Cultural Oddsmaker: The Facts of Life

READ MORE: Blairrr, Cultural Oddsmaker, Facts of Life

It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and you know what that means—amateur night at your local hometown bar and DUI check points on every corner. Yippee! In the spirit of Thanksgiving, today’s Cultural Oddsmaker will forecast the upcoming season of that spicy little girl school raunchfest, The Facts of Life. We’ve solicited ace handicapper Timmy Okeafor to give us the good, the bad and the there-you-have odds for the start of the new season. Put on your best Edna Garret costume and follow along after the jump!

ODDS

· Tootie will have season ending back surgery: 3/1

· Jo will showcase her brilliant robe collection and take up abstract painting: 4/1

· Mrs. Garrett will take it high and hard from a Bolivian drug lord: 7/1

· Blair swallows a cricket while blow-drying her hair, sending the house in a collective tailspin: EVEN

· Cousin Geri begins to dress provactively to attract more boys, but keeps putting clothes on backwards: 1/4

· Natalie puts on her Charlie Chaplin costume every night in the hopes of once again being sexually assaulted in the woods: 3/1

· Cousin Geri gets a piggy-back ride from handyman George: 4/1

· Handyman George vomits during piggy-back ride due to Cousin Geri’s weird attempt at dressing provocatively: EVEN

FUN WITH THE OVER UNDER

· Number of times Mrs. Garrett bakes a quiche: 12

· Number of occasions Jo makes light of out of control situation in Iraq: 2

· Number of times Tootie gets flustered by lack of attention paid to her new roller skating trick: 4

· Number of times Tootie gets flustered by rest of house’s positive reaction to Cousin Geri’s roller skating trick, which only consists of her falling down and counting to six: 7

· Body fat percentage of Natalie throughout the season: 34

· Number of fingers lost by Blair when Cousin Geri buys a weed whacker: 3

· Nielsen ratings during Cousin Geri roller skating trick episode: 2.7

Cultural Oddsmaker: What Will Happen Next Season on Dawson’s Creek?

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, Dawson's Creek, Pacey Witter, Will Leitch, Will Leitch Is Made of Wood, Will Leitch's Favorite Ham

We know it’s Tuesday. That’s why we’re happy. And we also know plenty of gamblers love Dawson’s Creek. The new season begins tonight and we’ve brought along handicapping sherpa Roland Barristoni to help us lay odds on what will happen to Dawson, Joey, Pacey and all the gang. After the jump, get a leg up on the new season and find out what we think’s going to happen at the Creek this year!

ODDS

· Dawson buys a flute. 2/1

· Pacey rides a tractor. 3/1

· Joey rides a tractor. 1/1

· Bessie Potter becomes stricken with polio 2/1

· A giant ape is loosed upon the town and hides in the police station. 3/1

· A giant ape rides a tractor. 2/1

FUN WITH THE OVER UNDER

· Number of times Pacey changes his pants during the season: 4

· Number of boyfriends named “Pervis Ellison” Joey beds: 2.5

· Amount of scotch drank by giant ape in police station: 3 fingers

· Lanterns used by Bessie Potter during cave adventure: 7

· Times Dawson smells his own finger after eating jam: 6

· Number of times guest star Conrad Bain leaps off of a castle: 3

· Number of times Jen Lindley uses the phrase “sleeping with the dojo.”: 7

· Large tents used by farmhands during county fair: 4

Monday Morning Oddsline

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, Monday Morning Oddsline

IN THE WAKE OF USC/ND SATURDAY
· Matt Leinart is the front-runner in the Heisman Trophy race once again - 3/2
· Rumored new Leinart roommate Nick Lachey will spend the next month getting nothing better than his roomie’s castoff ass - EVEN
· A two- or three-loss Notre Dame team will still find a way to get a BCS bowl bid - 4/1
· Notre Dame WR Jeff Samardzija has cemented his status as State Farm Insurance’s Top Sales Performer in the Greater Valparaiso, IN area for 2010 based on cache earned in Saturday’s game - 5/1

