Michael: Fantsy-Pants(less) Role Model

Playing the role as "Michael," are you?

That can be incredibly difficult. Not to mention awkward.

Most would think "Heh! This'll be easy! All I have to do is drop my pants!" or "I'll simply show up ... without pants!" But nothing could be further from the truth. It's not as easy as showing up in a shirt that says "I forgot to bring my pants" you know.

Yes, an important aspect of playing the role of Michael is to do so sans coverings from the waist down. But if it was that easy everyone would be doing it.

The trick is convincing everyone there's a good reason you showed up to the staff meeting without your trousers on. 

There's an explanation for rushing into the restaurant a bit late for the dinner reservation with nothing but a sport jacket and powder blue Fruit Of The Looms.
 
"I'm here to support the groom, pants or no pants and here's why ..."

You see where I'm going with this: The key is in the explanation, in gaining the confidence of your fellow man, as to your supposed lack of below the belt accouterments. It's all about persuasion, making the unbeliever believe.

And here's the kicker: The bigger the story, the more fantastical the tale, the greater gain in points in the game. Bonus: Your fellow contestants depicting their own roles in the contest? They'll be so impressed with your commentary they'll hand out points to you without even being asked. Boom. Win-win.

You see the prize at the end of the line, don't you? That the possibilities are endless. Playing the role of me, Michael, is most satisfying. And freeing.

Comfort, contentment and confidence - all these can be yours if you play the game with savvy.

What's The Points?

Speaking as the most physically strong, athletic and powerful of us three guys, yet the least sport-oriented, I can honestly say that I didn't even think that "fantasy sports" was even a thing until the guys clued me in. In truth, I still don't understand what the attraction is. However, since it is an actual thing that people, regular human beings, participate in and, in our case, actually do play as either me, Michael or Clark (or even Kip), I am willing to not be persnickety and holier-than-thou about it and to just live and let live. In the spirit of the thing, I am going to tell you about some of the points that may be scored by you, the player, were you to play in the guise of Jeff the Unbelievable.

Pose casually on the hood of your motor: 25 points

Bonus points for rockin' a cool bit of knitwear: 150 points

During a car chase, smash into a pile of boxes and assorted garbage: 35 points
If you can also hit a market stall, sending fruit and vegetables everywhere yet miraculously missing any people, 100 points.
If a truck backs out of an alley while you are involved in the car chase, momentarily causing you to swerve wildly, almost lose control  and then catch up to the 'perp': 500 points.
If the truck backs out of the alley while YOU are being chased, causing the 'perp' to swerve wildly and end up in the river: 1000 points.

Face down a bunch of baddies in an abandoned warehouse: 25 points per baddie.

Host a hot tub party: 30 points

Look stylish on the job: 20 points
Left to right: Michael, me, Clark

Rock a pair of flared slacks and a cravat: 15 points
Left to right: Me, Clark, Michael

Have some Unbelievababes over for Cocktail Hour: 23 points. Bonus points for dickie-bows.

Eat a donut out of a brown paper bag for that gritty realism: 10 points

Michael will tell you all about his point rankings etc. on Friday.

Fantasy sports, Unbelievables style

There's no doubt you're all familiar with the recreational activity of "fantasy sports", which takes all the enjoyment, camaraderie, and physical exercise of participating in actual sports and completely removes it. You might be surprised to learn that we, The Unbelievables, are the focus of a new fantasy sports-type activity. Because we, The Unbelievables, sure were.

"Don't you want to play?"

Basically, this is what we have learned: The way you play is you don't just "draft" one of us (me, Jeff or Michael), you actually play as us. Then, you compete with your friends, earning points based on our/your exploits. We've heard that some leagues will also allow you to play as lesser role players like Kip the Mail Boy and even Ulf the Unbelievadog. I'll point out some examples of how you earn points if you were to play as me...

