The Spoiled Giant & The Giddy Flea

When I first saw this pic the other day on a couple of different places, I assumed that it was a fake:

But after many hours of high end sprectro-analysis, imaging truthification software, and celebrity data purification logrithms, I believe that the picture is authentic. Actually, I just blew it up a bit on PhotoShop and looked around for some of that tell-tale doctoring. I couldn't find any but I really didn't look that hard. Still, it's an impressive picture because either Kate has turned into some type of Amazonian or Tom has morphed into some sort of mythical land creature (by my guess he's a wood nymph with a +2 to peppiness). Curious, I dabbled around trying to find another pic where these two look like the more popular version of David Spade dating....well, David Spade dating anybody really. I didn't find much of anything but they say Tom has some really impressive lifts in his shoes and he does wear high-heeled cowboy boots quite alot. Then I remembered that the above pic was taken outside of the United States and so I went that route and quickly came up with this beauty.

This one was also captured abroad, while Katie was late in the pregnancy. You can already see that she has grown significantly in height just during her pregnancy alone. What does this mean? I really haven't a fucking clue but my gut feeling is that Scientology is causing this perfect couple to mutate at a rapid level. While in the states it is obvious that they have the clout to distort the truth--much the same way John Travolta made people believe that Battlefield: Earth was a good idea even after the movie had been made. Overseas, however, they can't hide from the fact that they are turning into the planets first supervillains. I can only hope that Brad & Angelina's many humanitarian efforts can cause a burst of genetic mutation as well so that they can one day thwart the soon end to humanity as we know it.

I Guess Life Was Simpler Back Then

She had a fondness for stringing beans. Popping off the ends, pulling out the strings, and throwing each parts into identical buckets by her feet. She could sit on the porch chair and work in such a fashion for hours on end without a moments rest. Breaking, stringing, tossing the green beans into buckets from morning to night. As the buckets would fill, someone would replace them with empty ones and as the large bowl of unstrung beans dwindled down, someone would exchange it for a full one. She didn’t seem to notice though. She would only stare ahead, never looking at anything; never even looking at the green beans as her hands quickly popped off the ends, strung out the strings, separated the parts. My great-grandmother could remember only one thing of her past life. She could only remember how to string green beans.

--from the short story, Kids on the Farm, which I never finished because I....really, I don't know why I didn't finish it.

I Don't Like Pie....In Poem Form

Alright, its apparent that your not truly a blogger until you have penned some sort of really shitty ass poem that makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Thankfully, I am quite up to that task and so I give you the single crappiest poem I could put together in less than thirty minutes. For my muse, I used yesterday's pointless blog about pies.

I Don't Like Pie

Its hard to believe,
This I already know.
To admit to not liking
A true food for the soul.

Maybe I’m messed up...
You know, not right in the head.
Maybe I dislike pies
Because I’m not taking proper meds.

Or, maybe I was traumatized by a pie
Some time in my past,
And now I hate them all;
Because one made me a bigoted pie-hating ass!

Or, now here's an idea:
Aliens planted a probe in my bum
That makes me hates pies
And, oddly, spearmint-flavored gum.

It could be that I like pies,
I've just been brainwashed to believe
That pies taste like dirt
And I should eat more fried cheese.

Of course, if you were to ask me
To chance a guess on a dare,
I think that I don’t like pies
Because they really should be square.

Sure, you might be angry at me now for having you read that but five, ten, maybe twenty years from now you won't be a bit angry about it. Or maybe you will. Frankly, I don't give a shit because I'm certain that I won't have a fucking clue about it and that's the most important thing.

I Don't Like Pie

There I said it. I've been spending the past two hours trying to figure out how I could not say it but I can't lie to myself: I don't like pie. I've been keeping that fact secret for nearly twenty years now (or ever since I turned down a McDonald's fried apple pie, feigning a false need to immediately go pee) but with yet another holiday season fastly approaching, I think it might be better to just come out right now. I know it doesn't make much sense because pies look delicious and they are usually full of really good stuff but I'd sooner just not eat if the only thing offered was a pie. My mother makes these amazing White Christmas pies during the holidays that everybody raves about....I tried one once. It was covered in coconut, the single foulest-tasting fruit in existence, and I had to spend a good two minutes walking around before I found opportune chance to spit my one bite into a garbage bin. I've tried pumpkin pie because everybody says pumpkin pie is the pie of the "Fall Season" or some shit. It tasted like sugary mush. I can think of like a hundred things that are better than sugary mush. I once made a really awesome apple pie (only because I like to cook) that looked absolutey delicious....but I didn't eat it despite my family giving it rave reviews. Why didn't I eat it? Because I've been burned enough eating nasty-ass pies, that's why.

