The Completely True History of America: Declaration of Independence

It was a brisk Vermont morning in April 1775. A then middle-aged Bernie Sanders had gotten word that some farmers in neighboring Massachusetts were stockpiling guns which really rustled his jimmies. Sanders decided to call up King George in London and tattle so that he could have his commie, European, freedom hating soldiers confiscate the guns. Unfortunately for Sanders, his plan was found out and a young man named Paul Revere, who would later gain international fame for his 1966 hit song "Kicks", rode his horse across the country side in the middle of the night to warn the farmers that the British were coming to trample on what would eventually become their Second Amendment rights. The heavily favored British troops spotted the scrappy upstarts a 2,500 man advantage to make it a fair fight. This would prove to be a fatal mistake as the Massachusetts militia outscored the British in the kill count 73-49. 58 men remain missing to this day and are rumored to be living with Elvis and JFK in Western Brazil. 

Inspired by their strategic victory in the Massachusetts countryside, the militia decided to merge with 12 other militias to form a superteam known as the Continental Army. At their introductory celebration they promised to win not 1, not 2, not 3, but 7 wars. Drunk on optimism, the team decided to test their skills in a tuneup match against Canada. They split into two units with the first unit led by Richard Montgomery defeating Montreal so bad that they decided to never field another pro sports team again. The second unit, led by Brett Favre Benedict Arnold, took a wrong turn in Maine and had to cancel their first game before recombining with Montgomery's squad in Quebec City. They decided to launch their attack during a snowstorm in December because apparently nobody ever told them that it's really stupid to attack Canada during the winter. With significantly lower maple syrup reserves than their opponents, the American side quickly ran out of energy and was forced to retreat. They maintained a presence surrounding the city, including a supply of approximately 750 men infected with smallpox. Unfortunately this was several decades before Andrew Jackson would realize that smallpox could be weaponized and they failed to utilize this advantage. 

As their forces in Canada slowly depleted, the front office of the Continental Army, known as the Continental Congress, knew they had to make a move. During the summer of 1776, a talking bald eagle came to Thomas Jefferson in a dream and told him of a super weapon that could defeat the British and Canadian forces. This weapon would be called Freedom. Jefferson, along with a few close confidants, worked on developing this weapon with approval from the Continental Congress. On July 2, 1776 the weapon was unveiled to the full congress at a closed door session and they voted to approve its use against the British forces, but not the Canadian forces as the Canadians were viewed as too nice and it was believed that one day they could join us they too could utilize the freedom. After a couple days of tweaking the announcement letter, on July 4, 1776 it was declared to the entire world that the Americans had achieved freedom. This freedom would be used over the course of the next seven years to systematically defeat the British. The superteam would enjoy an unprecedented run of success until finally suffering its first decisive loss in a road loss at Vietnam almost 200 years later. 

I swear at the tv while watching the West Wing

Minute by minute account of me watching The West Wing S7E12: Duck and Cover. This should be fun.

1:01: CJ: "17 minutes ago emergency sirens went off at the [already missed the name of the station, San Something Nuclear generating station]. The main feedwater pump failed.

17 minutes is awfully fucking fast for the president to already be getting briefing. Little to no chance the NRC has their shit together that fast after an emergency is declared. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume the writers know the sirens didn't go off until way after the pump failed even though they probably don't know that. Oh, and by the way, I can't wait to find out how a main feed pump failure is going to lead to an emergency. Some stations can stay at 100% without one main feed pump, others need to go to a lower power level, but all that I know of can stay online. Maybe they mean they lost all main feedwater pumps, like TMI. Of course if that's what they meant then this is a really shitty brief she's giving the president.

1:13: The reactor scrammed and a valve got stuck closed that blocked all coolant flow to the reactor.

We've now learned that this reactor was designed by the ACME company whose only other client is Wile E. Coyote. A SINGLE VALVE CAN BLOCK ALL COOLANT FLOW TO THE REACTOR?!?!?! AND THIS VALVE FAILS CLOSED?!?!?! Whoever designed this plant deserves and award for stupid. In real life,worst case scenario at the very least your safety injection pump is going to have a free path to push in coolant, even if this other magical isolation valve exists somewhere else on the line.

1:24: We could be looking at a full scale nuclear meltdown. FEMA estimates the plume will cover all of San Andreo,population 42,000.

Well shit. The meltdown is for sure going to happen thanks to the magical isolation valve. But what I didn't realize was that a full scale nuclear meltdown will also magically make the containment building disappear and also give the radioactive particles wings so they can fly high enough up to form a plume. That's some magic fucking fuel right there. Designed by Satan himself, I reckon.

1:53 The initial steam release was loud, so CNN is already running rumors of an explosion.

Because you know, every single steam release from every other unplanned shutdown wasn't the same volume. Except that, well, they were.

3:54: The Republican candidate for president pushed the regulators to issue a license for the plant 25 years ago. He helped get that plant online.

If there's one thing the NRC is known for, its helping politicians get MORE nuclear power.

5:35: Two new developments on the recovery effort. They're running a temporary feed line that bypasses the valve. And they're activating the residual heat removal pump.

First of all, in 2006 BDB flex wasn't a thing so bypassing a valve with readily available temporary equipment also wasn't a thing. And also I'm curious how exactly we're building an what sounds like a full scale line (not just hooking up a hose) that connects into one piece of pipe with pressurized water looking for somewhere to go and another with highly radioactive water at its boiling point. This seems completely reasonable. Second of all, we're just now activating the heat removal pump? That wasn't the first fucking thing we did? Or second thing we did after trying to safety inject and getting cock blocked by the magic valve?

5:55: Now we know why the plume is a concern. A second valve is stuck open that's releasing radiation into containment. If that gets too high they'll have to pump radioactive gas into the aux building where apparently the biggest risk is one bad weld that could release it to the atmosphere.

These assholes really need to get their shit together on this valve maintenance program.

6:19: The president has ordered the NRC to take over control of the plant. CJ is wondering why plant workers aren't taking her calls right now.

Maybe it's not because of the "chaos" you speculated about, but actually because they're doing their fucking jobs. And Mr. President, I don't think you're the fucking dictator so you can't just take control of a private plant. And even if you could, the NRC doesn't exactly know jack shit about how to respond to an event operationally. But sure, see how that shit works out for you.

6:41: The president, while acknowledging that he has no technical information about the current risk factors, is ordering evacuation of the surrounding area. "A few fender benders is better than a generation of babies with thyroid cancer."

Making decisions without information is generally what we want out of our leaders so I completely understand this move. And he's right, it's just a few fender benders. No fatal accidents, no deaths resulting from trying to evacuate the severely ill and frail from hospitals and nursing homes, and no long last psychological effects from forcing people from their homes for absolutely no reason.

7:05: The president is now the Czar of the situation.

Sorry, I forgot the president could change titles and become a Russian dictator. I take back everything I said about him not having the authority to make the highly technical decisions for the private company.

