Ghost's Super-Terrific Happy-Time Awesomeness Advice

Many of you, my loyal readers (read: nobody) have been bombarding me with questions on all different kinds of topics, searching for answers. It's understandable, really, that you would come to me with your problems; who better to help you figure out the complicated shit-storm of life than a lethargic (read: lazy) alcoholic pushing 30 pseudo-intellectual snarky jackass such as myself? Nobody, of course. God you're stupid.

ANYWAY, please direct your questions about life, death and everything in between to tadghostly@hotmail.com, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to have a reply from me in one of "Ghost's Super-Terrific Happy-Time Awesomeness Advice" posts. This posting, coincidentally, is actually the first one! You're welcome in advance.
My first question comes from Lukas in Des Moines, Iowa.

Dear Ghost,
Love your blog, but I have a serious problem I'd appreciate your help with: I have a massive rat infestation in my home! I swear to god they're everywhere- my kitchen, my basement, even my bedroom. Needless to say this has even impacted my love life, and not in good way- how could I take a woman back to my home (even if I paid her), with these rats scurrying to-and-fro? Thanks for your help.

Lukas,
Des Moines, Iowa

Well Lukas, sounds like you do have a serious problem. Not only are rats unsanitary, they are generally considered the hardest to get rid of in all of the Rodent Kingdom, which has a surprisingly complex hierarchy. For instance, Squirrels are the obvious king-princes of the rodents, by far the most social and financially well-off due to their constant hording of nuts and long-term mutual funds, although many of the other rodents consider them to be arrogant and kind of full of themselves. If they went to college, they would be the frat brothers with pastel polo shirts and popped-collars who call each other "bro" and get way, way into it when they have a few drinks and karaoke to that song "Rock Star" by Nickelback. If you know a squirrel, you know what I'm talking about. Douches.

Next we have the beavers, and as every knows nobody parties like a motherfuckin' beaver. They have, however, been known to take it to extremes- beavers can go on booze-filled benders for an entire warm season, then sleep their hangovers off for an entire winter. These guys are hard-core. Here's a tip: if a beaver ever attempts to get you to smoke a blunt with it, do not under any circumstances. I was hanging out with some beavers one night and a blunt was passed to me. I smoked some, and I don't remember much after that until I woke up wearing a clown suit in a pile of hay with my arm elbow-deep in a llama's throat and smelling of raw fish and shame. Point is they lace that shit, I think it was angel dust. Do Not, I repeat, Do Not get wet with a beaver.

Gerbils are another rodent to be wary of. Let's just be honest here, gerbils are goddamn perverts. I'm sure you're familiar with how people let them crawl up their asses for sexual pleasures, but have you ever wondered how they actually get them up there? Getting animals to do anything is difficult, my cat won't sit still for a vet appointment for christsakes. So how, you may inquire, do they get gerbils to do this? It's because they want to. They actually like crawling up people's asses and giving them butthole pleasures. They are creepy animals, and never leave one alone around your kids or Richard Gere.

There are other rodents that present their own unique problems- guinea pigs are slobs, they never do their dishes or shower on a regular basis. I had a roommate who was a guinea pig, and he always left his dirty guinea pig socks in our living room. They were argyle. Gophers are the practical jokers of the rodent kingdom, always creating elaborate set-ups for hilarious pranks- like the time they started that giant wildfire out in California. Good times!

Porcupines are the worst, so be glad, Lukas, that you don't have a porcupine infestation in your home. These guys are seriously a bunch of dicks. They party like beavers, smell worse than guinea pigs, like to play jokes like gophers (except their jokes involve screwing your girlfriend and peeing in your shampoo bottles), and they're almost as big of douche bags as squirrels, but not quite. Fuckin' porkies.

That brings us to rats. First off, Lukas, you need to identify which type of rat has infested your home. There are several kinds, each with it's own different strengths and weaknesses.


