The Weight Has Been Lifted

True comedy has no place among the refined.

Tonight, we can sleep easy because we now know how you duct tape a girl to the ceiling. Thanks to the inquisitive mind of our Australian friend and all-star blogger Kitta, the entire process has been documented. The specific duct-taping shown above took place in Iowa back in 1992.

Aw, schucks.

In a shockingly unbelievable turn of events, Ricky Williams did not test positive for marijuana. However, he did manage to test positive for some other banned substance, and as a result, will not play a single down of the 2006 season. This is not surprising, seeing as the NFL was testing him 10 times a month. Unconfirmed sources claim that Ricky plans on spending the next 15 months living in a tent in Cambodia, smoking weed and eating pizza.

Maybe He's Not So Bad After All...

As usual, all smiles and sunshine.

We have really been critical of the president of Iran recently, here at HPO. But now, it turns out we might have been wrong. Yesterday, on his official website, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iranian women would be allowed to attend soccer games. He even went as far as to guarantee them some of the best seats in the house. Sure, women in Iran can't travel without their husband's permission, or become judges, but at least they can drive and vote (unlike in Saudi Arabia). In fact, Mahmoud's police even beat up a whole bunch of women during a peaceful women's rights protest in Tehran in March.

Is it just us, or does this guy look like he's trying way too hard to look happy in every picture that shows him smiling? It's like he never smiled in his life, until he became president and received smiling lessons from some dipshit presidential aide, and the result is what you see in all the pictures.

Smiling lessons.

What a disgrace.

Skipper Taps Out Early, Crew Follows Suit

Just resting my eyes, boss.

Off the coast of Scotland on Friday, the coast guard was informed that boats in the area had been seeing another ship going "round in circles" of the coast of the island of Kerrera. A rescue boat was sent to the scene, and a helicopter was put on standby. When the coast guard officers found and boarded the circling ship, they discovered that the captain was "asleep at the wheel" and the remaining crew members were "tucked up in their bunks."

As it turns out, that the ship, called the Morvern, had left its home port of Oban at about 7am. The coast guard discovered them asleep just after 8 am. They had been out to sea for just over an hour, and the entire crew is already asleep.

Now, this pretty much sets the bar for half-assing it at work. First of all, 7am is pretty damn late for leaving to go fishing. In Swansboro, North Carolina, if you leave to go fishing anytime after 5am, it's called "Gentleman Fishing." So they're late to work by about 2 hours, then they only last another hour before calling it a day. The best thing about this story, however, is the totally cavalier attitude of the crew by not making any effort to cover it up, at all. The Captain just turns the wheel hard to starboard, puts his head down, and craps out. They could have at least taken turns to sleep, making sure the damn boat was going in a straight line. Unbelievable.

Since alcohol did not play a part in this incident, the crew was woken up and allowed to continue, but the skipper is being investigated.

In case you're wondering, this story came to us via our favorite newspaper.

Pedro claims to have never eaten a hot dog, ever.

The HPO mailbag has been exploding with questions about why we constantly refer to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as "the team that Pedro Martinez owns." The answer, dear readers, comes in the form of statistics. Allow us to digress.

Pedro Martinez has made 20 career starts against the D-Rays (the only team he has faced more times is the Yanks). He is 11-4 in those 20 starts. 5 of those starts were complete games, and 2 of those 5 were shutouts.

In 135.2 innings pitched, he allowed 95 hits, struck out 172, walked 27, and surrendered only 5 taters. His ERA against Tampa is 1.99, with a WHIP of 0.90 and a BAA of .193

His peripherals look something like this: 6.37 K/BB 11.41 K/9IP .33 HR/9

That, coupled with the fact that he once beaned the first batter of the game, then pitched a one-hitter, pretty much means he owns that team.

A Hang Wif'um

This would make much more sense if he had been on the Expos when it happened.

Rocking and Rolling

Thome takes fastballs and deposits them in the cheap seats like it's his job.

Kenny, you are a genius. Sure, you looked at us funny when we gave you a standing ovation in that parking lot across the street from Wrigley before the Cubs-Sox game last year while you were doing that interview with The Score, but we forgive you. Looking back on that moment, I guess we had had a couple too many jack-and-waters.

But they're just so good.

