Top Ten Funniest Moments of 2008

I was asked by The Mobtown Shank to put a top ten list together for 2008 and here it is.

10. Billionaires Apparently Worlds Worst Panhandlers

In desperate need of billions to stay afloat until next year, the CEOs of the big three packed up their Louis Vuitton bindle sticks, hopped a ride on an east bound Learjet and started singing for their soup where congress greeted them with all the understanding of a three-toed drunken Pinkerton.

Apparently, not only do they not know how to make cars or run businesses, they have absolutely no idea how to illicit sympathy. They may as well have held signs that read, “Will continue to do exactly what we've been doing with no changes whatsoever to our life style for food.” They should have hired that dude who panhandles the corner of Pratt and President with no legs and no arms. That guy knows a thing or two about sympathy. He could hold up a sign saying, “God damn it I want crack!” and he’d make a decent living.

Of course, the timing could have been better. After giving billions to the banks only to watch AIG execs take a $400,000 spa retreat, the U.S. of A. was feeling a bit like it just caught the woman we’d given five bucks to for her nephew’s funeral coming out of the bar.

Bad timing big three, but even worse planning.

Desperate auto companies, you're number ten!


9. People All Over America Pretend to Give Two-Shits About Swimming

OK, he’s the greatest Olympian EVER! He’s more important than Bruce Jenner! Seriously, who gives a shit about swimming? The McDonalds commercials with the girls obsessing over Michael Phelps are the funniest things I’ve seen in a fortnight. What is it that drives you mad, ladies? Is it his freakish ears? The fact that his head is nearly as long as his torso? Maybe it’s how smooth he is on the mike? Man, that guy has the wit of a young George Bush.

I understand that we are all but drones no longer capable of independent thought, but swimming? Was there no bee keeper worthy of the celebrity? Perhaps a competitive eater who deserves such praise?

Don’t feel bad, America, we’re not the only ones. In India, Abhinav Bindra is almost as big as Shiva and curry after winning Olympic gold in the ten meter air rifle competition. That’s right BB gun master Abhinav Bindra is a house hold name in the second most populous nation on Earth.

OK, maybe I shouldn’t have narrowed this down to Phelps. Perhaps this should have gone to the Olympics in general. There are 5 categories for badminton, 4 in walking, 2 for trampolinists, 2 more for handball, and ten for BB guns, none of which were won wielding a Red Ryder.

29th Olympiad, you're number nine!


8. Spain Grants Rights to Great Apes, Average Apes Left Hanging

We’ve all heard about the plight of Spanish apes, one of the most downtrodden populations on Earth. The great ape population of Madrid, for instance, has been driven to almost nil thanks to random anti-ape violence, discriminatory hiring practices and the fact that apes have never lived there.

Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu, jailed leader of the Basque separatist ETA, when asked about the new rights granted to Spain’s great apes said, “Huh? Seriously, what? No, I mean it, what the fuck! Apes? Where are these apes? And you wonder why we want to separate.”

Of course, some feel that these new laws protecting great apes don’t go far enough. Some hippy says, “That’s all well and good for great apes like King Kong, Mighty Joe Young and Koko, the signing gorilla, but what about Lancelot Link, Magilla Gorilla and Grape Ape, you know, the average apes? Who’s fighting for their rights?”
Spanish apes and your new rights, you're number eight!


7. Inspired by Jonny Depp, Piracy Makes Comeback

What could be funnier than thousands of men driven so far by poverty and starvation that they are willing to take to the high seas in rubber rafts and fiberglass skiffs with secondhand RPGs in defiance of every navy on Earth? Well, 6 more things, obviously, as we’re only at # 7 on this list. Why are you so impatient?

Seriously though, ignore all the geopolitical ramifications and try to imagine the swishy star of twenty-one jump street boarding a Croatian freighter, it’s kinda funny. It’s at least as entertaining as Pirates of the Caribbean 3 which became available on Blu-Ray in 08 and was snubbed by this list. I needed to give Piracy a nod since zombies seem to be on the decline.

Somali Pirates, you're number seven!


6. McCain Picks VP Using Ouija Board

Wow, this one writes itself. How could a woman who apparently reads every news paper on Earth know so little about so much.

Africa you ask? It’s a nice country. Russia? I can see it from here. Experience? I sold a plane on E-bay.

You’d think a woman used to staring down the Russian bear and tempered in the fires of the Q&A portion of the Miss. Alaska Pageant wouldn’t whither under the hardball questioning of Katie Couric (???), but you’d be wrong . We should have been scared when she claimed energy independence would be her baby. I’m sorry, but doesn’t your baby have down syndrome?

