Flight Quarantined in Tokyo Obesity Scare

n American Airlines flight from San Jose to Tokyo was quarantined on the tarmac at the Tokyo airport last week when five passengers aboard showed symptoms of being obese.

"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."

Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers were later released when it was discovered that the five were merely fat as hell.

"Oh yeah, they were pretty fat," said Jim Roache, a passenger in first class. "One of them was even fat as fuck. But obese? I leave that for the doctors to decide. I'd hate to call somebody obese and have them go on some kind of cake-eating rampage when it was a misunderstanding and they were just 'fucking fat'."

Tokyo officials issued a statement after the incident, explaining Japan's fear of American-style obesity. Though no conclusive scientific evidence has surfaced to suggest obesity is contagious, many researchers believe the American lifestyle and diet, major precursors for obesity, can be spread through direct exposure.

"These trans-pacific flights have to be watched very carefully," explained Japan's Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "If you know what to look for, say the stain from a French fry on a blouse, or the glazed-yet-satiated look in a passenger's eye, you can spot the warning signs before this epidemic is spread across the ocean."

Asked if Japan was in danger of an obesity outbreak, US Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona scoffed.

"Japan? Obese? Please. They're way too in love with fish to really ever weigh in with the big boys. Very few countries really have what it takes, you'd be surprised. There was that scare in Toronto, of course, but it was always just media hype. I've been to Toronto, and those baloney-eaters don't know the first thing about being obese. They wouldn't know obese if it sat down at their table and ate all the potato salad. Americans, we take them to school about being just disgustingly fat."

Regardless, Minister Sakaguchi remains cautious.

"We love the Americans, and the many gifts they have bestowed upon our culture. This, however, they can keep. No thank you, so sorry. We honor you, proud Americans, your hearts exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, but people of Japan must eat vegetables sometimes. Is… is in religion. Yes. So thank you, but please keep your big rolls of blubbery fat over there like good neighbor. Sayonara."

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Well, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but another baseball season is upon us. It keeps coming back, like crabs, or that movie about the dog and cat that got lost and came back like crabs. But however it came about, we have to deal with it now, and the best way I know how is in detailing how much everyone is going to suck this year.

Let me get my first 2006 prediction out of the way early: Everybody is going to lose a lot of games this year. Take that to the bank. Even the best team in the league is going to have their pants handed to them at least sixty painful times this season. Sixty long, excruciating, face-first swan dives into mountains of Chihuahua shit, guaranteed. That's the dirty little secret about baseball that the league doesn't want you to know: Everybody stinks.

So the real debate is over who's going to be the least embarrassing team to follow this season, pretending like you've been a fan for years while your hometown nine brings new levels of meaning to the phrase "forcefully violated."

For starters, everyone's favorite dickweed, A.J. Pierzynski, hopes to lead his Chicago White Sox to a repeat of last season's improbable championship run, a feat made more difficult by the unlikelihood of the stars being lined up in asshole favor two years in a row. My prediction is the Bite Sox win six games all year. Some may find this unrealistically pessimistic, but they just don't play the Royals enough times for me to hope for better. Sorry, Sox fans, I'd fear your reaction if most of you weren't already safely behind bars.

Then of course there's the Yankees, but like I said, the assholes of the world used up all their good karma last year, which also bodes poorly for the White House in 2006. Once the Yankees' old-as-Moses rotation goes down in flames by mid-season, Yankee fans will be wishing for Small Wang, and that's never a good thing. Better to cut your losses and start rooting against the Mets now, Yankee fans.

Everybody loves the Cardinals, of course, and by that I mean everyone in St. Louis, by decree of the king. Didn't know St. Louis had a king? They're lousy with kings down there, so much so that they have to start handing out qualifiers, like "King of Beers" and "King of March-June." Slavish devotion to the Cards is required of everyone in St. Louis, as their city crumbles around them, but nobody in the rest of the country gives two shits on a bun. The rest of us settle in to watch the Cardinals stomp so much ass during the regular season that by the playoffs they're tired and roll over like Beethoven on recalled vertigo medication.

