipping" changes so that it now conforms with the more traditional meaning.
You tell me if this would be OK at your Super Bowl party: I am partaking of the celery sticks and onion dip. (This would be your party, not mine. At my Super Bowl party we serve cocktail weenies, pizza rolls, the special family chip dip and Girl Scout thin mints for dessert.) I take a piece of celery — one that is too long to fit into my mouth in one bite — and dip the end of the stick into the onion dip. I then bite that stick in half, flip it over to the other end that doesn’t have any dip on it, and then dip again.
This whole "crisis" can be avoided by spooning a small amount of said dip onto your plate for your own personal use. That would, however, require thought - something that causes Borsch to break out in a cold sweat.
I see nothing wrong with that. Technically, I have not double-dipped the end of the celery that has come in contact with my mouth. But my sense is that most of the rest of you would flag me for a double-dip violation. In days of yore during my first marriage, the celery stunt would have gotten me my own table out in the garage for Thanksgiving.
The fact that Borsch can use the term "first marriage" makes me fear for all of humanity.
So I understand that some people are uncomfortable with double-dipping, which is why I don’t do it to anybody but myself. Really, though, can I even double-dip myself? Isn’t that what I do every time I eat anyway?
One time I watched a hip replacement on TV. It was sheer brutality - splitting flesh and muscle, sawing through joints, hammering and drilling into bone... Reading this column is a lot like watching a hip replacement.
My guess is that if the Eagles could win just one Super Bowl anytime soon, we could stick a fork in the double-dipping issue, at least for as long as it takes to have one big party.
Why? How does the Eagles winning the Super Bowl makes your one hypothetical situation okay? And make up your mind - does "double-dipping" involve the use of a fork or a chip/veggie?
Since this is the type of effortless slop that became so common toward late 2011, I might return to the shadows. Only time (and the next Borsch column) will tell...
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Stick a fork in those Super Bowl buffet double-dippers
Published: Tuesday, February 07, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
This column is not only insufferably long, but suffers from the following defects:
1.) Overall confusion on the definition of the term "double-dip"
2.) Variations on the term "double-dip" are used no less than 14 times
3.) Seinfeld covered this topic fifteen years ago
The highlights:
I am not a double-dipper, at least not in front of anyone. In my younger days, though, I was notorious for drinking directly out of the milk jug. That was, until I got caught one time and spent the next three days picking plastic out of my ear, unceremoniously put there by someone who was drinking out of the same jug, only not directly.
... What? Re-write that last sentence, but this time, have it make a lick of sense. Does it surprise anyone that he drinks milk directly out of the jug? It shouldn't. He probably also spills milk on himself and snorts it out of his nose.
But my dad was a shameless world class double-dipper — the Kobayashi of Double-Dipping as it were — and it was his dinner table indiscretions over the course of many years that eventually convinced me that I would, for the most part, not follow in his footsteps.
Please note - at no point in this column does Borsch provide a definitive explanation of exactly what "double-dipping" is, despite using the phrase in almost every pharagraph. As it turns out, he seems a little confused on the definition himself.
And my pop wasn’t even subtle about it. When it came time for seconds — or even after the meal was over — he would take his fork and pick right out of the bowls of food that were left on the table.
One wonders how someone could, in fact, be subtle about getting up, walking back to a buffet table, taking additional food, and sitting back down. And just so we're clear - "double-dipping" apparently means using your own utensil to pick food out of communal bowls.
Per Urban Dictionary: Favorite behavior of crude diners. Involves dipping your... chip into a sauce, taking a bite... and then re-dipping the half digested item back into the sauce.
This drove my ex-wife completely stark-raving crazy-go-nuts, so much so that she would go to great lengths to make sure my dad’s fork didn’t poison anyone else’s food at the table. This was after I had politely asked my dad to stop doing it and he had politely promised to comply only to forget and revert back to old habits every time Thanksgiving rolled around.
If you're curious as to why this woman is his ex-wife, you haven't been paying attention.
Here’s how bad it eventually got: One Thanksgiving at our house, my ex had prepared the entire meal with all the trimmings, which anyone who undertakes the preparing of the Thanksgiving meals knows is no small task.
