The world’s smallest republic, the pacific island nation of Nauru, decided to recognize Abkhazia, a breakaway region of the republic of Georgia as a separate country recently. Nauru is more or less a rock in the south pacific that is about 8 square miles and contains approximately 11,000 residents. It seems to be rather scenic although that doesn’t count for much at the U.N., just ask New Zealand. At least they don’t have a show on MTV that makes them all look bad. I’m pretty sure it’s one of those countries you might be able to buy for like $10,000 and a promise not to invite any Scientologists. With all that in mind I guess the people of Abkhazia will apparently take what they can get as they were pretty excited about Nauru’s announcement, although I find it hard to see how this gets them closer to true independence. It’s not like other countries are going to say to themselves “Well, for a while I wasn’t sure, but now that Nauru is on board, I am totally down with recognizing them as a sovereign nation.”

Nauru is the 4th country to recognize Abkhazia officially, joining Russia, Venezuela, & Nicaragua on the list, so now it’s a party. I think Russia did it because they have an axe to grind with Georgia and couldn’t find the right message to express their feelings on someecards.com. I’m pretty sure Venezuela just did it because of the Chavez/Putin/Medvedev bromance, & Nicaragua probably got on board because Venezuela promised them an ice cream & pizza party that has yet to materialize.

Nauru’s love isn’t free, however, as it was reported by the New York Times that they simultaneously requested $50 million in aid from Russia in return for recognizing Abkhazia’s independence which Russia has long supported. Nauru pulled a similar stunt back in 2002 when they severed ties with Taiwan after accepting $130 million from China, which caused Taiwan to say “Who?” and then move on with the rest of their life. Nauru reversed the move a few years later anyway, but by then they’d spent the money on several boxes of organic cereal from Whole Foods, so China had no recourse.

It seems that Nauru’s main industry/export is independence recognition or non-recognition, which is not what you call a sustainable economic model, but is a great gig for as long as you can keep it going just like that whole grad school thing. It’s as if the U.N. is Tiger Woods and Nauru is a not so hot bartender who once appeared on a bad T.V. show that will do lots of things when they smell money. But hey, in today’s world love is love, whether it is based entirely on someone’s finances or not so leave a little extra change on the dresser for them, Abkhazia, cause they need it. And good luck with your independence, I’d recognize it as well if you could get Russia to throw a little love my way too. Until then, have fun as part of Georgia, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds. Ok, I’m lying, it actually sounds pretty shitty.

The draw for the 2010 World Cup, taking place in South Africa, was released recently, so please wake me up when the first riots of the 2010 World Cup happen. Until then, I probably won’t care much about it because my ignorance and apathy towards the world’s most popular sport is what makes me an American. I tell you what though, when people start trashing neighborhoods and setting cars on fire because their country lost, maybe to another country whose king insulted theirs 220 years ago, I start paying attention. I like how the draw for the World Cup comes out 6 months prior to the actual event so each country can fine tune their nationalism and forgotten hatred of other countries for a half year to prepare.

Americans are a little more detached on the World Cup because international competitions like that aren’t the typical catalysts for violence here. We have real reasons like taxes on tea, and faulty intelligence. But for the rest of the world, Soccer is as good a reason as any to tear some shit up, even when it’s your own shit. Every four years, people get the chance to root for their country in the World Cup, and when their country loses, it’s as if the winning country took a dump on their flag and said their leader’s mom drools more than Michael Jackson at a Gymboree. Next thing you know, windows are getting broken, tires are on fire in the middle of the street, and the police on hand are lamenting the irony of the fact that they have guns, but still have to shield themselves from people throwing rocks. At that point they probably think to themselves that they should have just become an insurance adjuster like their uncle did but then quickly discredit that thought because really, who would ever want that?

I’m sure there’s a lot of psychology behind why World Cup soccer is such a flashpoint for people. Your country’s pride on the line, the spirit of international competition, blah blah blah. What I know is that World Cup riots are unfortunate, but entertaining like MTV’s “Jersey Shore”. Apparently, the perspective of  “well, we should regroup, and think about the changes we should make for next time” is lost on many World Cup fans when their country loses. As such, these individuals are unlikely to be successful executives or elected to higher office because of their lack of long term vision, but they may find employment somewhere in Dubai’s financial sector.