The Red Sox replaced a guy who looks like Jesus with a guy who sounds like cereal, which is only a good trade if the Jesus-looking guy is the dude from Blind Melon. Spoiler: It wasn't. While they were at it they tarred and feathered Edgar Renteria and smuggled him out of the city in a burlap sack, all for playing shortstop the whole of last season with a catcher's mitt. They brought in Josh Beckett to complete their impressive collection of "pitchers who once stomped the shit out of the Yankees but aren't that good any more." And as a final touch, they were able to trade the guy from Linkin Park to the Reds for Willy Mo Pena, all because some guy from the Twins doesn't like hitting.

As a side note, I'm sure the thought has crossed all of your minds that they should just fold the Twins and Reds together, either ending up with an unstoppable juggernaut or else a team that can't pitch or hit, depending on how the meld works out. Entertaining either way, I say: Either we get a team that will pants the Yankees big-time or somebody to fool the Marlins into thinking they have a chance, which would be funny in its own way.

So who wins this year? What's the name of that minor league team that started selling those bacon cheeseburgers on a donut? No, I'm not avoiding the question, I'm just hoping to convince my heart to put me out of my misery before I have to sit through another entire goddamned 12,078 game season. Seriously? You want a straight answer? All right: Barry Bonds wins, at least until a vain, insufferable steroid monster bursts out of his chest five years from now and starts talking about OBP and bitching about the media. Already happened? Well then, I guess we all lose.

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You see, George? I told you the name of that movie was Deep Blue Sea, the one where the sharks eat the people. I should know, it's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. Yet you doubted me. Well, tonight I dine on victory.

Lake Placid? How you could get a movie about a giant alligator in a small town confused with a movie about hyper-intelligent sharks eating all the people at a floating sea lab? No victory for you, George. You clearly don't keep good inventory on your mutated-creature-attacks-people movies. I, on the other hand, who do keep good inventory on my mutated-creature-attacks-people movies, will be eating big fat slabs of victory tonight, right off the bone.

Not that Lake Placid is a bad film, George—that's not my argument at all. Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, a great cast all around. But are you honestly telling me you mixed up Oliver Platt with Samuel L. Jackson? An incalculable error on your part, George, which is why I munch victory chips and you get crow. Enjoying your crow, George? I've had to eat crow far too many times to feel sorry for you. I've eaten enough crow for the population of India in my years. And they're practically starving, George, so you know they would eat a lot of crow. But tonight my soup is filled with chunks of victory.

What about the sheriff? There's not even a sheriff in Deep Blue Sea. Not that I'm not enjoying delicious victory-chip cookies over my win, but I don't understand how you could so clearly confuse a small town with a partially submerged sea lab. Did the diving suits not give it away at all? When the fellow at the party asked what was the movie with Samuel L. Jackson where the sharks are trying to kill him, and you said, "Oh, Lake Placid!" did it not seem at all possible that sharks in a movie about a lake was a major blunder?

The more I think about it, the victory isn't all that sweet. Sure, it's good, especially for a change since I've so often had big fat crow while you chomped victory, but I didn't want to win this way. It takes some of the fun out of it. Did you let me win on purpose? Is it possible you fouled up the movie title so completely hoping that I would pick up the ball and run the touchdown? Seriously, George, it's starting to bother me—are you retarded? Not that it's a problem if you are, but if you have suddenly become retarded during the course of the party last night, I need to know. I sure didn't want to win this way.

I'm starting to see you in a whole new light, George. Sitting here, cutting my victory into small pieces and eating it quietly… you're not at all the impenetrable fortress of knowledge I once thought you to be. You're truly fallible, aren't you? Especially where your weak knowledge of modern giant creature movies comes in.

It was bound to happen, I guess. Maybe before I was too awestruck by your ability to recall most movies without failure, to beat me to an answer and make me look like a jackass. I imagine those days are over, and I'm a little sad. I won't be eating crow anymore, just sweet, sweet victory, but still, it changes the way I see things now. The rosy-colored glasses are off and I see you for what you are—a buffoon, I dare say, when it comes to telling the difference between giant shark and giant alligator movies. God forbid someone ever asks you about Gator or Jaws—you're liable to burst a blood vessel and drool all over yourself and become a complete vegetable.

Let's hope it was a one-time thing, for both of us, and never speak of it again. Here—share my victory. Just this one time.

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