9:04: State and local authorities (who frequently practice nuclear emergency drills) recommend a 10 mile evacuation, while FEMA recommends 15. The president says he'll set up the state and local command post at 10.1 miles and they then change their minds to say 15 miles.

I can't even. The stupid. This isn't how decisions are made.

9:35: The president is making his statement and we now know that the initial problem occurred 32 minutes ago (meaning that initial 17 minute statement should not have been given the benefit of the doubt). Somewhere in between, we'll call it 25 minutes, we were told that one foot of water had already boiled off which uncovered some amount of the fuel that I don't remember. I think it was an absurdly high number like 1/8th, but I chose to ignore it.

I guess if you assume the magic valve blocked SI and both main feed and aux feedwater and the engineers decided not to start heat removal pumps until around that 25 minute mark, then the boiling timeline kind of makes sense. But the timeline of how fast the response is moving outside of the plant and the repair effort timeline are coming from some sort of bureaucracy free bizzaro world.

9:52: We now learn from looking at a graphic on a tv screen on our tv screen that this is a boiling water reactor. 

The simplified graphic of how a BWR works pulled from google images only shows one main feed/main steam line, thus the real plant is the same. Got it. Now things are making more sense.

10:12: Donna: "I don't understand why they put a nuclear plant so close to a population center." Santos: "They're all near population centers. Otherwise they'd lose too much power in transmission."

Santos gets the award for first factual statement of the episode.

12:45: In the situation room, there's now a discussion about whether to start venting to atmosphere or letting a hydrogen explosion take out the aux building. What's the best way to speed up the evacuation? According to CJ it's to tell people that they're about to start pumping radioactive gas into the atmosphere.

Because obviously causing mass panic will speed up the evacuation process instead of slow it down.

12:59: Who gives the order to vent? "We've taken control of the plant sir, that would be [the President]?

Everybody knows the only person that can make technical decisions at a power plant is the United States Czar.Why did the Czar himself have to ask that question?

13:53: Government spokespeople are preparing for what to say if it turns out this is all the President's fault.

At least they're assigning the blame to the correct person. Technical failures are the fault of the country's one and only approver of all technical decisions.

14:51: The evacuation is about one third complete with a conservative estimate of 700,000 people currently on the freeways to leave the region.

That's a pretty fucking huge number considering we've already been told the only nearby city has 42,000 citizens. But wait, there's more! It looks like the President is about to put on his engineering hat again!

15:25: Our Czar and Savior is waffling on whether or not to vent, but just in case he makes the call, he has a direct line to the control room.

Because, you know, in the middle of a core meltdown with radiation getting out of containment the operations crew has time to chit chat with Washington.

15:26: "Vent it now."

Shit's about to get reeeeaaaaaal.

15:55: We just got an expert answer to the question "What do we mean by acceptable dose?" Apparently it's the amount of radiation the human body can safely absorb. But we have to remember that it will also get into the soil, then the food supply. Sometimes radiation instantly kills cells, sometimes it just damages them. Our Czar and Savior, Josiah Bartlet has astutely made the deduction that damaged cells means cancer.

We learned earlier that the "acceptable dose" is 500 mRem. Not only does this government statement go against its own policy that there is no "acceptable dose", the acceptable dose from a more reasonable point of view would be much higher, especially when you consider that no members of the general public are sitting on the top of the vent stack and so it's going to disperse quite a bit before getting to them. Of course that doesn't really matter for TV. In this scenario, once radiation gets out, it's magically the same dose everywhere.

16:14: We just vented and it's 569 mRem above the stack.

Holy shit, we're all going to die!!!!!!!

17:06: The winds are changing direction so we don't know what direction to make people drive. It's no longer clear if we're all going to die or not. The EPA says above 500 mRem is unacceptable, but its not Our Czar and Savior's place to say if that's dangerously unsafe or not. Meanwhile we're now up to 1 million people fleeing our town of 42,000.

The government's response so far can best be described as #KillingIt

18:54: It's just been confirmed that the Republican candidate for president is the sole reason for the plant's existence because of his lobbying efforts 25 years ago.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

19:41: Turns out we're not actually in a meltdown yet. It takes 12 things going wrong to start a meltdown and only 5 or 6 things have gone wrong so far.

Did you hear that guys?!? Turns out the only way to have a meltdown is if 12 things go wrong. Doesn't matter that the core has been at least partially uncovered for several hours now, we're not melting down.

23:37: The temporary pipes that apparently at some point in the past got coolant moving into the core again are starting to crack. We need to send men in to containment to repair them by hand.

Just so much to process here. So at some point we managed to build a temporary bypass line, which I guess is why we're not melting down. Either we did this without the help of people to actually build it, or we just didn't care that people died doing that the first time around, but we're going to care this time. And oh yeah, we're going to send human beings into a containment building that is currently filled with so much radioactive gas that it can't hold any more without breaking. People ain't gonna survive long enough to get to the pipe, let alone fix shit.

23:50: Well we just learned that the current dose in containment is 5 times above our 500 mRem acceptable limit and we're going to send in two engineers from the NRC to make the fix.

Well. In case I didn't mention it before, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that their units are actually the standard unit of mRem/hr since not having a time component makes no sense to be talking about dose fields. So I guess that means containment is only 2.5 Rem/hr. That is very survivable, the engineers will be fine. That's not actually even somewhat remotely possible in this situation because that's an extremely low dose for on contact with a coolant system that isn't broken, but sure in this magical fairy tale where everything else is way worse than real life, we can make this one thing way better than real life. And now for the best part, instead of maintenance people that are qualified to cut and weld and otherwise build and repair pipes, we're sending in two engineers that typically aren't allowed to actually touch anything other than a keyboard and not only that, but we're sending in engineers from the NRC instead of the actual system experts. We're all truly going to die now.

25:03: We're now told that the pipe isn't actually in containment and it is being repaired by other people. The engineers are actually going in to try to manually open the stuck valve.

Okay, this is interesting. So it seems the pipe isn't actually in containment and other technicians are fixing it. The engineers are going to manipulate the stuck valve which is in containment. So what this means is that there is piping that is entirely outside containment that hooks into a cooling line on either side of a valve that is in containment. That makes perfect sense. In MOTHERFUCKING BIZARRO WORLD. Also, remember this is a BWR. People can't actually go inside primary containment in a BWR (#InstantDeath) so I'm assuming they're talking about secondary containment, but their lack of specificity is creating a clusterfuck in my mind.

29:38: The engineers just got the valve open to restore cooling water after 17 minutes in the containment building. The administration is thinking maybe they should go after the other valve releasing the steam and try to close it. Their stay time was 15 minutes.

By my calculation they got 0.71 Rem each or about 71% of the dose they would get from an MRI at the hospital. So yeah, they're both pretty safe, but this is bizarro world where the doses are crazy low, but the consequences are crazy high so somehow they've already exceeded their stay time. We could send in another team of unqualified individuals to go after the other valve, but I have a feeling this asshole is about to tell us that's not an option.