I'd sooner eat a buttery ear of sweet corn....which just happens to be the only thing I disdain more than pies.

Lost In Blogs

Or maybe the blogs are lost in themselves or maybe I lost my blog. Maybe I should put up signs across the Internet, stating"Lost Blog": it's a few months old, fairly funny at times, definitely odd, and tends to wander aimlessly in any direction. If found, please turn it around and we should run back into each other eventually. To be honest, I spent the better part of two days just trying to get a handle on the motivation of all of these countless, endless, monotonous, angry, insane political blogs. I would have been better off trying to teach my cat how to speak Olde English with an Hispanic accent. All of these poli-blogs are pretty much the same although the more popular ones do seem to update on an almost minute by minute basis. But all the updates do is link to other blogs of like minds which end up linking back to the previous blog in a mindless, never-ending loop of blither blather. Take, for example, former President Clinton's less-than-tepid interview on Fox News. On the left, they applaud Clinton for "outing" Fox News as a right wing news organization (oh my, big cover story there) and on the right, they regale about how easy it was to show Clinton for a liar once more. Both sides are exactly right but how does that prove either side has any more validity than the other? Personally, I see no point in it so I'm off to check out what new poem Rosie's got going on over at Rosie. com. Sure, the poems are absolutely horrendous but they do make me want to drink faster. So the saying goes, "Faster to drink, Faster to bed." Or maybe it's, "Read Rosie's poems, Shoot yourself in the head." I'm hopin' its the former, not the latter because I don't own a gun and K-Mart is closed.

Lottery Tickets....A Reason To Dream Big

In any given year I might purchase two, possibly three, lottery tickets. But nearly every other person I know must buy no less than five Powerballs when ever the Jackpot gets to over a hundred million. If its less than hundred, they might buy a ticket or two but they really aren't all that excited about it. I guess if your gonna throw away a few dollars, paybacks of anything less than a hundred million really aren't worth the trouble. After many years of debating lottery tickets, I have long since stopped even trying because I always get the same insipid responses: "It's fun," "You don't have a chance of winning if you don't play," and, my favorite, "Well, if I win I'll be sure not to share any of it with you." That said, I certainly understand why people do buy lottery tickets (remember even I buy one or two on occasion) but it has nothing to do with winning....it has to do with getting, if just for a moment, to dream about winning. But, in America, dreaming isn't enough because in America you have to dream BIG which is why most people wait until the jackpot gets absolutely insanely huge before they even bother to buy a ticket. Dreaming about winning a million dollars means you get five hundred grand after taxes which will pay off the mortgage, buy a couple of decent new cars, and maybe get half of your family members out of debt. And that doesn't even account for the charities you always promised yourself you would give big contributions to if you won the lottery. Win a million bucks in the grand ol' USA and you will likely be filing for bankruptcy within the next couple of years. But winning a hundred million, well you could live like a virtual celebrity with that kind of cash!

Well, you could for a few years at least.

Not Gettin' It...Take Four...Or Five, Maybe

After a couple months of taking a break, I decided to type a bit into my blog on MySpace because, to be quite honest, I haven't figured out what the hell else I'm supposed to do there. I know people are addicted to it like crack but, to me, its a bit more like being addicted to The Weather Channel or public broadcasting. But, really, I haven't been giving it the ol' college try so I decided to spend all of my precious Internet time dedicated to MySpace. After twenty minutes of total boredom I discovered the Comedy button at the top. Funny that I never saw it before. I did not hestitate as I quickly clicked it and was teleported to a lovely site boasting the top MySpace featured comedians of the moment: they were Harland Williams and Bob Saget. Alright, Harland Williams...not bad, not bad. The fart scene from Rocketman was mediocre funny, I thought, so I hit the link to his MySpace page, figuring he blogged some sort of hilarity which garnered him the title of "featured comedian". Nope, all he did was link a scene from his upcoming movie, a link any twit could view on Yahoo! Movies. Then I viewed his blog. It was two entries, the best of which went something like this:

Have you ever wondered if space monkeys ever come to earth and mate with earth monkeys? Could there be a Spearth monkey somewhere out there? If so, please write to me, I want you to come home now!! Cap'n Tiddlywinks

Spearth monkeys? That's not fucking funny, Harland!

But, of course, the other featured comedian was Bob Saget. I felt sad as I clicked the link to Saget's page. I was supposed to feel popular on MySpace, instead I was gonna go see what was happenin' over on Bob Saget's MySpace page. Holy crap, as I've stated previously, MySpace is just like high school. His was a clip from Entourage which, while not amazing, totally owned Harland's weak-ass shit. But Bob didn't chance a blog entry which was smart...better let somebody with more wit write the shit for yah. I think Bob even had somebody write his own bio which is probably common for any seasoned non-comedian pretending to be a comedian to do.

As for MySpace, I still haven't figured out the point of it but I did get twelve new friend requests while writing this entry.

The Eighties Summed Up In One Video

Thinking back I always thought of the 80's as the era of shitty copycat bands, shittier fashion trends, and a long drought of being unable to speak to women (actually, thats probably more of a personal thing unrelated to the actual era). But then I remembered Max Headroom, the poster child for eighties culture. Max had it all up until he decided to star in his own TV show. It was an odd show that really couldn't find an audience, much like a million other shows that have come and gone throughout the decades, and was cancelled after the first season. Next, Coca-Cola dropped Max as their spokesman. Max spent the remaining years doing commercials for used car dealerships and second-rate hotels but by 1993 he no longer existed on a television set anywhere. And because of that he quickly fell from the thoughts and minds of millions of Americans. No one stopped to thank him or tell him goodbye because, really, no one had the time as they were all too busy being caught up in the something newer, the something not so yesterday. The something not so eighties. If you have a moment why not go back for a bit or if you've never been, why not visit there for the first time? Because nothing sums it up better than this classic video. And besides you don't have to wear Jams or five fucking Swatch watches on one arm to feel the experience (although feathering your hair or spritzing it up a bit with some Aqua-Net would probably be quite complimentary to the experience).

Take That Japan!

Sure, Honda might have made the first robot-man, ASIMO, and smart little Japanese engineers were the first to create the first Mech-Man as well which I blogged about way back in June. But it was the United States that eeked out a win with the first legitimate bionic woman. Her name is Claudia Mitchell and not too surprisingly she is a Marine. The article doesn't state what sort of role Claudia will be filling for our government but I'm certain it will be highly secret, extremely dangerous, and involve a lot of slow motion scenes. The article also does not disclose how much it cost to create the first bionic woman but I'm guessing it was in the millions...possibly something with the number six in it. If you want to get a glimpse into just what Claudia will be able to do with her new bionic arm, you might want to check out this clip.



That is text book ball crushing right there. Personally, I'm glad I'm on her side. You can see the article on Yahoo! News here.

I Disagree Although I Must Say I Do So With Complete Agreement

I ran across this article over at Boing Boing talking about the release of a documentary called, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which pretty much puts to task the MPAA's ratings system. More specifically, the documentary questions the way the MPAA uses it's dreaded NC-17 rating to push out many indie films. I can recall that the intention of the new ratings system was to get a clearer picture for parents on what might or might not be suitable for their children to watch. I can even remember President Clinton demanded a V-chip be put into every television so that we could finally control what programs our children could watch: the V-chip was (and still is, I guess) governed entirely by the MPAA ratings system. Personally, I always viewed the NC-17 rating as a legal rating since only adults could be allowed to watch those movies. In otherwords, it was a safeguard against things like the infamous Janet Jackson Superbowl incident: a time when parents around the country voiced outrage because their children got a glimpse at a starburst-framed nubian nipple. To me, NC-17 meant simply, "Parents, we think your children should be eighteen, a legal adult, to watch this movie." But then I read this in the Boing Boing article:

If they give a movie an NC-17 (no children under 17 admitted), it's a death-sentence

Blink and you might not see my point for defending the MPAA's NC-17 rating go up in dust. It says that certain children, specifically seventeen year olds, can watch this movie. That isn't the cut and dry "we think you should be an adult" rating that I thought was originally intended for NC-17. I was confused and so I went to the MPAA website and this is what they had to say about the NC-17 rating.

This rating declares that the Rating Board believes this is a film that most parents will consider patently too adult for their youngsters under 17.

That is exactly what was in the Boing Boing article! Then I found the rating itself, the one which is displayed on any movie rated NC-17.

Actually, the rating logo was supposed to be here but I can't upload the stupid thing but it says this:

NC 17: NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED

Right there on the MPAA's website it says you have to be an adult to see this movie and yet you don't have to be an adult to see this movie. That's like saying you believe in the freedom to eat peas just before you condemn the pea as a racist! Well...actually it isn't anything like that at all. I guess I'm just annoyed with myself. If I would have just looked on Wikipedia first, the whole thing might have been a bit clearer to me. Funny, that originally the rating allowed seventeen year olds and only later did it disallow them (funny to me since I always thought that was the case from the get go).

A little story bonus for anybody who actually read through this pointless blog entry. Back in my day, my mom always had a blanket ready to throw in front of the television if ever a "naughty scene" would begin to present itself and if the "f" word came up even once...it was movie over. I can remember watching Halloween II at the movies with mom, my brother, and one of our friends and my mom spent half of the time hitting us in the head with the large vat of popcorn so that we would close our eyes when ever one of the nearly two hundred R-rated scenes presented itself. After a while she stopped hitting me since I spent the whole time with my eyes closed anyway. I hated scary movies and, besides that, I thought seeing a boobie at the age of ten would destroy my soul. I only told mom I wanted to watch the stupid movie because the one thing I hated more than scary movies with boobies in them was having my brother hold me down so that he could spit a loogie in my mouth (I could've kept my mouth closed, I know, but I always had to yell for mom at some point and my brother knew it....the patient bastard always knew it).

The image of that is yours to keep.

Dream A Little Dream

That's Anousheh Ansar and she's about to go into space. She will be the fourth "tourist" to visit the International Space Station since its creation. But it is highly unlikely that Anousheh will be spending her time checking out the local eateries or just lounging about catching some rays because this is strictly a business trip for her. You see, she is part owner in Space Adventurers, Ltd., a nice little upstart company that, to quote their website :

...is the only company in the world currently operating commercial orbital spaceflight and will be the first to launch clients using a new breed of lower cost suborbital spacecraft currently under development worldwide.

All I have to say is that it is about time we could get some decent space travel at a lower cost. So what is this lower cost? Well you and a loved one could visit the ISS like Anousheh for a mere one hundred million dollars! That is per seat of course.... they're Space Adventurers, not Great West for Christ's sake! Still, I can tell that you are apprehensive on spending two hundred million dollars on a visit to the International Space Station so here are five points you should consider before you spend the money on a luxury liner, small island, private 757, and a house made of gold-plated diamonds instead:

1. Peeing in space is wayyyy cooler than peeing in an airplane (but not quite as cool as peeing on a drunken hobo)

2. You don't have to pass customs as you hurtle like a meteor back to the planet so your free to buy whatever you want while up there

3. Wearing "fat" clothes is not only acceptable, it's required

4. Space cheeze whiz is to friggin' die for! And you can eat as much of it as you want and won't gain a single pound no matter how much you eat

5. Here's what Heidiemarie said during her recent space walk around the ISS: "Oh, that's a beautiful view."

Priceless. The Bard himself could not have said it better, Heidie.

You can find the article here.