LA-LA-LAND ON THE OVER/UNDER
· Number of episodes Freddie Prinze, Jr./Brian Austin Green vehicle Freddie will air before it’s permanently shelved - 5
· Number of gossip rag photos printed this week of the starlet belly bulging with the Cruise/Holmes bastard spawn - 8
· Percentage of Doom ticket buyers who still can’t tell the difference between The Rock and Vin Diesel - 33%

FUTURES WE GOT FIVE BUCKS ON
· What time will the Alaskan moose finally fall to his death from the ledge on which he’s trapped - TUESDAY, 4:45AM TO 4:45PM - 12/1
· Outcome of the Iraqi Constitutional Referendum - GEORGE BUSH DECLARED IRAQI PRESIDENT BY FLORIDA SUPREME COURT - 25/1
· Name New York Times reporter Judith Wilson will finally reveal as her source in the Valerie Plame debacle - SADDAM HUSSEIN - 50/1

Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Paris Hilton’s Next Move

READ MORE: Paris Hilton, Claire Zulkey, Cultural Oddsmaker

It’s surprising that by now none of the online bookmakers have thrown up anything about the newly disengaged Paris Hilton at this point. We’ve waited. Patiently. But our patience wanes easily so instead we went out and recruited our very own Paris Hilton expert in the form of one Claire Zulkey: Journalist,satirist, pop culture enthusiast and Paris Hilton sycophant. And good Claire has not only presented us with a list of odds most likely to be put forth in the next few days about Paris, but also gives her own little commentary on their possible outcome. It’s a Cultural Oddjacking masterpiece. Follow the Zulkey-ized odds, after the jump.

Paris gets fat.

Paris seems like she’s the type who is naturally thin, so her getting fat anytime soon is unlikely. However, neither of her parents are especially svelte, plus if Britney Spears can bounce back to popularity after giving birth, Paris might follow in fashion. Insert video clip here of Judd Nelson: “You see, you’re gonna get married, you’re gonna squeeze out a few puppies and then…” Anyway, people will certainly talk about that, probably with more approval than anything else Hilton has done in her entire life.

200/1

Her next movie sucks

Not sure if this is amounts to a scandal, but would anybody have been talking about House of Wax if Hilton wasn’t in it? Her next movie, Pledge This, has Hilton is a much higher profile role, plus, it was made by the geniuses at National Lampoon. Could it be a female “Van Wilder”? Not even close.

2/1

She lipsyncs during live performances

Paris has been promising us a music album for some time now, and she’ll have to deliver. And if she wants people to buy whatever new piece of crap she’s hawking on us, she’ll have to make appearances. Paris’ public snafus seem too carefully planned to allow for the potential of an embarrassing screwup such as singing off-key, so is a ‘backing vocal’ in the future?

8/1

She lipsyncs on her album

It’s hard to listen to Paris talk, so listening to her sing really will be interesting. Lipsyncing on an album is rare but if you pray hard enough to the patron saint of Milli Vanilli, it won’t be her voice we’ll be hearing on her record.

32/1

She comes out of the closet for once and for all

Yes, yes, we all know that getting caught in sapphic smooch is a great way to hottenize yourself to the presses. But Paris has been caught in more than the occasional Madonna-on-stage liplock, and we have the camera phone pictures to prove it. Michael Musto claims here that Paris is a full-fledge dyke. Men everywhere hope for the forming of a Portia-and-Paris blonde lipstick lesbo brigade.

65/1

She comes out of the closet with Nicole Richie

It was more likely when Nicole was Paris’ dumpy, ugly, less famous friend and she wasn’t engaged to DJ Adam Goldensteinowitz. But there was a blind item once stating there was a sex video floating around involving Paris and a friend who sounded suspiciously like Richie. Strong possibility

3/1

Dirty pictures of her involving latest miniature pet

Ugh. This is just gross, but every rumor has to start somewhere.

5400/1

Fun With the Over/Under

Number of self-designed, grammatically-incorrect t-shirts Paris debuts in the next year: 4

Number of US Weekly Covers: 8

Number of press releases she puts out expressing sadness or confusion
or a request for privacy: 2

Number of new versions of her perfume line: 2

Number of photos shown online revealing a glimpse of nipple or vagina: 3

Number of photos published of her with half-asleep eyes and smug smirk: 1400

Previous Cultural Oddsmakers

Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Lost

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, Lost, Television Betting

It is a glorious time of the year—crackling leaves, that wood-burning Halloween smell, and that unsettling feeling that we’re just getting older every day and all of our dreams are slowly disintegrating into a pile of ash. But we have the fall TV season to get us through. In celebration of the beginning of its second season, today’s Cultural Oddsmaker gives the breakdown on ABC’s Gilligan-esque hit show Lost. Our guest handicapper is Aileen Gallagher of the mighty Black Table, who shows us that she’s as adept at oddsmaking as she is at sneering. Proceed to the land of Lost, after the jump.