30:05: "Do you really want to expose another team?" We're told it'll take 5-10 minutes and exposing another team is apparently dangerous so our Czar and Savior gives the order to go after the other valve.

This team has survived 17 minutes so far, so why risk exposing another team to a completely survivable 10 minute job when these guys can obviously do it faster because they're already there. Forget that they didn't brief on this job so it probably won't be faster and forget that in this world they're already on the edge of death.

30:40: The engineers couldn't stop the steam leak because of corrosion on the valve. They're finally pulled out after 32 minutes.

No need to rehash whether or not they'll survive, we've pretty much covered that clusterfuck of brilliant mathematics. A valve that's too corroded to close, however, is the first thing I actually believe about this scenario.

33:05: Both engineers have been hospitalized with one in a coma. Pressure is rising in the aux building, we might need to try using a second team to close the valve."15 minutes and out."

Oh, now we give a fuck about letting the people survive.

38:10: Our Czar and Savior and the Republican candidate are in a little argument about whose fault this is. Republican is blaming the Czar because it's his NRC that dropped the ball and the Czar is blaming Republican because he says all nuclear is too risky. Republican has been saying for some time now that everything has risk and more people die from coal plants, oil refinery accidents, and driving.

I mean, the NRC sucks, but it's not their fault a company violated their rules, but the Republican is making completely valid points and keeps getting treated like the bad guy.

38:50: Czar is interrupted mid-rant about how no regulation could make nuclear safe to be told that the second team closed the valve and all is well for now, but that one of the engineers from team one died.

I really wanted this rant to continue because he provided approximately zero evidence, but was successfully persuading me of his position because of his yelling and righteous indignation.

39:41: The crisis is officially over. The remaining radiation is below acceptable levels.

I assume they mean outside the plant. Inside they still have two buildings full of the stuff and nowhere for it to go. But let's not worry about that. There's only 3 minutes left and most of that is credits, we can't possibly try to deal with the issue now.

The Completely True History of America: Thanksgiving

Today the United States of America celebrates its oldest holiday, Thanksgiving. In remembrance of a grand festival in which Pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated the great harvest and their perfect friendship in 1621, a couple hundred million  Americans will gather with friends and family to commit the deadly sin of gluttony by gorging themselves on Turkey. Everybody participates from

Squash

New England, where a ridiculous number of them will also partake in squash, to Texas, where they will eat copious amounts of cornbread. (Source: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-what-your-part-of-america-eats-on-thanksgiving/)

Of course, this isn't actually America's oldest holiday and the fact that it's celebrated annually today has little, if anything, to do with the Pilgrims of 1621. The Pilgrims did celebrate a feast that they called Thanksgiving, but it wasn't annual and it wasn't the first Thanksgiving celebrated in what would become the United States. Virginia likes to claim it held the first Thanksgiving in 1610. This version of events almost certainly wouldn't have included any natives since as we've discussed at length, the colonists and natives were pretty enormous dicks to each other. This probably isn't true either. In reality the first American Thanksgiving was likely celebrated by Spanish people either in Florida in 1565 or Texas in 1598. Naturally only people from Texas would think 1598 came before 1565.

From colonial times all the way up through the first few decades of the United States, days of Thanksgiving would be sporadically declared by governors or presidents, but never annually and rarely on the same day across localities. In the early 1800's New England Calvanists were the only

Hale Showing Off a Lot of Shoulder for 1831

ones routinely celebrating the holiday. This is where Sarah Josepha Hale enters the story. Hale was an author and magazine editor known primarily for the following things (in no particular order):

1) Writing the poem 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'
2) Advocating for women's rights

Hale really, really loved Thanksgiving. She loved it so much that over the course of 40 years she petitioned five different presidents to make it an annual federal holiday. In her petitions she advocated for the holiday on the grounds of its religious and moral merits and the fact that she believed it could be a source of unity for the ever growing United States and its vast cultural differences. These may or may not have been the real reasons as one anonymous sources swears he could have heard her say, "Those ungrateful little shits that I birthed never say thank you for what I do for them. I'll be damned if I don't make it a federal law that they have to thank me."

Finally, in 1863 Hale's point about national unity got through to Abraham Lincoln who in the midst of the Civil War thought, "You know what would make Texas like us more? If we forced them to participate in a holiday currently only celebrated widely in New England." He didn't make it an annual holiday by law, but did declare it both in 1863 and 1864 on the last Thursday of November and every president thereafter declared it a federal holiday each year at the same time until FDR. His plan, predictably, didn't do jack shit on the unity front. The south didn't recognize the holiday until 1870's after the completion of reconstruction.

In the 1930's it was considered taboo for stores to advertise Christmas goods before Thanksgiving. In the 1930's there was also this small event going on that is commonly referred to as the Great Depression. Because of these things, in 1939 FDR came up with a fantastic plan. If Thanksgiving is moved up a week, the Christmas season will also be extended by a week, the people will use the money that they don't have to buy extra Christmas presents during the extra week, and the depression will be over. Armed with his brilliant idea, FDR declared the second to last Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. The move angered Republicans who very wisely believed that the move was a purely political move meant to demean the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Because of this, only

23 states observed the new date and 22 states did not. The remaining states, including Texas, observed both days because they were lazy and didn't want to work and also because they enjoyed eating obscene amounts of food.

Finally in December 1941, after three years under the FDR plan, Congress decided the economy was expanding too rapidly and passed a law declaring Thanksgiving to be the final Thursday of November. The Senate, citing a need for occasional economic growth, passed the bill with an amendment making it always be the fourth Thursday of the month meaning that in the less frequent five Thursday Novembers it would be the second to last Thursday of the month. For several years a handful of states continued to ignore the federal guidance and celebrate the occasion on the last Thursday of the month including in five Thursday years. The last state to do so was, of course, Texas in 1956.

And that is the story of why the state of Texas is Thanksgiving's equivalent of the Grinch. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

The Completely True History of America, Part III: War and Peace...And War. Also, Tobacco.

When we last checked in with our friends the colonists they were mostly dead and the few that weren't were ready to go back to England and have a nice cup of tea by the fire. As they sailed down the James River back toward the ocean, they encountered Thomas West (also known as Lord de la Warr because British royals love to change their names to places which in my opinion is a little bit weird) who convinced them to return to the colony because he was really looking forward to being governor and thought being governor of nothing would be kind of lame. The good lord was known as a colossal douchewaffle which is why his name (restylized as Delaware) was eventually adopted by a state that is home to the PO boxes of corporations that want to evade taxes and literally nothing else. Anyway, de la Warr decided that instead of even feigning diplomacy he was going to start wars of conquest against the natives.

