Phoning it in: The March Madness Edition

[Ed. Note: James Betty doesn't take sick days, but the editing, spell-checking, general format and plot of PAJ all get pitched when he gets the sniffles. Since he's literally the only writer on a staff we don't pay, once or twice a year we let the guy phone it in. We call it health insurance.]

I seem to have caught this March Madness everyone's talking about, and it's manifesting as fever, chills, aching joints, vomiting and just a ridiculous amount of mucus. Experts say it won't be over until April 7. I don't know if I can last that long. Tell my wife she can go ahead and marry that bottle of Pinot Grigio like she's always wished. I've filled out the bracket like the experts said, and the only thing left to do is wait to see if I survive. I guess I could drink a lot of fluids while I'm waiting, like doctors say you should, but I ask you, what the does a doctor know about college hoops? In their 8 years of training I bet fadeaway-3's never even came up, and Cinderella was only mentioned as a case study in occupational therapy. March Madness isn't taken seriously by medical science, but I write before you today as living proof of it's debilitating effects. I feel almost as bad as I did after that “St. Ides of March” party a few years back. The Shakespearean accents got dropped pretty quickly, and then things got decidedly more interesting. Dave got shot. Don't tell anyone I said that.

Ohio State Buckeyes? More like Ohio State Fuckeyes. My bracket didn't even last 2 hours. Guess that's what I get for betting on a team I hate. Okay, I'm over it. That didn't take long. The Fuckeyes comment was made out of anger. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for all the profanity I've spouted in my life. I bet my Grandmother feels relieved now, but has no idea why.

Grandma's scared for my soul again. I just caught myself screaming at the TV, so maybe I'm starting to feel a little better. Well, I guess I didn't so much catch myself as I was interrupted by a police-issue flashlight banging on the door of my apartment. My neighbours don't like raspy voices yelling profane death threats in their neighbourhood. I urge citizens to have courage in these trying times. Luckily, your team going down by 24 points in the first ten fucking minutes is a legitimate reason to yell death threats. Looks like the law is on the right side of something for once.

The way these networks cover the games either makes no sense or makes such perfect sense that you wonder how we could know so little about the universe. The networks will cut away when Delaware is getting blown out by a real team, underscoring the tangential affinity America has for that middle child of States, but when NC State is setting up an upset, who wants to watch that, right? FUCK YOU, TSN2. I WANNA WATCH THAT SHIT. That's probably the problem right there. I'm not an American television subscriber. Missing a few basketball games is probably worth having health care and not worrying about guns. Oh Canada, all your basketball sucks. Oh well.

PAJ Season 5: Everything Goes South

The Preacher Firestone and his amassed acolytes crossed the Arkansas/Texas border early Thursday on what is now the 89th day of his march south to confront the biometric robocop horde that is screaming up South America destroying every means of accessing Google in existence, colloquially known as the Technology Apocalypse. Amassing followers since leaving the alley behind Jack's on December 13th, the Firestone migration is now estimated to number at a traffic snarling 1.5 million people walking south on the I-40 towards Dallas. Acolytes have been ducking off the interstate at every available avenue to buy up all the Miracle Grow plant food they can get their hands on from nearby hardware stores and garden centres. When asked for comment by anyone, about anything, the Preacher Firestone responds only with the words “Resilience means Miracle Grow.” The short response is a marked change for a man who didn't shut up for over a year straight, causing experts to wonder why he would choose the moment he finally mobilized his followers to stop telling them what to do. With millions of people marching to confront an enemy that has already defeated one army, President Obama has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to follow the Firestone acolytes with a fleet of mobile hospitals that “probably won't be needed” in the event of an actual emergency. To keep the biorobos from destroying any life saving medical technology, the FEMA medical fleet has been outfitted with analog medical devices from the1960's, but due to strict regulations currently in effect at border crossings every medicine and bag of saline will be tested for illegal substances. Mexican Border Services estimate that effective scrutinizing of the entire convoy will take 3 months, so the mobile hospitals should be about a month and half late for the potential massacre.

Adding to fears of the Firestone acolytes being led into a grand catastrophe is the demographic makeup of the migration. Ovaltine Goose-Shredder has been in contact with colleagues who have found that the average marcher is 53.2 years old, with professions tending towards service workers like bank tellers and librarians. “In terms of the acolyte's skill sets, those with a military background are conspicuously absent,” Goose-Shredder said in a press conference early Thursday. All soldiers and reservists were ordered back to base for a state of high alert after the biorobos made landfall in November, but despite this the US military has stated repeatedly that it has no plans to engage the biorobos. “Everything has been shifted to a coping strategy after the Argentinians proved resistance was a terrible idea.” Goose-Shredder said. Asked how the Firestone acolytes would fare in battle against the biometric robocop horde, Goose-Shredder said he felt ill thinking about it and lambasted their presumed fertilizer strategy. “Taking Miracle Grow to the fight, what the fuck is that? Just pump [the biorobos] up with steroids before fighting them? This Firestone guy is leading [the acolytes] into a massacre, it's the only explanation,” he said, adding, “I always figured [Firestone] was a dick.”

In the absence of comment from the Preacher Firestone, being more adamant and less coherent than the other acolytes has made Local Outragee Sandra the de-facto representative of the migration, with her yelling making her a beacon for the camera crews of the 24 hour news networks. Sandra has been following Firestone since he took his first step out of the alley behind Jack's onto Richmond, and revealed to serious journalist Wolf Blitzer that she was following Firestone in hopes that the pilgrimage would reconcile a deep belief that she has led the next generation wrong in her career as an educator, screeching, “This is it, the legacy we will leave for the children! They shall have the Google to love and to hold, and it will help them with their homework!” Sandra has no idea why she's carrying the Miracle Grow, and says no one she has talked to knows either.

Due to the horribleness of the events set to unfold somewhere around Honduras, Military and Medical experts are calling for American authorities to stop the Firestone migration at the Mexican border. Taking control of my word processor from a sealed room beneath Langley, NSA worker Caligula Goonsquad said it would be difficult for Border Patrol to turn the migration away, because stopping one million people from doing something is impossible. “To avoid a confrontation [with the biorobos], the Firestone acolytes would have to turn around of their own accord.” he typed. “1 million people wanting to do something is a terrifying prospect, that's why we have to get ahead of them before it happens.” Goonsquad claims the NSA had prepared for Firestone to die before he had a chance to wield his power, because “The prophet always dies.” They did not plan for any mass movement to spring from his followers. “At most we thought Google Chrome would gain a few subscribers. It was all he talked about, really. Then after some angry soul killed him, [Firestone's] message would be sanitized by a retail chain by wrangling his public perception into some non-challenging happy-go-lucky slogan for a throw pillow. You know, the life cycle of ideas.”

At the time of publication the biometric robocop horde has made it as far north as La Paz, Bolivia.