We're still not sure if his first name is "Jonny" or "Johnny."

This guy's having a monster April.

.288 /.422 /.712

If he wasn't on "the team that Pedro Martinez owns", we'd say he has a legit chance at the Triple Crown.

Todd Helton is back on the DL. This time, his tummy hurts.

We like Todd "Nancy Drew" Helton. We genuinely admire him. Our affinity for Helton goes back to those hot, arid East-Central Illinois summer nights of 2003, back when the Pipes were a barnstorming softball team that played hard, partied hard, got injured hard, and never wiped the dirt off their jerseys. When playing that travelling Miken team from Kankakee (bunch of assholes), they had a guy on their team that looked exactly like Todd Helton: Big lefty, with a suspect haircut and a smooth swing. Every single at-bat, he roped a shot down the first base line. Every goddamn time. As each one of those balls rocketed past my head and into the outfield, I remember thinking, "Christ, that guy can mash."

Turns out he was the hitting coach over at Parkland, Juan Acevedo's alma mater.

Other highlights of that game including watching ex-Steeler practice squad QB Billy Proctor hit a ball on to Route 130, and seeing that minor leaguer they had tag up from second base and score on us.

Charlie Sheen Completely Insane; Wife Still Moderately Attractive

Don't be fooled by his composed, sane look. Charlie Sheen is completely nuts.

Our meticulous friends at TSG first broke this bombshell story, which we are now sharing with you: Charlie Sheen has gone completely insane. Of course, it is a well-known fact that Charlie's father, Martin Sheen, went "temporarily" nuts while experimenting with many, many mind-altering drugs while shooting Apocalypse Now in the Phillippines back in the 1970's. He even suffered a heart attack during filming.

But, to be fair to Martin, every member of that film crew went insane during filming.

Anyways, a shockingly amazing signed testimony filed by Charlie Sheen's divorcee, sexpot and Downer's Grove native Denise Richards, was submitted to the L.A. Superior Court yesterday. The document, again, provided by our friends at TSG, claims that Charlie Sheen is a hardened gambler, wife beater, raging alcoholic, drug user, frequent client of high-priced "special ladies", and addict of underage gay porn. Oh, and he also sent photos of his penis to random women through the internet.

Not exactly a lightwieght.

Read Denise Richard's incredible, astonishing, unbelievable sworn testimony here. It is about 15 pages long, but please, read it all. You will not be sorry.

We guarantee it.

As disturbing as this makes Sheen out to be, it really makes you wonder what the hell Denise was thinking staying with him through all this. I mean, this pretty much is the textbook definition of raging psychotic weirdo/perverted pederast.

Scary stuff.

The Cost of Freedom: A Political Rant

A pine box is a one-way ticket home for our boys overseas.

With war-ravaged Iraq weighing heavy on the collective conscience of the Western World, and an upcoming war in Iran looking more and more likely, powerful people have started pointing fingers. More specifically, people have started pointing fingers at America, her policymakers, her military commanders, her President. We here at HPO are not quick to defend the clusterfuck that Iraq has become, and we even foolishly jump at every chance to bash George Dubya Bush. But to criticize the concept of fighting for true freedom, freedom from dictators like Saddam and Mahmoud and Idi, freedom from terrorists like Osama, is to go a bit too far.

America's staunchest allies, including CANZAB countries, who were all for this war back when it began, are starting to go Benedict Arnold on the American efforts over an increasing death toll and rising chaos in "Mess o' Potamia." While it is now known that the war was justified by falsified pretexts, and that from a logistical standpoint the entire operation has gone tits-up, America as the world's police officer does more good than harm.

In our favorite newspaper about a month ago, the British government (one of America's strongest allies) claimed that American forces in Iraq (specifically the 3rd Infantry Division) was "a big part of the problem" in Baghdad. As evidence for this, they claim that the brave, fighting men of that unit fired three tank rounds and destroyed an entire building after encountering "harmless rifle fire."

We'll repeat that, so that everyone can fully appreciate the idiocy of that comment: Harmless rifle fire.

It ain't that harmless when those bullets are flying past your head.

While we agree that decisions made by the Bush administration and certain commanders-in-chief are shaky at best, to criticize the boys in the war zone is going a step too far.