On August 9, 1610 the good lord launched his first attack against the Paspahegh people, killing around 70 and capturing the queen and her children. On the boat ride back to Jamestowne, the children were thrown overboard and shot in the water while the queen watched. She would later be slain by sword upon their return to the fort. This dickish act officially invoked war between the English and the Powhatan Confederacy. In early 1611 a new governor, Sir Thomas Dale arrived on the scene. Chipper Dale, as the colonists liked to call him because he was known as a morning person and because he founded Chippendales Male Revue, made a few solid policies that benefited the colonies. Perhaps his biggest one was doing away with the communist practice of communal farming land and dividing the land into private property. This would strongly benefit the character that we'll meet in the next paragraph. Dale was also much like the good lord in his desire for total domination of the native tribes. He continued the lord's wars and succeeded in claiming one metric fuckton of prime riverfront property from the local tribes. This may have been partially due to Chief Powhatan's advancing age and lack of desire to do anything except sit on his porch and yell at kids to get off his lawn. After almost three years of fighting, the English captured Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan in early 1613 which led to an immediate ceasefire.

While all of this was going, another pretty important dude by the name of John Rolfe was hanging out back in Jamestowne changing the course of American history. Before John Rolfe, American kids who wanted to rebel against their parents were forced to smoke local wild tobacco which apparently didn't do much for them. As a result not many people smoked, which really didn't make that much of a difference since everybody was still dying young of starvation and smallpox anyway. Still, Rolfe thought that the lack of lung cancer was a scourge on the American reputation and thought if only he could produce a more addictive tobacco then surely he could make billions of whatever they used instead of dollars. Rolfe had been part of the third supply effort that was stranded in the Caribbean while they built two new ships in 1609-1610. While there he picked up some seeds of a Spanish-Trinidadian strain of tobacco that he called Orinoco. The main difference between this strain and the local Virginia strain was an ingredient by the name of nicotine which the people seemed to not be able to get enough of. This new strain of tobacco, which he was able to grow on his private land thanks to Chippendales, made him lots of money and gave him the opportunity to meet and fall in love with the Indian Princess, Pocahontas. In early 1614, Rolfe married Pocahontas (now known as Rebecca because she was converted to Christianity) which would lead to eight years of peace between the colonists and natives.

In 1622 Chief Opechancanough, the younger brother of Powhatan who took over in 1618 after Powhatan's death, acted as though he were ready to give into the English and convert to Christianity. This allowed his subjects to intermingle with the colonists. Finally, on March 22, 1622, with no warning, the natives massacred the colonists, killing approximately 350 of them (or nearly one third). Far more may have died had some of the natives not truly converted to the English ways and warned the settlers. The natives, relying on their traditional attack methods, decided to wait for a response instead of maintain their offensive. This was a really stupid move and allowed the colonists to regroup and ultimately win the second round of war which lasted ten years until 1632. After another dozen years of peace, the natives decided to attack again, this time killing 500 colonists which was a significantly lower percentage of the now much larger population than the previous massacre. Having not learned their lesson for whatever reason, they waited again, and this time wiped out in two short years. At the conclusion of this third war, the English enacted a harsh treaty on the losing natives. In addition to making the natives subjects to the English crown, they enacted a line of racial segregation (a close predecessor to the first Indian Reservations) which may or may not have included separate drinking fountains and separate bus seats. The silver lining of this whole ordeal is that it finally appears that the colonists may survive long enough to write another few chapters in this story. 

The Completely True History of America, Part II: Arrival and Starvation in Jamestown

So, the colonization of North Carolina didn't go so well. A lot of money was spent, a lot of people died, and nobody really got anything positive in return. But all of that occurred under the leadership of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1603, James I took the thrown and was heard saying at the coronation afterparty, "Of course she couldn't pull it off. She's a woman. I can toooootally do it." A couple years later, he signed a charter to start the Virginia Company of London which was funded by private investors and tasked with the mission to "chop down every last tree and see if we can't turn a profit on that uncivilized, disease ridden continent."

Captain John Smith, looking much more handsome than Disney portrayed him.

In late 1606 a fleet of three ships, Godspeed, Discovery, and the flagship known as either the Susan Constant or the Sarah Constant, set sail for the New World. The reason for the discrepancy in the name of the flagship is that the night before departure Captain Christopher Newport promised the barkeep at the local inn that he'd name his ship after her if she gave him a handjob in the bathroom and by the time morning rolled around he couldn't remember if she said Susan or Sarah. About half way through the journey, another one of the captains on board, John Smith, was accused of covering up a mutiny plot and was ordered to be hanged at the next stop the ships made (This isn't even close to the only detail Grandmother Willow got wrong in her version of the story, but she's a 100 year old tree, what do you expect?). Luckily for Captain Smith, Captain Newport refused to make any intermediate stops en route to their final destination, reminding the crew that he warned them all that they should use the bathroom before they left because so help him God they weren't stopping. This detail would prove crucial in saving Smith's life because upon arrival at Cape Henry, VA in 1607 sealed orders were opened that named Smith as part of the governing council and killing a member of the governing body would have been seen as impolite.

In addition to naming the governing council, the orders also instructed the group to select a location for the colony that was further inland and easily defensible. On May 14, 1607 the settlers selected Jamestown Island for the fort because it was on a curve in the river that provided extended views of the waterway, ships could anchor near the land, and it was uninhabited by native populations. This would have been a good time for somebody to ask the question, "Why is it uninhabited by the people who inhabit basically all of the other land in this area?" Had somebody asked that question the answer would have been that it's isolation from the mainland limited the number of wildlife that could be hunted, there wasn't enough space or high enough quality soil for agriculture, it was swampy and thus plagued with malaria infested mosquitoes, and finally the brackish water in the area was borderline undrinkable. Further dooming the group was the fact that most of them were aristocrats, aka whiny little bitches that didn't want to do any work, and the fact that they arrived too late in the year to plant any crops. Within months 51 had died and many others defected to nearby Indian tribes. These tribes, however, also wanted their members to do work and would eventually drive out the defectors for continuing to refuse to work. The 14,000 natives in the area were a part of the Powhatan Confederacy whose chief offered to relocate the colonists closer to his village and have them become productive members of the Confederacy. Instead they wisely refused any help from the natives and two thirds of them died before the first resupply ship arrived in 1608.

This first supply ship brought German, Polish, and Slovak craftsmen who actually did some work and manufactured the first goods that the Virginia Company could actually make some money on. Unfortunately they now had even more people and still nothing in terms of a self sustaining food supply so the starvation incident got a teensy bit worse. The Germans soon defected to the local tribes and started coordinating an attack with the Spanish and the Indians on the English settlers. The attack was only called off because of the arrival of the second supply ship which was a large, intimidating ship. And while this ship may have prevented an attack, it also brought bad news in the form of a strongly worded letter from the mother company. Investors were really mad that they weren't able to make any money from the hard labor of aristocrats who had been abandoned in a strange continent with no food so they came up with a list of completely reasonable demands: enough sellable goods to cover the cost of the supply ship's voyage, a lump of gold (real gold, not the fools gold that the colonists had already mined so much of), evidence that they had found the South Sea (with all of the boats that they totally had), and a member of the lost colony of Roanoke. John Smith instead sent back a strongly worded letter of his own, known as the "Rude Response," which demanded more supplies and people who would actually work so that they had a chance to survive.

