“Hi, USA? It’s your old buddy, Pakistan!

“Osama bin Laden in our country? As if! Hmm, it’s really a mystery where he is … don’t you guys hate Iran? I mean he’s gotta be there, right? The guy’s an icon of religious tolerance; surely he could have overcome the centuries-old Sunni/Shi’a divide.

“No, of course that’s not ridiculous. Which one of us lives in this part of the world? Come on, trust me.

“That enormous secured compound built four years after 9/11 in the sizable city of Abbottabad, which also has a huge Pakistani army base and military academy? You mean the compound where they burn their trash, and some tall guy in a camo jacket keeps ordering dialysis treatments? What can I say, you know these kids and their McMansions! It’s like a regular fraternity party in there. Imagine the heating bill for that place, am I right or what?

“By the way, can you spare a few billion dollars again for military aid? It would totally help me out in fighting these terrorists, bro. For real, I got your back.

“You know, because you’re such a great friend, I’m going to treat you to a special deal at our new venture, ISI Used Cars — I just got this shipment of ’83 Yugos that purr like a kitten, and they have your name written all over them. Consider it a favor for letting those drone strikes slide!

“Alright, I gotta get going to my meeting with the Taliban … oh jeez, did I say Taliban? I meant to say Talleyrand — I’ve really gotten into Bourbon Restoration re-enactment, so I’m going to this conference for Congress of Vienna enthusiasts. Should be a ton of waistcoats up in there.

“But for real, bro — you’re my ace and I love you like a brother. We are totally tight allies, for real. Catch you on the flip – Pakistan out!”

It’s Patrick Kane! Blackhawks star forward, Flyer-destroying scorer of the Cup-winning goal in last year’s finals, and town-rocker extraordinaire. I don’t know if I want people to associate me with a guy who punched a cabbie over 20 cents, but at least he scores a lot no matter the context.

Patrick Sharp: something tells me location data is coming into play, considering Google tells me that the top two Patricks in all of world history are the skankiest current Blackhawk and the suavest current Blackhawk. Sharp’s an OK association; he has hockey skills, and he did make the cover of Chicago magazine last month. I still think Stan Mikita and his doughnuts have Sharp beat in sexiness, but the overwhelmingly female listeners of Eric and Kathy would probably beg to differ.

Definitely don’t know this guy, but that is most certainly a thin smirking dude wearing a sideways trucker hat who apparently became a fatter, glasses-wearing guy with a hipster fedora. I don’t care for hats in the first place, but then this fucker had to go and wear perhaps my two least-favorite hat styles of all time in the same image sequence. I don’t care to know what you think about music, Patrick Stump.

Patrick the Starfish? I’m a marine biologist in my alternate-career universe, so I suppose it’s all good.

JACKPOT. Stackpoole and the guy from Rambo: First Blood ain’t nothin’.

• Today I went to get a free touch-up on my haircut of several weeks back. After several years of the same haircut, I grew my hair out for three months, then went to a stylist a few weeks ago (I had a coupon) and told her to be creative and interesting with this extra hair. She gave me the exact haircut I had before. F that. No more stylists.
• As I was running by on the lakefront this evening, a super hot female runner pulled off to the side of the path to stretch, with her back to the running path while she did standing hamstring stretches. Four dudes who were running by in opposite directions all then turned their heads in perfect synchronization. It was nuts.

  (It wasn’t really nuts. But a hot woman did do something to draw attention to her hotness, and I was there to bring this story to you.)

• Later on in the run, I passed a woman going the opposite direction who really looked like an old girlfriend. I couldn’t tell, but I was curious if it was actually her, so I thought I’d try to find out ninja-style. I was down to stop and say hello for a bit, but because this could well have been some stranger, I didn’t want to run up next to her and stare her down hard like a dude who drives an airbrushed 1985 Ford Econoline.

  I was near my halfway turnaround point, so I turned and then caught up, but after trying for a subtle sideways look as I passed I still couldn’t tell. Then I thought I would try to get a reaction by running ahead a bit and stopping to remove my earphones, deliberately adjust my MP3 player and look toward the lake to place my head in profile. That didn’t get anything as she passed by, but I was running faster than this person, so I was going to end up passing her again. As I passed alongside I went for another attempt at a subtle sideways glance, but I failed again to get a clear-enough look.  My mind started to race with rustbucket images of wolves howling at the moon and Vikings holding swords aloft, so I knew it was time to give up and just run on home normally, curiosity unsatisfied.

  The mystery endures, but at least the van is still non-existent.

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live, The Onion

(Is it weird that the footlong burger looks pretty awesome to me? “You can really taste the length.”)

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Penrickton Center — the event was a hit, even with masses of hideous facial hair like this beauty floating around.

Ever since I was about ten years old and watching Comedy Central when it was still known as The Comedy Channel, I recognized that the comedian Gallagher’s routine was overly and detrimentally simplistic: he smashed things with a hammer, and people laughed at it. At that age I was waking up to the benefits of layering meaning onto things, so even my ten-year-old self realized that there was no depth to smashing watermelons with a hammer and, subsequently, little to no artistic value. Enough people apparently disagree with this that Gallagher is still floating around these days, so his popularity was also an early lesson in the large numbers of people who can be entertained by dumb things. (Myself fully included, but I feel like the performer has to be at least somewhat self-aware of the dumbness before I can enjoy it. Otherwise I’m worried that they’re just as dumb as their art.)

To sum up that paragraph, Gallagher is terrible. That’s why I found his interview with intellectual hipster bastion The A.V. Club so utterly compelling: the interviewer took a completely awful performer, gave him enough rope to hang himself about eight times, and got a really curious and entertaining read out the other end. It does a great job of communicating the subject’s lack of talent without ever directly touching on it, simply by giving a man who smashes things for entertainment the space to rant about the celebration of mediocrity.

Golf clap to you, David Wolinsky, for recognizing when less is more to make your point effectively.

G would be fine if we had tried that, but you better believe I’d be twisting my knee or something fun.