My kingdom will soon be reunited!

For men of great power, the machinations of political fortune or misfortune are most often shrouded from the prying eyes of the public — a silent, unscrupulous waltz in the inky shadows of dimly lit parlor rooms.

Sometimes, however, your political rivals simply drop dead.

So it was that Giorgio Carbone, erstwhile Prince of Seborga, died — and in doing so removed the last great obstacle in my quest to reunite the ancient thrones of Greater Paximiliano. Seborga — a tiny province nestled adjacent to the Italian riviera — is not the final step, but it has proven the most intractable, thanks to the admittedly awesome rule of Carbone:

After convincing his Seborgan neighbors of their true significance, Giorgio Carbone was elected prince in 1963. He gracefully accepted the informal title of His Tremendousness, and was elected prince for life in 1995 by a vote of 304 to 4. Voters then ratified Seborga’s independence, which, by the prince’s interpretation, it already had.

Prince Giorgio established a palace, wrote a Constitution, and set up a cabinet and a parliament. He chose a coat of arms, minted money (with his picture), issued stamps (with his picture) and license plates, selected a national anthem and mobilized a standing army, consisting of Lt. Antonello Lacala. He adopted a motto: Sub umbra sede (Sit in the shade).

While Carbone was my rival lo these many years, I plan to keep Lt. Lacala in his position. I cannot afford to lose the support of the military. I will also keep Carbone’s picture on the money and retain the national motto, because it would take forever to photoshop new Seborgan dollars and, let’s face it, sitting in the shade is awfully relaxing.

Giorgio Carbone, Elected Prince of Seborga, Dies at 73 [NYT]

Our kids are 150% sissier than before

Pax Arcana

Our children are increasingly obese, the sad byproduct of cheap carbohydrates and a sedentary lifestyle. Returning physical education to budget-strapped public schools is one of key efforts in the drive to combat the problem.

But according to this article, that effort is fraught with issues — including a 150% increase in gym class injuries from 1997-2007:

The study, based on hospital reports of phys ed injuries, was released Monday and appears in the September edition of Pediatrics. It suggests schools should renew their efforts to make gym class safer, said Cheryl Richardson of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education in Reston, Va.

Richardson noted some school districts don’t require teachers to be certified to teach phys ed, particularly at the elementary school level.

“Classroom teachers who aren’t trained in P.E. might not recognize situations that can cause injury,” Richardson said. Certified physical education teachers know where to position themselves, the amount of space children need around them for activities and proper warmup exercises.

Ordinarily this is where I make a snarky joke about the study or its findings or the article itself, but not today. Why? Because there once was a little blond boy who loved gym class more than anything. Then one day he was climbing the knotted rope when an errant kickball hit him in the head. He didn’t fall off the rope, but he was so scared he shit his gym shorts — which were wrapped so tight around his oversized legs that the shit tumbled out of them and fell all the way to the floor below.

The other children screamed and laughed, and the little blond boy with the shit-stained shorts clung to the rope crying and wishing he were somewhere — anywhere! — else. Then one of the other children threw a tennis ball at him and his hands slipped, causing him to slide back down the rope upside down, his knees crashing against the knots as gravity yanked him down to the floor — into the very pile of shit he had inadvertently deposited moments before.

For the rest of the year, the other children called him “Dookie” and rode their bikes past his house and threw tennis balls on his lawn and shouted insults at him.

Things got so bad for the little blond boy that the principal of the school had to hold an assembly where the traveling cast of Free to Be You and Me told the children it was mean to make fun of others. When one of the cast members asked the students if they’d ever been the butt of a joke, a student in the back shouted “NO BUT DOOKIE HAS A JOKE FOR A BUTT!!” The little blond boy sunk down in his seat and cried softly to himself for the rest of the hour.

Do you know who that little boy was?

Seriously — do you know? Because that shit was funny as hell and I’d love to post “Hey Dookie! WANT TO CLIMB SOME ROPES??!!!” on his Facebook page.

Study finds 150 percent rise in student injuries in gym class over 11 years [Newser]

Check out Pax’s new tattoo!