To minimize the effectiveness of my pop’s double-dipping, she prepared a series of extra, smaller bowls of each of the meal’s offerings. My dad got his own platter of turkey, his own bowl of mashed potatoes, his own dish of green-been casserole and his own pumpkin pie.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Just to make sure that he includes as much dull, plodding detail as possible, this story goes on for TWO MORE PARAGRAPHS. Sheer torture.
These days, I am fortunate in that I am the only one in my house who will eat leftovers. Once the meal is finished, if there is any food left, I am secure in the knowledge that if I choose to double-dip, it is affecting only me. The greatest advantage to that arrangement, of course, is the fact that I get all the leftovers, which is perfectly fine with me.
He's operating on the theory that, if he just uses the terms "leftovers" and "double-dip" enough, it will magically transform from "not funny" to "very funny." He's like a modern-day humor alchemist.
It seems to me, though, that policing the double-dippers at a well-attended Super Bowl party may be a bit more problematic than it would be at one’s own dinner table. There can be a lot of kibitzing, imbibing of spirits and mulling about at a Super Bowl party and policing the food area between expensive commercials can be challenging, especially amidst all the distractions from goofy monkeys, cute babies, cute dogs, Elton John, Madonna, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Seinfeld.
I literally can't believe we're still talking about this. This topic has no interest. It almost has negative interest - the more I read about it, the less I wish I knew.
The column then undergoes a strange transformation - our earlier definition of "double-dipping" changes so that it now conforms with the more traditional meaning.
You tell me if this would be OK at your Super Bowl party: I am partaking of the celery sticks and onion dip. (This would be your party, not mine. At my Super Bowl party we serve cocktail weenies, pizza rolls, the special family chip dip and Girl Scout thin mints for dessert.) I take a piece of celery — one that is too long to fit into my mouth in one bite — and dip the end of the stick into the onion dip. I then bite that stick in half, flip it over to the other end that doesn’t have any dip on it, and then dip again.
This whole "crisis" can be avoided by spooning a small amount of said dip onto your plate for your own personal use. That would, however, require thought - something that causes Borsch to break out in a cold sweat.
I see nothing wrong with that. Technically, I have not double-dipped the end of the celery that has come in contact with my mouth. But my sense is that most of the rest of you would flag me for a double-dip violation. In days of yore during my first marriage, the celery stunt would have gotten me my own table out in the garage for Thanksgiving.
The fact that Borsch can use the term "first marriage" makes me fear for all of humanity.
So I understand that some people are uncomfortable with double-dipping, which is why I don’t do it to anybody but myself. Really, though, can I even double-dip myself? Isn’t that what I do every time I eat anyway?
One time I watched a hip replacement on TV. It was sheer brutality - splitting flesh and muscle, sawing through joints, hammering and drilling into bone... Reading this column is a lot like watching a hip replacement.
My guess is that if the Eagles could win just one Super Bowl anytime soon, we could stick a fork in the double-dipping issue, at least for as long as it takes to have one big party.
Why? How does the Eagles winning the Super Bowl makes your one hypothetical situation okay? And make up your mind - does "double-dipping" involve the use of a fork or a chip/veggie?
Since this is the type of effortless slop that became so common toward late 2011, I might return to the shadows. Only time (and the next Borsch column) will tell...
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Where He Gets Ideas
Like the Bumble Snow Monster of the North, Mike Morsch appears to be roaring to life this winter. Just when I thought I was out... he PULLS me back in...
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Monday morning blues reveal no clues on shoes
Published: Wednesday, February 01, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Reason why Borsch is a Bad Writer #[insert Borsch-esque "hilariously" high number here]: he could have used "few" instead of "no." It would still be a horrible title, but at least you'd know he put 100% into it. As it stands, it just reminds me of Blues Clues.
I can’t imagine a better time than the first thing on a Monday morning for me to take a shoe personality quiz.
That’s what happens when a columnist doesn’t spend the proper time developing a column idea. He find himself right up against a deadline and has to force himself to stay awake long enough on a Monday morning to take a shoe personality quiz.
"He find himself"? Really?