Just on a side note, people also get pretty riled up in certain parts of the world over Cricket, which also has its own World Cup. In case you didn’t know, Cricket is a sport that the British left in many of their colonies as sort of an “F-you” to them along with colonial architecture. The last time I got fired up over something involving people wearing white sweaters like Cricket players do, I was half a bottle of Jack deep and in a J.Crew outlet for reasons that are still unclear to me. But, anyway, any sport where people can wear sweaters while playing should not under any circumstances inspire people to commit violence. I mean seriously, how is that even possible?

For the record, soccer violence is nothing new as the first recorded instance of soccer hooliganism dates back to the middle ages in England. England even has a “National Football Intelligence Unit” (NFIU) to track hooligans, who should consider hiring themselves out to countries that lack individuals willing to commit violence over Soccer like the U.S. (you too, Canada, you guys didn’t qualify this time around, but hey, you’ll always have lumber). I think Blackwater Industries held the previous contract for this, however it has been opened to competitive bidding again with the exit of the Bush Administration. Either way, I’ll be pretty ambivalent towards the World Cup, which is also what I have planned for the Winter Olympics, until the real fun starts and people become irrational in cities across the globe.

As you may have noticed, Vampires are all the rage these days with the genre pervading popular culture. Someone decided they are a concept that works and then before you know it they’re everywhere. It’s like what happened with Uggs and now look where we are. That’s right, ashamed.

You used to only see vampires on Halloween, or on the field trips  to Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in elementary school. In such limited doses, they were tolerable though fixated on efficient supply chain management in the latter instance. Now you can’t escape them thanks to Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Being Human, and a bunch of other things that people who shop at Hot Topic would know about. I guess Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a little full of herself regarding her job title because there still seem to be a lot of Vampires out there she didn’t get to. No wonder it was canceled.

I guess it’s that it’s hard for me to see why Vampires, of all things, have achieved such notoriety. They seem to be pretty one dimensional and highly flawed given that all they really do is suck blood and that they have some sort of food allergy issue with garlic. FYI, this type of behavior puts them at a high risk of contracting Hepatitis C. Here’s a typical day in their life as far as I can tell: wake up, apologize to bloody person next to them & exchange contact info without really intending to call, get coffee, suck some blood, avoid garlic, maybe update their LinkedIn status, and then call it good. I thought being boring and genetically flawed only got people like Jon&Kate + 8 on TV, but clearly this is not the case.

But anyway, back to my point which is that I am tired of Vampires because of their ubiquity in popular culture at the moment. They’ve just come to symbolize the lack originality we find in popular media because everyone is doing the Vampire thing. I know each show/movie/book has it’s own twist on it, but it’s pretty transparent that instead of coming up with new ideas, studios & networks would rather take a concept that has proven itself and figure out how to eke out an existence on it. It’s ironic because you’d think that Vampires and leeches would be in direct conflict with one another, but I guess the two are complimentary in this case.

It hasn’t always been this way though- Bram Stoker’s Dracula had a certain elegance to it, mostly because when you read it, you didn’t envision men in way too much white makeup. Unless maybe you did because you’re into that, which, you know, is cool except in Utah. Dracula became a classic for good reason and basically spawned the entire Vampire genre. I’m not saying shows like True Blood aren’t good, I’m just saying that if you decide you’re going to be creative and write a book, or produce a movie or TV show about Vampires, then someone else beat you to it so do something original like write about people trapped on a desert island or something. It could even be a reality show if you want. Just stay away from Vampires cause that whole genre is pretty well covered these days. Kudos to whoever started this whole thing though, because you turned out to be right that the concept had legs. I wonder if you’re the same person who started the legal show trend of several years ago, in which case, it’s nice to see you coming up with an idea for a show that doesn’t take place at a law firm set in Boston. Now come up with something else, or at least let me know where I can find reruns of Alley McBeal. Either way, no more Vampires, please. Thank you.