And now, people are getting upset at America's growing military involvement in Iran. In Iran, women who show any skin or hair by not wearing traditional arab garb are sent to jail for 2 months, and taxi drivers who drive these inappropriately dressed women are jailed too. Only China executed more people than Iran last year. Their president was a member of the organization mainly responsible for the Iran hostage crisis. They now possess nuclear power, and may already have a nuclear weapon. They want to nuke Israel.

In America, you can tell Bush to "sit on it" right to his face. Hell, people do it every day. You know what happens if you go out in public in Belorussia or Iran or and start yelling bad things about the president? You get taken down to the "police station" and get beaten with phone books. Or worse.

If nobody stops Iran, and other countries like it, the world would not be a very nice place 50 years from now. Nearsighted thinking often leads one to forget that there can be more than the horrible immediate aftermaths of war.

Dubya should resign immediately, lock himself in jail for life for what he has done. He owes an apology to just about every living thing on this planet, but yet he continues his devious lying day after day.

But, people, do not bash the soldiers out there fighting the good fight for us. Respect them, because they are the real heroes here. It's easy to focus in on the bad things the soldiers have done, like the Al Gharib debacle, but those things are logical consequences of the dishonest, pestilent leadership style of the Bush administration. As Tom Hanks once said in a movie: "Stupid is as stupid does."

Granderson, we have a problem...

The Tigers' scouts just love his "underwater swing."

100-Grand's line last night: 0-1 with 1 strikeout.

Rock solid.

If he went to the Cardinals, that would be bad.

The Mark Buehrle vs Kerry Wood "who-is-a-better-pitcher" debate has been around since the dawn of time, kind of like the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and Peter Gammons.

But last night's performance is another bit of evidence (which has been piling up for about the last 4 years) that shows Buehrle as the more dominant of the two.

Vote For Manny

Manny loves the outdoors.

Thank you, Manny (Manny Ramirez, not to be confused with Manny the Dog). Thank you for thrilling us with your cat-like speed and reflexes, your power and grace, and your slapstick antics.

"3 o'clock, Clemens! Under the old willow, by the bike racks! I'll be waiting for you!!!"

When our fellow Illinoisians over at deadspin found this the other day, the entire HPO staff was laughing for hours. This is aptly titled, "Manny being Manny." He deserves some kind of award for that. A Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy, anything.

Mrs. Manny (on the right) ain't too bad herself.

Granderson Wins Game; Somalia Serious About Stopping Crime

He's a one-tool player.

Curtis' line last night: 1-3, 1 triple, 1 RBI, 1 R, 0 K

He ended his Strikeout streak at 3 games, and drove in the game-winning run by.... drawing a walk with the bases loaded.

The Browns are going to the Super Bowl!

As the winter frost slowly melts away, and the floral beauty of spring appears around us, our minds turn to human achievement in its purest form. If we here at HPO are not participating, then we are criticising, encourage, and making conspicuous the men who are.

In this case, we would like to congratulate Rich Belding and the good people down at Wendell's Pub in suburban Westerville, Ohio. Now, we realize that we usually adhere to a strict "NOhio" policy here at HPO, and that we do not care much for the Buckeye State nor its traditions, but we have to give credit where credit is due.

Wendell's Pub, located near Columbus, recently won the 'Best Restroom in America' Award. This is a hell of an accomplishment. If, through some horrible twist of fate, we ever find ourselves in Colombus, Ohio, we will make it a point to make a pit stop over at Wendell's and use their outstanding facilities. But we hope it won't come to that.

This is Somalia. Not too much fun.

Widely regarded as the "world's most lawless country," Somalia has finally put its money where its mouth is. As reported by our favorite newspaper yesterday, this sub-Saharan country is finally organizing and training a police force.

In anarchy for the past 15 years, Somalia is a country that is ruled by warlords, mobs with AK-47's, and feduing clans. Now, due to help from the UN, Kenya and Uganda, policemen are being trained in Somalia, far away from the capital of Mogadishu.

If they sent the rookie cops to the capital, it would be bad, admits the leader of their training program. "If we sent these policemen there, they would be killed. No doubt."

Even the Somalian government won't go to Mogadishu. The president is afraid to go to his own capital. It is classified as a "No-Go Zone." Seven men were killed there the other day, arguing over a cell phone. Seven men dead, over one phone.