In other words: "My apologies, folks. I got nothing." Don't try to pass it off like this is all part of the zany life of a columnist. Borsch can write about ANYTHING (or, when that fails, swipe whole paragraphs from Wikipedia) - as long as he spews out 200 words on National Cheese Day or the color of his own couch, he's golden.
He's lazy - that's the real story here.
As has been reported in this space many times, I am not the shoe expert in my house. When I first met The Blonde Accountant, I had three pairs of shoes: black, brown and sneakers. She had approximately 300 pairs of shoes housed in warehouse in her backyard.
Here's an easy way to pad out a column when you lack the creativity for an original topic: reference how many shoes your wife owns! AGAIN! Please refer to this quote from a Borsch column published on October 12, 2010:
As for shoes, The Blonde Accountant has 6,497 pairs of shoes in the warehouse she calls a closet.
The only interesting thing about this "column" so far is that TBA has apparently purchased 6,197 pairs of shoes since he first met her. At least she still stores them in a "warehouse."
Borsch goes on to mention that he only wears three pairs of shoes: black, brown and sneakers (rimshot!!!). He repeats this joke several times. Then he eats up two paragraphs describing how he once observed some OTHER guy buying shoes. So far this column has more superfluous filling than your average Thanksgiving dinner.
Despite many experiences like that, I decided that the best way to start off the work week was by taking a shoe personality quiz, with the hope that the quiz would immediately recognize it was me goofing around and just go right to the end and recommend that the shoe that best fits my personality were the red canvas high-top Chuck Taylors that I already have in my closet.
Gee... did he, by any chance, take a shoe personality quiz at some point?
February 22, 2011 "column": Outta Leftfield - Attempt to buy new pair of 'Chucks' gets off on the wrong foot. Borsch describes his quest for a pair of "black canvas high-tops Chucks." Let's count the number of times he uses the exact phrase "red canvas high-top Chuck Taylors," shall we?
Well, that was a miscalculation. The shoe personality quiz, offered by some online outfit called JustFabulous, was for women, which apparently is not the primary audience to which Converse markets its red canvas high-top Chuck Taylor tennis shoes.
Two.
Steeling my resolve to get a column out of the idea, I proceeded with the quiz anyway. At the very least, maybe The Blonde Accountant would be impressed that I was attempting to learn more about the shoes that will likely end up in her closet. (Editor’s note: She wasn’t. Her response was: “And what is your shoe personality? Moe, Larry or Curly?” That right there is why I love her, folks.)
So it's Monday morning, and he's desperately scrambling for a column idea (which, again, could literally be anything on Earth). He begins a quiz. It's for women. He takes it anyway because he can think of no other idea. Truly, this is a man who earns his pay.
The first question on the quiz was: Which celebrity’s style do you most covet? The choices were Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Nicole Richie. (Editor’s note: There was no option to choose PeeWee Herman, so I chose Jennifer Aniston.)
Editor's note: PeeWee Herman is a noted public masturbator. He is also, apparently, Borsch's fashion plate of choice.
The second question was: Which celebrity might you look to for style and inspiration? The choices were Reese Witherspoon, Beyonce and Drew Barrymore. (Editor’s note: There was no option to choose Elton John, circa 1976, so I chose Drew Barrymore, who I believe once inspired David Letterman by jumping up on his desk and raising her shirt.)
Oh, because Elton John wears those big glasses, right? That's fresh. You know, when I think of Ms. Barrymore, it's more for her roles in "Scream" and "Charlie's Angels." But I'm not an old pervert like David Letterman or Mike Morsch.
The third question was: If you could raid any celebrity’s wardrobe, you’d invade? The choices were Eva Longoria, Jessica Biel and Carrie Underwood. (Editor’s note: It seems to me that raiding any celebrity’s wardrobe would get one a Go Directly To Jail card, but since the survey was all in good fun, I chose Jessica Biel because she is … uh …well … is it warm in here or is it just me?)
Borsch, describing talking to Kathleen Turner in a January 4, 2011 article: ...well . . . ahem. Is it getting warm in here or is it just me? From his reactions to these attractive celebs, I suspect that ol' Mike isn't just inspired by PeeWee Herman's wardrobe.