The Robot Rat: this type of rat can be very difficult to get rid of. Because they're half-rodent, half-robot, they can survive almost any type of attack. My advice: confound their artificial intelligence by dropping a question with circular logic that cannot be answered. For instance: If you're eating breakfast, and one of the robot rats scurries onto your table, and starts blathering their binary-code robot squeaking at you, put down your spoon and calmly ask them: "Robot Rat, can you help me with a question? This grapefruit I've been eating has been puzzling me. Can you tell me which came first, the grapefruit which contains the seeds, or the seed of the grapefruit which allows the grapefruit tree to grow?" This will work because on top of being robotic, robot rats are intellectually vain and will want to answer your question correctly. Because there is no answer, his head may explode. This is not what you want; what you want is for the rat to go ask the other rats, then have all of their heads explode with the complexity of the question. This should work, but you may have to ask a few different rats.


Mutant rat: This can be a problem. Depending on how this rat mutated, it may have special abilities. Hopefully these particular rats did not mutate into humanoid ninjas, because if they did you're fucked for a couple different reasons: 1- judging my your stupid name and the stupid city you live in, Lukas, you yourself are not a ninja. Therefore, there is no way you could possibly defeat a ninja in battle, let alone an mutant rat ninja. 2- You possibly could hire a pirate to defeat the ninjas, but it would have to be a mutant cat pirate- a mutant rat ninja's natural enemy. Good luck finding a mutant cat pirate. You may want to consider moving, or beginning ninja training.


Canadian rat: These rats are actually very polite, and mostly white. They thrive on cold weather and Celine Dion songs, so if you've been listening to a lot of Celine Dion lately, this may have attracted them. Also, you listen to Celine Dion, and now everyone knows. This may be a bigger problem than the rats. Still, this is a pretty easy one. It's very well known that Canadian rats love french fries and gravy, so you need to set up a constant survailance. I'm talking high-tech microscopic hidden cameras everywhere around your house, so you can study their habits. You need to set up a sting where the rats are eating a big pile of fries and gravy, then you need to create a diversion. Once you've distracted the rats, perhaps with another sexy female rat you hired to work undercover for you (note: make sure undercover rat is not a double agent actually working for the Canadian rats), you need to slip some rat poision into it's fries and gravy. The rats will surely die, but you may feel bad since the Canadian rats were pretty nice guys. Still, you can't have them sitting around your house watching hockey all day, drinking Molson and spreading socialism. This is America, motherfucker. These Colors Don't Run.

Ordinary rat: Call an exterminator, you dumbass.

Again, you're welcome, Lukas. Keep those questions coming.

Waaaaay too much time on my hands

My friend Jeff, in posting on my blog on my unending hatred of the Dallas Cowboys, brought up an interesting point. He mentioned how much he hates Terrell Owens in real life, but loves video game Terrell Owens. This got me thinking about how much I play video games, and how much of a disgusting slob I really am. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not lazy at all and 10 being Homer Simpson from the episode where he got purposely fat so he became disabled, wore a mumu and waved a broom handle at neighborhood kids that taunted him lazy, I'd say I'm right around a 6.5. I haven't gotten to the point of wearing a mumu yet (projected date: March 2010), but I certainly have come home shithaused from the bar, started playing a game of Madden, passed out in a drunken stupor on my couch, awoke the next afternoon to find to my delight that I paused the game in the middle, and simply started playing again when I woke up. Maybe I shouldn't be telling people these things.