Smith had managed to maintain just tolerable enough relations with the native tribes to keep the colonists from all dying, but his strange obsession with making everybody pull their weight had made him a very unpopular man and several attempts were made to force him back to England. The colonists got their wish when a gunpowder explosion in Smith canoe gave him severe burns and he was forced to return home for treatment. It should be noted here that although the colonists hated the man, John Smith won the PR battle in history. He is now credited with single handidly willing the colony to survival, with creating highly accurate maps of the area that would aid the British cause well after his departure, and with compiling the only written history of the time. It's also possible that he's viewed favorably now because his account is the only account that the time can be judged on. But probably not.

Meanwhile, the investors actually took Smith's harshly worded letter to heart and sent a massive supply ship with additional ships for the third supply effort. This fleet had 214 additional settlers who would all be put to work and more food than had ever been sent before. Unfortunately the fleet was caught in a hurricane and while some boats made it to Jamestown, the big ship was damaged heavily and it's crew was stranded in Bermuda for nine months while they built two new ships. While waiting for supplies, the Jamestown settlers continued starving and actually started eating each other to stay alive. Remember, morals are great and all, but the first one to resort to cannibalism is usually the one who's going to survive. By the time the supplies finally arrived in 1610, only 60 of the 214 original settlers were still alive and most of them just barely. The operation was determined to be a failure and the survivors were boarded on the two new ships to be taken back to England with all of the new crew. On their way out of dodge, the two ships ran into another supply ship headed by Governor Baron De La Warr who convinced them that they should go back and together they would rebuild. Unfortunately there still wasn't nearly enough food and De La Warr was kind of an asshole to the Indians which could only mean one thing: War. But that's a story for another time.

The Completely True History of America, Part I: The Lost Colony

In honor of the fact that soon I'll be moving to the location of America's first successful British Settlement, I've decided to transform my blog into a multi-part, in depth history of the United States. All information comes from peer-reviewed articles, Wikipedia, or my ass. How much history we cover depends on how many posts I write before I get bored and ignore this blog for another six months. Today we start with Britain's first very unsuccessful attempt to colonize the New World.

 The Lost Colony

Sir Walter Raleigh Feeling Especially Fancy (Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard)

The year is 1584, it's been 92 years since Christopher Columbus accidentally ran into North America because he was too stubborn to ask for directions on his way to India and decided to massacre every native group he came across so that there wouldn't be any witnesses to claim he wasn't the first one to find this place. Other than the Spanish who had established a profitable diseases for gold exchange program with multiple native tribes, nobody in Europe had quite figured out how to monetize the new continent yet. This had Queen Elizabeth I rather upset because mama needed some new earrings to match her party crown so she granted a charter Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a colony that could exploit North America's raw materials to create goods that could be sold in the motherland. Raleigh wasn't a big fan of long boat rides because he had a crippling fear of pirates stemming from his mother not giving him attention and instead letting him watch Pirates of the Caribbean at age 5 despite it's PG-13 rating so he wouldn't bother her while she drank wine at 2 pm on a Tuesday and watched General Hospital in the other room. Because of this, Raleigh would never actually visit North Carolina himself, but instead sent other men to establish his colony.

The first expedition landed on Roanoke Island, North Carolina on July 4, 1584. The date is still celebrated to this day as the birthday of America. The men of this expedition quickly encountered two local tribes known as the Secotans and Croatoans. That natives, who did not have access to Barney VHS tapes, had never learned to share and didn't want to share their land with the new men. Despite this, the natives decided to allow the men to live and opted instead to play the long game and send two tribe members covered in North American microbes to England with the explorers under the premise of ambassadorship so that they could spread disease among the European population. The British, themselves great fans of the long game, would respond 180 years later by distributing smallpox blankets to the native population of Pittsburgh.

Armed with information obtained from the native ambassadors, Raleigh sent a second, much larger, expedition to Roanoke Island in 1595. Despite several problems along the way and losing much of their food supplies, all five ships from the expedition eventually arrived at the island. Soon after arriving, one dude couldn't find his silver cup and decided to blame the local population, prompting the group to raid and burn a local village. This is widely considered to be the most diplomatic possible move and established the great relations between Europeans and natives that would endure for centuries. Despite being out of food and having just pissed off anybody who could possibly help them, 107 men decided to stay and establish a fort while the ships went back to Britain for more supplies.

The first several months of 1586 came and went without any sign of the resupply ships. The colonists attempted to contact the ships by building a robust telephone network out of tin cans and string made from the colonists own hair. As the first call was being placed, one of the cans cut the face of the phone operator and he immediately died of tetanus. Soon after, Sir Francis Drake decided to stop by for a visit and the colonists, now lacking any way to contact their relief fleet, decided to go back to Britain with him instead of dying of starvation or being killed by the natives. Shortly after this, the relief fleet finally arrived to find the colony abandoned. A few men from this fleet stayed to maintain the claim on the fort while the rest returned to Britain.

In 1587 another group of Englishmen were sent to the New World, this time to establish a colony farther north on the Chesapeake Bay, but they were to stop at Roanoke to check on the group of men that stayed behind the previous year. When they arrived, they found nothing at the fort except a single skeleton. This is the point where a smart commander would say, "Huh, everybody that stays here seems to disappear. Better GTFO while we can." This was not the reaction of Commander Simon Fernandez, who instead said, "I have a great idea. Forget Virginia. North Carolina is where it's at. We're gonna stay here because it takes three times for an Englishman to learn his lesson." After one colonist was killed by natives, the colonists sent Governor John White back to England to ask for help.

White's return to the New World was delayed by several factors. First he wasn't allowed to sail back during the winter. Then this little gang of ships that called themselves The Spanish Armada decided to attack and basically every single boat in England was engaged in a fight with them. Finally White was able to hire two private ships for his expedition, but the captains tried to capture some Spanish ships to steal their gold and instead got themselves captured. Finally in 1590, after the colonists had been expected to survive with almost no food for 3 years, White finally made it back to Roanoke. There he found no sign of the colonists as the fort had been deserted and all of the structures had been taken down. The only clues of their whereabouts were the word "Croatoan" carved in a gatepost and "Cro" carved in a tree. Because their agreed upon safe word wasn't carved in the tree, White believed the colonists moved to nearby Croatoan island and tried to live among the natives. He initially wanted to conduct a search, but a storm was forming and White was famously afraid of thunder, needing to hide in a bathtub anytime he heard it. Because of this he instead sailed all the way back to England and never made another attempt to find the lost colonists. To this day, their fate is unknown. North Carolina was eventually successfully settled in 1663.

