I'm Sorry, Devils: A Fan's Apology to His Team

By Chris Hubbard

This past Monday, for the second time in my life, I had to endure the pain of watching my beloved Devils lose a Stanley Cup Final. It’s a tough pill to swallow. I have to say, no matter how long you see it coming, it doesn’t make it any less painful as you’re watching time expire on your season. You start thinking about the other games you lost in the series. “One inch to the left and game 1 would have been ours!” or, “we only gave up one lousy regulation goal in 4 of the 6 games.” And yet here we are.

Yes, I’m one of those fans who uses the obligatory We when talking about their sports team. It wasn’t just the Devils who beat the Panther’s in 7, it was me and the Devils. They scored the goals and did the skating, I tried to stand on one foot and eat nachos the entire game because that’s what I did to help them win game 6. It was the same all the way through to the final. Not necessarily channeling the power of nachos, but in each series there was a routine to follow. When I did, we won, when I didn’t we didn’t. That’s where this article comes in. I’m sorry Devils. I abandoned you when I took a two hour drive south to play in an Ultimate Frisbee Summer Leauge.

Before that, people say we weren’t doing so great, but we were close. And then I found the winning formula. I just needed to move my seat from my house, to someone else’s. In the two wins of the series I watched from the couch of one Andrew Kaspereen, and it was glorious. We could feel the upset coming. We could feel game 7 around the corner, and then all bets were off. But then I did what I should have never done. I abandoned the routine. I went south to play ultimate and the rest is history.

I should have known better. I’d done this once before, the previous Monday. That should have been all the warning I needed. Game 3 was a blow out for the Kings. It was a grotesque game and it was all my fault. I know that now. But I missed the signs and after quite a bit of self-convincing, I brought myself to leave for game 6 as well. But I did, and I cost us the Cup, and no one is more ashamed than I. Next year will be better Devils, I swear. If we make the finals again I’ll step my game up. I’ll buy a rally monkey, I’ll bleach my hair, I’ll grow a better beard, I’ll turn my hat inside out, hell I’ll turn all my hats inside out. The important thing is I’ll step it up on the routine front, and in return all I ask is to score more than 1 goal a game, maybe?

Ah, who are we kidding, we’re the Devils, we don’t win unless by shutout, and I’m fine with that, except when we lose. I’m so sorry.

How Dave, Spence, and Little Richard Saved the Human Race

By Spence Blazak

I have a yarn to spin that is too good to be true, yet it is just as veracious as the nose on your face. One of my many means of gainful employment during the summer includes being a machinist at Blazak Manufacturing. No joke, its real. Also real is the fact that my coworker Dave and I saved humanity on June 6th. The story just might be one of my all time best, soon to be told by my daughter, Taylor Swift Jr., and her daughter's daughters after her. Passed down through the ages until Judgement Day. The segments taking place in the future are logically deduced projections for the course of events that will follow that of June 6th's. To create the appropriate illusion for story telling, I shall be telling the tale backwards to leave you, my fare reader, guessing exactly what happened, up until the very end.

September 15th, 2040:

Dave Piccolella's birthday is now a holiday. Kid's get off from school, the government shuts down, but unlike MLK Day, people actually know who the namesake of their annual day of leisure is. Dave: The man who put into effect the plan that would save the entire human population. People gather round and ask Applebees CEO Spence Blazak to tell them about the day it happened, since he is one of only two humans left from when the event happened.

July 20th, 2039

-Food scientist Spence discovers the recipe for the everlasting gobstopper, thus ending world hunger.

December 13, 2013

-The first of Spence's 13 children, which will regrow the human population, is born. Coincidentally, on the same day as their mother was.

January 1, 2013

-A new year, and a new hope for humanity. Spence finds the fallen wreckage of the International Space Station (which plummeted to the Earth after the cosmonaut's cat killed all of the astronauts) and retrieves the vital information on board.

December 22, 2012

-Spence emerges from the wreckage of humanity, takes his new bride, and rides off into the sunset to hunt down the cure to bring back the almost extinct species known as mankind.

December 21, 2012

-The world ends. Cats turn on homo sapiens, destroying them one by one, just as the Mayans predicted. Just when all seems lost and the cats arrive at Spence's door, they are warded off by his cats Allie and Zoey, for he has been deemed worthy to live among them in the age of cats. The only other Earthly survivor is someone else who was saved by their cat….all thanks to this video of her . Spence then marries her.

December 20, 2012

-The company Spacex launches their probe to the International Space Station. It is filled with fancy metal boxes. Inside these boxes, Wookiee Wednesday assumes, are bits of human DNA and reams of paper documenting humanity's accomplishments.

June 6, 2012 4:59 PM

-The essential parts needed to create the indestructible metal boxes for Spacex are shipped in the nick of time from Blazak Mfg.

June 6, 2012 12:34 PM

-Dave returns from his epic journey to the road stop on the Jersey Turnpike at mile marker 120 with the tool needed to create the pieces for this "indestructible savior box."

June 6, 2012 11:40 AM

-Dave is briefed about his mission to head to the aforementioned rest stop to get this tool which will save humanity. He is warned to beware of undercover policemen, for they will be watching him. No lie. One time my aunt had to run a similar mission at the rest stop and was questioned because they thought she was a drug trafficker.

June 6, 2012 11:39 AM

-The breaks squeal and the stench of burned rubber permeates the muggy air. Spence throws himself out of Dave's car and gives the donuts and coffee to his uncle and bossman Tom.

June 6, 2012 11:37 AM

-Text from Tom: "Take your time, but quickly". Spence yells.

June 6, 2012 11:30 AM

-They enter the Quickcheck.