For centuries, quacks, charlatans, and individuals of ill repute have enjoyed passing the time by coming up with predictions foretelling the apocalypse. It goes back a long time, but things like the fall of Rome, the plague, World Wars, and the Y2K  non-event we all celebrated a few years ago have been packaged into unbelievable yet heeded warnings of how the world is coming to an end.

Recently, you may have heard about the year 2012 and some of the retarded predictions about it being the end of the world. This is due in part to the even more retarded movie coming out entitled 2012 which departs from anything Hollywood has ever done and gives us a movie about the end of the world. Although I frequently review movies I deem to be bad, yet haven’t seen, the main point about the connection between any prediction and Sony Pictures doing a movie about it starring John Cusack should be that there is absolutely no need to worry about that prediction coming true.

Much of the belief in the world ending in 2012 is due to misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar which ends a cycle on December 21st, 2012. For some reason, confused people in a variety of faiths have decided that maybe God forgot something when he wrote their respective texts which the Mayan calendar sheds some insight on. Sort of like insider trading, religion-style. What these goobers are neglecting is the fact that after it ends, the cycle simply restarts because the Mayans knew that the world was a little bigger than their calendar which is something the people at Hallmark are still figuring out.

In a 2007 article discussing doomsday predictions for 2012 in USA Today, Sandra Noble, an expert on Mesoamerican cultures, indicated that for Mayan civilization the end of a cycle would have likely meant a large celebration, probably along the lines of what Prince was envisioning when he wrote the song “1999″ although probably a lot less androgynous. The only reason the Mayans would have wanted the world to end in 2012 was if they knew the concept would be appropriated for a John Cusack movie. The fact that it has Danny Glover would have been forgivable to them, though not ideal.

So all of the 2012 apocalyptic talk and the accompanying dump director Roland Emmerlich and  composer-producer Harald Kloser took together and named 2012 the movie is yet another bastardization of a Native American concept to be sold en masse.  It’s similar to what was done with corn, only less delicious and one day you might find the movie 2012 sold at KFC for $1.99 as well, so the parallels are many. The director also did Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow, so I don’t think the man has ever met an apocalypse he didn’t like. Further, although December 21st, 2012 will not pertain to the end of the world, 2012 could be a real number for the following:

• $2,012.00 might be the total that the movie 2012 grosses worldwide, including DVD sales.
• 2,012 people might be willing to see their world end and actually die rather than sit through the movie.
• 2,012 years ago, a 12 year old Jesus might have just stuck with carpentry if he knew that one day the movie 2012 would get greenlit.

There was a better chance of the world ending the day R.E.M’s “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” hit the airwaves back in November 1987 than there is that the world will end in 2012. I don’t understand why everyone is talking about it now anyway, I mean it’s still 3 years away. That’s enough time for a sequel and a prequel to the apocalypse. I encourage everyone to start taking bets about the end of the world coming on December 21st, 2012 now though. If you win, someone may actually end up paying you, and if you lose, you and your creditors will be swallowed by a giant fissure in the earth and it won’t matter unless they have credit reporting agencies down there, and given the proximity to hell, there very well may be some. Please email me if you are interested in such a wager and also include how many degrees of separation there are between you and Jerry Falwell, anyone who has ever appeared on “The Hills”, or the contestants on “My Antonio” because I am making a chart.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (pictured here playing Venezuelan peek-a-boo with the press) has been a frequent headliner due to his outspoken distaste for American foreign policy, his courting of rogue nations as allies, and more egregiously, his banning of shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons from Venezuelan TV. With all that in mind, I think Hugo should just chill out and have brunch with me. He’d probably have a few too many strawberry bellinis (I’ll be drinking mimosas like a real man) and get riled up about the evils of American hegemony in South America. This will be the most education I’ve dealt with while eating an egg sandwich and country potatoes. I’d let him go on without interruption for as long as he’d like though, and if his recent speeches to the U.N. are an indication, I could be in for a 60 minute diatribe. Still, I wouldn’t interrupt him because I’m saving that for my brunch with Kanye.