And on and on it went. I was asked about which style of shoe I like most (red canvas high-top Chucks), which shoe best embodies my fashion style (red canvas high-top Chucks) and when I go out on a Saturday night, which shoe best illustrates my personality (uh … the red canvas high-top Chucks).
Three, four and five. Recipe for comedy: (1) use a word or phrase; (2) repeat. Classic! He then suggests that his dress size would be 16, because he's big and fat. Can anyone tell that, deep down, Borsch STILL doesn't have an idea for a column?
When the quiz was all said and done — in the interest of full disclosure, I did not complete it because as it turns out, even fun quizzes aren’t all that fun to take on Monday mornings — JustFabulous suggested that it would employ a team of celebrity stylists to study my quiz results and then select a collection of shoes that the team thinks will make me absolutely giddy.
So wait... if he didn't complete the quiz, where did this suggestion come from?
So it has come to this: It’s Monday morning and I’m researching women’s shoes for a column. I believe the word “sheesh” adequately describes the experience.
With apologies to the Mamas and the Papas … Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day. Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way.
Well, alright then. When you can't think up a column, take (but not finish) an online quiz, repeat material from previous columns, and use song lyrics to wrap everything up. So was this a column about how hard it is to get column ideas? About shoes? About Mondays? Does anyone really care?
By the way, several hours ago I submitted a comment for Borsch's column: "Don't keep us in suspense - did you come up with a column idea???" As of now, it has not been approved.
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Monday morning blues reveal no clues on shoes
Published: Wednesday, February 01, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Reason why Borsch is a Bad Writer #[insert Borsch-esque "hilariously" high number here]: he could have used "few" instead of "no." It would still be a horrible title, but at least you'd know he put 100% into it. As it stands, it just reminds me of Blues Clues.
I can’t imagine a better time than the first thing on a Monday morning for me to take a shoe personality quiz.
That’s what happens when a columnist doesn’t spend the proper time developing a column idea. He find himself right up against a deadline and has to force himself to stay awake long enough on a Monday morning to take a shoe personality quiz.
"He find himself"? Really?
In other words: "My apologies, folks. I got nothing." Don't try to pass it off like this is all part of the zany life of a columnist. Borsch can write about ANYTHING (or, when that fails, swipe whole paragraphs from Wikipedia) - as long as he spews out 200 words on National Cheese Day or the color of his own couch, he's golden.
He's lazy - that's the real story here.
As has been reported in this space many times, I am not the shoe expert in my house. When I first met The Blonde Accountant, I had three pairs of shoes: black, brown and sneakers. She had approximately 300 pairs of shoes housed in warehouse in her backyard.
Here's an easy way to pad out a column when you lack the creativity for an original topic: reference how many shoes your wife owns! AGAIN! Please refer to this quote from a Borsch column published on October 12, 2010:
As for shoes, The Blonde Accountant has 6,497 pairs of shoes in the warehouse she calls a closet.
The only interesting thing about this "column" so far is that TBA has apparently purchased 6,197 pairs of shoes since he first met her. At least she still stores them in a "warehouse."
Borsch goes on to mention that he only wears three pairs of shoes: black, brown and sneakers (rimshot!!!). He repeats this joke several times. Then he eats up two paragraphs describing how he once observed some OTHER guy buying shoes. So far this column has more superfluous filling than your average Thanksgiving dinner.
Despite many experiences like that, I decided that the best way to start off the work week was by taking a shoe personality quiz, with the hope that the quiz would immediately recognize it was me goofing around and just go right to the end and recommend that the shoe that best fits my personality were the red canvas high-top Chuck Taylors that I already have in my closet.
Gee... did he, by any chance, take a shoe personality quiz at some point?
February 22, 2011 "column": Outta Leftfield - Attempt to buy new pair of 'Chucks' gets off on the wrong foot. Borsch describes his quest for a pair of "black canvas high-tops Chucks." Let's count the number of times he uses the exact phrase "red canvas high-top Chuck Taylors," shall we?
Well, that was a miscalculation. The shoe personality quiz, offered by some online outfit called JustFabulous, was for women, which apparently is not the primary audience to which Converse markets its red canvas high-top Chuck Taylor tennis shoes.
Two.
