Heeeey, I'm back!* This blog is about how to eat good on bitch money.

*This is a lie.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I won! But...

I beat Slick by over two percentage points, scoring a victory for dead jockeys everywhere.

But.

But now they want us to sign a pledge that we didn't "dope" by doing anything unhealthy or ill advised. As you may have deduced, my last week was pretty much the director's cut of the documentary exposé of everything unhealthy and ill advised. So now I'm in a new competition: a competition with my conscience. Even though they should have made us sign this pledge BEFORE we entered the contest and they did not. Even though the contest is a continuation of a completely amoral and cynical television circus farce where neither health nor morals were considered for a moment. Even though it probably was not just me but a lot of people in the contest who found ways to stretch the concept of "healthy" to include praxis at which Lance Armstrong would recoil.

None of that matters because my conscience is completely perverse. It lies all curled up like a little snoozy worm for months all the while I'm doing something godawful, and then right when I'm about to reap the bounty of my evil ways, it leaps roaring to its feet and suddenly it's the size of the Empire State Building and louder than Megadeth. I may be forced to do something drastic and very unLanceArmstronglike like give back the dough.

There are two things I keep asking myself.

One, do I have renal failure? (It can take a few weeks to show up.) In that case, moral considerations go out the window: I'll need the money for my dialysis treatments.

And two and most of all:

What Would Seabiscuit Do?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

NO! NONONONONO NO NO! Freakin' Seabiscuit would take the money and CANTER away, shaking his (or is it her??) head, mane shimmering and iridescent in the last rays of the setting sun...

Seriously, they SHOULD have made everyone sign that agreement UP FRONT. That's why contests have SO MANY RULES, UP FRONT, because people get upset when the rules are changed at the end. This is not your problem. It is theirs. I bet there is some lawyer out there would go so far as to argue that you could probably sue for "bait and switch."

SO, take the money!! and if your conscience is still bothering you, take a portion of is and make a donation to NAB OR... EVEN BETTER, take that portion and invest it in kiva.com and help some woman start the pomegranate farm she's always dreamed of.

sorry there are quite a few caps in this comment but I think your creativity and determination should not go unrewarded.

Nom, nom, nom! said...

Thanks, man. With every blow like this my yowling monster conscience gets a little smaller. What's NAB? National Anorexia Bureau?

Anonymous said...

Megadeth rukes!

Unknown said...

Nom, babe, congrats on winning. If it were for more money, you could sue them for doing a bait-and-switch tactic on you. It is also called changing the rules while the game is in progress. But anything under about 30 grand is not really worth a lawsuit anymore, except on the dubious grounds of 'principle', which is apparently what you are struggling with now.

Look at it this way, how am I going to get my 1/3 of 1/3 of $750 = $83.17 if you decide to go all self-rightous on those bastids? I won't be able to gas up my barnstormer bi-plane (the plane likes both male and female planes) and fly up to see you because that was gas money, dudette.

Nom, nom, nom! said...

Hm... well, it's a *little* tricky, Robin p, about the $83.17. You see, I never did get the bouquet exotique I was promised in the happy birthday Well thread, and consequently I'm having to deal with some of those old trust bugaboos again. Not your fault, of course: I'm sure you at least *considered* sending me a nice bouquet for a few seconds before you went on to do whatever it is you do when you're not commenting on the Well blog. Which is all the time.

I am very glad to learn that you've made your home a safe haven for planes of all gender and sexual orientation permutations, though the Cessna you showed up in last time was certainly about the most conventionally configured mode of air transport I've ever seen in my life. I am convinced that if it had had the arms to lift one with, it would have been wearing a Herb Tarlek hairpiece.

But you needn't worry about gas--after I get over my hurt over the affair of the absent bouquet, JayVee34 (we're back to that--he has been wearing the skin off of his hands on his bongo drumpads for hours each day beginning at dawn) has promised to whip you up a batch of cellulosic ethanol he says will send your barnstormer into the stratosphere.

Unknown said...

Nom, it was never my intention of depriving you of your bouquet. Really. It is some weird-*ss trapdoor thingie at the Well blog that my posts disappear into.

