A Sport I Don’t Understand

I just don't get it (image courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2106/2198595833_43d58cf6ea.jpg)

It looks like a mix of skiing and Friday nights at the roller rink. Think ATL (the movie) and spice it up with some crazy, juiced-up females. I’ve seen videos of the sport numerous times, but still can’t quite figure out what the hell the point is. Or how you even score a point.

Women’s roller derby is the black sheep of all the weirdest sports out there. It isn’t disgusting or crazy enough to warrant the respect of the world, such as the previously mentioned dwarf-throwers or eating contests. It is a game anyone can play at any skating rink around the world. In fact, back in the day, circa 1996, my boys and me probably were doing things similar to this on every Friday night.

He’s got it covered. Letterman can handle his own scandal.

Dave sure loves the ladies!

The man who likes to criticize and make fun of everyone else’s foolish antics apparently has been the one acting foolishly all along. As most of you know, David Letterman, the late night talk show host, admitted to past sexual relations with female staff members. Robert “Joe” Halderman, allegedly extorted Letterman into airing his dirty laundry, for if Letterman didn’t confess to his flings on air, he allegedly would have to pay $2 million.

Honestly, I don’t care about this story. What he did was wrong and unprofessional, but personally, the story disinterests me. Yet, this week’s biggest pop culture headline did, of course, teach me a few valuable lessons.

Lesson One: If you’re out there cracking a joke at the dirty laundry of politicians and celebrities, you probably have some skeletons in your own closet.

In fact, Letterman jokes about other affairs so often (it is his job, after all) that when he announced his own affairs, his studio audience laughed at first. They thought he was joking!

Is there anything you want to say, Jay?

Eating As A Science

image courtesy of: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/media/photo/2009-04/46334739.jpg

One of the most overlooked and impressive character traits in some of the world’s greatest human beings is the ability to eat colossal amounts of food. Food-eating contests are among the universe’s most amazing spectacles. In some cultures, people are more likely to watch a bunch of goons chew on spam than fill up a stadium. Here’s a quick rundown of a few of my favorite contest highlights:

• Ken Edward of England once set a record by eating 36 cockroaches in one minute
• Kobayashi has ate 17.7 pounds of cow brains in 15 minutes
• And Chris Hendrix set a world-record for crawfish eating: 331 of the critters in a dozen minutes

And of course, you can always challenge a friend to a cat food eating contest to cure yourself of hangover, like these terrific athletes:

JERK Blog Wrap-Up 2008

Because it’s almost the end of the semester here at Syracuse University, the web team would like to use this space to wrap up all the bitchin’ stuff about the JERK Blog for Fall 2008:

Since the beginning of September, the JERK Blog has garnered 11,233 views and counting.  The blog only has 15,182 views total since its inception in February.  That means about 74% of the total views have come in the past 3+ months.

The blog had its most hits on October 29, which featured “Gore Galore” by Sarah Lee, “Cult School Musical” by Alex Rabinowitz, and “Halloween: Animation Style” by Mike Estabrook.

Some of our posts have also been linked to sites like The Release, istumbled, Pulled Into Syracuse, Largehearted Boy, and All Nudist among countless others.

Here’s JERK’s top 5 most viewed posts in the last 3 months:

1) “The Top  5 Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Albums of 2008″ – 188 views

2) “Searchers Find Lost Man, Avert Eyes”  by Kyle Adams – 176 views

3) “It’s OK To Stick It There” by Lola – 119 views

4) “The Hottest Chicks in Metal” – 102 views

5) “A Classic Revisited: Rushmore” by Mike Estabrook – 97 views

None of this could have been accomplished without our EXCELLENT writers, who put a lot of their time into making JERK one of the best college blogs around.  Our contributors for the Fall 2008 semester were (some of whom will be returning next year): Alejandra Quintero, Alex Rabinowitz, Amity Paye, Ashley Jonson, Emily Warne, Jennifer Ward, John Cassillo, Jose Martinez, Julia Askenase, Kyle Adams, Liam McCabe, Mike Estabrook, Mitchell, Peggy McWeeny, Sarah Lee, Sarah Parker, and Sunni Brydum (sorry if we’ve forgotten any!).

Overall, it has been an awesome semester for the JERK blog, and JERK in general.  For more JERK, check out the newly designed jerkmagazine.net.  Also, Our December 2008 issue is currently hitting the stands so go pick up your copy!

Come back for sloppy seconds next semester…

Love,

Kate Pennington (Editor-At-Large)

Calvin Epps (Head Web Editor)

Bill McMillan (Assistant Web Editor)

D.O. Blows Jerk Off

So as we previously reported, we were set to rout The Daily Orange in our third annual staff kickball game last Sunday on the Quad. Unfortunately, only two members of the D.O. staff decided to come. The rest claimed that they were held up by “work” or “final papers” or some similar weak shit. So Jerk won, albeit by forfeit, improving our series record to 3-0.

Here’s our team victory pic, just for you guys at the D.O.

20 Watts is next. Sunday, May 4, 2 p.m. on the Quad. Be there, be drunk.

~ Liam

Cock-a-doodle-doo

If I have learned anything besides extensive Spanish vocabulary and way too many verb forms in my month-long travels in Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, it’s that people are fundamentally the same no matter where you go. Or, at least, that philosophy can be applied to 16-year-old boys.

I had been staying with my host family in the beautiful (but also poor) city of Cuenca, Ecuador for nearly three weeks when they whisked me away on vacation to their second home in a small mountain town where there’s apparently nothing to do except play cards and drink gin and tonics all day. I was lucky enough to be in Ecuador during the three-day Carnival celebration, a continent-wide fiesta that commemorates the last days before Ash Wednesday, when church-goers repent their sins from the fiesta and Lent it up. It was a great experience: my (very limited) Spanish was improving rapidly, I had become best friends with my host sister, and I had the luxury of enjoying a lush mountainside view (goats included). My only complaints were the ridiculously cold showers and sharing my tiny bedroom with my two host sisters and my 16-year-old host brother, Diego. But hey, no problema, right?

No problema until the last night of our mini-vacation, when I couldn’t fall asleep due to the rooster crowing like a madman outside my window. Picture this: I’m lying in my bed, trying to disregard the orchestra of farm animals that seem to be playing a never-ending song for me, when I start to hear a repetitive movement coming from under my brother’s sheets only a few feet away from me. Lovely! Ignore it, Theresa, just ignore it and try to fall asleep. But then it dawns on me: where the hell is he going to put it?

~Theresa Walsh