Father Scott

We all know how much of a geek Pax Arcana is. I would try to link to all the posts he’s made about how much he loves Apple or the boner he gets from some TechCrunch article, but WordPress just informed me that there’s not enough space on the Internet to do so.

But this takes the cake. Check Pax’s new tattoo (ht: Metz).

OK, you got me, Pax didn’t actually get that tattoo. Which means that the title and the majority of the text are lies. I am a giant liar.

Besides, do you think the vociferous and ebullient Mrs. Pax Arcana would marry somebody who wore that hat. Eesh.

I will deposit my twits in your eye-holes

Pax Arcana

Last month I asked my Hungarian manservant to explain why the entire world was aflutter over something called “Twitter.” Unfortunately the English lessons I am paying so dearly for have not yet taken purchase, because his answer was an unintelligible jumble of fake words like tweet, tweeple, tweetard, twike, twode, and twouche.

Really, he sounded like a retard.

Anyway, after consulting the roughly 700,000 mainstream media stories on the so-called Twitter boom, I have decided to dump my own twits into the twitterscape. For the latest microthoughts on whatever threats drift through the greater Pax Arcana transom, simply click the “Pax on Twitter” link on the widget to the right, or go to twitter.com/paxarcana.

You shall be rewarded for your loyalty.

Like if YouTube and Pandora boned

Father Scott

Fizy.

Via YoonTunes (the man, not the blog), this site is a giant database of mp3s and videos that you can access at your command. So, if, for example, your ipod always craps out and has no battery power and you’ve run out of fantasy sports podcasts to listen to but you still want to drown out the giant Norwegian who is mashing zombie intenstines with his racquetball racquet at his desk, well, you have a place to go.

Or if you want to get your Rob Zombie on…

All quiet on the Pax Arcana front

Father Scott

Pax is out sick today, so don’t expect much from us unless Perry writes out a 12 billion word screed about the facial hair of the bassist of The Hold Steady.

If you’re curious, Pax is out with a case of chronic goofyface, which he picked up at this weekend’s flag football game.

I, on the other hand, step up in the face of adversity.

Please. Like women diving at my crotch is anything new for me.

The Last Stand? (cont.)

Fallen Angel

But first, peep my horror movies below.

The Last Stand?

Fallen Angel

The jersey is on. The Fosters is being cleared out. Will this be the end?

“Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

– Animal House

“I don’t know what to say, really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today, and either, we heal as a team, or we’re gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play. Until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time.”

– Any Given Sunday

“This is it! Don’t get scared now!”

– Home Alone

Game 5 live blog below…

World Series Live Blog: Game 2

Pink-hatted Raysist Fallen Angel cleverly hijacked the comments section of our Big Bird funerary dirge post to grunt his way through an impromptu live blog of Game 1 of the World Series. I thought it was awesome. He wants to do it again. I invite Paxists from all over the globe — Padre, Perry, NotZucchini, Spackler, PIAB, et al. — to participate in this adventure and steal some of Fallen Angel’s righteous fury. Then steal his lunch money. I may be able to peel myself away from my professional obligations to do the same.

Here’s how it works:

1. You watch the ball game on television.

2. You set your favorite Web browser to Pax Arcana.

3. You click on the “Comments” link at the bottom of this post.

4. You comment throughout the game. Hit refresh on your browser to see what dumb-ass shit the others are posting.

It’s not like you have anything better going on, right?

– Pax Arcana

Crickets chirping

Father Scott

To be a fish, you need water.

To be a criminal, you need an innocent victim.

To be a blogger, or any effective member of the workforce, you need a computer.

Our dear friend Pax forgot this last part. Getting ready for work this morning, Senor Arcana forgot that part of his job is to bring his work-issued laptop, you know, to work. So he’s in the dark ages, leafing through “papers” at his desk and wondering what all the incessant clacking is, while zombies no doubt lurk without proper supervision throughout the intertubes.

So this here site should be a little quiet today, unless Perry thinks of a 12,000 screed about The Hold Steady.

Anyway, I don’t have any ideas, so just watch this Japanese commercial of Daisuke Matsuzaka to get yourself properly amped for tonight’s game.