Steeling my resolve to get a column out of the idea, I proceeded with the quiz anyway. At the very least, maybe The Blonde Accountant would be impressed that I was attempting to learn more about the shoes that will likely end up in her closet. (Editor’s note: She wasn’t. Her response was: “And what is your shoe personality? Moe, Larry or Curly?” That right there is why I love her, folks.)
So it's Monday morning, and he's desperately scrambling for a column idea (which, again, could literally be anything on Earth). He begins a quiz. It's for women. He takes it anyway because he can think of no other idea. Truly, this is a man who earns his pay.
The first question on the quiz was: Which celebrity’s style do you most covet? The choices were Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Nicole Richie. (Editor’s note: There was no option to choose PeeWee Herman, so I chose Jennifer Aniston.)
Editor's note: PeeWee Herman is a noted public masturbator. He is also, apparently, Borsch's fashion plate of choice.
The second question was: Which celebrity might you look to for style and inspiration? The choices were Reese Witherspoon, Beyonce and Drew Barrymore. (Editor’s note: There was no option to choose Elton John, circa 1976, so I chose Drew Barrymore, who I believe once inspired David Letterman by jumping up on his desk and raising her shirt.)
Oh, because Elton John wears those big glasses, right? That's fresh. You know, when I think of Ms. Barrymore, it's more for her roles in "Scream" and "Charlie's Angels." But I'm not an old pervert like David Letterman or Mike Morsch.
The third question was: If you could raid any celebrity’s wardrobe, you’d invade? The choices were Eva Longoria, Jessica Biel and Carrie Underwood. (Editor’s note: It seems to me that raiding any celebrity’s wardrobe would get one a Go Directly To Jail card, but since the survey was all in good fun, I chose Jessica Biel because she is … uh …well … is it warm in here or is it just me?)
Borsch, describing talking to Kathleen Turner in a January 4, 2011 article: ...well . . . ahem. Is it getting warm in here or is it just me? From his reactions to these attractive celebs, I suspect that ol' Mike isn't just inspired by PeeWee Herman's wardrobe.
And on and on it went. I was asked about which style of shoe I like most (red canvas high-top Chucks), which shoe best embodies my fashion style (red canvas high-top Chucks) and when I go out on a Saturday night, which shoe best illustrates my personality (uh … the red canvas high-top Chucks).
Three, four and five. Recipe for comedy: (1) use a word or phrase; (2) repeat. Classic! He then suggests that his dress size would be 16, because he's big and fat. Can anyone tell that, deep down, Borsch STILL doesn't have an idea for a column?
When the quiz was all said and done — in the interest of full disclosure, I did not complete it because as it turns out, even fun quizzes aren’t all that fun to take on Monday mornings — JustFabulous suggested that it would employ a team of celebrity stylists to study my quiz results and then select a collection of shoes that the team thinks will make me absolutely giddy.
So wait... if he didn't complete the quiz, where did this suggestion come from?
So it has come to this: It’s Monday morning and I’m researching women’s shoes for a column. I believe the word “sheesh” adequately describes the experience.
With apologies to the Mamas and the Papas … Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day. Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way.
Well, alright then. When you can't think up a column, take (but not finish) an online quiz, repeat material from previous columns, and use song lyrics to wrap everything up. So was this a column about how hard it is to get column ideas? About shoes? About Mondays? Does anyone really care?
By the way, several hours ago I submitted a comment for Borsch's column: "Don't keep us in suspense - did you come up with a column idea???" As of now, it has not been approved.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Not So Fast...
"Ugh," my brother said to me, "I logged onto the Souderton Independent page and guess whose gigantic, grinning face I saw?"
Since my retirement in the Fall, the menace known as Michael Morsch has been relatively silent. He would regurgitate concert promos every once in a while, but in general he remained the unamusing, uninspired hack he had become by late 2011.
Until I followed my brother's lead and found this:
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Perfect banquet - Short speeches, great dessert, lots of yuks
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Laughter described as "yuks" in the headline? How could I resist?
As a veteran of the rubber chicken circuit, I can tell you that the three things one needs most for a successful banquet experience are short speeches, good dessert and someone at the table with whom you can yuk it up for the entire evening.