Gonna take a lot of police to clean up that mess. A lot more than 200.

Another great play by our favorite cricket player and modern drunkard, Paul Collingwood. That's one hell of a catch, by one hell of a drunk.

Curtis Granderson

Curtis is trying very, very hard to not strike out.

We love you, Curtis Granderson. And not just because you have a great name. Whether it's striking out looking with the bases loaded to end the game, misplaying fly balls and turning routine outs into 3-run doubles, or being the only member of the Tigers lineup to not get a hit, you are second-to-none.

Get that man on a Wheaties box ASAP.

This is the Captain of the Wiener Patrol.

Now, every once in a while, we come across something in our mail bag that is just too good to pass up. So, thanks to a HPO reader, we came across a site that has been called by several professors at DePaul University "one of the worst websites on the internet." For a good laugh, take a look at this little gem.

Here are a few observations about Peter Pan's site:

1. The bad grammar, misspelled words, annoying ballerina music, blatant homosexual overtones, and pastel colors really give the site a Spinal Tap atmosphere.

2. Peter Pan handed out "Guest Wands" at his birthday party. First of all, if you have been invited to a party where you know you are going to get a "Guest Wand", do yourself a favor and decline the invitation. If the "Guest Wands" are not advertised on the invitation, and the host of the party surprises you by handing out the "Guest Wands" when you arrive, head for the door and never return. But shame on you for not seeing it coming.

3. This Peter Pan guy is from Tampa Bay, Florida. That shocked the shit out of us, because everybody knows that Tampa Bay is synonymous with "not being a cross-dressing weirdo and going to Guest Wand birthday parties."

4. He did a superb job documenting the various sides of Peter Pan's complex personality, including "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and "Ultimate Glitter Star Fairy."

5. We gotta give it to the guy, he looks pretty good for being 52 years old.

6. Pete's interior decorating skills are surprisingly sub-par for a gay guy. The tacky plush couches, the stale pink carpeting, the mundane Holiday Inn-style lamps? And then there's that weird porcelain elf head he's got on his living room table. Pretty lame, Pan.

That thing is pointy, fellas.

The picture above is a standard-issue M-67 fragmentation grenade.

Thanks to the Houston Chronicle, we found a story from El Salvador which is a little strange... We can't think of a single noun, adverb, or verbjective to describe this. I just feel sorry for the officers that had to physically reach up the 44 year-old woman's hoo-hoo and pull the damn thing out.

El Salvador, you have done it again.

A PLACE LIKE KOSOVO

As seen on Break.com

Go NATO.

You're with me, Leather.

Nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills.

Thank you, Deadspin.

As you may have noticed, we haven't posted anything in a while. As a result, our mailbag here at HPO has been filling up rather quickly, so we'd like to thank all of our loyal readers for bombarding us with hate-mail and "fuck-you" messages. If you haven't sent one in yet, now's your chance. Don't miss out.

Updating a story that we have been following very closely over the past months, American involvement in Iran has officially moved beyond rumors, heresay, and speculation. As reported by our favorite newspaper, people are already being killed in Iran, and America is indirectly responsible for it, at best.

Curious George shits the bed again.

The United States government has consistently shown that it does not learn from its mistakes. Last week, 20 Iranian government officials were killed in covert operations performed by Baluchi Sunni guerrillas. These people are fighting the Iranian government because they live in one of the poorest provinces in Iran, and have endured decades of disenfranchisement by the Shi'ite majority.

So where do these poor, rag-tag minority fighters get their weapons, training, and logistical infrastracture from?

America.

Uncle Sam is using precious tax dollars to train and arm these men to kill members of a foreign government.

Isn't this how Al Qaeda came into existence? Aren't the same decisions being made that led to thousands of deaths, beginning in the 1980's and culminating with the World Trade center catastrophe? Can this be true, that the American government is barking up that same tree again?

This is like something out of a bad, bad movie.

As you read this, American covert operations are going on in Iran, carried out by elite American special ops units. Key personnel in the United States military, going as high as the Joint Chiefs, are threatening resignation over the approach to the nuclear conflict in Iran. Rumors are circulating that some kind of tactical nuclear weapon will be used to hit the Iranian nuclear facilities "at their weakest point". Most likely, this would be the nuclear facility at Natanz.