But because I save them on the Windows clipboard (actually an extended clipboard piece of software called Clipmate), I am reproducing that missing post in full for you, here.

We are cutting out the middle man (TPP) in order to bring you rock-bottom prices! How do we do it? Volume, volume, volume! Herewith is what the world was deprived of seeing at Well yesterday in the AM, Sept 24th:
-------------------------------
Happy Birthday to Well! And congrats to TPP, 'the Pope' of the Well blog. I have enjoyed many a Well blog post, with their accompanying comments, and have learned a lot, too. This is one of the best blogs I know of. Tara has graciously put up with my comments shenanigans on more than one occasion.

Speaking of which, Nom, nom, nom!, you crazy person, I am waiting patiently for my 1/3 of 1/3 of $750 (it is a story problem from third-grade math) this coming Friday, when you win your competitive weightloss contest (Star, kaleburg, et al, see http://visitnomnomnom.blogspot.com/). And, Nomx3!, I am planning on another imaginary getaway weekend to your neck of the woods very soon, so be ready for nights of heavy Lifetime movie action! And Juan shall return home with me! Muhahaha!

TPP, you could run a different photo here and not get those mean comments from some of your readers, you know. There is your glam shot seen here: http://1stperson-newsbios.com/2007/11/27/active-video-games-get-nyts-tara-parkerpope-to-stand-still.aspx

Or there's your old Wall Street Journal photo, seen here, where it makes you look like you are happy about the death of your mom, which I know you weren't: http://www.boomersmakingadifference.com/2007/08/tara-parker-pop.html

Or there is the wind-swept, happy-go-lucky TPP from 2004 in this photo honoring your journalism on menopause: http://www.menopause.org/awards_media.aspx (Scroll down the page)

Or there is this video still of you which says you are "Addicted to Love", something I always suspected about you (grin):
http://www.gogomag.com/cgi-bin/tvheads_anchor_viewer.pl?taraparkerpope_large

Or there is this dog-on-the-dock photo that somehow got your name underneath it (in the beginning of the second row of page 1) on this Google image search: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tara+parker-pope&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

So, here is to another year of interesting, informative Well blog entries. Thanks much, Tara
---------------------------------
And as a bonus for you, Nom, here is the post I did under the name 'Joe Btfsplk' from Dogpatch, Kentucky. It was done as a test post. It also was not posted, although it appeared in the moderation queue as per normal:
-------------------------------
Shucks, Ms. Parker-Pope, haw cum yu don't writ no werds 'bout the good things chew'n tabaccy ken dew fer ya? And you look older 'n 1, too. But here's to ya anyway!
--------------------------------
Two bouquets for you, dearie bee.

Now, where is my damn cut of the prize money, huh? (grin)

Nom, nom, nom! said...

Dang. Okay, I believe you now: there really is something going on preventing you from posting. I've had maybe two Well posts disappear like that, but it happens to you way more frequently. I've just complained to TPP about it and how destructive it is. My post will probably be eaten.

Anyway, thanks for my bouquet!

(J.V. says he's not going. He has chained himself and his bongopads and his favorite Smith & Hawken hoe to the radiator. He is a gardener of intense, if serial, loyalties.)

Unknown said...

Nom, you are very welcome! Dunno, I wrote to the NY Times Public Editor re the Well blog poop, but I got a form letter back saying that they won't intervene in cases of moderation disputes as it is too time consuming and not worth-while. I don't know yet whether it is a personal thing or a technical matter. In the meantime, I successfully posted under yet another alias there. I won't reveal at this point who I am at Well but it was on the one about labeling caffeinated energy drinks. I think that Dr. Griffith guy is looking for funding money, or simply trying to call attention to a tempest in a teapot (hmmm, that even works from the caffeine standpoint, he said admiringly). O.K., enough for now. And Juan will once again experience the langors of our South Carolina climate, or my name ain't Joe Btfsplk. YOU CHAINED HIM TO THAT RADIATOR! I know from having visited you how you can get! I may have to call the local authorities if you don't release Juan and give him a nice cup of Colombian coffee immediately! Now, if only I knew which state you lived in. (smile)