Mystery Solved! T.G.I.H.S.

Thanks to my Jewish friend Jenn Hann who decoded the Sanskrit license plate from the previous post. Apparently, the name of the hill where the crucifixion took place was called Calvary. In addition to that, IMABONG actually means "I am a Born Again Christian". Born Agains refer to themselves as being " a born again" or something like that. So the guy I saw was not a dope head, but rather a Jesus Lover.

As I never regularly attended church and only went to Sunday school once with Alicia Burton when I was 6, I am still in the dark about a lot of religious trivia fun facts. Thanks to all the good Christians I asked when researching what Calvary meant. You really didn't know what it was? Thank God I have friends like Jenn who knows more about Christianity than most Christians do. As she told me when I asked her how she new what the license plate and frame meant, she replied, " Well, I guess there is a good reason why we are God's chosen people." Here here! Mazeltof! La'Chiam!

Thank God It's Hockey Season

So, yesterday the Redskins laid a big fat egg in Cinci and my fantasy football team dropped an unbelievable 64 total points in the league semi-final game to lead Mike Chase by 1 before the game tonight. Mike has Brian Westbrook playing tonight. I guess I can hope Westbrook fumbles the ball on the opening play and breaks his leg so I can advance to the finals. Football is over for me this year. To see it come to such an abrupt and painful end...

I can now direct my full attention to the best team in town and stop rooting for pretenders.

Go Caps!!

The All-Shire Team : Updated

Well, if you haven't heard what Sean Avery (d**kweed) of the Dallas Stars said last week about ex Eliza Cuthbert (hot) dating Dion Phanuof (doofus) of the Calgary Flames, then you must have been under a rock or something. The NHL suspended Avery for 6 games and is requiring him to attend anger management classes, all just because he said that other hockey players like his sloppy seconds. (Cuthbert has reportedly dated up to 6 hockey players in the past few years. She is apparently an Alyssa Milano wanna-be, which I don't think is all that bad. Makes you want to run out and buy pads, gloves and a stick, doesn't it?) I think Avery's suspension is a bit ridiculous, if you ask me, but the situation does make a good case to add him to the All-Hobbit team. And, there is another change to the team after I gave it some thought and Drew concurred.

Left Wing Sean Avery: aka Sam-Wise Avery Well, you know about the comments last week. He's also 5'10" which just meets the height requirements to qualify as a Hobbit. Controversial, large ego and a mouth to boot. Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley while on a date with Cuthbert. He should be Captain of the All-Shire team. For that honor, I will wave his suspension.

Right Wing Martin St. Louis: aka Smigel Once I thought about it, I had to change his name from Bilbo to Smigel. Smigel fits so much better. Bilbo as a name was too forced and Smigel works on so many levels. St. Louis has fallen from glory after the Bolts won the Cup 5 years ago and he led the league in scoring. The team has been terrible every since. Not even The Mullet could save them. You can just picture St. Louis walking around, talking to himself, ready to take out Vinny Lecavailier if it will reunite him with his obsession, the Stanley Cup, or as he refers to it while alone in the a dark locker room, "myyy preeeciiioooussssss!"

The Great License Plate Mystery

Happy Holidays everyone! (Not to sound ignorant, but is it okay to say that to atheists?) I was driving on the Eastern Shore of Maryland today and I saw something that made my mind short-curcuit. ZZZZZZZZTTTT! (Insert you own "John's brain does that all the time" joke here.) It wasn't a man driving a pickup truck with a live chicken on his lap, who hasn't seen that? Nor did I see some idiot from Pennsylvania or New Jersey driving like a total imbecile, again, who hasn't? What I saw was a man driving a mini van with a license plate frame that read: "Jesus went to Calvary", or something to that effect. Not sure what that meant or if I had read the wording correctly. I didn't get a second look because the next thing that grabbed my attention was the license plate, which read simply: "IMABONG".

The literature quickly zoomed north on 301 as I took the 50 east exit, more than a little perplexed. Jesus was into horses and the chronic? I know he was a carpenter who wore hemp. I called my brother and my best friend to see what they thought. Both, like myself, were a bit mystified. Perhaps this guy was a former hippie that had found Jesus. You know, "Doobies for the Divine", or "Joints for Jesus" or something along those lines. I re-read the license plate in my mind just to make sure I was interpreting the message correctly. It seemed pretty straight forward to me. I wasn't like some of the other personalized plates you see out there. You know the ones I mean. "SUX2BU" or "ZO86XWO". Ones that cause you to rear-end the idiot who you are following as you attempt to decipher the Incan text on his bumper that some inmate serving 6 to 10 in the pokey hammered out, undoubtedly wearing the same look you have on your face when you hand the police officer your insurance information.

License plate decoding has grown more frustrating over the years, especially in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where it costs extra to not have your license plate personalized. Simply known as the Pretentious Asshole Act of 1989, Virginia requires all drivers to come up with a saying that can be spelled out using any combination of up to 7 letters and/or numbers. The monogrammed twaddle knows no socioeconomic boundaries; you are just as likely to find a personalized plate on an '88 Geo Metro as you are of seeing one on a Mercedes 300SL. However, the man in the minivan was not, I repeat, not from Virginia. Hmmm... The mystery deepens.

I wonder if anyone has done a study that shows monogrammed licensed plates create dangerous driving conditions by increasing traffic congestion exponentially? Actually, I think just by typing the above line I conducted that very study and proved it to be true. Don't believe me? I attended George Mason University for two semesters in 1991-92. I knew 17 people in my immediate circle of friends that were a.) from Virginia and b.) had monogrammed license plates. Throw in the other 17,000 students at the mostly commuter school of 22,000 that had personalized plates and that makes it a clear majority. Traffic was horrendous back then. Now, traffic in Northern Virginia is beyond ghastly. Traffic is so bad that atheists are praying for mass transit.

Which brings me back to the supposed human hooka. Unless he was referring to himself as the sound made when one strikes a gong or was driving his daughter's van while she is home for the Holidays, oblivious to what the license plate suggested about his identity as a glass water pipe used for smoking various forms of licit and illicit drugs, I am at a loss. It keeps eating away at me, much like the drugs this guy is apparently doing. I have to be missing something, right? Jesus and bong on the same car, much less the same license plate, seems more than a bit strange. Was there a hidden meaning I'm missing altogether? Was it some special code that only followers of a certain cult can decode, therefore possessing the secret for eternal life by pulling tubes and going to the track? And, perhaps most important of all, does this guy know where I can get some good stuff?

I know this is America and all, the land of freedom and liberty. I realize that our rights are compromised regularly when we should be fighting to protect them, but perhaps in order to ensure a more perfect driving experience and establish safer highways, we should take away the right to put personalize license plates on our cars. Surely, one could understand that the suspension of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America for personal safety on America's roadways is more important than religious freedom and freedom of speech. Plus, I won't have to live with the mystery of what the hell Mr. Bong's plate meant. Monogrammed plates are an evil that need to be dealt with; it is a problem that has been ignored for far to long. We need to act now before more Christians for the Chronic accuse our lord and Savior of being a stoner, or before atheists begin riding around with license plates that read "_________ ".