That's what the American air strike would look like.

This whole situation in Iran should be a little disturbing to most people. George Bush is calling himself a messiah, and calling Iran's president "the next Hitler." That's pretty ironic, considering that if you asked anyone from Iran that same question, they would say it was the other way around.

Hot Pipes field man Peter Barley, who is an expert in nuclear physics, says Iran is more than capable of producing weapons-grade uranium, given the capacity it has at the facilities which are known to exist. He says that it is surprisingly easy to make nuclear weapons, if you have the proper equpiment. But whether the approach that America is taking to resolve this conflict is the best one remains to be seen.

Starting Off on the Right Foot

Oswaldo went for Wedge's neck before the game started.

The first game of the '06 season is in the books. Sure, the Sox won, but we noticed a couple of worrying things about last night's contest.

First, the good: Thome did his job. Now, he just needs to avoid those devastating hip pointers, calf contusions, and of course, that deadly turf-toe.

McCarthy was perfect. The Indians managed to get the ball in play against him, but he got the job done. There's been a lot of talk of him becoming the Sox closer, but he made a solid case last night for long relief.

Small ball was the name of the game. Most Sox runs were scored on singles, and a couple of sac flies. Also good.

Splish-Splash was told to take a lap and hit the showers.

Now, the bad: The Sox left 15 men on base. That's not gonna cut the mustard. Especially noticeable was Joseph "No Middle Name" Crede's inability to get the job done. A big question mark this season will be the production of the Sox mediocre offensive players, like Crede, Uribe, and Pierzynski. We know what to expect from Konerko and Pierzynski, and if Thome, Dye, and Scotty Pods can stay healthy, then they are pretty solid as well. Anderson could go either way.

He's a better pitcher than Kerry Wood.

Buehrle only worked four innings. He threw 57 pitches, 65% for strikes. That's about par for the course, seeing as Dom Cooper usually expects his staff to throw 60% first-pitch-strikes anyways. He averaged 14.5 pitches per inning, which reeks of mediocrity. He managed to get a bunch of ground balls, though, and worked with quickness and determination, as usual. Not a great outing, but hey, it was the rain's fault.

Bottom line: He's a hoss.

Baseball fly very fast when he swing bat.

Iguchi promised that he would post better numbers this season than he did last year.

Everybody knows that Japanese people never, ever, ever lie.

See you in hell, Nevada desert.

Here at HPO, we believe virtually everything we read - it's what makes us such selective human beings.

We read today that on June 2nd, the American military is going to test-fire some pretty mean explosive bombs in the Nevada desert. It's a preview of what's going to happen to Iran if they don't cut their crap, say the powers that be.

Not the Poor Baby Seals!

Two handfuls of animal rights activism.

Few people know this, but Pamela Anderson is actually from Canada. She became famous by stumbling bass-ackwards into a promotional modeling contract with Labatt's. After that, the rest of the story pretty much writes itself: She gets implants, she takes them out. She does Playboy and Home Improvement. She becomes spokeswoman for the American Liver Foundation, she gets the implants put back in. Then, she contracts Hepatitis from a famous rock star.

Pretty standard, really.

But now, Pam is causing a bug fuss about the slaughtering of baby seals in her native province of British Columbia. Using the clever verbiage for which she is known, Anderson said, "When people think of Canadian Club, they should think of a good whiskey, not jerks beating pups on the ice."

A one-way ticket on the midnight train to Slab City.

Apparently, Canadians haven't thought of a better way to kill baby seals than by clubbing them to pieces with a baseball bat.

Good luck fighting a $15 million-a-year industry, Pam.

God Bless America.

In other news, the biggest airport expansion in American history is happening in Chicago's back yard as we speak. The bulldozers are plowing, the cranes are lifting, and the backhoes are backhoeing. The renovation, scheduled for 7 years and weighing in at $15 billion, is aimed at reducing flight delays, which happen to be O'Hare Airport's strong suit. No other U.S. airport has more of them. The problems with the project are worries that it will drastically exceed its budget, and that it will not reduce delays at all. According to officials, increased capacity will be nullified by many, many new flights.

Oh yeah, and they plan on plowing through a Civil War cemetary to build one of the new runways.

He's Got Our Vote