Drive a Corvette: 10 points

Be seen in the company of beautiful babes: 25 points per babe

This is 150 points, in case you were too distracted to do the math.

Get a beautiful babe to cook a meal for you: 50 points (meal must include an entree, at least one side dish and a cocktail. Dessert is good for 10 bonus points)

Kick a bad guy out of a window: 100 points (WARNING! 0 points and likely criminal prosecution if it's not an actual, verifiable bad guy)

That's how you play as me. Jeff and Michael will fill you in on their relative point values later this week!

The Labeler's Lesson

...he pulled out his deadliest weapon...

"Ha!" I cried. "What's that, a fairy cake?!" 

The Labeler was confused. "Wye dew yew tork cakes at me?"

"To confuse and distract, mostly" I replied, whipping out MY deadliest weapon.

"That's not a labeler, Labeler," I growled.
"THIS... 

...is a labeler!"

"What is those? I am not knowing."

"It's time for you to go back to school, Labeler." said Michael, fiddling with his cellphone.

"What are you two guys up to?" hissed Clark.

"Oh, you'll see," I grinned. 

The door burst open.

"Whot thuh?" said The Labeler, growing ever more perplexed with each passing second.

"Say hello to... The Teacher!" yelled Michael, as in walked THIS lady...

"HA Har haah ha!" gurgled The Labeler. "Hoo is this olde ladie?"

In one swift move she put him in a half-nelson and cuffed him, snarling, "I'm your worst nightmare, buster!"

As he struggled, another woman walked in. The Teacher continued, "and this is my good friend, The Proofreader!"

"Well, boys," said The Teacher, "it looks like we got here just in time. We'll take care of this creep - and his diction, spelling, sentence structure and whatnot - from here on out."

And with that, The Teacher and The Proofreader frogmarched The Labeler out to their minivan. All we could hear as they drove off was his voice yelling "Noe! Stopp! Yew carnt doo this! Noe!"

As we stood in the laundromat, picking Post-It notes off each other and everything else in sight, we watched as Ulf the Unbelievadog and his cohorts rounded up The Labeler's goons and tied them up with nylon washing line by running around them sheepdog-style, whereupon we cuffed them and packed them off to the Stiletto Flats Police Dept.

Clark was still a trifle puzzled. "But where did they come from? How do you know them?"
Michael put him at his ease. "Remember that time I went missing in action?"

"Which time?" Clark and I replied in unison. (There's been so many times, let's face it.)

"Well," Michael sighed. "It started in a library in Granite Falls, WA, moved on to The Barbeque Bucket, and ended on a white sand beach somewhere exotic..." he drifted off, eyes glazing over in reverie.

"Oh. One of those stories..."

"Sometimes, " he said, "it pays to have a couple friends on speed-dial."

Labeling The Labeler

He stood triumphantly over us and said, "Neal... be four... The Labeler!". Actually, we can't be sure whether or not he used the words correctly, since they were spoken and not written, but based on what we'd already experienced, it's probably a good bet.

JEFF: "Before we get started with your inevitable defeat, we should probably call you The Mislabeler."
LABELER: "Attenting to minimalize myself by feminizing my name? Not cool in 2015, Unbeliva-politically-incorrects!"
MICHAEL: "No, he means 'mis' as in the prefix applied to various parts of speech, meaning 'ill,' 'mistaken,' 'wrong,' 'wrongly,' 'incorrectly,' or simply negating the word that follows, not 'Miss' as a title prefixed to the name of an unmarried woman or girl. Because that's what you're doing; mislabeling things"
LABELER: "Uh huh. This is where less intelligenter villains then me have maked a mistook. They engorge in conversationism with you and get confused. I'm two smart to foal for that!"
ME: "My goodness, your grammar is truly atrocious!"
LABELER: "Know moor speakingness! I'll let THIS do the talk!"

With that he pulled out his deadliest weapon...

How could we possibly defeat an evil maniac brandishing what my grandpa used to label his fishing tackle box??? Hopefully, Jeff has the answer Friday!