Honestly, when was the last time a network television show got your attention? OK, pretend you don’t know about The O.C.. We here at Oddjack are so wary of broadcast TV that we don’t even notice it until it’s out on DVD. A couple of weeks ago Blockbuster had nothing to rent except this show that the lame guy at our office talked up called Lost. Maybe watching it would give us something to discuss round the ole water cooler.

A coke-fueled 24 hours later, we’d watched the entire season.

Tonight marks the premier of Lost’s second season, where we will learn who took Walt, what those numbers mean, and precisely how many shirts Jack can sweat through. Who are we kidding – these writers won’t give up shit until February sweeps week. In the meantime, we can assuage our curiosity through the magic of gambling.

ODDS

The entire island goes on a heroin binge with the stash from the Beechcraft, and is nodding out when the rescue boat shows up: 18/2

Locke eats someone’s heart: 5/1

Locke eats his own heart: 3/1

More Oz cast members appear on the island, commence shanking: 9/1

Probability that Lost has some sort of religious/apocalyptic message that has something to do with the environment: 2/1

Lost serves as a lead-in to Laid a show about 48 survivors of the crash of Hooters Air Flight 815: 3/2

The Extreme Makeover team picks the cast of Lost as their next deserving family: 31/3

Richard Hatch from CBS’s Survivor kicks John Locke’s ass: 74/3

The irate cavemen from GEICO know all the answers, refuse to help: 29/2

Chances that Lost on HBO would feature more swearing than Deadwood: EVEN

Flashbacks grow increasingly mundane when Hurley gleans meaning recalling his last dump in civilization: 6/2

The 25 other survivors we know nothing about are really ugly and unfit for primetime: EVEN

FUN WITH THE OVER/UNDER

Amount of times you’ll think to yourself this season, “Those people must stiiiinnnnk” – 32

Factor by which Dominic Monaghan appears straighter on Lost than LOTR - 52

Number of meaningful glances between Kate and Jack – 19

Factor by which you stop caring about their sexual tension with every glance – 6

Amount of awkward father/son moments between Jack and his dad or Michael and Walt that remind you Lost is a network television show – 14

Number of shitty imitation serial dramas in development right now – 8

Days Dick Wolfe has given his creative team to come up with six variations of a serial drama he can syndicate for the next 15 years: 2

Messageboard posts featuring “Which Lost Character Are You” games: 1,218

Pages of dirty fan fiction involving Sayid and Shannon in S&M gear: 423

Previous Cultural Oddsmakers

Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: MTV VMA Awards

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, VMA Awards

Holla. This week’s Cultural Oddsmaker will pull together odds for this Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards ceremony. There stands to be much rock star posturing, shout-outs galore, and big ups all around, as the world’s most gigantic musical acts descend upon Miami for the weekend festivities. The event is hosted by Diddy and musical acts include Green Day, Kelly Clarkson, R.Kelly, 50 Cent, and Coldplay. It’s like Woodstock ‘94 all over again. Afer the jump, enjoy enough oddsmaking to kill a man in Reno.

We find it impossible that MTV still has a video music award since we haven’t seen a video on MTV since the world premiere of Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’. Well, apparently they do. And in addition to giving out a slew of awards to a bunch of people we’ve never heard of, it’s also one of the most highly anticipated awards shows of the year due to the gigantic celebrity turn out. Brace yourselves for the inevitable horrendous displays of hubris.

