- http://www.joelavin.com Humor columns every Tuesday, plus links to many of my other articles. en-us Copyright 2006, Joe Lavin joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com This feed has been moved to: http://www.joelavin.com/rss.xml 2008-05-13T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/audacityofmath.html Here's my favorite quote from the election so far. It comes from Geoff Garin, a strategist for the Clinton campaign. Last week, when discussing the nomination process, Garin told the Washington Post, "We don't think this is just going to be about some numerical metric." This is odd, because I always thought elections were supposed to involve some sort of, um, numerical metric. .... 2008-04-29T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/soxscratch.html The Massachusetts Lottery has just released a new $20 Boston Red Sox scratch ticket. Wow, it's humbling to realize that not only can I not afford Red Sox game tickets, soon I might not be able to afford Red Sox lottery tickets either. When these tickets were first offered, they cost $5 each, and even that seemed a little ridiculous. Now, suddenly they have quadrupled in price. .... 2008-04-15T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/beijinggames.html The Beijing Olympics start four months from today, that is, if the Olympic torch ever actually makes it there. With all the protests about Tibet, that's questionable, but if the Games do get started, they may be the oddest ever. If you don't believe me, just take a look at some headlines from the official web site. .... 2008-04-08T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/canseco2.html You know the nation's media has gone crazy when your name appears in the television news crawl -- either that or you're about to be arrested and no one's told you yet. Last week, I found my name all over sports media, because -- through blind luck -- I was the first to find Jose Canseco's new book about steroids. .... 2008-04-01T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/canseco.html There I was, wandering through a quaint Cambridge bookstore on Monday, when I noticed a copy of Jose Canseco's new book "Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and The Battle to Save Baseball" in their tiny sports section. That's odd, I thought. I didn't know the book had come out yet. It turns out that it hasn't. The book's not due to be released until April 1st, but, for some reason, there was a copy for sale. And so I bought it. It's a roughly 250-page book that deals with many things, but, of course, all you want to know about are the Big Names. In here, Canseco accuses three more players of using steroids, and they are: .... 2008-03-25T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/spitzer.html Eliot Spitzer's salacious new scandal "Ho No!" is a tantalizing tour de force of intrigue, deception, sexuality, and general idiocy that will delight audiences of all ages, especially investment bankers under indictment and members of the media. It is not often that a juicy new scandal emerges out of nowhere, but such is the case with this offering from New York's Luv Guv. Before this prostitution scandal opened, few outside New York probably even knew who Eliot Spitzer was, but the formerly dull New York Governor is now an instant star -- such is the power of this hot new scandal. .... 2008-03-18T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/tvclones.html Conventional wisdom suggests that human cloning is just years away, but I maintain that human cloning already exists, except that it's reserved only for branded television personalities. What other explanation could there be for all that's on your television? It seems that 75% of what's on is hosted by the same ten people. Here are a few who have already been cloned. .... 2008-03-11T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/phonecampaign.html Lately, I've been checking out the web sites of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This is mainly because I somehow ended up on both their mailing lists, and I get umpteen e-mails every day from each campaign (margin of error: +/- one ump). Lately, Clinton has been asking me to contribute as little as five dollars, while Obama has been asking me to help him reach his goal of making one and a half million phone calls by today. .... 2008-03-04T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/senatesports.html Many have been surprised that the United States Senate has spent so much time lately on sports. First, the Senate listened to testimony from Roger Clemens on baseball's steroid crisis. Later, Senator Arlen Specter questioned the NFL about the New England Patriots' Spygate scandal. While it seems strange for Congress to be concerning itself with sports, it is hardly unprecedented, as these past newspaper reports will indicate. .... 2008-02-26T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/obama.html Last week, on Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was the big winner in Massachusetts. She always led in the polls, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. But, after seeing Barack Obama speak in Boston to a crowd of thousands the night before, I couldn't imagine that he would lose. .... 2008-02-12T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/hgh.html As you get ready to watch the new Rambo movie, know this: John Rambo is juiced. Recently, Sylvester Stallone admitted using Human Growth Hormone (HGH) to get into shape for the role, and defends it by saying, "HGH is nothing." I, for one, am appalled. Who knew there was HGH inside the actor's studio? .... 2008-01-29T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/hillary.html On the day before the New Hampshire Primary, I saw what I thought would be a signature moment in the campaign of Hillary Clinton, but then I got home that night and all anyone on TV wanted to talk about was whether she had cried at some diner in Portsmouth. .... 2008-01-15T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/chucknorris.html To be honest, I never really expected to see Chuck Norris in my life. And, if I was going to meet Chuck Norris, I certainly didn't expect that it would happen in New Hampshire at the Londonderry Middle School Cafeteria. But that's where he was on Saturday morning, campaigning for President with his running mate, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. .... 2008-01-08T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com http://joelavin.com/clinton-mccain.html I had a few days off after Christmas, and so on Saturday I drove to New Hampshire to see both John McCain and Bill Clinton. Boy, do I really know how to have a good time? Next vacation, I'm planning to go to Washington and watch somebody make a law. McCain and Clinton, of course, weren't together. McCain was at the VFW Post in Merrimack for a town hall meeting at noon, and later Bill Clinton was campaigning for his wife at a pottery shop in Dover. Why was a former President appearing in the dusty warehouse of a pottery shop? I don't know. Apparently, the Dover yarn shop must have been closed. .... 2008-01-02T00:00:00-05:00 joe@joelavin.com