Funny Friday

Shaquille O’Neal has a new reality show. It’s called Shaq Vs. Here’s how it works: Shaq goes around challenging top professional athletes at their own sport. Everything is forced to be dramatic by the use of awkward trash talk and pop music.

Having watched one entire episode, I think the whole thing is rather frivolous. Let’s rearrange this concept and apply it to something more serious and meaningful.

Let’s do...

New York Vs.

The rules are simple. New York faces off against all challengers in a no-holds barred competition ending in conquest, death, or both.

First, we have to pit New York City against Upstate New York to determine who has supremacy over New York State. This step is crucial because whoever wins this battle will set the tone for the rest of New York’s domination.

We’ll assume that New York City is made up of the five boroughs. Sorry, Brooklyn, but we’re not letting you become independent.

Long Island doesn’t count in this discussion because everybody knows that Long Island is full of nothing but rich people who get drunk all day. They couldn’t be bothered for this struggle and so will remain neutral and apathetic until New York State is unified. I know this because I went to school in Westchester and read The Great Gatsby.

NYC vs. Upstate

Here’s the breakdown:

Population

NYC: 8.3 million
Upstate: 8.4 million (Total population of NYS minus NYC and Long Island)

Advantage: PUSH

Armed Forces

NYC: 37,838 cops.
Upstate: The military academy at West Point.

Advantage: NYC

Money

NYC: Wall Street.
Upstate: Everybody who works at Wall Street lives in Westchester.

Advantage: UPSTATE

Intelligence

NYC: Columbia University.
Upstate: Cornell University.

Advantage: NYC

Diplomacy

NYC: The United Nations headquarters.
Upstate: Cocktails? Golf?

Advantage: NYC

Prognosis

First, while Upstate is busy arguing amongst themselves over which country club to hold their strategic meeting at, NYC sends a sizable force of cops to take control of the Metro-North. This is a masterstroke by NYC because all the teenagers in Upstate begin annoying their parents to death (literally) because they can’t go to the City to waste their parents’ money. While domestic disputes rage all over Upstate, Mount Vernon betrays Upstate and forms an alliance with NYC in exchange for NYC’s promise of support in Mount Vernon’s feud against New Rochelle. Just as Upstate begins to recover from these developments, taxis flood the roads of Upstate, causing massive traffic and paralyzing all transportation. Those still alive in Upstate can only respond by going inside to watch television. But NYC delivers checkmate by taking control of cable programming and showing nothing but reruns of The Real World. Half of the remaining Upstaters sit on their couches until their brains turn to mush and the other half die of some combination of alcohol poisoning, STDs, and infections resulting from piercings and tattoos.

Having demonstrated their dominance over all of New York, Bloomberg unites the state under an iron fist and sets his sights on his next target: New Jersey.