ANYWAY, I also got to thinking about the different sports video game characters over the years, and how much this has shaped my opinion of them in real life, and vice versa. So I've decided to come up with a comprehensive list of these characters, because this will be way more fun than working. In no particular order:


11- Jon Sundvold, Tecmo NBA Basketball, NES- Who is Jon Sundvold, you ask? Only the deadliest 3-point threat ever to inhabit a video game. He was on the Miami Heat, and from the top of the key he simply could not be stopped. He also might rival Jud Buechler for the "Jeff Hornacek Memorial Dorkiest White Guy to Play in the NBA in the Last 20 Years" award. Seriously, look at him. I had no idea he actually existed until I discovered him on this game, and to be honest I think he is a sophisticated long-range shooting android created in an attempt to take over the basketball world. Unfortunately, his creators forgot to include some minor details to his game: jumping ability, speed, ball handling skills, and any ability to play defense. Other than that, bang up job diabolical basketball scientists! He works for ESPN as a college basketball analyst now, and I also suspect that he exists only as a head, much like the heads kept in jars on Futurama.


10- Rod Woodson, Tecmo Super Bowl, SNES- After worshiping at the altar of Tecmo Super Bowl for regular Nintendo, needless to say I was psyched to dive into the new version on Super Nintendo. It was 16 fucking bits of pure sexual anticipation, and of course it was a giant letdown. It looked like the original but sure as hell didn't play like the original. "Hey, let's take out all of the unrealistic superhuman abilities of the players that made the first games fun, but keep the graphics shitty!" seemed to be their motto on this one. There was, however, one shining beacon of redemption on this game, and it came in the persona of one Rod Woodson. Faster than everyone on defense, unstoppable on kick returns, he was a beast. I was a huge Rod Woodson fan in real life because of this. I also loved him because when I first played this game at my friend Valley's house, I made him literally cry tears of rage and watched him trash his basement as Woodson would jog untouched into the end zone after my 3rd kickoff return for a TD in a row. I love seeing people lose their shit.


9- Brian Bosworth, Tecmo Bowl, NES- Just kidding. But seriously, this is a sweet excuse to include a picture of the Boz. Fuckin' Boz.


8- The Laser Robot, Base Wars, NES- The ultimate weapon. I can't even go into this one, but if you've played the game you know. The Laser is unstopable. Also, a certian teacher from North Carolina does a sublime air guitar to the theme song to this game.


7- The Fat Guy, Ice Hockey, NES- You could only choose from three different guys that all looked the same- a skinny guy, a medium guy and the fat guy. The Fat Guy was by far my favorite, despite his much slower skating ability and his penchant for taking 5 minutes to get up off of the ice, he could kick the shit out of the other guys, and had the slap shot of a Norse god, and for that I love him. This has also helped me see obese people in a different light, teaching me to consider their virtues in spite of the fact their rolls are hanging over their arm rests and encroaching on my personal space in my tiny airplane seat. See, video games are enlightening and good for society.


6- Lawrence Taylor, Tecmo Super Bowl, NES- LT is the best. Even before he went on "60 Minutes" and entertained us with tales of sending drugs and prostitutes to opponent's hotel rooms before games, even before he entertained us with an incomparable turn as a drug-addled flamboyant linebacker in "Any Given Sunday" (A dive into method acting that even DiNiro is envious of), even before he entertained us with his constant drug abuse and revolving-door rehab frequenting, LT was entertaining us as a demon on the football field as a part of Tecmo Super Bowl. No shit, I recorded almost 100 sacks in a single season with LT. He was, of course, faster than all the other players, but the best thing about him was if his health rating was "excellent", you didn't even have to grapple with blockers and kill your thumb slamming the "A" button over and over again, because the blockers would fucking bounce off of you and fly fifteen yards down field! What was that repelling off the blockers? A force field of cocaine, rage and self-loathing, perhaps? Whatever it was, LT is the shit, and sometimes I am scared he is hiding under my bed waiting to rape me. Not because he would like it, just because he's bored on a Tuesday night and Bill Parcells told him to. I swear, one time I saw the flash of his lightning-bolt dangling earring down there. I think I know how Joe Theisman feels now. I might need to talk to someone.


