Bologna Medal Winner in the Olympic Decathlon

Robitussin Releases New Disgusting Flavor

In what is expected to be the company’s biggest marketing innovation, Robitussin is adding a new horrible flavor to its line of cold and flu formulas. The over the counter drug, which has been on the market for decades, is excited to add to its flavor varieties (Cough Syrup Red, Gnarly Nursing Home Green and Children’s Grape-ish Purple) the new and improved Bright Yellow Flavored Yellow.

Produced by Pfizer Incorporated, a company based in New York City, the cough medicine contains a variety of formulas, including nasal decongestants, cough suppressants, mucolytic agents that are known to clear mucus from the windpipe and ease the annoyance of the common cold with a unique, unpleasant flavor. A spokesman from Robitussin said that the entire company is excited about the new flavor, which is now available at any pharmaceutical retail store and uses a new sugar-free formula for an extra foul taste.

Awkward Situation ‘Alright’, According to Mom

Taking the opportunity to really connect with her teenage son and have a heart-to-heart conversation, local mother Betty Winston decided to discuss the normalcy of her sons’ actions after accidentally walking in on him in the act of masturbating. Her son, 15 year old Kevin, was in the act when his mother, whom he had thought was at the grocery store, walked into his room looking for dirty laundry. Kevin, who had hurriedly put his pants back on, was reassured several times that what he was doing was alright and that he shouldn’t feel ashamed while his mother sat on the corner of his bed.

Betty, the caring mother that she is, also took the moment to really discuss in detail the actions taking place on the online video that was still audibly playing, noting that there were a few positions she and Kevin’s father really enjoyed.

Dollar Found

In a recent statement given by local law enforcement, a dollar bill was found yesterday, sometime between 2 and 3 PM outside of a Starbucks. Police conducted a search of the surrounding area, glancing to the left and right several times before picking up the dollar in question. Upon closer inspection, the officer noticed that the dollar lacked any kind of identification or markings that would help indicate who the owner could be. After a few more minutes of searching the officer returned to the station to file a report and to put out an APB to keep an eye open for anyone who might be missing a dollar. Police are confident that they will find the owner soon and intend to return the dollar, in full, unless they find something good in the vending machine. Then they have every intention of filing an IOU.

91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

ohyeahfacts:

(source)

Take THAT, vegetarians!

Thanksgiving Traditions

With our economy in the tubes I can understand how celebrating Christmas for two and a half months can be a positive thing. With everyone buying gifts, making travel arrangements and racking up electric bills running Christmas lights 24 hours a day it stimulates the economy.

However, the law of probability states that the longer amount of time we allow something to continue the better the chances are that some soccer mom will kill another hapless parent over something like a Tickle Me Elmo.

It used to be that the more violent and stressful Christmas traditions were reserved for December and I was able to enjoy the relaxed Thanksgiving tradition of killing animals, watching football and eating until I feel sick.

And that is what Thanksgiving is all about: traditions. Which must be the reason for it traditionally being the heaviest drinking holiday of the year. A celebration of patriotic joy and togetherness that rivals the 4th of July with an 80% less chance of blowing your fingers off with something explosive.

Thanksgiving starts every year for my family with the Thanksgiving shoot at Spring Farm in Sag Harbor. After three hours of sleep, my brother and I wake up and immediately get yelled at by our mother because we aren’t dressed right. That is a family tradition we experience every holiday.

Breakfast at our uncles is hearty; steak, eggs, potatoes, hash browns, muffins, etc. After breakfast we head over to the Farm for coffee and show off how much plaid we’re all wearing.

I see more plaid and camouflage in these few hours than I do all year long. It was like watching a live action Orvis catalogue. Or maybe Cabel’s. Some even have camouflaged guns, which seems entirely pointless to me. If an animal can see your gun then you should probably have already fired it.

The people over at Spring Farm have come under fire recently from animal rights hippies, and the likes, because they have a problem with people shooting ducks out of the air. “I’m a lover, not a fighter” or “Guns kill” and all those other saying sissies say to justify being a sissy, which I am. Have you ever shot a gun before? It hurts and it is loud. Plus, 12-gauges have a kickback like a mule and I bruise easily.

My uncles, bless their hearts, don’t make fun of me too much for not shooting. My brother, on the other hand, lays into me all day and calls me adopted. Sure I don’t hunt or fish or eat seafood or build things and am scrawny and have red hear, unlike both sides of my family, but usually by this point am too hungry to care.

Dinner starts at four in the afternoon with light snacks (like an entire bowl of shrimp, chips, cheese and bread) and doesn’t end until ten, when everyone has eaten their entire weight in turkey and potatoes.

Despite how amazing the holiday is, this year I have been hearing a lot of nasty Thanksgiving propaganda. For instance, I have read a few articles recently mentioning the dangers of stuffing and how it is more susceptible to food dwelling bacteria than the rest of the bird. And true, something to worry about this holiday dinner is the threat of improperly cooked food, but for anyone who has ever had stuffing can attest, it’s worth the risk.

Eating copious amounts of meat until I fall into a meat induced coma, making fun of friends and tree huggers and spending quality time with family. That is what this holiday means to me.

And that part about the drinking. Definitely the drinking.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Become A Better You Through Me

A lot of my readers have asked me, “Nick, we understand that you are prefect and we admire that. How can we better ourselves so that we might come closer you your shining example?”

Congratulations! You are already one step closer to a better you by simply reading this column. It is an intelligent, organized, and creative piece of writing and I am working closely with top scientists to get Focused Boredom approved by the FDA as a cure for the common cold.

Before we get approval though, I would like to impart some of my wisdom you, relatively free of charge.

Health: Put down the pork rinds and consider your health for a minute. Nine out of ten doctors say that you should live a healthy life and, like doctors, I went to college for seven years so listen up.

