Dreams From My Real Father Or Nightmares For My Real DVD Player

I'm not a very political person, but I'm a very lucky person, readers. I'm one of a million people in Ohio who received a free DVD of Dreams from My Real Father! If you're not familiar with this film (I sure wasn't until I got it in the mail), it alleges that President Barack Obama's actual father is a man named Frank Marshall Davis, who passed down a Marxist agenda to President Obama that will eventually destroy America.

As a concerned citizen, I obviously took the most normal approach to this situation: I made a drinking game for the movie without having even watched it yet! Here are some rules:

“Marxist” : 1 drink

Communist flag: 1 drink

Communist flag fades into President Obama's face: 3 drinks

“Red”: 1 drink

“America”: 1 drink

American flag: 1 drink

White House: 1 drink

Photo with Obama's mother in it: 2 drinks

"Birth certificate": 2 drinks

Birth certificate shown on screen: 4 drinks

Subtle racist remarks from the narrator: Finish your drink

So, I'd love to do this drinking game with any friends that are up for it as we watch this film and determine if the President is a Marxist. Of course, there are some concerns. I have every expectation that a free DVD that I receive in the mail, regardless of content, is most likely to destroy my DVD player.

The DVD also purports to be “the political documentary that everyone is talking about.” Considering I had never heard of it, not everyone is talking about it. Also, the film is backed up by two people praising it. One is, “A shocking narrative on what could be Obama's most closely guarded secret.” – Jerry Doyle, The Jerry Doyle Show. Who the hell is Jerry Doyle? As it turns out, he was on Babylon 5, and thinks this could be Obama's most closely guarded secret. I'm not sure what Obama's most closely guarded secret is if it's not this one. This DVD might as well have a third quote: "I made a drinking game to this movie." -- Sumukh Torgalkar, Comedifans. 

So, I'm looking forward to watching this movie and playing this drinking game. I'm really hoping this song plays at some point during the movie:

Comedifans - Episode 047

Sumukh and Golak are back! After a short absence, the boys are back original recipe style to tackle the hot topics of the day. Sumukh and Golak talk Browns football, wings, Buckeyes football, tailgating, Cincinnati sports, Reds, baseball, and a possible format change!

Podcast Powered By Podbean

The End of Fantasy Football

This may be my last year doing fantasy football. Judging by my conversations with him, it’s definitely Golak’s last year. Is it because my teams consistently stink? Possibly.  Mainly, though, it’s because things have just gotten crazy.

I first started playing fantasy football in 1999. My fantasy football teams were great because I had nothing better to do. I wasn’t able to drive yet. I was shy in general. My friends were also nerds who were into sports. What else could I do but sit down, watch games, analyze statistics, and be on the Internet enough to make moves quickly to better my team? I always played only one team a year. I won one league title and was in the top four of leagues every year I was in high school. 

I got to college and things started to stray. While I still liked watching football and fantasy football, I had other things going on and actually liked to go outside, so my teams started to turn downward. There was even one year where I did not play fantasy football.

Now, it’s gotten to a point where it’s really out of hand. I have my day job, I do comedy, and I have a social life. This leaves little time for being a statistics nerd. I recently picked up Baltimore tight end Dennis Pitta because I heard one interview with Ron Jaworski, and he said that he’s good. That’s the time on my hands for fantasy football. I can’t hang with a world of people who care about it way more than I do. I can’t hang with people who choose being plugged into multiple computers and smartphones to keep up with their statistics and which players to pick up and drop. I can’t keep up with weekly podcasts and columns from “fantasy experts” (people who managed to turn 1999 me into a career. Why couldn’t I have done this?!).

Nevertheless, I did some proper research cramming the day before my draft. As a result, I somehow ended up winning “Best Draft” based off whatever analysis Yahoo did. This was not surprisingly the kiss of death. My team is now 0-2, and after Cam Newton’s awful performance on Thursday night, may be trudging its way to 0-3. 

