A Word From Our Sponsors

   Stacey Monponsett here, and I'm the author of the High Above Courtside journal. I'm world famous, filthy rich, amazingly charismatic, and I look so good that I make Farrakhan want to get a little white sugar from your favorite Smurf.

   High Above Courtside has become an irresistible force, with millions of people stopping by every day to read whatever little gem I wrote last. See that thing on the side that tells you how many people have visited this page? I roll that MFer almost every day.

   AOL knows the deal. Sports Department people like J-Mott and the incorrectement exilé Mobetta4u are nobody's fool. AOL VP and All Star Blogger Contest (http://journals.aol.com/dcsportsguy/mrirrelevant/entries/290) judge Ted Leonsis is a particularly vehement fan of this Journal, who immediately cashiered former contest judge Nate Newton when he said that my picture "has chipmunk cheeks."

   Less than 50 days after I started this journal, I was being flown to Houston to cover the baseball All Star Game. Since you all pay AOL, it was sort of like everyone chipped in a quarter cent to send me to Texas to wander around with my sister and make Roger Clemens jokes. I thank you for your support.

   I am a frequent feature on Sports Bloggers Live(http://sports.channel.aol.com/bloggerslive), and many media analysts say that I am the anchor that will hold the show in the Harbor of Success. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice considers me to be America's most powerful woman. Hospitals have reported a dramatic rise in babies named Stacey, and property values in HAC-related towns in Massachusetts(Duxbury and Monponsett) have undergone a Barry Bonds-like spike in potency.

   Life has been good to High Above Courtside and our readers. We rule the blogosphere. We have already imposed a levy on AOL users, and we may do so again. My lawyers are currently working to have a line inserted into the 1040 tax form that will allow every US taxpayer to donate a dollar to help our efforts here. We have a lot of political, financial and media powerhouses behind us, and we have 2008 as a target date (figuring in the inevitable Supreme Court battle).

   The Amazon and Siberia regions are rapidly undergoing deforestation as millions of people print copies of HAC articles to put in scrapbooks, decorate high school lockers and college dorms, hang on walls over kitchen witches and those God Bless This House plaques, tape to bedroom ceilings...you know, the whole nine. One of my fans actually reads HAC articles aloud when she's ovulating, in hopes that some of my Mad Skills will somehow implant themselves into her progeny.

   We here at High Above Courtside are all about the Greater Good. While we skip Church to stay home and worship in our own particular way (with an elaborate ceremony that involves french toast, cocoa, a comforter, and ESPN's NFL Sunday Countdown), we do buy into most of the moral imperatives. We don't kill. We rarely steal. We don't know what "covet" means, but it doesn't seem to be the verb for what I'd like to do with several of thy neighbor's spouses.

   Where am I going with this? We'll get to that, but first I want to tell you about life. I've been rich and I've been poor, and I can assure you that it is better to be wealthy. I love life. I'm stepping large and laughing easy. Every night, after the kids are asleep, my husband and I throw $100 bills into the fireplace as we make furious love on our platinum sofa.

   Some people have awful lives. Every day is a painful and humiliating exercise in desperation, as they try to jaywalk across the Superhighway of Misery. Life is a savage struggle for preeminence, and the road to glory is littered with the wreckage of the Losers. Some people deserve it, but others just get in over their heads through no fault of their own. Few see it coming.

   I had a friend in high school named Devon. She was from a wealthy family, and she was going to Yale on a soccer scholarship. She was on the road to success, and a home in a gated community seemed imminent.

   One summer, her family got in a plane to visit their property in Peru. The flight was normal until the end, when a freak microburst (a compact, powerful thunderstorm) caused their plane to crash into the Andes mountains. There was much injury, and only Devon was strong enough to leave the wreckage (after cannibalizing the pilot) and seek out help.

   As she descended the mountain, she was suddenly surrounded by armed men. They turned out to be from Sendero Luminoso-the Peruvian Shining Path guerilla army. Desperate for money, they abducted her and sold her into white slavery in Thailand. She was last seen at a squalid Bangkok brothel, being tossed about by a gang of Thai sailors who had purchased her for $2.35 American. 

   Devon is an extreme example, but many people are in some degree of trouble. They need our help. That's why the people from the United States Marine Corps asked me to speak to you about their Toys For Tots foundation.

   We all need a little help now and then...especially around the holidays. But it is never too early to give. Please visit their web site (http://www.toysfortots.org/home/) and do what you can to make sure that every kid gets a present next Christmas.

   Even if their parents are heroin addicts who feed their habit by burglarizing churches and mugging elderly, that doesn't mean that the kids should see Christmas go by without getting their ragamuffin hands on a Playstation II or a My Pretty Pony action figure.

   I'm not begging- I'm imploring. The kid who gets nothing one Christmas may just grow up to burglarize your home, hold you at gunpoint in a dark alley, hijack your 747, or shoot you when you make too sudden a movement while he's robbing the local 7-11. It's better to give a little now, to avoid giving a LOT in the future.

   Besides...I told you to do so. Readers of this journal know that they should get to steppin' like slavery when I order it. I have a finely tuned sense of right and wrong, and I know exactly how much Sin one can get away with. The key is balance. Do some good. Visit the site, and find out how you can help.

Thank you for your time.

 

Weekend Assignment #49: Your Product Placement 


Weekend Assignment #49: Congratulations! You've become famous enough to be courted for product endorsements and/or charitable cause spokespersonhood. Which product or charity would you personally endorse? Incidentally, while the idea here would be a chance to highlight a product/charity you enjoy or believe in, it's perfectly acceptable for the purposes of this Weekend Assignment to make an endorsement purely for the cash. So if you want to go in that direction, knock yourself out (note: the product has to be legal; the charity has to be an actual one).