Chavez and I do have some things in common which I will use to keep the conversation going:

1. By creating alliances with rogue regimes, Hugo Chavez is looking to create a new order in the world. By legally downloading and digging through old CDs, I’m looking to create a New Order playlist on my iTunes.
2. Hugo Chavez disregards U.N. security council resolutions banning Iran from exporting nuclear material by announcing cooperation deals with them. I typically disregard security guard warnings not to be in hotel swimming pools after they close at 10 PM.

I don’t see how we possibly couldn’t get along and work out the differences between our two countries given our clear similarities.

I’d also really like to know more about his recent purchase of military equipment from Russia and more importantly, whether or not I will get to ride on any of it after brunch. Again, probably depends a lot on how many bellinis he has. Recently, Mr. Chavez purchased tanks, anti-aircraft systems and most likely submarines from Russia because his country’s birds and fish need to remember who’s boss. That’s right, you better recognize, Venezuelan fauna. Or, more likely it is to prevent an attack from his favorite imperialist country that isn’t planning to attack him. And no, I’m not talking about Andorra. I would really like to put Mr. Chavez’s mind at ease during brunch so that he doesn’t feel pressured to buy all that military equipment and can spend it on something better like sweaters from Zara just in time for fall, or perhaps his country’s infrastructure and education systems.

So, Hugo, if you’re out there reading this, let’s get brunch and find a way to mend some fences so you don’t have to go courting the U.N.’s version of Tool Academy as allies. In your speech to the UN last week you said that you now smelled hope behind the pulpit at the U.N. assembly in reference to Barack Obama. I must warn you that after brunch with me, you might smell something else, particularly if I go for the chorizo & huevos, but I hope there will be a whiff of hope there as well. I digress.

I’ll even pick up the tab although I’ll likely find a way to write it off  because governments should pay for everything anyway, right? Ahh forget it, capitalism has afforded me the luxury of being able to buy brunch for other people every now and then, and I am happy to do so for us on my Imperialst Express card (please let me pay, I get double the miles for every dollar spent on socialists). See you there.

I’m sure you’ve seen one of those Cash4Gold commercials by now which offers to buy your gold jewelry and send you cash for it. Much like whenever someone tells me they had their birthday dinner at an Outback steakhouse, every time I see one of those commercials, I think to myself “That’s really sad”. I think the worst part is where they show the clip of them actually melting down the jewelry, which should be captioned with “Here’s what we do with the heirlooms you wish you didn’t have to sell.” The commercial does a good job at depicting potential customers as normal, jovial individuals with gold items they no longer need, but in reality their motto should be something like “Because you need $30 in a really bad way.” That makes me sad.

The sadness continues beyond the commercial though if you go to the website of Cash4gold.com. They have a banner promoting their partnership with MC Hammer (pictured above holding a gold sledgehammer and exclaiming that he is “melting gold/dignity, baby”) to donate some of their proceeds to curing hunger. It’s like this business is designed to give me material to write about. Anyway, I hope Hammer got paid a little for that, but something tells me they may have just kicked him down a couple earrings someone mailed in and called it a day. Overall, I find their charity admirable, yet circular, as the people who need to sell their jewelry like this may be doing it so they can buy food. In that respect, they should just pay people more for the gold they send in if they want to help their hunger situation, but then there wouldn’t be the tax benefits of a charitable write-off and when that isn’t present, companies tend to be perfectly OK with letting others go hungry. The whole charity thing is just a way for them to seem a little more human because it is obvious that their business is more or less set up to take advantage of people who really need money just like the management training program at Enterprise Rent A Car from what I understand.

Oh, and did I mention they will also buy gold teeth? Um, yes they will buy gold teeth, and explicitly list them as one of the items they will buy on their website. How one actually acquires a gold tooth they can mail in is apparently an inconsequential detail. I hope they have systems in place to flag anyone that sends in more than a couple gold teeth, but somehow I doubt they have incorporated that as a field in their database. It just made me a little sad writing about people mailing in gold teeth for money. Then I thought about how awesome it would be if I ever got around to creating a doughnut with pieces of strawberry cheesecake inside and I got over it. Maybe that would make one of my gold teeth fall out which I could then get some money for. Interesting.