The first thing you should consider is your diet. It took me several years of painstaking, scientific research to learn that a diet of Top Ramen was not good. So if that is something that you do, don’t. A good diet should be well balanced and consist of all the major food groups: meat, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and Vienna sausages.

But diet alone isn’t enough to make a healthy body. It is also important to exercise regularly. A regiment of cardio and anaerobic work can really sculpt the body into a form that will really make you proud. So become a member of a gym, join a PAL, or play lazar tag to really get the heart racing. As the old saying goes, feel the burn. Because you will feel it, the next morning when you try to get out of bed.

Organization: Do you consider yourself to be organized? There is a very effective and scientific way to determine if you are or not, which I call the How-Much-Of-Your-Bedroom-Floor-Can-You-See Test. If it is none then you are very organized because you have everything laid out and easy to find.

Writing a To Do Lists is a great way to help you become more organized. Simply take a piece of paper and write down all the things that you plan on accomplishing for the day. These can be very specific, like go to the mail and pick up dry cleaning, or cover a broad subject like “try cooking a new recipe today.”

Then, the following day, after not completing a single item on the list, you just add, “Finish yesterday’s To Do List” to the current list. At this point it would be best to develop a filing system so you can keep track of all the previous lists that you still need to complete.

I suggest a pile on the floor, somewhere around the dirty laundry.

Creativity: I am already brimming in this department, as made example by the work literary genius you now hold in your hand. I created it.

That being said, I can’t think of anything. I don’t know, make something out of macaroni noodles, or something.

Intelligence: We here at the Independent pride ourselves on being the top minds in the business and prove it week after week by coming to work; a job we were all smart enough to lie on our resumes to get. And, as I mentioned before, it took me seven years to graduate from college. If I remember anything from my Math For Literature Students Class, it’s that seven is better (>) than four.

One thing that really helps build intelligence is crossword puzzles. These can be found in almost any newspaper, usually on page five in the B section. They help develop vocabulary and really force you to think.

For example, you might only be given four spaces for the clue, “Small Mountain.” You have to learn to write really small to fit the answer, “Mount Wycheproof,” the smallest mountain in the world.

I hope that I was able to help some you fine readers out there and hope that you become the person that you want to be. And all I ask in return is that when you find yourself among the beautiful masses that you remember me, and my words of encouragement. And how I said that this was only “relatively” free of charge.

Nick Bennett is an advice columnist for the criminally insane. Focused Boredom appears every week in the Arts and Entertainment of The Independent.

New York Sports

Last week was truly an eventful time in New York Sports and I am very proud to say that I was a part of all of it. Like so many others in the New York region, I celebrated the Yankees 27th World Series Championship, then, aching with Yankees pride, spent the rest of the next day, curled up in bed on my computer.

With my pores practically oozing team pride, and my pores literally oozing beer and whiskey, I was able to reflect on how important a role I had in such a great victory.

I made it to the bar promptly, during the third inning and geared myself for the long haul. All the seats were already taken so I knew that I was going to have to stand for most of the game.

And stand I did, cheering on the Bronx Bombers through the television in the hopes that they would hear me. They must have because they did everything that I asked of them, which was winning.

From what I can piece together of the hazy memories I still have of the ninth inning, I was in good spirits.

Then it was the next morning, I was in bed, my pants were off and I still had my shoes on. Go Yankees!

What I am most excited about with the Yankees victory is that there is finally something in the sports world to knock the NY Marathon out of the papers.

I have made my stance on running very clear, I don’t like it and I think it is stupid. Yet year after year, for the last two years, I find myself inexplicably drawn to watching people destroy themselves in this grueling test of endurance just so I can say that I watched someone complete it.

The 39th ING New York City Marathon was on November 1 and as far as I can tell there is no other form of physical punishment that could possibly be worse than running for 26.2 miles, or 42.195 Kilometers for those of you European enough to know the metric system.

The marathon has its roots in ancient Greece when a messenger ran 26.2 miles nonstop to deliver a message. Upon completing his task he promptly dropped dead and today marathon runners go the distance to prove that we are better than the ancient Greeks by not dying after completing the run.

I was up and out of the house at 9 AM, rushing to catch a cab to the nine-mile mark. I made it, pouring sweat, just in time to see the leaders go by. By this mark the runners were already looking haggard, sore, and sweaty. I wanted to yell at them for doing something so destructive to themselves but they wouldn’t hear me because, let’s face it, they actually signed up for this.

Which means they are all closet masochists.

That’s because aside from the normal aches and worries that come from distance running, like exploding leg muscles and dying, there are other “things” you need to be aware of. What do you do thirteen miles into the race if you suddenly have to go to the bathroom, after sweating for two straight hours how can drinking water be bad, and what exactly do you do about your nipples?

Think about the amount of friction that is generated between your shirt and nipples while running 26 mile. That is way more than just your average chaffed nipple; you actually run the risk of cutting your nipple open with cotton. As a general rule, I try to avoid anything that makes my nipples bleed.

This year American Meb Keflezighi won the men’s race (the first American to win the race since Alberto Salazar did it in 1982) with a time of 2:09:15. Which isn’t that impressive. Sure it is great that an American won after so many years but I know in my heart that I can beat that time. All I need is some serious training, a good pair of shoes, and pray that I am not tested after the race for performance enhancing subways rides.

But for now I will stick to being a spectator. It may not be as glamorous but I don’t have to worry about a broken leg or bleeding nipples, and no matter how many brain cells I destroy it will never affect my column.

Nick Bennett would also like to add how happy he is that his friend and roommate, Danielle Florio, and her boyfriend, Andrew Casey, completed the marathon and how much he hopes all f their toenails grow back. Focused Boredom appears every week in The Independent.