Now, I didn't go to school for journalism like Borsch did. But isn't it poor form to repeat your headline practically word-for-word in the first paragraph? Borsch goes on to describe how he got to "yuk it up" with a guy at his table named Bob.
I had never met Bob and his wife, Ellen — a perfectly lovely couple — before the banquet. I promised that if I wrote about them, I wouldn’t use their last name. Besides, everyone in the Indian Valley probably knows Bob and Ellen, which lets me off the hook because I forgot to ask them what their last name was anyway. Some reporter I am.
See, that's a problem. He's not a reporter anymore - he's the executive editor and self-aggrandizing columnist. He has (one would assume) a decent number of real reporters in his employ. Why isn't he sending these people out to interview celebrities, review concerts, etc? Especially since he's just as bad at reporting as he is at editing and writing?
But I knew right away that Bob and I were going to hit it off when I saw him dipping his napkin in his water glass, then dabbing at his shirt.
That’s right, good old Bob is a spiller, just like me.
He's returning to true form here, people. Spilling things! Hilarious!
“I spill something on myself every time I eat,” said Bob.
“Me too,” I said. “My wife carries one of those Tide sticks in her purse and I have to use it at every meal we eat out.”
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where former President Gerald Ford moves in, and he and Homer get along really well because they're both clumsy and dumb? This is sort of like that, but a lot less amusing.
Oddly enough, and what I didn’t tell Bob because I didn’t want to spoil the illusion that I was a Major League spiller, was that I rarely, if ever, spill anything on myself when we eat dinner at home.
Major League = Unnecessary Baseball Reference. He's jumped right back in the saddle.
So at banquets and restaurants, I’ve taken to just tucking my napkin up into my collar like a bib to cover my front. I am way past the point of worrying whether anyone thinks that looks goofy in favor of a more reasonable dry cleaning bill.
True to form, Borsch will now drive this "I spill things on myself" bit (which - hard to believe, I know - he HAS mentioned before) as far into the ground as possible.
Bob decided, after spilling some of the fruit cup on his shirt, that tucking his napkin up under his chin was a good strategy for the rest of the meal, so he willingly followed my lead.
“I’ll bet we’re the only two in here tonight who have our napkins tucked into our collars,” he said.
Is it any wonder this man is reviled? Here he is, attending the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce banquet at a country club, and he's wearing a bib and blundering about with some moron next to him.
As we chit-chatted, Bob would spill something and I would drop my napkin. Then we’d hardy-har-har about it. Then I would spill something and he’d drop his napkin. And then we’d hardy-har-har some more.
Dropping napkins: an endless source of amusement. How exactly did their napkins get dropped in the first place? Shouldn't their elephantine double chins have wedged those things firmly in place?
We discovered that we both like baseball and that Bob still plays in an over-60 softball league.
Apparently it took him longer to mention baseball in conversation than it did to mention it in this column. Wonders will never cease.
I only got into trouble with Bob a few times during the course of the evening. One was when I told him that I went to school at the University of Iowa. Bob, a college wrestling fan, apparently is not a big fan of Iowa and its string of NCAA national wrestling championships in the 1980s under legendary Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable. So we went round and round about that.
Got that? The school was "Iowa," and the coach was "Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable." Good writing.
Har-har-hardy-har-har, guffaw-guffaw and snicker-snicker.
What is funny about this? "Hey, I attended the University of Iowa." "I don't like them, nor do I like their coach, Iowa's Dan Gable." I assume the side-splitting comedy is contained somewhere in the phrase "we went round and round about that." Too bad we, the audience, will never know what it was. Bob then asks Borsch if he fishes:
“No, I’m not a fisherman,” I said. “I don’t mind sitting in a boat with a line in the water, but I really don’t like baiting the hook.”
“Wussie,” said Bob.
Giggle-giggle, hardy-har-har (accompanied by elbow nudges and a back slap or two).
First of all, in real life, nobody does the elbow nudge thing. Second, outside of Beavis and Butthead, nobody would laugh this much just because the word "wussie" was utilized.
I certainly don’t agree with him on his Iowa approach, but since my official stance on worms has always been that they’re “yucky,” he’s probably right about the fishing thing.
