Nina In New York: Football, The Biebs Gets The Boot, Insane Congressional Behavior, and A Question For The Ages

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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By Nina Pajak

This has been a very big week in happenings. Wow. So wow. Much happenings.

Superbowl Madness is here in New York New Jersey! Of course, neither participating team is from an area even remotely near ours, so I'm assuming most people around here don't have a proverbial dog in the proverbial fight (proverbial dog fighting is the only kind I will abide). But still, we're hosting! This is exciting stuff. We've got so much to do before the big day, like vacuum and dust and shampoo the carpets and make sure we have enough guest towels. Shoot, we've been meaning to run to Target to get a new Port Authority. I guess now time is of the essence. Why do we always do this to ourselves? Oh, sure, it's like four degrees outside and hoards of tourists are going to have to take a crash course in NJ Transit, which may explain the 18,000 unsold seats (as of earlier this week). Ticket prices have plummeted to the lowest they've been in twelve years and are going for an average of $2,056, according to the Seattle Times Seahawks blog. Heck, you practically can't afford not to buy them at this point. Let's just hope no mayors of cities between the GWB and East Rutherford, N.J. piss off Governor Christie before Sunday, lest there be MAJOR TRAFFIC CONSEQUENCES.

Justin Bieber might seriously get deported. Let's first establish a fact: he's basically just the worst, right? Not Pol Pot or Bernie Madoff worst, sure. But among heinously unappealing, selfish, nasty, rotten celebrities and excessively wealthy jackholes, he's the king. The Grand Poobah of awfulness. As a parent, I look at him and think two things:

1. I'm glad I don't live near him and his gang of no-goodniks with their reckless driving ways.

2. I feel pretty good about my preliminary decision not to try to turn my kid into a child star, YouTube phenomenon or anything of the sort.

Anyway, someone started an online petition at WhiteHouse.gov to deport the oft-termed "troubled" pop star back to the marginalia of Canada. The rule is that if any such petition gets 100,000 signatures or more in under 30 days, the administration must respond. Obviously, this one did, so the Internet is eagerly awaiting President Obama's word on whether the Biebs will be permitted to stay or whether he'll be forced to return to riding moose and harvesting maple sap or whatever it is they do up north. Some say this country is filled with buttheads anyway, so why focus on this schmuck? Then again, how often do we have the opportunity to reduce the butthead count by one? Then again, what ever would we do without him during a slow news week?

The representative from Staten Island makes an oopsie. After the State of the Union address, NY1 reporter Michael Scotto took a chance and asked Congressman Michael Grimm about a scandal unrelated to the speech. He reacted like a totally rational, measured human being and threatened to throw him off a balcony and break him in half "like a boy," which begs the question of how he knows boys break in half. I'd frankly never heard of the phenomenon and find it deeply troubling. Anyway, like a rational, measured human being, he didn't bother to wonder whether he was still on live TV (he was) and then didn't see fit to apologize for his rational, measured words, thereby inviting an immense amount of scrutiny from a national audience. Soon all his skeletons will be out (a history of violent threats, campaign finance shadiness?) and his career may be ruined. This is to say nothing of the damage he's done by reinforcing stereotypes associated with his constituency to Americans who only know what they see from watching Mob Wives. Big Ang 2014?

Oh, and another commercial cruise liner became a gigantic, floating toilet this week after 700 passengers contracted norovirus and were vomiting and having vicious diarrhea. The Royal Caribbean boat was forced to return early and is offering 50% discounts, which is fair if you consider that a bunch of people also lost like 50% of their body weight in only a few days. Plus they get a 50% credit for their next intestinal catastrophe vacation, which I'm sure they'll all choose to cash in. Remember when a Carnival cruise ship got stuck at sea and the hallways were flooded with fecal matter?

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP BOARDING THESE POOP SHIPS FROM HELL?

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!