It’s Friday in Shlakeland, and that can only mean one thing: Game Time!

Last week, we played the PSB Original Game Little-Known Facts, where you the reader get to make up things as pass it off as truth - just like Wikipedia! The topic of choice was Michael Jackson. Hey, did you know Michael Jackson didn’t get the nickname “The King of Pop” until after he started doing Pepsi commercials? Yeah, neither did we. Anyway, here were some of the good answers we got.

Joey Bag of Donuts gave us this fact: “The Jackson Five are offering a 20 percent discount on their reunion!” Too soon? Probably.

Then, Tony and Lorenzo seemed to have an in tandem response, where they claimed that two MJ hits, “Ben” and “Rock With You” were both inspired by the singer’s sister Janet’s pet rock, which coincidentally was named Ben.

But the winner this week is DJ for his answer, “Michael Jackson’s hit song ‘Bad’ was originally titled ‘Good.’” We didn’t know that! I guess that’s why they call the game Little-Known Facts. Onward to this week’s game!

For those of you who don’t know, this weekend Americans celebrate our Independence Day, honoring the day when we declared our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and grilled hot dogs. To celebrate, we are playing another round of the PSB Original Game, Little-Known Facts, where you the reader get to make up things as pass it off as truth - just like Wikipedia! Ever heard of it? See what you can come up with for this topic.

Come up with a little-known fact about the American Revolution.

It’s like history class, but you get to make it up! Here is our fact:

Benedict Arnold’s birth name was Arnold Benedict, but halfway through elementary school he changed it.

See? It’s easy as pie. Apple pie. American as apple pie. So, play! It’s your patriotic duty! And who knows, maybe in 100 years children in school will be learning the “facts” that you make up today.

I moved recently and so I had to cancel my DirecTV subscription. When I woke up this morning I saw that I had gotten a promotional email from them saying if I come back they will give me free movie channels. But, then I noticed the subject of the email was “We miss you” and it was sent at 2:20 AM. That’s not a promotion, that’s a booty call.

I don’t know how many of you know this, but I constantly keep sprigs of thyme with me wherever I go. That way, when people are planning stuff, and they say things like, “We don’t have enough time for that,” I can jump in and say, “Will this help?”

You know how when you are angry, people sometimes say you should count to ten? I think this is a good idea, except I say you should count down from ten and do it out loud. Try this next time you are having a fight with someone. Hopefully, it will help to keep you from yelling angrily at the other person.

But if it doesn’t, it will look really cool if you count down and then start screaming. It would be like a countdown to a beat down.

Michael Jackson’s death sure has made my car rides more entertaining. I’m already looking forward to when Paul McCartney dies. But I’ve got to be careful because if that happens too soon, we may be stuck with non-stop “The Girl Is Mine” and “Say Say Say.”

Hello again. And welcome to another edition of Game Time, everyone’s favorite Friday distraction. Last week was the PSB Original Game, Headliners, where you had to come up with a clever headline to an article about the Nationals beating the Yankees. How about a quick recap?

Tony’s response was perhaps the most concise and accurate: “Nats Beat Yanks, Still stink!” Very true, but perhaps a little too harsh. The Washington Post would never be so negative about a local team, the writers are too delusional.

Next, DJ said, “Yankees a National Embarrassment.” That would be a winner for the New York Post, but since we are Nationals fans and not Yankee fans, DJ loses. Sorry!

That means that the winner for this week is Elizabeth. Her headline was “The Nationals consider officially renaming themselves the Notionals in hopes for winning some games.” This came across as a believable headline, since it’s something totally ridiculous to try to change the team’s fate as opposed to, say, firing the coach! But, we digress. Congrats Elizabeth!

Now, this week’s Game Time. For those of you who don’t know, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has passed away at the age of 50. This is sad news.

But, we at the Pake Shlake Band pride ourselves on turning frowns upside down. We are frown flippers of the first order. So, this week’s Game Time will be about Michael Jackson. And, we will play the PSB Original Game, Little-Known Facts. This is an easy game to play, but allow us to refresh your memories as to the rules. We give you a topic, and your goal is to come up with a humorous, if perhaps untrue, fact about that topic. If you want to get a sense of the game, check out the past few times we’ve played. OK, here is the topic.

Come up with a little-known fact about Michael Jackson.

Here’s what we came up with:

In the song “You Wanna Be Starting Something,” the refrain “Mama say mama sa mama musa” is actually an Urdu expression, which roughly translates to, “Biggy Diggy Sniggy Donkey!”

See how easy it is? Now, we know Jacko is a controversial figure, so you may be tempted to put in a response about some of his more questionable hobbies. Please remember this is a family site. In other words, no references to “Ben.” Thanks, have fun, and post your facts.

So everybody know that Six Flags filed for bankruptcy recently? Well, they did. And I can’t seem to figure out why.

I guess it could be because they give away free park admission with a can of Coke.

That or the fact that they still use the Vengaboys in their commercials.

You know what expression I find very condescending? “Penny for your thoughts.” Dude, why are you a jerk?

1. You think I am such an egotistical fool that I would charge for my thoughts, or even take donations?

2. If I were really charging for my thoughts, don’t you think I would value them a bit higher than the lowest denomination of American currency?

And 3. Are my thoughts of such little value to you that you would offer me such a negligible amount in exchange?

No my friend, now you don’t get to know my thoughts. Except for this one: You stink.

Yesterday, Mike posted about mice, lice, and hice. I think I need to correct him on something.

The singular of “lice” is not “louse”. It’s just gross.

Since the plural of “mouse” is “mice,” and the plural of “louse” is “lice,” I’m going to start calling more than one house “hice”. Here’s an example:

Johnny: Hey, Mike, where are you going?
Mike: I’m going back to my house. Where are you going?
Johnny: I’m going to look at some houses. They are supposed to have nice Christmas decorations.
Mike: Oh cool. Why are their Christmas decorations still up? It’s June.
Johnny: The decorations aren’t up anymore. I just want to look at the houses that will have nice Christmas decorations come wintertime.
Mike: That’s odd. Well, have fun looking at the houses. I mean the hice.
Johnny: What?
Mike: The hice!
Johnny: Weirdo.

Notice Johnny used the archaic word “houses” because he is not up on the lingo.