This Super Bowl matchup is one of the dullest in history. The Steelers have been there too many times, and the Packers have the most boring collection of players since the last time a Packers team went to the Super Bowl. If it weren’t for the 30% chance that Ben Roethlisberger might literally rape another player on the field during the game, I wouldn’t tune in at all.

Seriously, who’s the Packers running back again? Some mediocre backup who gets three yards per carry? Zzzzzzzzz. Wake me after the Black Eyed Peas get done singing cutesy late-90s slang terms into the microphone. Actually, no. Wait until the game’s over to wake me. If a man catches even the slightest glimpse of Fergie without using a mirror to do so, he may turn to stone.

Keith Urban playing the pre-game concert is almost as bad. It seems winning a Grammy is now a confirmation that your band completely blows. Once you win three of them, like Urban, you get to lip sync in front of a record-breaking global audience, to solidify your lameness for all of eternity.

If you win six Grammys, like the Black Eyed Peas, your band should be quietly drowned in a bathtub backstage to keep the number of gag-worthy pop songs for middle-aged housewives at a reasonable level.

Tape the Super Bowl commercials for me, though. I wouldn’t want to miss that nearly identical “chick pretending to almost expose half an inch of cleavage” commercial that GoDaddy has aired the past five years, or E-Trade’s obnoxious talking baby commercials. If we’re lucky, this time the talking baby will be mauled by the family dog and buried in the yard.

There are only a few things I can think of that might make this Super Bowl exciting. First, replacing announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman with a four-hour-long audio track of farting noises, and replacing sideline reporter Pam Oliver with a disembodied, floating set of teeth, since that’s all we notice when she’s on the screen anyway. If Fox could also give Frank Caliendo a plane ticket to the wrong city so we don’t have to see his terrible “this impression would be mildly believable if I weren’t so damn fat” impressions, that would be greatly appreciated.

An alternative entertainment option is to have a live grizzly bear parachute into the end zone every time a touchdown is scored, where it will devour the defensive player who allowed the touchdown. We could dispose of the entire Packers special teams in one quarter. Officials could also, in addition to challenges, allow each head coach two beatings per half, for when they think the other coach was out of line or his players were taking cheap shots. Just the chance of seeing a good baseball bat to the knees would keep me glued to the set.

That, or they could just replace the Packers with a decent team so it’s not boring. Y’know, since everyone already knows the Packers will get steamrolled like a turd in a Playdoh machine. I suppose I could be wrong. The Packers could overcome their complete lack of a running game, as well as their complete lack of ability to defend against the run, and Pittsburgh’s entire team could die in a plane crash, allowing the Packers to squeak out a slim victory, but that seems unlikely.

If I’m wrong, may God or Jesus or Miscellaneous Deity of the Decade burden me with diarrhea for a week straight. If I’m right, may every person in Wisconsin owe me a beer the next time they see me at the Brewhouse. Get those oatmeal stouts ready, because I’m a thirsty man.

Astrology thrives on the fact that the personality traits listed for each sign are so generic that every person alive embodies most of them. Would you consider yourself dependable, persistent, loyal, patient, and generous? Or are you loyal, passionate, resourceful, observant, and dynamic? The Taurus and Scorpio signs are opposites, but they sound pretty similar, don’t they?

Our personalities aren’t controlled by the position of the moon. If they were, the movie “Teen Wolf” wouldn’t be fictional, and the NBA would be filled with hairy werewolves instead of guys with no hair whatsoever. Seriously people, you have a brain, and that brain is controlled by you alone. If you’re stubborn, it’s because you choose to be that way. If you’re loyal, generous, or lazy, it’s because you’ve decided you’re okay with owning that trait. Stop blaming your flaws on nature, the tides, or God.

Fun fact: Did you know babies that are born late have larger genitalia? It’s true. It gives the leprechauns in the mother’s uterus more time to build a large penis. Please reader, stop believing everything you read. An astrologer is not an astronomer. I know the words are close in spelling, but they’re two different things. One is an incredibly intelligent scientist who studies the makeup of the universe, while the other travels with a carnival and reads people’s palms.

Astrologers are the ones responsible for those mediocre horoscopes on your Yahoo/MSN/Google/Bangbus homepage. Y’know, the ones that say things like, “You have a great idea headed your way. Be sure to share it ASAP!” or “Don’t freak out if you can’t make up your mind on something today. You’ve got a lot going on!”

Oh, thanks for the tip, horoscope. That’s almost as good as the tarot card reader who said I “might” die “sometime in the future”, or the holistic healer who said my cold would go away through positive thinking, and then two weeks later when it did, said, “Ta-da! You’re cured!” At least with the tarot card reader there’s cards, so it’s kind of like playing Uno.