Spence: "ASDASHFKJSDHGLADKBFJ:DHFASFAAFF"

Dave: "The coffee is right over there, Spence"

Spence and Dave dash to the coffee with Tom's refillable mug in hand. It's a mad house inside of Quickcheck. THE JAMAICAN ME CRAZY COFFEE HAS A DO NOT SERVE SIGN. The fate of the universe rests in this coffee being delivered. Spence then does something that will be remembered for many generations to come after him: he asks a woman who works there if the sign is just a guideline. She says yes.

They get in the car and hit the gas.

June 6, 2012 11:20 AM

-The team makes mad dash to the local Sunoco, prepared for anything. Dave accidentally hits the "open trunk" button on his car. Spence hurls his door open.

Spence: "AHHHHHHHHHHHH"

He closes the trunk and runs back the five feet to the door.

Spence: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

June 6, 2012 11:12 AM

-Tom briefs the duo on the first part of their mission. They must fill up Dave's tank with gas, go to Quickcheck, go inside the Quick check, get donuts and Jamaican Me Crazy coffee, leave, go back to the shop, then have Dave go get the part needed to save humanity. Just another day at Blazak Mfg.

June 6, 2012 11:08 AM

-Tom: "Get ready for an earth changing mission."

June 6, 2012 10:13 AM

-Spence puts too much oil on the stamper, and the greasy substances is sprayed in his face, like this.

June 6, 2012 8:50 AM

-The day of work begins like any other. Spence has been cutting himself on the metal strips for awhile and looks at his fingers. They look like a falcon attacked them. He then wonders if when he dies, the police will ever be able to tell who he is because his fingerprints will have changed. WIll he even care, since he is dead? He sits in fear and gives an existential shudder.

June 6, 2012 7:40 AM

-Dave picks Spence up and they go to work. On the way there, "Closing Time" by Semisonic comes on (or maybe Spence just decides to randomly sing it). It is a foreshadow of the day's events. "One last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer."

June 6, 2012 7:13 AM

-Spence wakes up to the sound of Little Richard singing "Tutti Frutti." He then gets ready for work by lying in bed for 20 minutes, making coffee, burning himself on said coffee, then drinking a protein shake. As Bruce Springsteen once said "The working, the working, the working life".

I know what you are thinking……what did you actually do to help save the world? Dave did everything? I'll tell you what I did. I got that Jamaican Me Crazy coffee. If it wasn't for that small act, then Tom might not have had the energy to tell Dave the directions up the parkway to get that tool. All thanks to that caramel fueled concoction. You're welcome, world.

The Dictator: Review

By Spence Blazak

I'm about to do the nicest favor for you that you've had all week. You're welcome, in advance. I'll preface it with a story. There is an episode of The Twilight Zone called "To Serve Man". Creepy aliens come to Earth and give humankind a big book called, you guessed it, To Serve Man. This helps the humans by telling them how to cure their diseases as well as end worldwide famine. The aliens are such great "bros" to humanity that they decide to invite people to "bro out" on they home planet. People go without asking any questions.

Pretty soon, a scientist researching the alien book realizes the terrible, terrible truth……To Serve Man is an alien cook book with which to eat humans!!!! He then goes buck wild and tries to warn everyone at the spaceship loading docks by yelling "NOOOOO!!!!! ITTTTS AAAAA COOOOK BOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!" No one cares, he gets pushed onto the spaceship, and then thats about it.

Anyway, I'm here to warn you, good people of Earth…..if you value your life and sanity, DO NOT see The Dictator, the latest comedic travesty to plague a theater near you. ITS A COOOK BOOOK!

The Dictator follows Sacha Baron Cohen (of Borat, Bruno, and Madagascar fame) as Admiral General Aladeen, the leader of the African nation of Wadiya. He is a cruel, ruthless leader that is despised by his constituents. His right hand man (played by Ben Kingsley….no joke) betrays him on a trip to NYC, and Aladeen is left alone in the Big Apple, with no one able to recognize him. He then befriends an organic grocer (Anna Farris) and attempts to reclaim his title as the dictator of Wadiya.

I feel dirty giving this film the courtesy of a summary. I'm so sorry, dear reader, for the pain that your eyes just had to endure.

This is strikingly similar to the Adam Sandler disaster You Don't Mess With the Zohan, and it is just about the same level of funny as well (which is "not very"). Almost every joke falls flat, is awkwardly offensive, and at the hands of the unlikable character Aladeen, this is a perfect storm for comedic discontent. Borat found a way to offend the world with a loving, affable tone by being over the top in absurdity, but when The Dictator makes a foul joke about the Israeli killings at the 1972 Munich Olympics, it is just uncomfortable for all the patrons in the theater.

Cohen thrived in his television show and previous films by basing the majority of his comedy in improv. He would set his character in a funny situation, countered by either unknowing bystanders or actors improving, then create golden comedy out of off color jest through his dead pan sillyness. The Dictator is, and comes off as, fully scripted. This sucks the life and humor out of everything and everyone seen on screen. The film is nothing more than an empty husk.

There are three, and only three, jokes that work in the film. One involves Aladeen changing the words for both "positive" and "negative" to "Aladeen," which results in a hilarious scene in which a man goes to the doctor. The other comes from Aladeen's friend saying "Crocs are a sign of a man who has given up. Next you will be wearing sweatpants and spending your nights at Applebees!" This was probably only funny because that is a dead-on description of me (I have done all three of those things on more occasions than I'd like to admit)….The other joke is too weird for me to describe, but it involves Blake Griffin and Cohen…"polishing the bald man's head", so to speak, on screen.

There you go. That paragraph shows the only redeeming qualities of this movie, one that is destined to be in the dollar DVD bin at Kmart. On a scale of 0 to 4 stars, with half a star being Epic Movie and three-and-a-half stars being Borat, The Dictator gets a pitiful one star.