Bryan Schaaf’s Zesty Chicken Salad

It’s been since early June since the Zesty has seen much activity, and for those who follow this site, I offer many apologies. For those who find this site to be a drain on a prime piece of Internet real estate, I also apologize, but for a different reasons.

But I digress. Much has happened since the last post, on June 11. For one, Ward Christopher Schaaf produced roughly 10,000 dirty diapers in the first six months of his life, Newcastle United began competing in the second tier of English football and the high school girls soccer team I coach at Northwestern High, is having a year to remember.

… Ward Christopher Schaaf, creater of many poops

… Killer shorts, man.

But my main reason for bringing back the Zesty can be summed up in 2 words — Election season. I cannot think of a better venue to highlight my thoughts in a pretty slow election year. But stay tuned. We’ll find plenty to debate.

— Schaaf

…. But hopefully this will make up for lost time.

http://video.ap.org/?f=ohwoo&PID=Bpw4h0qVgB_FcDS75iUwDVrYOJITGCPf

Give us your worst, swine flu!

… it’s that pandemics are thwarted with Peruvian pan-flute bands.

With Michael Owen’s goals dried up, the Magpies could be going down.

… All right, for those who are not aware, my beloved Newcastle United Football Club are in a relegation scrap, particularly following this afternoon’s 0-0 draw with Portsmouth.

With four matches to go, here’s how the bottom of the Barclays Premier League table looks after Monday:

16. Sunderland 35 points
17. Hull City 34 points
18. Newcastle 31 points
19. Middlesboro 31 points (trails Newcastle on goal difference)
20. West Brom 28 points

As referenced in an earlier post, the bottom three teams simply get booted from the league, cast away to play in the second tier of English football among the other hopefuls who wish to play in the Premier League because of its notoriety and massive amounts of television money.

Digging up the great Jackie Millburn might be the only way Newcastle can start scoring

Newcastle haven’t dropped out of the top flight since 1991, and seeing as how their next match (called ‘fixtures’ overseas) is at Liverpool, it doesn’t look like we’ll be picking up any additional points for at least two weeks.

Fingers crossed.

… Presenting your new NFL commissioner: Mikhail Gorbachev

OK, I’m getting tired of the facade.

Ya know, the one that goes something like this: Football! The NFL! No game for sissies! In your face action! The great American game!

But am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that this great game that ESPN continues to shove down our throats is actually set up like Cold War Era Russia?

Let me break it down like this.

In the NFL, the teams with the worst record get first crack at “drafting” the best incoming players from college or elsewhere in the next year, while the teams that did well for themselves the previous year have to sit and wait until the end of each round, after the best players are gone.

In other words, futility and incompetence are rewarded, while franchises that run themselves well get punished.

Why? This phrase some sports analyst came up with called “Competitive Balance.”

Because somewhere someone came up with the theory that if you could somehow stack the deck in lesser teams’ favor and make them competitive with the big boys, the entire league will benefit.

… Karl Marx’s cousin, Groucho. “I saw an elephant in my pajamas. Don’t ask how it got there.”

But how come no one questions why the rules are set up to give a competitive advantage to the teams that are too poor, too inept and too short-sighted to build a winning franchise on their own?

When Paul Tagliabue retired as NFL commissioner a few years back, they should’ve just gone ahead and named Karl Marx to the position.

The American government typically takes a stance to stamp out anything that might be socialistic or communist. Why not embargo the NFL, just like Cuba? Just send the whole lot to some island in the middle of the ocean where residents can drive 1940s American automobiles and make cigars.

The worst thing that could’ve happened to American culture is ESPN, because people instantly stopped thinking for themselves and starting becoming head-nodders when people like Stuart (boo-ya) Scott speaks up.

There’s nothing any more American about the NFL than any other sport except soccer, which simply kicks the worst teams out at the end of each season. If sports truly wanted to embody the American spirit, they’d allow incompetent franchises to fold up and close down.

…The Zesty takes great pleasure in pointing out deficiencies in others, but it must reveal its own problems.

Newcastle United, the official football team of the Zesty Chicken Salad, suffered a 1-0 defeat at Tottenham on Sunday, dropping the Magpies to 19th in the 20-team English Premier League table with only five matches left. Unlike in American sports, finishing near the bottom isn’t reward with high draft picks. Instead, the bottom three teams are booted to a lower division, the Coca-Cola Championship.

Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Nicky Butt, yes, Butt, …. It’s going to be a long five weeks.

… One thing I’ve always hated was when sports franchises do a wholesale change of their logo. The 0-16 Detroit Lions announced such a change on Monday, and, ya know, I think they nailed it.

Columbine tragedy: 10 years ago today

… to Wooster Community Hospital, recently named a Thomson Reuters Top 100 hospital in the nation.

Of course, with a guy like King David on staff, how could they not win?

… log in to www.woosterhospital.org to view King David’s masterpiece, “Steamboat Sheron.”

… For the record, this is tobacco smoke. The Zesty does not endorse smoking any illegal drugs for folks of any age, and certainly doesn’t endorse underage smoking of tobacco.

Myself (from left), Adam Burroughs, Lydia Gehring and some College of Wooster students trying out some Purple Monkey Blueberry smoke at the new hookah lounge, Aladin’s, in downtown Wooster on Thursday.

An elderly patron of an establishent in Turkey describes the advantages of the hookah lounge as follows:

“Smoking a hookah is nothing like smoking a cigarette…cigarettes are for nervous people, competitive people, people on the run…when you smoke a hookah, you have time to think. It teaches you patience and tolerance, and gives you an appreciation of good company.” [4]

A younger customer adds:

“The important thing is not what you put in the pipe, but who is with you while you’re smoking…it’s a complete experience…in a cafe like this one, you find the good people, the old people, the interesting people. As long as there is a need for company and friendship, as long as people want to stop and think, there will be nargile cafes.”[4]