...And By "Very Narrowly" I Meant 20 Points

#33 Marquand Manuel prepares to ascend into heaven as two
Carolina sinners prostrate themselves before the The Lawd.
The Ubiquitous Zebraman gives an "amen".

Greg:

First of all, thank you for calling to let me know that you were watching the game. I'm concerned that you don't get enough football, and so your call was a great load off my mind.

So besides the obvious - obvious meaning the whacking we gave the Panthers on Sunday which led to the Seahawks Super Bowl berth - Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to be kicking me in the crack. This is in spite of the fact that the Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl, an event so seemingly unlikely (if you believe the press) that one would think Jesus H. Christ Himself would be appearing at halftime. (As it is, the Rolling Stones are appearing, who are only slightly younger and better known than JHC.) I tried to distract myself by scouting the tape of the Steelers/Broncos game (that I TiVo'd, wisely). But after discerning that the Hawks have not much to worry about from the Bloated Spawn of Andrew Carnegie, even that pastime lost its appeal. Yes, I said it. Even football isn't lighting a match inside the dungeon of my cranium. Damn this accursed Seattle wintersogged greyness! Everything has lost its tang, even complaining. I was even beginning to think that having my liver pecked out each day then grown anew each night to be pecked out again the following day might be a pleasant diversion.

So imagine my surprise when, just shortly after affixing a freakishly accurate homemade bakelite beak to my shnozz and baring my own midsection, I stumbled upon an Internet mystery that dispersed the clouds from the sky and rekindled my will to bitch about stuff. Here's the short version:

A guy named Tucker Darby from Newton, Iowa finds a painting of a crop circle that was left behind when a mysterious character named Benjamin Stove abandoned his family farm in 1988. It's a pretty nice piece of kitsch, he thinks, until he finds out on closer inspection that it was painted in 1915. (That places its provenance well before the 1970s, when entire fields of alien-worshipping nutters sprang up nationwide in response to the crop circle phenomena - FYI.) To help solve both mysteries, he creates a blog that details his search to find out exactly Who Is Benjamin Stove. No, I'm not going to tell you any more. Yes, you actually have to read it. Why? Because I'm lazy and depressed. All I can muster is the will to continue reading about this mystery. And even I started at the middle, so when you read it, please call me and tell me what happened at the beginning. I could do it myself, but I'm hopelessly pinned under a pile of ennui and can't get up.


Definitely not the work of Grant Wood.

Now it could be a true mystery, or it could be complete shite. If it is shite, my hat's off to this Tucker Darby fellow because it's pretty damn clever shite. I'd hate to find out that this was some ploy by Artisan Pictures to recoup the leeching they got from Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows. I want it to be true because it involves one of the Scariest Places On Earth - Iowa - and a nutjob of the first magnitude who is either at large as we speak, exsanguinated by the Chupacabra; or standing in the shadows, ready to pounce as soon as you stop reading this and turn out the lights. Good stuff. Go read it.

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus