SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

A NEW PROJECT IS BORN

In the grand tradition of such press kit tokens as the pink wig, the feather boa and mask and the mullet, the mud wrestling mixture, the advertising urinal cake and the CPR dummy comes a new item of glory:

The Spartan helmet.

Rommie got this gigantic steel helmet in the mail last week as part of the promotion for the new game Spartan: True Warrior.

I walked in one day to see it perched on my desk like this.

Karla said, "We thought it had your name all over it."

I couldn't have been more proud of that declaration.

So, of course, I had to try it on.

Mitch warned me, "Be careful. That thing is sharp."

But what is danger when glory lurks just beyond.

It was more than a little snug. And claustrophobic. It flattened my nose like a pug until someone instructed that the tab in the front could be pushed out.

At that very moment, the Spartan Helmet Project was born.

The thing had a life of its own. As with the Sombrero Project, the helmet was proving that everyone looked better as a Spartan warrior.

Some filled it out better than others.

Of course, My Muse had to have a go at it.

It brought out John's inner gladiator. Here, he's pictured giving the Sphincter Power Salute.

Ben reflexively dropped into a Backstreet Boys pose and started singing, "I wannnt it thaaaaat way."

Backstreet's back alright.

Wes chose the moment to accept a Golden Spork Award that never really belonged to him in the first place.

After Wednesday, everyone will want one of those things.

Howard, of course, came bounding over with his own sword. This sounds ludicrous until you realize the man has a gas mask on his desk hanging from the mailbox shelves that used to reside on the set of "Homicide."

The man knows from props.

He looked not unlike the warrior from the Spartan video game:

Minus the dress shirt, of course.

As if things weren't stupid enough, we started a game of, "Let's See What Magnets Stick To The Helmet."

Rommie even tried it on backward to see if it fit any better.

Over the weekend, I tested out the helmet's aerodynamic properties in relation to a delicious Cohiba cigar.

I don't want to say that the helmet was a poor conduit for smoke and instead trapped it inside the head adornment and threatened to aesphyxiate me.

I will say, however, that if I ever decide to enrich a mullet fillet with the intense aroma of mesquite charcoal, I have just the device in which to smoke that mother to oblivion.

For more photos from the Spartan Project, click here.

Posted by Jeff at November 7, 2005 07:55 AM