Introduction To The Labeler

Seriously ... what is it with the notes we get?

We got another one Sunday night ...

"Unbelieva-Fools! You're time is up! Nothing you due can stop me! No ware you look will you find me! I will bee you're doom!"

Right off, whoever this was, we knew s/he had bad grammar.

"That's probably the source of the anger I read," I thought out loud to Jeff and Clark. "This person is probably so nicked at the fact he or she didn't study in school the only recourse is to take it out on us."

"Makes sense," Jeff responded.

"I say we don't do anything and see where this goes. I mean ... what's this person going to do anyway? Torture us with poorly written notes?" Clark wondered.

Just then an alarm began ringing. Someone in the laundromat entrance to our headquarters. We took a look on our unbelieva-moniters to see a bunch of black-clad hooligans putting stickers on all the washing machines and dryers and soap dispensers.

Jeff noticed first what they were doing: "Hey ... they're changing prices on all the labels on our stuff!"

I scrunched my face at the monitor, watching them plaster new price points on everything. "We better get down there."

All three of us took off to the entrance. Opening the door, we were accosted by sticky-back notices in droves which tangled us up, made us fall to the ground unable to remain standing and rendered us immobile. A dark figure emerged with his face covered in yellow Post-it® notes. 

"Your mind now, Unbeliva-foons!" the daunting chiffer cackled. 

Jeff called out: "Where's Ulf when we need him? No good, flea-bitten ..."

... stay tuned ...

More and other bad ideas

When you're like us, you've got ideas firing off all the time. Morning, noon and night, it's just an endless stream of notions to help make people's lives better. The law of averages is that they can't all be great. Just know that every substandard invention we show you here is offset by about 40 awesome ones.

That said, let's take a look at some of these turkeys (not the good kind, that you eat with stuffing and stuff)...

RADIOVISION

THE IDEA: Actually see your favorite radio programs instead of just listening to them like some boob!
THE (failed) EXECUTION: I took the back off of an AM radio and strapped it on my Uncle Neil's head. He liked being able to see inside of a radio while listening, and I guess there's entertainment value in that. Certainly the experience would have been more enjoyable if radios had any moving parts. Like, any. At all.
PS: My Uncle Neil still has this prototype and it continues to be his preferred means of following his beloved Chicago Cubs, even after baseball season ends.
PPS: Nobody likes my Uncle Neil.

YODELING METER

THE IDEA: Not what it looks like; the meter isn't measuring her yodeling. It's a standard household water meter that yodels when you use the bathtub, flush the toilet, run a faucet, etc.
THE (failed) EXECUTION: I had hoped that it would cut down on water waste but I overestimated people's hatred of yodeling. Turns out, some people actually enjoy it.

BOTTLE TAPPER

THE IDEA: Who has time to leave a bottle upright and pour the contents into glasses as needed when you can invert it and attach it to a device that uses the power of gravity to dispense sparkling beverages and needs to be cleaned thoroughly after every time you use it?
THE (failed) EXECUTION: Everybody, as it turns out.

HAM PLATES

THE IDEA: I know you're looking at the "truck nuts" but we would never come up with something that lame. No, this is about the license plate made of potted pork meat product, which was supposed to be a survival aid if you had no provisions and got lost in the woods or something.
THE (failed) EXECUTION: Illegible, delicious (dogs chasing you everywhere).

SHADY HAND

THE IDEA: The Original Sun Visor! 3-D! One Size Fits All! (Sorry, only available in Caucasian)
THE (failed) EXECUTION: Not enough people this stupid:

THE "TAKE THAT!" SATCHEL

THE IDEA: Fend off would-be muggers by aggressively firing the contents of one's valise at them.

THE (failed) EXECUTION: Most would-be muggers took the name literally because they don't mind the relatively minor inconvenience of picking up the contents of one's valise off the sidewalk.