Last weekend, Golak and I went out to watch the games at a local Buffalo Wild Wings (yes, we were like the people in the commercials! By the way, the most fun/pathetic thing to do when at a Buffalo Wild Wings is to start cheering when a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial comes on the TVs). There was one particular guy going crazy over fantasy football. At one point, he looked at the screen the Chiefs were on and said, “Come on, Dexter McCluster!” Dexter McCluster? How deep is your league that you need him to do anything? Finally, he was screaming at so many different screens that it led another guy (not surprisingly a Browns fan in a Josh Cribbs jersey) to say, “You’re cheering for too much!” 

My main point is that fantasy football has lost its luster just like poker, competitive basketball, and even competitive tennis did for me. Somewhere along the line, people managed to destroy it and take away the elements of it that made it enjoyable. For fantasy football, it’s more about the money and the desperation than it is about the skill and the fun, which at that point, I might as well gamble on actual games rather than having to care about statistics and making updates during the week. So, it looks like 2012 may be the year I retire from fantasy football. Now, watch as my team runs off 14 straight wins and takes down the title.   

  I know as much about Dennis Pitta as I do the woman in this photo with him.

The Retirement of the Sega Genesis

I purchased a Playstation 3 Move last week. This signaled the end of a 19-year run of the Sega Genesis being my premiere gaming system (I did briefly have the original Playstation, but never played it to the extent that I did the Genesis). The Genesis has followed me everywhere from when I was a child through college to now even in my yuppie years.

I received the Sega Genesis as a birthday gift from my family. It was a big surprise. I grew up normally not getting what I wanted for gifts, and when I did, I certainly felt guilty for receiving anything. After yearning for a Nintendo for years, it felt great to finally get one of the main systems on the market.

I started racking up games. I found myself going to our local Video Game Exchange often just to test out games on their screens and end up buying or trading games in. I remember that the Video Game Exchange had a sticker system and the color of the sticker matched what the price was for it. If I remember, the blue sticker was the most expensive. I never bought anything with a blue sticker on it.

Over the years, I collected a bunch of games and continued playing them. It got to the point where my friends found it hilarious that I even owned a Genesis. I went with Golak to a flea market in Columbus to buy games. Fellow comedian and friend Matthew Horn bought me a copy of WWF Royal Rumble for one of my birthdays. It had no manual with it, so I still have no idea how to pin an opponent.

For all the guilt I may have felt for having money spent on me for the system or for games, let's look at the cold, hard facts. Sega built a great system. My system is still going strong after 19 years. There's never been a situation where I needed to repair it or there was some type of major malfunction like the disc issues I've heard of with Sony products. I can still blow into a cartridge when needed, shove it into the Genesis, and it works just fine once you see those beautiful words: “PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE BY SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD.”

In honor of the changing of the guard of gaming systems in my apartment, I spent my Friday night before going to bed playing Tecmo World Cup Soccer. I chose to try to win the World Cup with the good ole' U.S.A. What is hilarious about playing a game from 1990 is that the “Save” feature didn't exist. If you decided to play the World Cup, you were plunking down over an hour of your time to play every single game on your march to the cup. That's what I did on Friday night. As the U.S., I dismantled my opponents, outscoring them 24-7 on my way to the World Cup. I dismissed Brazil twice and held off a tough match in the Quarterfinals vs. Italy. It was like nothing had changed. I still have the Genesis playing ability that I did as a kid. Also, in a funny moment representative of 1990, your honor for winning the World Cup was a song playing while listing the final scores of all your games, and then you got to read the credits for the game. These days, there is a huge celebration on the screen or a trophy presentation or codes get unlocked for you. In the early days, the great reward was to know the people who created the game.

I love the Genesis. It still sits in my apartment ready to be played, and I have every belief it can last yet another 19 years. In honor of the Genesis, here's the victory song, “Sutakora Sassa!” from my favorite video game of all-time, Golden Axe.

Comedifans - Episode 046

Sumukh and Golak sit down with funny friend Matt Horn. The three talk about Ohio State football, Ohio State fans, NCAA season outlook, Fantasy Football, sleeper picks, the Browns' schedule, action movies, and martial arts tournaments.

Podcast Powered By Podbean