PROPS ON PROPS

Diddy gives props to Biggie: 1/2

Diddy gives props to Tupac: 1/2

Diddy gives props to Admiral William Stockdale: 45/1

Diddy gives props to Tropical Storm Katrina: 15/2

Kelly Clarkson gives props to Biggie: 34/1

Kelly Clarkson gives props to Justin Guarini: 31/8

Green Day gives props to a Ramone: 16/1

Green Day gives props to Donald Rumsfeld: 100/1

Coldplay gives props to Brad Pitt: 53/1

Shakira gives props via translator: 27/6

ODDS

50 Cent will wear a turtle neck: 100/3

R. Kelly will perform “Trapped in a Closet” while trapped in a cardboard closet: 3/1

The Killers will perform a duet with grammy award winner Michael Penn: 14/5

Miami will be bumpin’: 3/1

Miami will be slammin’: 4/1

Miami will be under water: 1/2

Soundgarden reunites to perform a rendition of ‘Spoonman’ renamed ‘Moonman’ for awards: 69/2

Comedian Jeffrey Ross makes inappropriate Bea Arthur joke at some point during ceremony: 6/1

Camera pans to Bea Arthur sitting in audience wearing a befuddled expression: 17/2

Britney Spears will wear t-shirt showcasing veiny boobs: 5/1

Courtney Love will be some place in studio inexplicably snorting Valtrex: 7/1

FUN WITH THE OVER/UNDER

“What’s up, Miami!” greetings by presenters: 897

“Wasssuuup, Miami!” greetings by Budweiser guys: 0

“Special” performances: 3

“Special” performances featuring Diddy: 5

“Special” performances featuring Buckethead: 1

Previously: Cindy Sheehan’s Last Stand [Oddjack]
Wild on Tara! [Oddjack]

Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Wild on Tara!

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, Gridskipper, Tara Reid, Tara!", Wild, on

This week’s cultural oddsmaker follows the bouncing scary monster boob of Tara Reid as she embarks upon her new career as host of E!’s Wild On series, which premieres tonight on 9 p.m. Has there ever been a Hollywood marriage more suited than this unholy union of woman, sun, sand, and 58-gallon margarita? We don’t think so. After the jump, follow guest oddsmaker Chris Mohney of our baby’s momma’s best friend’s brother site, Gridskipper, as he takes a break from tracking Rugenbrau festivals in Berne to handicap the crap out of Tara.

Tonight, nip-slip queen Tara Reid will host the premiere of Wild on Tara Reid, her new travel show on the E! network. The first episode follows Reid as she traipses around the Greek islands. Even as trashy celeb aficionados lick their lips at a potential train wreck of Anna Nicole Smith proportions (perhaps not those physically literal proportions), Reid and E! indignantly claim that the show will serve as a fun and informative travelogue. No no no, this shan’t be some globetrotting booze-drenched bacchanal! If that’s what E! wanted, why would they have hired an august personage like Tara Reid? Oh, right.

So yes, rest assured that various assistant producers will fan out across Europe to gather solid B-roll footage to splice between Reid’s frolicking on the beach, discreet visits to the cabana with the best coke, repeat frolicking, breezing through quaint village restaurants to pick at a local fish dish, then back to town for a salad and cocktails, then the clubs, then shots, then the off camera stagger, stagger, grub with pre-approved local gigolo or imported boytoy pal, roll, fall, puke, stagger, limo, assisted shower, bed, hangover, lather, rinse, repeat. As Reid herself says in the preview trailer, “I love people. I always have a good time … I’m known for that.” Indeed you are, honey.

Odds:

Reid is, at any given moment, wearing underwear: 8/1

Historical or cultural data from any featured destination successfully absorbed by Reid’s vodka sponge of a brain: 18/1

In any episode, Reid purchases locally produced article of clothing, models for camera, discards: 1/60

Reid, forced by handlers to watch running of bulls in Pamplona from safety of balcony, secretly fantasizes about slipping away and risking it all for a moment of glorious, transcendent freedom among the runners: 25/1

Americans below Reid’s Pamplona balcony secretly fantasize about screaming up to her, “Show us your tits!”: 10/1

They do so: 6/1

She complies: 3/1

They regret it: EVEN

Reid samples absinthe while in Barcelona: 2/1

Her mind opened by the psychoactive properties of “green fairy” libation, Reid renounces fame and opens a literary salon in a Tangier basement apartment: 10,000/1