Pickin' On The Little Guy

First, those snooty bastards at the International Astronomical Union had to go and say that Pluto wasn't even a planet. Now the Minor Planet Center has decided to change the dwarf planet's name to 134340. What sort of example does the Minor Planet Center make by running it's operation like a 1938 Nazi concentration camp? Ask any little person and they will tell you that life is hard enough but imagine how much more difficult it would be if they had to go by 356098 or Z-69-Wammy instead of Stu or Betty! Personally, I've never liked using this term "dwarf" to begin with since it implies inferiority. I think we should start using "cute" instead because everyone would agree that a small version of anything is always cuter. Just look at the wee monkey I blogged about last month. So you can go ahead and change its name if you want to, Minor Planet Center (or Astronaut Nazis as I refer to them now) but it will still be Pluto to me. The cutest planet in the solar system.


You can find the article here.

Finally, The Wait Is Over

I don't know about you but I've been waiting for the new DVD release of the original Star Wars Trilogoy for months now....or, at least, since the last time George Lucas released the original Star Wars Trilogy. Now some would think Georgie has quite a bit of nerve re-releasing a movie he has already released, showed again en masse at the movies, butchered and maimed, released again, and the released again, and is now releasing once more. Some might even compare George to a pimp who only has one hooker but those people are obviously not Star Wars fans. In this newest version, you actually get the original version and the updated 2004 version so you can wane away the day comparing every single image. It's a geek freak's wet dream. For me, just knowing that the "R" in rebel got changed is justification enough to make the purchase.

Come on, even a non-Star Wars fan would have to admit that the updated "Rebel" version looks much better and just makes more sense. Is it worth twenty bucks? Well, only borderline Star Wars fans will even ask themselves such a question.

Giant Microbes

As we near the holiday season, I think I might mix up my gift buying this year. Really, I’m just sick of buying dad another pair of jeans and a gift card to Sears so this year I’m gonna give him...Flesh Eating Virus. I know how he hates going on all of those diets so I figure that might in some way inspire him to keep losin’ the weight! As for mom, I know what she needs after watching my sister’s baby all day and I imagine the holidays will only be worse for her so I think a nice Sleeping Sickness will do her a lot of good. But I’m saving the real goodie for the wife as I plan on surprising her on Christmas morning with The Clap. That’s right, she gets gonorrhea for all those years in college when she probably expected it but I didn’t give it to her. If you want to mix up your gift buying this year by giving friends and family a little Black Death or Ebola, you might wanna check out Giant Microbes website.

Sadly, as of yet, they don’t have Bird Flu which sucks because that’s a perfect gift for my step-dad, who thinks he is going to get it every time a pigeon craps on his window. As for myself, I wouldn’t mind getting The Flu because I could stay home a few days guilt free since I could honestly tell my boss, "No, I can’t come in today. A friend gave me the flu."

Mussels....Back On The Menu?

According to this study on Yahoo! News, too much Prozac in our rivers and streams may be endangering aquatic life. It would seem that certain elements of Prozac are contained within urine and when that urine ends up in freshwater supplies it, according to the study, kills freshwater mussels. Wow. Thats a pretty impressive, highly specific, study but I'm wonderin' why stop there? Why not go a step farther and see what the effect of eating a Prozac-enhanced mussel has on a human? We all know that oysters have certain qualities but oysters, in the right situation, actually have a bearable taste (not for me, but for the public in general). Currently, 70% of our mussel population has gone extinct and I believe it's because the things just taste so absolutely foul. Even fried mussels are nasty; they taste like fried meaty dirt. But if a study showed that mussels have a calming effect similar to taking Prozac then, hey, people might start eating the things. They might even catch a cult-like following similar to their more refined, libido-inducing cousin. And, guess what, once people start wanting something, somehow the supply for that something grows to meet the demand. Maybe one day they will have drug-enhanced food of all types. Things like Viagra-infused beef or a nice tuna steak slightly seared in olive oil, parsley, and Lipitor. As for me, I'm holdin' out for some nice thick cut bacon which came from a pig who was only fed a steady diet of corn, gravy, Xanax, Thorazine, and Ritalin. Oh yeah, that'd be some good hog there.

Sidekick or Superhero?