Sarah Palin, you're number six


5. Russia Invades Georgia, Americans Wonder How They Got Through Kentucky

So Georgia made a push into the disputed provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We can all agree, dick move. Russia decides they haven’t had a good war in months and invades Georgia. America freaks out even though none of us can find Georgia on a map. Either Georgia. I’d wager that several of you are still wondering if Georgia and Kentucky are next to each other.

Honestly, the Georgians never stood a chance in this one. Their army arrived for battle in blazing orange Dodge Chargers wielding bows and arrows and being followed at ten by Dallas.

The hilarious backdrop to all of this was Georgia’s floundering application to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S.’s near impotence in foreign policy debates. What could Condoleezza Rice say? “Russia, You’d better get out or we’re gonna kick you out!”

“Oh yeah?" Replies Russia, "You and what army?”

Georgia-Russian Conflict, you're number five with a bullet!


4. Europe’s Science Fare Project Nearly Ends Universe

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, a group most certainly run by a bald man in a wheel chair stroking a cat, built an enormous underground particle collider designed to hurl particles at one another very near the speed of light and I don’t have cable.

I ask you, aren’t their better uses for all this bleeding edge technology? A more user friendly flowbee? Ducks that don’t fly south, but rather make tiny parkas and just chill? How about an FM Basset Hound?

Here’s the part that I don’t get. There were apparently some scientists who believed that this contraption would produce particles called strangelets, a hypothetical particle only a few fentometers across (I didn’t make up either of those words. If you are a scientist, and you wonder why normal people look down upon you, it’s because of words like strangelet and fentometer) with the power to destroy the world! Others believed iddy biddy black holes might form sucking us all into sub-par Disney Star Wars rip-offs.

Now clearly these scientists are not the best scientists. They may be closer to the worst scientists, but even so, if there’s like a one in fifty chance you’re going to destroy the world, don’t you maybe put it off until next week? Not if you’re the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Then you say fuck it, fire it up and pour me more schnapps. Fortunately the collider broke down delaying Armageddon until summer 09. Plan accordingly.

Couldn’t this money have been spent getting me cable?

Large Hadron Collider, you're number four!



3. Canadian Parliament Collapses

After a hard fought national campaign the conservative party narrowly edged out the liberals and the fur trappers to take slim control of parliament, the Canadian equivalent of Congress, named for the seminal 70s funk band. This gave the conservatives the right to anoint the new Prime Minister in a ceremony involving maple syrup, a golden toque and Pam Anderson. Apparently the honey moon was short lived, however, and early this month Parliament was poised to vote no confidence in Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Now I’m not going to pretend to understand what all the hullabaloo is about. I’m not even going to pretend to care. To the best of my knowledge there were too many or too few moose, the skidoo wouldn’t start and they changed the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada. Naturally government was thrown into turmoil and dozens of Canadians took to their icy dog sled riddled streets.

Here’s where it becomes hilarious. The conservatives enlisted Governor General Michaëlle Jean who’s job is to speak for the Queen of England and, for some reason, holds the power to dissolve parliament which he did thus shutting down the Canadian government until next year. Oh Canada, even your constitutional crises are cute.

I get that this power is written in their national club bi-laws, but really, when dude shows up and says, “I speak for the Queen, you hosers go home, eh!” couldn’t someone have replied, “ Take off, eh! We aint goin,” and then hurled a Labatt’s at him? I joined the Kiss Army in 1979. Some where there is paper work, signed my seven year old self that has pledged my services to the Kiss Army (Rock’s first line of defense), but if Paul Stanley told me to take point storming the gates of the RATT compound, I would politely decline.

Oh Canada, you're number three.



2. Sleeping Dog Farts, Smell Wakes Dog, Dog Leaves Room

So we were in my basement watching the first Ravens Steelers game and my dog Loki was dead asleep on the floor. He farts and my buddy Jer swears he saw the fur ruffle. Loki’s nostrils start to flair, his eyes open and he leaves the room.
Maybe you had to be there for this one, but it was seriously funny.

Gassy Dog, you're number two!



1. Dude Hucks Second Shoe at President

OK, one shoe, and this still makes the list. One shoe and he tags GW in the schnozz, easy top 5, but the fact that he got off the second shoe takes this one to number one and will probably inspire an Oliver Stone movie down the line. Seriously, this guy gets off shoes quicker than Lee Harvey Oswald snaps off rounds and, having watched the video repeatedly, those ain’t loafers. Perhaps there was a second shoe-ter in the grassy knoll.

Clearly this guy spent time training in the East where shoe removal is an art form much like calligraphy and crushing the U.S. auto industry, but still, has the Secret Service just given up? I thought these guys were supposed to take bullets for the president, their contract doesn’t cover footwear?

Muntazer al-Zaidi, you and your shoes are number one.