Picks for all 1100 College Football Bowl Games

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl - Nevada vs. Louisiana-Lafayette

Bowl season kicks off with this match up of college football titans in a building that is best known for it's brief run in 2005 as the world's largest toilet. To be honest I didn't actually know Nevada had a football team before making this pick. I was under the impression that nobody has ever spent more than 5 consecutive days in the state of Nevada. The Ragin' Cajuns, an unstoppable Sunbelt Conference powerhouse, have won the last 3 consecutive New Orleans Bowls and absolutely nothing will stop them from a 4th title.

My Pick: Louisiana Lafayette*
*I definitely probably didn't make this pick after the game was already over.


Gildan New Mexico Bowl - Utah State vs. Texas-El Paso

According to Wikipedia, Gildan is a manufacturer of undecorated blank active wear which why you've heard of Nike, but not Gildan. Utah State is both a land-grant and space-grant university. Unfortunately being a space-grant university does not mean that the federal government gave them a piece of outer space for their campus and as of the time of this writing no portion of their campus is located in outer space. Even more disappointingly, there is a such thing as sun-grant universities and none of them are located on the sun. UTEP is known primarily for two things: having more NCAA men's basketball national championships than big brother UT-Austin and having more overthrown frisbees get lost in Mexico than any other college campus.

My Pick: Utah State*
*I definitely probably didn't make this pick after the game was already over.


Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl - Utah vs. Colorado State

Automotive lubricant brand Royal Purple was granted the naming rights to this game after the NCAA decided to pretend it has morals and rejected the highest bid from Las Vegas' most popular brand of lube, KY. The highlight of Utah's season came in a game against Oregon when wide receiver Kaelin Clay decided to drop the ball at the one yard line which was returned 99 yards by the Ducks to turn an apparent 13-0 lead into a 7-7 tie. After the game Clay's girlfriend was heard defending him by saying, "To be fair it's not exactly a secret that he likes to finish prematurely." Colorado State University is known for having strictly enforced rules not allowing females students to live off campus or go out at night until well into the 1960's. When the rules were finally overturned, the university released a statement saying, "I'm too high to give a fuck."

My Pick: Colorado State

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl - Western Michigan vs. Air Force

What makes Idaho potatoes so much bigger and more delicious than other potatoes? Probably the radiation from all the nuclear research that occurs in Idaho. Western Michigan is the first of the directional Michigan schools to play it's bowl game this year. WMU is located in Kalamazoo which is best known as the place the Black Keys went to get away from you. The Air Force Academy has an 18 time national champion boxing team. The focus on creating a prolific boxing team arose because of the propensity for air combat to break down to hand to hand battles.

My Pick: Air Force

Raycom Media Camellia Bowl - South Alabama vs. Bowling Green

The Raycom Media Camellia Bowl, not to be confused with the more popular Culture Club Karma Chameleon Bowl, features South Alabama vs. Bowling Green. The University of South Alabama is best known for it's four decade long legal battle with the United States of America over the trademark for the moniker USA. The United States eventually won the battle after getting a $4 billion donation to their legal fund from defense contractor Halliburton. It is also known for it's excellent 57:43 female to male ratio. Bowling Green State University was originally founded as a normal university which means it was founded specifically to train people to be teachers. This is opposed to abnormal universities which train people for professions that don't involve spending 8 hours a day trying to reason with children and teenagers. That makes sense.

My Pick: Bowling Green

Miami Beach Bowl - BYU vs. Memphis

The Miami Beach Bowl, held in the state of Florida which is known for making great decisions, is held in a baseball only facility despite the existence of an NFL football facility in the same town. BYU is famous for dismissing a basketball player from the team for having consensual sex with his girlfriend. This incident was cited by Jameis Winston when he chose Florida State over BYU. The University of Memphis is home to the FedEx Institute of Technology which trains the next generation of cyborg delivery drivers.

My Pick: BYU

Boca Raton Bowl - Marshall vs. Northern Illinois

Boca Raton is the home of the vegan Boca Burger, so basically this game is going to leave the taste of cardboard in your mouth. Most of Marshall's football team died in a 1970 plane crash, but the program was able to march on do the inspirational leadership of replacement head coach Matthew McConaughey. Northern Illinois' all time best player and Heisman Trophy finalist, Jordan Lynch, was recently cut by the Chicago Bears. Yikes.

My Pick: Marshall

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl - Navy vs. San Diego State

This game has hands down the best bowl name. The only game that could compete was the Beef O'Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl which sadly no longer exists. The current United States Naval Academy was founded in 1845 to replace the Philadelphia Naval Asylum. The Asylum was named as such because you would have to be insane to join the Navy. A part of the SDSU press is known as Hyperbole Books. That's the kind of name that inspires confidence in the press and the academic quality.

My Pick: Navy

Popeye's Bahamas Bowl - Central Michigan vs. Western Kentucky

Let's be real. If you were a top recruit and you could go play for a team like Oregon and go to the playoffs or you could go to Central Michigan and play your bowl game in the Bahamas while presumably being fed Popeye's chicken, you'd go to Central Michigan. If I were their coach this would be a central part of my recruiting strategy. Ask a CMU student what they're most proud of and they'll tell you that their wrestling team is better than big brothers MSU and UofM. I too would be proud of grown men wearing spandex and rolling around on the floor together. Western Kentucky University is located in Bowling Green, KY. This Bowling Green is known for being worse than the previously mentioned Bowling Green and this KY is known for being worse than the previously mentioned KY.

My Pick: Western Kentucky

Hawai'i Bowl - Fresno State vs. Rice

The Hawai'i Bowl exists solely so that students can try to convince their parents that they have a legitimate need to go to Hawai'i. Fresno State has an on-campus vineyard that produces grapes for both wine and raisins. Who the fuck would waste perfectly good grapes on raisins when you could make wine? Rice is a small university in Texas which a couple years ago joined the long list of schools you've never heard of that beat Purdue at football.

My Pick: Fresno State

Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl - Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech

Zaxby's is a southern chicken restaurant that was named when one of the founders had that set of letters in scrabble and had to pass his turn. According to Wikipedia Zaxby's is a strong supporter of the Make-A-Wish foundation in honor of the children that wish their parents would cook them a real meal instead of taking them to Zaxby's. The University of Illinois is known for banning students and faculty from expressing political opinions in any form including wearing buttons on campus and having bumper stickers on cars parked on campus. Of course this isn't all that surprising as the ban occurred in the long ago year of 1950 2008. The mascot of the male Louisiana Tech teams is the bulldog while the female teams are known as the Lady Techsters. This is because of the well known fact that there is no such thing as a female bulldog.