5- Chet Lemon, RBI Baseball, NES- RBI Baseball is the shit, and there are a ton of great players on this game, but the one that always seemed to come up big was Chet "Motherfuckin" Lemon. Big home runs, a sweet flat top fade... it doesn't get much better. Plus, he has his own beer. How kick-ass is that?


4- Terry Glenn, Madden '03, XBox- Fuck you Terry Glenn. Fuck you in the face. You know what you did, but let's recap: whined your way out of New England, then got my hopes up by coming to Green Bay. Then, as you are wont to do, the sand in your vagina became too much to handle and you ended up whining your way out of Green Bay, only to end up playing solid for the Dallas Cowboys the last few years. On top of all that, you were the biggest d-bag ever to grace a Madden game. Wide open over the middle? You'll drop it. Running play outside? You'll let the cornerback push you on your ass. In a nutshell, you suck at real football, Madden football, and life in general. Also, nice hair.


3- The Troll, Jerry Glandville's PigSkin Footbrawl- How obscure of a reference is this? I love Jerry Glandville for the following things: playing for Northern Michigan, letting his name be attached to easily the most bizarre football game ever made, and of course the biggest: trading the Football Jesus to the Packers. Jerry Glandville, you are truly a king among men. As far as this fucked-up game is concerned, it's a football game set in medieval times where the players wear chain mail and armor and are allowed to have weapons, such as an axe and a broadsword. The best part, though, was if one team was behind the crowd chanted "Bring in the Troll! Bring in the Troll!" Sure enough giant gates would open and a gigantic green Troll would emerge. The Troll was around ten feet taller than all the others, and would kick the shit out of everyone. Now that I can look back at it, what a stupid fucking game this is. I desperately need a life.


2- Michael Vick, Madden '04, PlayStation- 99 speed, a gun for an arm, and the best dog-fight promoter this side of Tijuana. It's almost unfair, really, and he caused the implementation of the "Tecmo Bo" rule- in a two player head-to-head game, all things being equal, you can't take the Falcons. That's some rarefied air. The personal shit aside, he was a hell of a lot of fun to watch play. Come to think of it, what's the big deal about dog fighting? Oh, it's inhumane, monstrous and completely wrong? Well, then, I guess I'm the asshole here. I GUESS I'M THE ASSHOLE HERE.

1- Bo "Tecmo Bo" Jackson, Tecmo Super Bowl, NES- I know it's cliche, and I know everyone already knows about Tecmo Bo, but this video says everything:

The Dallas Cowboys are Cheating Assholes

OK, I may not have proof of this, but sweet Christ-on-a-cracker do I hate the Dallas Cowboys. How could anybody not? Just look at the collection of derelicts and smug dickfaces they've employed over the years: Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Deon Sanders, Leon Lett, Joseph Stalin, Michael "I'm Holding That Crack Pipe for a Friend" Irvin, Adolf Hitler, Charles Haley, Tony Romo (enjoy those herpes Britney Spears rubbed all over you when she gave you that lap dance), and most of all, Terrell Owens. Fuck, Fuck, FUCK Terrell Owens.

I've always hated them, but the game this Thursday vs. the Packers pushed it over the edge. It started right away, with that bullshit "forward progress" call when Al Harris stripped Owens in the first quarter. It was downhill from there, with every time a Packer DB breathed a yellow flag flew in the air. Then they had the nerve to knock the Football Jesus out of the game, no doubt this will result in a swift and horrible punishment from the Football Gods. I'm thinking Wade Phillips' bra brakes in the middle of the 3rd quarter, or something to that effect.

The only good thing about this game was that Aaron Fucking Rodgers almost led them back, and without their best DB (Charles Woodson) and their starting right end (KGB), leading me to conclude that if the Football Jesus hadn't been injured and Mike McCarthy ditched Ray Rhodes' game plan from 1999 and actually went back to the controlled, precision-passing offense that won them ten games in the first place, the Jesus would have led the back to victory. If they meet again in the NFC Championship game, my money is on the Pack.