For those of you who are newcomers to YesButNoButYes, or don't read the comments on our stories, you may be unaware that unofficially we have an extra member of our regular writing team. Johnny Chicago first posted a comment to our site just a few short months ago - September 6th 2005 to be precise. Since then, he's become a regular fixture, a serial commenter, always keeping us on track, and making sure that he calls “bullshit” whenever he sees it.

Recently, after I complimented one of his comments, he wrote:

I must paraphrase a wise sage, Anna Scott, who once said, “One day, not long from now, my writing will go, they will discover I can't write, and I will become some sad middle-aged man who sounds a bit like someone who was quasi-famous for awhile.”

Wished I'd kept a record of everything I wrote here. Now THAT thread would probably be scary, and odd, and full of fiery anger, and downright intresting - in my mind, anyway.

Wonder no more, Johnny. I sifted through over 160 of your comments and pulled excerpts from your best work. It's all the things you suspected, and more, and while the views are always uniquely your own, on behalf of us all may I say that you make this site a much better place.

Anyone easily offended or with a nervous disposition should turn back now....

Ideally, I ride out the ride home without anyone beside me. Less-than-ideally, I'm joined by a silent seatmate. Then there's the third option.

That third option was exercised last night. I shared my commute with a devout conversationalist.

Before we'd even left Port Authority, he'd already shaken my hand. A strange, two-handed shake our seating arrangement should have deemed both socially inappropriate and physically impossible. I learned his wife's name. Her employer. Their internet service provider. It was all happening so fast and furiously.

Man, I would've paid serious pay-per-view money to see Stevie Wonder, Aaron Neville, Aretha Franklin and Mick Jagger blown up at halftime. Can we work that out for next year?

Oh, more football now.

Man, neither one of these teams really wants to win too badly. Looks like the refs are gonna' help the Steelers out a bit. That's nice. Speeds things up.

The Steelers won the Superbowl!! One for the thumb!! I have a 6 ft inflatable penis in my room!! too bad I have tons of homework.

omg...on sunday me n kenz went to a superbowl party at a church! Well i dont go to church(tho i shuld)...and so i didnt know wat was appropriate to say or not lol..so like after evry word i said, id b like r u allowed to say that in God's house, n stuff like that! it was so flippin funny!...n i kept sayin OMFG! n we all kno wat that means lol...AHH...i couldnt help it..

Found somewhere with the game and was able to watch the second half with a few other North Americans. We had international commentary or something. Some jackass colour-man who kept trying to explain the rules of American Football to the international audience.

"Something New" **1/2 (out of four): A charmingly slight mixed-race romantic comedy, featuring charismatic performances by Sanaa Lathan and Simon Baker but script as thin as the paper it's printed on.

I have no problem with the tried and true romantic comedy formula - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back - but in a film which proposes to explore the complexities of an interracial relationship, do the characters have to be so black and white?

Read More on BigPictureBigSound...

Here is a video mash-up I made of the 2006 State of the Union Address and Don Hertzfeldt's brilliant Academy Award nominated short film "Rejected". Yeah, it's sloppy and the words don't match up perfectly, but it's only a minute and a half, so there's that.

Apologies to Mr. Hertzfeldt -- go buy Rejected on DVD. It is a brilliant film.

Senator John McCain to freshman Senator Barack Obama.

I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss . . . I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness.

Holy shit. Link

To quote the website.

"At the end of the day, Eric could not grasp 'what time was' and had thrown up 17 pounds of food in 6 hours."

Ad agency Hart & Larsson sat a somewhat cute girl in front of the Superbowl and got her to watch all the spots, rating them as she went. The whole thing was sped up into a 14 minute video, during which she goes through various states of undress, and - well, paints the walls and smokes cigarettes. You can see the whole movie here, although frankly, if you have the kind of ADD I do, you might as well just let us show you the highlights right here on YBNBY....

A three-minute version of the Lost Superbowl spot. Cool, til I remember Robert Palmer died two years ago. Then it's a little creepy.

Coming soon to a supermarket near you - “Turn On” soda, a luuuurrrrrve drink (imagine Barry White saying it - err, if he were alive, that is). Containing guarana, ginseng and biloba, it comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee:

No questions asked, money-back guarantee if Turn On doesn't perform as promised and you don't experience a noticeable increase in sexual energy and desire.

The label also helpfully points out that it's not suitable for Pregnant Women (presumably too late) or children (obviously too disturbing). The testimonials on their site are pretty hilarious.

I'm thinking that we should partner with the makers to bring you “Show Us Your Cans”, a girls-gone-wild type competition idea I've tried to sell to soda makers for years but with no success (seriously).

UPDATE: I just noticed their customer service hotline is 1-866-SEX-BEVS. Too funny.

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears...The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.

Link

Catching up a bit. Did you guys see this on BoingBoing? British army cadets on LSD.

My favorite line? A tie actually, between..."...the attacking section had lost all sense of urgency" and "...with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds, the troop comander gave up".

Always wanted to see old Vegas, but never got around to it. (Check something else off the list) I'd obviously heard about the outdoor light show, and I have to admit it was pretty cool.

THE GOOD
Figuring the Garden would be crazy on Super Bowl Sunday, I take the Knicks to lose by less than 6 1/2 (yesss!). Not knowing one thing about Ultimate Fighting, I bet on Chuck Liddel because the other guy looks 50 years old (And David Lee Roth had the loser on his show). And I had a pretty good run at the blackjack tables, although I'm really gettin' tired of that game.

THE BAD
After being up about $500, went all in with a pair of kings at Harrah's (he had two pair). And at the Mirage, took those same kings and went all in against three tens. Meanwhile, the Real World cast reject with fort knox in front of him is saying "you stayed with that?". (Why don't you go pimp yourself junior) Evil has a new name, and it is "Two Kings".

THE UGLY
Jelli The Greek stayed true to form in the football picks department. I obviously took Seattle and the over (I blame the officiating). But the true genius becomes apparent when you look at the parlay bets...

- more than three field goals in the game (only one)
- more than five sacks (four)
- someone will score in the first seven minutes (more like twelve)
- first score of the first half is a TD run (field goal)
- last score of the first half is a field goal (TD)
- Pittsbugh scores first (sorry)
- And yes, I bet on the coin toss, and lost

Ended the weekend up a couple hundred. I'm thinking I'll invest in a flag company (I've heard good things) And look for my new NFL picks podcast in the fall.

PS: The dark, blurry image is what a cheesy Vegas Super Bowl party looks like...more after the jump.

- I didn't see the Steve Martin-hosted SNL, but based on this opening sketch I'm thinking it was pretty good.
- From the "all things cute" file, comes Animal Planet's take on the big game...the Puppy Bowl.
- If you thought Crispin's lesbian burger-capades spot was pretty funny (I laughed), now you can create your own.
- Gotta love it when a brand uses a four year old technology to act hip. Look for subservient teeth in about two years.
- TV News...Book of Daniel gives you the un-aired episodes on their site, and Kim Cattrall shows her range.
- And to honor the genius who thinks manimal babies are our biggest concern, comes the human-animal hybrid store.