Tee-hee, ho-ho-ha-ha-ha.
Hey Borsch - remember when you talked about the wrestling thing and the fishing thing in the previous paragraphs? Yeah. You don't have to repeat that in THIS paragraph. It was even less funny the second time around.
The evening was delightful — due in large part to Bob and Ellen —
Wait - what did Ellen spill on herself?
and was made even more special because the Souderton Independent was named the 2011 Cornerstone Award winner as the small business of the year by the chamber. Congratulations to my hard-working colleagues at the Souderton Independent and thanks to my friend Sharon Minninger, executive director of the chamber, and the group’s board for the honor and for putting on a superb banquet. I will be happy to spill something on myself at any of the chamber’s future events.
As long as I get to sit next to Bob.
Sharon Minninger needs to cultivate better friends. In true Borsch fashion, he does an excellent job of TELLING us that things are funny, but a horrible job of SHOWING us that they are. Imagine the following exchange:
Morsch: Hey, I went to this great banquet. The speeches were short, the food was great, and I sat next to this hilarious guy.
You: Oh yeah? What were the speeches about?
Morsch: Never mind about that.
You: How was the food?
Morsch: Good cake. But this guy Bob, he was great. We both spill things on ourselves.
You: You don't say so.
Mosrch: Yeah! We dropped our napkins and stuff. It was hilarious.
You: Oh?
Morsch: Then we went round and round about college wrestling. I thought I was gonna bust a gut.
You: Sounds... great.
Morsch: And THEN we talked about fishing! Bob called me a 'wussie.'
You: Do people even use that word anymore?
Morsch: Yeah, so did I mention we talked about wrestling and fishing?
You: You did mention that, yes.
Morsch: Oh. So anyway, it was just amazing.
Welcome back, Borsch. You're just as terrible as you always have been.
Since my retirement in the Fall, the menace known as Michael Morsch has been relatively silent. He would regurgitate concert promos every once in a while, but in general he remained the unamusing, uninspired hack he had become by late 2011.
Until I followed my brother's lead and found this:
OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Perfect banquet - Short speeches, great dessert, lots of yuks
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor
Laughter described as "yuks" in the headline? How could I resist?
As a veteran of the rubber chicken circuit, I can tell you that the three things one needs most for a successful banquet experience are short speeches, good dessert and someone at the table with whom you can yuk it up for the entire evening.
Now, I didn't go to school for journalism like Borsch did. But isn't it poor form to repeat your headline practically word-for-word in the first paragraph? Borsch goes on to describe how he got to "yuk it up" with a guy at his table named Bob.
I had never met Bob and his wife, Ellen — a perfectly lovely couple — before the banquet. I promised that if I wrote about them, I wouldn’t use their last name. Besides, everyone in the Indian Valley probably knows Bob and Ellen, which lets me off the hook because I forgot to ask them what their last name was anyway. Some reporter I am.
See, that's a problem. He's not a reporter anymore - he's the executive editor and self-aggrandizing columnist. He has (one would assume) a decent number of real reporters in his employ. Why isn't he sending these people out to interview celebrities, review concerts, etc? Especially since he's just as bad at reporting as he is at editing and writing?
But I knew right away that Bob and I were going to hit it off when I saw him dipping his napkin in his water glass, then dabbing at his shirt.
That’s right, good old Bob is a spiller, just like me.
He's returning to true form here, people. Spilling things! Hilarious!
“I spill something on myself every time I eat,” said Bob.
“Me too,” I said. “My wife carries one of those Tide sticks in her purse and I have to use it at every meal we eat out.”
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where former President Gerald Ford moves in, and he and Homer get along really well because they're both clumsy and dumb? This is sort of like that, but a lot less amusing.
Oddly enough, and what I didn’t tell Bob because I didn’t want to spoil the illusion that I was a Major League spiller, was that I rarely, if ever, spill anything on myself when we eat dinner at home.
Major League = Unnecessary Baseball Reference. He's jumped right back in the saddle.
So at banquets and restaurants, I’ve taken to just tucking my napkin up into my collar like a bib to cover my front. I am way past the point of worrying whether anyone thinks that looks goofy in favor of a more reasonable dry cleaning bill.
True to form, Borsch will now drive this "I spill things on myself" bit (which - hard to believe, I know - he HAS mentioned before) as far into the ground as possible.
Bob decided, after spilling some of the fruit cup on his shirt, that tucking his napkin up under his chin was a good strategy for the rest of the meal, so he willingly followed my lead.
“I’ll bet we’re the only two in here tonight who have our napkins tucked into our collars,” he said.
Is it any wonder this man is reviled? Here he is, attending the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce banquet at a country club, and he's wearing a bib and blundering about with some moron next to him.
As we chit-chatted, Bob would spill something and I would drop my napkin. Then we’d hardy-har-har about it. Then I would spill something and he’d drop his napkin. And then we’d hardy-har-har some more.
Dropping napkins: an endless source of amusement. How exactly did their napkins get dropped in the first place? Shouldn't their elephantine double chins have wedged those things firmly in place?
We discovered that we both like baseball and that Bob still plays in an over-60 softball league.
Apparently it took him longer to mention baseball in conversation than it did to mention it in this column. Wonders will never cease.
I only got into trouble with Bob a few times during the course of the evening. One was when I told him that I went to school at the University of Iowa. Bob, a college wrestling fan, apparently is not a big fan of Iowa and its string of NCAA national wrestling championships in the 1980s under legendary Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable. So we went round and round about that.
Got that? The school was "Iowa," and the coach was "Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable." Good writing.
Har-har-hardy-har-har, guffaw-guffaw and snicker-snicker.
What is funny about this? "Hey, I attended the University of Iowa." "I don't like them, nor do I like their coach, Iowa's Dan Gable." I assume the side-splitting comedy is contained somewhere in the phrase "we went round and round about that." Too bad we, the audience, will never know what it was. Bob then asks Borsch if he fishes:
“No, I’m not a fisherman,” I said. “I don’t mind sitting in a boat with a line in the water, but I really don’t like baiting the hook.”
“Wussie,” said Bob.
Giggle-giggle, hardy-har-har (accompanied by elbow nudges and a back slap or two).
First of all, in real life, nobody does the elbow nudge thing. Second, outside of Beavis and Butthead, nobody would laugh this much just because the word "wussie" was utilized.
I certainly don’t agree with him on his Iowa approach, but since my official stance on worms has always been that they’re “yucky,” he’s probably right about the fishing thing.
Tee-hee, ho-ho-ha-ha-ha.
Hey Borsch - remember when you talked about the wrestling thing and the fishing thing in the previous paragraphs? Yeah. You don't have to repeat that in THIS paragraph. It was even less funny the second time around.
The evening was delightful — due in large part to Bob and Ellen —
Wait - what did Ellen spill on herself?
and was made even more special because the Souderton Independent was named the 2011 Cornerstone Award winner as the small business of the year by the chamber. Congratulations to my hard-working colleagues at the Souderton Independent and thanks to my friend Sharon Minninger, executive director of the chamber, and the group’s board for the honor and for putting on a superb banquet. I will be happy to spill something on myself at any of the chamber’s future events.
As long as I get to sit next to Bob.
Sharon Minninger needs to cultivate better friends. In true Borsch fashion, he does an excellent job of TELLING us that things are funny, but a horrible job of SHOWING us that they are. Imagine the following exchange:
Morsch: Hey, I went to this great banquet. The speeches were short, the food was great, and I sat next to this hilarious guy.
You: Oh yeah? What were the speeches about?
Morsch: Never mind about that.
You: How was the food?
Morsch: Good cake. But this guy Bob, he was great. We both spill things on ourselves.
You: You don't say so.
Mosrch: Yeah! We dropped our napkins and stuff. It was hilarious.
You: Oh?
Morsch: Then we went round and round about college wrestling. I thought I was gonna bust a gut.
You: Sounds... great.
Morsch: And THEN we talked about fishing! Bob called me a 'wussie.'
You: Do people even use that word anymore?
Morsch: Yeah, so did I mention we talked about wrestling and fishing?
You: You did mention that, yes.
Morsch: Oh. So anyway, it was just amazing.
Welcome back, Borsch. You're just as terrible as you always have been.
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