Which is fun. I enjoy Uno.

This drama all began about a week ago. A reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune was close to their deadline and didn’t have a story yet, and in desperation they called an astrologer and said, “Tell me something interesting that we can bury in the paper next to the Lapband ads.” So the astrologer did. He said the Earth shifts on its axis over the years, so the constellations are now aligned a little differently.

Every day since then I’ve logged into Facebook and seen no fewer than three dozen extremely hysteric posts from people who act as if an astrologer personally walked into their house and shoved their entire fist up their ass. Granted, astrologers are more likely than a normal person to be into fisting (carnies love an interesting show), but it seems the reaction is a bit exaggerated.

Fortunately, I have a solution for people who follow horoscopes and astrology. Rather than waking up every day and letting your MyYahoo homepage dictate what’s going to happen to you, why not just make a list of what you’d like to have happen to you that day, and then take major steps towards making those things occur? Instead of waiting for the moon to be in… whatever it’s good to be in, why not ditch this form of problem solving you learned from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and just live your life?

Personally, if I wake up each morning and roll over in bed to find a half-full box of Cheez-Its within reach, that’s all the confirmation I need that luck is on my side that day. Unless you have a great love for being disappointed, I’d suggest you take the same approach.

The club was legendary for such quirkiness. I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Superior in 1997, and it only took a few days before I started hearing about The Limplifter. One person told me the strip club was owned by Russian mobsters who kidnapped frumpy middle-aged Canadian women and forced them to dance there. Another person told me the club had a rare airborne version of the HIV virus that infected everyone who entered. Another person told me all the club’s dancers were elderly female professors at UWS who danced there on weekends to feed their heroin habit. Excluding the last one, these were all lies, but the stories created quite a legend.

I went to The Limplifter once in 2006, in hopes that such a seedy place would also have illegal cockfights and off-track horse betting, but I was disappointed to find only a single stripper who was so wasted she could barely stand, let alone dance. When I sat at a seat near the edge of the stage, she stumbled over and whispered in my ear, “Are you drunk?” I said I wasn’t yet, and she said, “Well, I am.” Then she climbed the stripper pole, slid down in a grand fashion and accidentally hit her head on the floor. It was funny in both a tragic and a “ha ha” fashion.

I’m not sure when The Limplifter closed. I visited Duluth for a few days this Christmas and just saw the closed sign briefly as I drove to the Anchor Bar. It said a new strip club would be opening in the same place, something called “Vagina Rose” or “Rose Vaginally” or “Rose Vagineez” or something along those lines. Whatever the new name, it sounded classy and upscale.

I’m not sure how the Limplifter 2.0/Vagina Rose plans to compete on that level. Superior already has Centerfolds strip club across the street, which specializes in angry young women who ask you for an overpriced lap dance and then scowl and curse loudly at you when you decline. The Limplifter was able to compete before because of its crappy nature.

It was somewhere between free and $3 to get in, depending on how lazy the bartender was about badgering you after you entered and sat down, and drinks were at dive bar prices. There were no lap dances, and no pressure to spend money on anything except drinks. It was a completely hassle-free experience. The bartenders would ignore you and the dancing girl (or on a rare night, girls) were so drunk or drugged out that they didn’t really notice if you tipped or not.

If this new place wants to be a success, it needs to stand out. I have a few excellent suggestions. First of all, everyone in the Vagina Rose should dress in a pirate costume. Strippers, bartenders, jizz moppers, whomever. Dancers should wear eyepatches, and when you tip them, they should say, “Arrrr, thank ye matey.” Once per hour, the bartender should get on the roof and fire a cannonball at the Centerfolds club across the street.

I’m not sure how the name “Vagina Rose” fits in with a pirate theme. I suspect they’re going for more of a burlesque theme, but it seems to me that the cultured residents of Superior would be more intrigued by pirates. If I were a 45-year-old alcoholic who lived under a tarp in the alley behind Mama’s Bar, I’d save up my panhandling earnings for weeks to see pirate strippers.

Alternatively, the Vag Rose could have a superhero theme, Ghostbusters theme, or Hogan’s Heroes theme. Granted, there weren’t very many women in Hogan’s Heroes, but I think most people in America generally enjoy the premise of the show, so they could work something out. I know I’d pay good money to see any of those themes realized in a strip club.

Whatever the Russian mobster owners decide, I expect to be given free admission and complimentary lap dances from a woman dressed as Colonel Klink’s secretary. It’s more likely that I’ll just get sued for leading everyone in the Twin Ports to refer to them as “Vagina Rose” instead of the club’s real name, but that’s fine too. I like attention almost as much as I like boobs.