My Pick: Louisiana Tech

Quick Lane Bowl - Rutgers vs. North Carolina

Quick Lane is the name of service centers at Ford Dealerships. Ford decided to place the Quick Lane name on a bowl game as part of an effort to distance it's service centers from the historically low quality Ford brand name. And what better city to host a low quality bowl put on by a low quality sponsor than Detroit? This new bowl game also represents the Big Ten's efforts to freshen up it's bowl lineup by replacing the old Little Caesar's Bowl with a new bowl in the same stadium on the same day. In the B1G's defense they did include the freshest member of the conference, Rutgers, who is also the lowest quality bowl eligible member. I literally can't think of a more perfect marriage of team and bowl game. Rutgers was founded as Queen's College in 1766 making it older than the country itself so at least it has that going for it. North Carolina has been known in recent years as a highly overrated basketball team which allows it's mediocre football team to fly under the radar.

My Pick: North Carolina

BITCOIN St. Petersburg Bowl - NC State vs. University of Central Florida

St. Petersburg was once home to the high end Beef O'Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl, but this year has been knocked down a couple rungs on the later with it's new sponsor the flash-in-the-pan digital currency BITCOIN which was recognized as a revolutionary new form of currency for about a week and a half. The highlight of NC State's season was being one of about 23 teams that almost beat defending national champion Florida State only to blow it at the end. UCF is the largest undergraduate university in the entire nation with 52,532 undergrads and the second largest university in the nation when grad students are accounted for. Unfortunately for the university none of those 52,532 undergrads are particularly great athletes.

My Pick: NC State

Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman - Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech

Northrop Grumman is one of the nation's top defense contractors and brings in about $25 billion per year from government contracts despite several well known incidents of knowingly providing the US military with faulty equipment. It's sponsorship of this football game represents about 0.00001% of it's sponsorship budget with the rest going to politicians.  UC, known as such because I don't want to spell out that city name again, is led by President Santa Ono, son of Yoko Ono and Santa Claus whom Yoko had a brief affair with after the assassination of John Lennon. After Claus refused to leave his wife, Ono was raised solely by his mother. Before pursuing a career in academia he tried a career in music but all of his band's broke up. Virginia Tech is known as a generally terrible team who no longer has any fans because their heads all turned into massive hot air balloons after a fluke win against Ohio State and then popped the following week causing all of the fans to fall back to the Earth and die.

My Pick: UC

Hyundai Sun Bowl - Arizona State vs. Duke

Hyundai, aka Italicized Honda, is known for it's series of rather unremarkable cars. Arizona State was a win over in state rival Arizona away from playing Oregon for the Pac-12 crown and a shot at a respectable bowl. Instead they will play the Sun Bowl in El Paso, TX where most of their underage players will likely wander across the border to get drunk where they will only be saved from cartel related deaths by getting thrown in Mexican prisons and becoming the wives of cartel members. Duke has almost know football history and one of the most hated basketball teams in the history of the sport. Last year's 52-48 loss to Texas A&M in the Chick-fil-A bowl represented the first time ever that most of the country rooted for a Duke team.

My Pick: Arizona State

Duck Commander Independence Bowl - Miami vs. South Carolina

This game, sponsored by Karl, King of Ducks, pits two once proud, now pitiful programs against one another. Miami has won several (probably cocaine fueled, pure speculation) national championships but none since 2001. Recent teams have been so bad that now when most people hear the name University of Miami they think about the one in Ohio. South Carolina's mascot is the Gamecocks which at best refers to a bird that is hunted for sport and at worst is wildly inappropriate. Who thought this was a good name for a team? At least Steve Spurrier's interviews are amusing.

My Pick: South Carolina

New Era Pinstripe Bowl - Boston College vs. Penn State

It's kind of ironic that a company called New Era has decided to sponsor a bowl put on by an organization that prides itself on history and tradition. The two teams fit the venue much better though. Boston College still bases its entire reputation on the history of a single hail mary from the 1980's. Penn State is still clinging to the history of their recently deceased (and disgraced) former coach who died at the age of 307 after coaching for just over 200 years. This is Penn State's first bowl since the world found out that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky liked to diddle little boys in the locker room.

My Pick: Penn State

National University Holiday Bowl - Nebraska vs. USC

This is the only bowl game that is sponsored by a university that doesn't have a football team. Nebraska was ranked for most of the year but a late season slide led to the firing of coach Bo Pelini. The firing ended years of internal conflict for Nebraska fans who are nicer than Canadians and hated Bo Pelini's style of being generally unfriendly but liked that he won games. USC player Josh Shaw began the season by injuring himself jumping off a balcony to save his nephew from drowning in a pool run away from the police. This represents the biggest lie by a USC football player since Matt Barkley said he was going to return for his senior season to win a national championship.

My Pick: USC

AutoZone Liberty Bowl - Texas A&M vs. West Virginia

This game is a showdown between the former schools of NFL superstars Johnny Manziel and Geno Smith. A&M recently left the Big XII to get out from the shadow of big brother Texas, a wise move since Texas has been such force to be reckoned with in the years since. Texas Jr. started the season with a huge win over an overrated South Carolina team and immediately anointed Kenny Hill as the second coming of Jesus Johnny Manziel Christ and then benched him for poor play a few games later. West Virginia is a state that formed under questionable legal circumstances to support the Union in the War of Northern Aggression when the rest of Virginia seceded. Since then West Virginia has developed a reputation of being a land of hill billies who's sole political stake is supporting a dying coal industry with a university full of students willing to riot for just about any reason.

My Pick: West Virginia

Russell Athletic Bowl - Oklahoma vs. Clemson

Russell Athletic is a brand of athletic apparel that sponsors a bowl, much like Gildan, simply so that people know it exists. In fact typing Russell Ath into wikipedia will get an autofinish of Russell Athletic Bowl before Russell Athletic (brand). It was a good year for former Oklahoma football players in the NFL, led by strong seasons from Adrian Peterson and Sam Bradford. Founded in 1890, OU is a rare case of a state university that was founded before the state. Clemson is a sea-grant university which like the space-grant and sun-grant universities discussed earlier does not actually mean that it is located on the sea which is massively disappointing. Wikipedia has a picture of campus covered in snow which is the equivalent of the apocalypse in South Carolina. It is highly likely that many people took to underground bunkers that day and have yet to reemerge.

My Pick: Oklahoma

AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl - Arkansas vs. Texas

AdvoCare is a nutritional supplement company. I always thought it was an automotive care company. This blog is extraordinarily educational. Arkansas had an excellent year if you only counted 3 quarters of every game, but several close losses dropped them into a matchup against lowly Texas. Arkansas is coached by Bret Bielema who is the second coach the team has tried out since Bobby Petrino proved how much money he had by going on a motorcycle ride with his young, attractive mistress. Bielema was formerly at Wisconsin which he left because honestly who would want to live through a Wisconsin winter? The Texas bowl was given the gift of a lowly University of Texas team who's fans will sell out a terrible game because they think that highly of their team. Texas is known for turning out high quality professional prospects such as Vince Young and Colt McCoy.