Reid confuses Greek and Roman ruins, history, language, food, prophylactics: 1/9

Reid exposed to venereal disease she has not yet encountered: 75/1

Tipsy, blonde American starlet swarmed by cameras mistaken by locals for Greek goddess: 300/1

Tipsy, blonde American starlet swarmed by cameras mistaken by locals for Paris Hilton: 50/1

Tipsy, blonde American starlet swarmed by cameras mistaken by Hilton fiance and Greek playboy Paris Latsis for Paris Hilton: 3/1

Fun with the Over/Under

Number of times Reid denies in preview that show will focus on drunken partying: 2

Number of times Reid mentions “going to clubs” and/or “doing shots” in preview: 3

Ratio of on-camera drinks consumed by Reid to actual number of drinks consumed by Reid: 1:5

Number of local historians or respectable figures deceived into appearing with Reid, then later aghast at what they participated in: 17

Number of thoughtful nods per episode performed by Reid when something is being explained to her: 36

Average elapsed time between indulgent chuckling and disbelieving, embarrassed laughter by local guests when forced to converse with Reid: 90 seconds

Number of man-sluts contractually provided to Reid at each destination: 5

Previous Cultural Oddsmakers:
Gawker vs. Onion Softball [Oddjack]
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [Oddjack]
Live 8 Odds [Oddjack]
New York City Gay Pride Parade [Oddjack]
Russel Crowe’s Next Victim [Oddjack]
New Vanity Fair Editor Odds [Oddjack]
Paris Hilton’s Engagement [Oddjack]

Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Gawker vs. Onion Softball

READ MORE: Cultural Oddsmaker, Gawker, The Onion

In an effort to make our yearly navel-gazing quota and meta-blog requirement for Gawker, this week’s Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker breaks down today’s media softball game between Gawker and the Midwestern faux news juggernaut that is The Onion. Blogging roving satellites and bloody stumps Andrew Krucoff and Chris Gage escaped from the celebrity legal beat to handicap this epic battle of athletically challenged dorks. Point and laugh, after the jump.

Neither team shows up: 1.5/1

An Onion staffer will realize that neither his paper nor Gawker’s web site is in any way making a difference, even in a sort of meta-critic, post-irony, Daily Show with John Stewart kind of way, at which point he will swing dejectedly at a junk pitch while thinking of placing a pillow over a sleeping child’s face: 2/1

Onion writer Joe Garden gets Conan O’Brien’s slot when he leaves for the Tonight Show, regardless of the outcome of this game: 14/1

Game is live-blogged on new Weblogs, Inc sports site: 1/4

Fabian Basabe swings back and forth from the top of the back-stop, heckles Gawker editor Jessica Coen, and calls her the N-word: 12/1

Onion desk jockey Herbert Kornfeld is revealed as an Asian man who looks like he goes to the gym quite frequently, gets two hits: 16/1

The seventh-inning stretch will be “Rocky Mountain High” sung by Jim Anchower into a bong: 4/1

A double will be referred to as a “Baby Godzilla”; a triple, as “the bad Godfather”; and a homer, as “Plato’s Retreat.”: 7/1

A Daily Candy staffer will be called in as a ringer: 6/1

The game becomes a basis for one of Maria Schneider’s “Pathetic Geek Stories” where the Onion staff is caricatured as a stampede of wild ponies: 15/1

Area man reluctantly admits how much he hates company softball games: 1/5

New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Times cover the game and Gothamist summarizes the next day using links from all three sources: 2/1

The gays will win: EVEN

Fun with the Over/Under

Errors: 79
Faces on balls: 7
Minutes Gawker media publisher Nick Denton and Gawker editor Jesse Oxfeld argue over who is “pitcher” and “catcher”: 11
Groin massage therapy procedures: 29
Cumulative SPF protection applied by these back-fat writers: 1,086
Misidentifications of a rotator cuff: 18
Number of “Guest Players” Gawker uses: 9
Cheesehead hats worn by attending fans: 2
Number of Conde Nast employees who give a shit: 27
Minutes devoted to fact-checking: 3
Deaths: 2
Number of times Area Man shakes head in disgust and says, “every time, this happens every fuckin’ time he comes to the plate”: 5
Denton’s baseball cap size: 14
Number of poorly executed high-fives and fist pounds: 23

Previously: Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [Oddjack]