I’ve heard rumors that they will soon be launching Cash4children.com where you can put any unwanted spawn in a PrePaid crate, mail it in, and receive money the very next day. If the children have gold teeth, then their value is even higher. OK, not really, but I’m just saying…

I used to think that the whole phenomenon of people being famous that don’t deserve to be was a recent by-product of the internet and reality television. But if you go back and look, you’ll see that this has actually been true throughout the ages. See, I love history as much as the next guy, but  I’m about to upset you Egyptologists more than Napoleon’s little stint there a couple hundred years ago. Honestly, I’d be uptight if a diminutive French guy invaded a country I devoted significant time to studying as well. The fact of the matter is that King Tut is probably the most overrated person in history, and I’d just like to point this out because he deserves a reality check, even in the afterlife.

King Tut is the only Egyptian many people can name, and arguably the most famous of the pharaohs which is unfortunate because he never actually achieved anything in his short life. This makes him sort of like an ancient version of Kim Kardashian only less gaudy, and with more knowledge of the 21st Century. Here’s what happened- he became a king at 9 and reigned for about 10 years before he died without ever doing anything historians of the time bothered to record, and they had no problems recording things that lasted (unlike the Dave Matthews Band). It is somewhat ambiguous as to whether he even had kids which seems hard to do when you are 19, a king, and a God in times before contraception. I mean, I would’ve had tons of progeny if I were him, know what I’m sayin’?

Sexual dysfunction aside, they still saw it fit to bury him with quite a lot of artifacts and gold accessories because if we know anything about divine beings, it’s that they can’t be mistaken for poor when they get to the afterlife, otherwise they end up in the same section as that dude from Milli Vanilli who killed himself. It’s as if the afterlife was set up like a nightclub and in place of St. Peter guarding the entrance, there was just a bouncer who wouldn’t let you in if you did’t look cool enough, and certainly not if you were wearing tennis shoes.

So, what we really have in King Tut is a mediocre guy born into an important family who may or may not still have had a hard time getting laid. If you happen to be William Kennedy Smith then you may know what I’m talking about. Not quite pyramid and riches material if you ask me, but then again my standards for that are pretty high. I’d go on to say that King Tut is the most overrated head of state in history, but Ronald Reagan seems to be giving him a good run for his money on that one (I know, how dare I !?)

Anyway, I would gladly list the things King Tut did to deserve his place in history if there were any so instead I will list a few Kings that have accomplished more than he did:

• the 2008-09 Sacramento Kings (17 wins & 65 losses, did not make the NBA playoffs)
• Kings of Leon (also pretty overrated)
• King Crab Wednesday at Sizzler (just made that up)
• Rain King Irrigation Lawn Sprinklers
• King Cobra malt liquor (6% alcohol by volume)

Perhaps people at the time asked themselves if King Tut was really worth building a large, luxurious pyramid for and wasting copious amounts of precious metals on, but then forgot because the mortgage crisis hit and a they had to learn the hard way that mud brick dwellings will not appreciate in value indefinitely. Further, there are lots of other kings out there who actually did something  whom you’ve probably never heard of because they weren’t buried in a cool-looking sarcophagus inside an extremely well decorated tomb which means they probably didn’t have enough gay friends.

I hope in the future people don’t confuse the hip hop artists of our day as important because of all of the gold they will undoubtedly be buried in. I guess in that respect King Tut was a little like T. Pain only with a lot more status and a lot less Hennessy. Niether one has contributed anything really to society, but they both have a lot to show for it.

There may be a smartass out there foaming at the mouth to present some sort of historical evidence as to why I’m wrong, and to such individuals, I say, “Shouldn’t you be planning your costume for next year’s ComiCon?” The point is, King Tut doesn’t deserve the place he occupies in history. Howard Carter discovered his undisturbed tomb full of some amazing things, but it’s not like he designed or made any of them, so why does he get all the notoriety? His jeweler and interior designer deserve the fame, but unfortunately they lived in times before Bravo TV so no one gave a shit about them, and that’s why King Tut can pretty much blow me.