My Pick: Arkansas

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl - Notre Dame vs. LSU

There is literally nothing more American than a mortgage. The only thing that's almost as American is hating Notre Dame. The catholic school from South Bend somehow managed to make it through the season without killing off any fake girlfriends, but that's about the only bright spot in their season (unless you count beating Purdue, which nobody does). Losing five of their last six games dropped Notre Dame to the Music City Bowl where they will take on a far superior LSU team that dropped this far because of a brutal SEC schedule. LSU has maintained a relatively clean reputation, but isn't without controversy. A 2003 plan that would have moved a parking lot to a former farm and the farm to a former parking lot was criticized because of the soil quality at the new farm site. This incident did not get the attention that it deserved because it did not occur in an election year.

My Pick: LSU

Belk Bowl - Georgia vs. Louisville 

Bilk is the abbreviated form of Billy Goat Milk with Belk being a common mispronounciation. Georgia's top player missed most of the year after it was discovered that he was paid for his autograph. What on Earth would we do if we didn't have the NCAA to be our moral compass? Louisville is a strong team whose only unjustifiable loss was an early season loss to Virginia. Louisville is known as the first university to be owned by a city and the place where the pap smear was developed.

My Pick: Georgia

Foster Farms Bowl - Maryland vs. Stanford

This bowl is sponsored by the Foster Farms poultry company, not to be confused with the Foster Farms Dairy which was founded by the same people but is an entirely different company because really how hard would it have been to come up with a different name. Maryland is known for its ridiculously stupid uniforms that are so bad they don't deserve to have anything else said about them in this blog post. Stanford continues to prove that it isn't as good without Andrew Luck's terrible beard leading them. Little known fact: the full name of Stanford is Leland Stanford Junior University. It's not well advertised because nobody would want to go there if they knew that.

My Pick: Stanford

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl - Ole Miss vs. TCU

Not only is Chick-fil-A not in the peach market, but they aren't open on Sundays which makes them a terrible company because I only crave them on Sundays. Oh, and the whole anti-gay thing isn't cool either. Ole Miss is known for the desegregation riots of the 1960's and the fact that they get dressed up for football games like it's a job interview. Despite this negative legacy they rallied the country behind them with some major early season wins, unfortunately their season was pronounced dead when receiver Laquon Treadwell simultaneously broke his leg and fumbled what would be the game winning touchdown on the one yard line against Auburn. TCU's sole loss, a 3 point shootout loss to Baylor should have been enough to get them into the first ever college football playoff but they were penalized by the committee for the being the alma mater of Andy Dalton.

My Pick: TCU

VIZIO Fiesta Bowl - Boise State vs. Arizona

VIZIO switched its sponsorship from the Rose Bowl Game to the Fiesta Bowl which quite honestly made more sense with Tostitos as its sponsor. Boise State began its run toward elite status with a one point overtime victory in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl that included a hook and lateral to tie the game in the final seconds of regulation. Boise is handicapped by my hatred for them because of their stupid blue field. Arizona continues its Rich Rodriquez LOL Michigan I Told You So tour with a season that only would have been made better by a second win over Oregon. Arizona is handicapped by being the alma mater of my ex-girlfriend.

My Pick: Arizona

Capital One Orange Bowl - Mississippi State vs. Georgia Tech

Capital One is moving up in the world by sponsoring what used to be the FedEx Orange Bowl. Mississippi State is the more likable brother to Ole Miss because they don't wear dress clothes to football games and they embrace cow bell. Together with Ole Miss they made the state that nobody on Earth ever wants to travel to the center of the football universe for a couple weeks. A respectable loss to Alabama wasn't enough to knock them out of the playoff picture, but jealous brother Ole Miss would have none of that so now they face Georgia Tech on New Years Eve. Georgia Tech has satellite campuses in France, Ireland, China, and Singapore, but none in the sovereign state of Georgia.

My Pick: Georgia Tech

Outback Bowl - Auburn vs. Wisconsin

In the heart of the brutal Wisconsin winter it was announced that they would be losing both their head coach and Heisman finalist running back. How cruel. At least they can eat their feelings in the form of a deep fried bloomin' onion. Auburn was founded in 1856 as the East Alabama Male College and was famous for its sausage. In 1892 they formed a football team and started admitting women to attract football players to campus.

My Pick: Auburn

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic - Michigan State vs. Baylor

The Cotton Bowl game is no longer played in the Cotton Bowl which now hosts the Heart of Dallas Bowl. The game is instead played in a giant warehouse in Arlington that was originally built to hold Jerry Jones' ego. Michigan State University is best known as the alma mater of Toby Towson, champion gymnast and former Sesame Street muppet performer. Baylor is in Waco, TX where in 1993 an ATF raid of a religious cult compound led to the deaths of 4 ATF agents and 6 cult members. The raid was followed by a 51 day siege of the compound followed by the FBI burning the compound to the ground and killing 76 people.

My Pick: Baylor

Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl - Minnesota vs. Missouri

How is this a New Years Day bowl? Does anybody want to see this? Missouri lost to Indiana at home.

My Pick: Minnesota

Rose Bowl Game Presented by Northwestern Mutual - Oregon vs. Florida State

This is the first of two semifinal playoff games. The Oregon Nikes come in at number 2 with their sole loss to Arizona having been avenged in the Pac-12 championship game and are poised to end Florida State's massive win streak. Florida State is the defending national champion and is undefeated over two full seasons thanks to the talent of Jameis Winston who chose FSU on the strength of their tolerance for crime policies. Winston will play in one final game before following FSU predecessor EJ Manuel to NFL glory. Don't be surprised if you see him on the sideline snacking on crab legs between drives.

My Pick: Oregon

Allstate Sugar Bowl - Alabama vs. Ohio State

We're in good hands as we get set for the second bowl game to be played in the Katrina Toilet Bowl. Ohio State is widely regarded as the worst school to ever exist and is single handedly driving many fans to root for Alabama for the first time in their lives and hating themselves for it. Alabama will look to summon the magic that they haven't had since their most famous football alumnus, Forrest Gump, played several decades ago.

My Pick: Alabama

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl - Houston vs. Pittsburgh
TaxSlayer Bowl - Iowa vs. Tennessee
Valero Alamo Bowl - Kansas St. vs. UCLA
TicketCity Cactus Bowl - Washington vs. Oklahoma St.
Birmingham Bowl - East Carolina vs. Florida
GoDaddy Bowl - Toledo vs. Arkansas St.

These post-New Years stinkers exist long after my attention span for bowl games (and for writing this post) has run out. East Carolina went on a glorious non-conference run before stinking it up in its mediocre conference. It seems like Arkansas St always plays in the GoDaddy bowl, I think they could go 0-12 and still get in. The only decent game of the bunch is K-St vs UCLA which pits two formerly ranked teams against each other in the best stadium in the entire country, the Alamodome.

My Picks: Pittsburgh, Tennessee, UCLA, Washington, Florida, Arkansas St.

College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T - TBD vs. TBA

Both of these teams will be really strong, but To Be Determined just sounds so much less confident than To Be Announced.

My Pick: TBA