There’s nothing particularly happy about the Anaheim train station. It’s a tiny little depot in the parking lot of Angels’ stadium with a couple of tired vending machines, concrete benches and one small ticket window. There’s also a sign on the door that reads “Station may be closed at points throughout the day for 30 minutes or more to accommodate meal breaks.” This is a significant improvement over their previous sign: “Closed whenever I’m hungry, bitch.” Of course, this is a tiny underutilized train station in Southern California, so they could probably close down long enough to roast and consume an entire pig and no one would notice or care. After all, commuting by train is only slightly more popular around here than commuting by yak – which is actually surprising, since you can take the yak in the carpool lane on the 405 – but only if the yak has a sticker. Man, I’d kill for a 2006 yak. Anyhow, after spending eight hours in the bowels of the Happiest Place on Earth, it was pretty jarring to be suddenly spat out by taxi into the joyless Amtrak ennui of the Anaheim station. I sat on the platform in a daze like a wadded up towel on the Penn State locker room floor after a Second Mile event – sopping wet and rumpled and wondering if I really just saw what I thought I saw and how the hell I’m going to tell anyone about it. I’d never been to Disneyland before, because I always just sort of took for granted that I’m the sort of person who would fucking hate Disneyland a lot. I’m not really sure why that is. I guess if I really think about it, it’s because Disneyland represents...

The Ancient Greeks didn’t worry about whether God loved them. They didn’t wring their hands over the fact that God allowed evil to thrive in the world and didn’t struggle with the way that God permitted the righteous to suffer while the wicked prospered. That’s because, in Ancient Greece, the Gods were a bunch of dicks. Zeus was particularly nasty- he lorded over the universe like an omnipotent frat boy with lightning bolts. He was far less concerned with the meek inheriting the earth than he was in changing into a swan and fucking the meek’s wife (they had a pretty loose grip of zoology, as well.) The rest of the gods were no better- just a bunch of mean spirited, petty, vindictive, narcissistic, spiteful bastards who absolutely didn’t give a shit about humanity. It must have been wonderfully liberating in a way- like having a Republican president. After all, when Bush and co. were in power, we didn’t wring our hands and wonder WHY they were leading us into one pointless war after another for the sole benefit of their rich cronies or WHY they were making disastrously short-sighted fiscal policy decisions. We knew perfectly well why- they were dicks. They did irresponsible, self-centered, evil, destructive, selfish things because they were irresponsible, self-centered, evil, destructive selfish cocksuckers- plain and simple. All we had to do was fear them, loathe them and mock them. With the advent of Judaism, though and the election of Obama, things became more complicated. Now we have to wrestle with thorny and difficult philosophical questions like WHY does God allow bad things to happen to good people, WHY does God turn his back on his supposedly chosen people as they are persecuted and killed, WHY did Obama extend the...

Fiercely Anticipating Please, tell me its going to happen soon – the end of the NBA Lockout. No, not football, the NFL season is firmly in place, not that I care. What I care about is basketball, specifically basketball playoffs. I love a good playoff series. However, to have a good playoff series, you must have a good season and so far it seems the NBA 2011-2012 Basketball Season is likely to be cancelled. Trouble started right after the end of last season in June. Despite a good revenue year for basketball, the NBA lost about $300 to $500 million for the season. The owners are howling. Renegotiating the contract between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) David Stern, NBA Commissioner, and Billy Hunter, NBPA Executive Director, laid out competing positions. Neither has moved in more than a month. The NBA has filed a legal complaint claiming that the players aren’t negotiating in good faith. The players are starting to look around for overseas contracts to fill in their apparently inevitable “gap year”. FIBA – the world governing body for basketball has decided that it will allow NBA players to choose an international FIBA team to play for during the lock-out, but only during the lockout. A number of NBA players, from lesser known to superstars including Boston Celtics E’Twaun Moore and the Laker’s Kobe Bryant – are interested. This doesn’t give me a good play-off season to look forward to however. While I sometimes enjoy games during the season, by the playoffs, basketball has become an aggressive interplay of strong, assertive players, sneaky moves, and astonishing throws and catches – what’s not to like? Now that I’ve got you riled up, you can track the developments here:...