In recent Never-Saw-That-Coming news, the vuvuzela, the African horn-like instrument that tops the International List of Annoying Instruments (even above bagpipes!), is officially banned from European soccer matches. According to the UEFA, “In the specific context of South Africa, the vuvuzela adds a touch of local flavor and folklore, but UEFA feels that the instrument’s widespread use would not be appropriate in Europe, where a continuous loud background noise would be emphasized.” Okay, I get it, trying not to sound racist… They went on to say, “UEFA is of the view that the vuvuzelas would completely change the atmosphere, drowning supporter emotions and detracting from the experience of the game.”

Emotions? Experience? HA! Nice try, UEFA. I’m pretty sure most soccer fans are blacked out by the time they get to their seats. Your official statement should have been, “That s— is annoying and should be burned in a fire. The end.”

Our quarterly fail reports are in and it seems August has been our most fail-ccessful month this year! Congratu-fail-lations everyone, bonuses for all!

(I don’t know that much about business.)

pure gold.

I’d like to provide some commentary, but anything I say will pale in comparison to the hilarity of this video. Just… just watch it.

Last night I found my self 32 minutes deep into a show about Justin Bieber. I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. I was 32 minutes deep into a show about Justin Bieber going head to head in a song and dance competition with Shaquille O’Neall (what? WHAT?). It was at about minute 40, when I was watching Shaq throw Justin into a swimming pool, that I snapped out of my Tuesday night stupor and wondered WTF I WAS WATCHING.

Cue Wikipedia: “Shaq Vs. is an American reality television show produced for ABC by Dick Clark Productions and Media Rights Capital starring American basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. It began airing on August 18, 2009. Shaquille O’Neal claims to be “the greatest athlete” and challenged numerous top athletes in their own sports.”

Apparently, he’s challenged everyone from Oscar De la Hoya to Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Kavya Shivashankar, the most recent National Spelling Bee champion. And now he’s challenged Justin Bieber, whose talent is… um… giving little girls high blood pressure? I don’t know.

It seems like Shaq is starting to run out of ideas, because last night he also challenged Jimmy Kimmel? At… being funny? I think? So I decided to lend Shaq a hand and give him my top 3 picks for his next Shaq Vs episodes.

1) Shaq Vs. Shawn Johnson, Olympic Gymnast

I would imagine he would have to create a floor exercise routine, because there is no way normal female gymnastics equipment could hold his gargantuan stature. He would probably snap a bar like a toothpick and break the beam in half with one jump. However, on the floor, oh boy. I would love to see them create a routine that combined grace, agility, and tumbling, with bowling ball sized biceps. It would be good, clean, American humor.

2) Shaq Vs. Djsterf, Dance Dance Revolution Champion

Hahahaha. I’ll let you envision that yourself.

3) Shaq Vs. Kobe, NBA Basketball Player, (Alleged) Rapist

Being that this was in fact a real feud over both professional and personal differences between two legitimately phenomenal basketball players who played on the same NBA team, this would be the episode that everyone would tune into. Have them square off on the court! Have them square off in the court room! Is Shaq going to start rapping at Kobe? Is Kobe going to (allegedly) sexually assault Shaq? Who knows? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!

Hey, Dick Clark productions, I’ll take my finder’s fee now.

img @ oldpeopleinhats

We all love our grandparents. They’re wise, have stories about our parents that we can save in our shame arsenal, and are usually purveyors of those hard butterscotch candies that no one else seems to like, but damn I love ‘em. However, a new study has been released that seems to imply that old people, as a general rule, enjoy hearing that us younger people are miserable. That’s not very nice, Grandpa.

In a study for the Journal of Communication, Dr. Silvia Knoblock-Westerwick and her co-author Matthias Hastall studied 276 German adults, including 178 aged 18 to 30 and 98 between 55 and 60. For the study, they gave the subjects a limited amount of time to pick an article in a news journal to read. While the younger group, as expected, chose to read positive stories about other young folks, an interesting trend arose among the older group — a majority of them chose to read negative articles about young people. So while a young person in the study might choose to read and enjoy a story about a group of college students teaching medical care to Haitians, an older women would likely choose an article about a Paris Hilton getting away with her third drug related offense in a year.

According to the scientists, they believe this may be related to the elderly folks desire for a self-esteem boost, and reading about those younger than them failing seemed to do the trick. It’s no wonder old people like to sit on street corners and call in red light runners. The thought of getting someone an expensive ticket seems to give them the same kind of rush us normal people get when we drink a Red Bull.

You heard it here first: old people are scientifically proven to be jerks.

*Note: you’ll notice neither group chose to read articles about old people, because old people are yucky. J/K Grandma, LOVE YOU!