I’ll admit it, I’m a nut for superhero movies. I always have been. That’s why the really bad ones upset me so badly (and why I’ve still haven’t finished my top ten worst movies of all-time list because I just can’t bare to watch Batman & Robin again). However, we have been fortunate to be living in a true Renaissance era for superhero blockbusters. Even the bad ones aren’t as bad as they were fifteen or twenty years ago. Like it or not, Tom Jane as Punisher was infinitely better than the peculiar casting of Dolph Lundgren in the role back in 1989. Sure, I thought Fantastic Four was campy but you never witnessed the first Fantastic Four shot in 1994, featuring the CSI savvy Rebecca Staab as Invisible Girl. It was never released but my friend found a copy online. A little bit of the kid in me died after watching that tragedy.

The funny thing is that my son is even a bigger superhero nut than me. Right now, he doesn’t know if he wants to be Incredible Hulk, Captain America, or Mr. Fantastic for Halloween. He said he would be Mr. Fantastic but he can’t stretch very good so he’ll go with Incredible Hulk because he does have the ability to Super Jump (really, he doesn’t but, hey, he’s three and I’m not about to shatter a three year old’s one-day hope of being able to leap buildings). It was also because of my son that I had to watch Sky High eighteen times (ten of which were when he was out of the room! I know, I know...I’m a friggin’ awesome dad!). Anyway, after the tenth viewing of Sky High, which is a cute movie that splits kids into either superheroes or sidekicks, I started to wonder how many of the superhero characters I watched as a kid were actually nothing more than overblown sidekicks. No, that isn’t true...I didn’t worry about all of them. I just worried about the Wonder Twins.

I loved the Wonder Twins as a kid. I can remember sitting there on Saturday mornings just waiting for them to say, "Wonder Twin powers...Activate! In the form of...," and I would almost get goose bumps. But I never really thought of them as superheroes because they never really thwarted evil or did anything all that impressive. Usually they would just put out a fire or perform roadside service to a car wreck. Did that make them superheroes? According to Sky High, you had to have a superpower in order to be a superhero. Any old power just wouldn’t do, it had to be super. Sure, Jayna, the sister, was a shoe in for superhero status because she could change into any animal, even extinct dinosaurs, but Zan, the brother, he could only take the form of water. Usually, he turned into a small bit of water which was easily contained within a pail held by their sidekick, Gleek; the buck-toothed alien monkey. In Sky High, there is a kid who can turn into liquid and he is immediately tossed into the sidekick bin. I worried that Zan might have fallen the same fate if more stringent controls had been put on superhero status back in the seventies and eighties. I even watched a show the other day (because my son made me) where Zan turned into gelatin dessert. I kid you not. As Jayna circled overhead in the form of a gracious eagle, Zan said, "In the form of gelatin dessert!" I’m sorry but that just isn’t very superhero-ish if you ask me. The only thing worse might have been, "In the form of a....tampon!" Sure, a tampon isn't made from water but, hey, neither is gelatin dessert...at least not entirely. Regardless, Zan's saving grace was that he did turn into an entire river of gelatin dessert which was pretty impressive, probably impressive enough for him to keep his superhero status even in today's competitve superhero environment. As for my son, with a one and a half inch high Super Jump, I think he might turn into a pretty decent sidekick one day.

Five Years Of The Best Conspiracy Theory

I guess I enjoy the conspiracy theories a bit more than most people because they are almost like reading really good fiction that reads exactly like really good non-fiction (which, technically, it is since the person claiming the theory actually believes it to be true). When Clinton was president it was all about drug running and killing people to get to the top and, always in between, coercing ladies to sit on his jolly roger (and I don't mean his brother). But Bush, well he's got the really juicy conspiracy theories. But my favorite has always been that 9/11 conspiracy. If you haven't heard this one in full detail, it goes something like this:

It begins with the whole Enron scandal which was a company, as you know, that had business ties to both the President and Vice-President because of their large dealings with energy, mainly oil, in Texas. After Enron, the SEC began investigating a multitude of different companies related to Enron and the energy business. These investigative documents were being stored in Building 7 in New York City (whether this is true or not, I haven't the foggiest but I digress).

Next, enter Dick Cheaney and George Bush who, fearing that they will certainly be discovered as crooks greater than even that of Kenneth Lay, orchestrate a plan. They decide to destroy the documents by blowing up the World Trade Center buildings and then, when nobody is really looking, blowing up Building 7 and all of the investigative documents in the process. It was a solid, albeit a bit extreme, plan...sort of like setting off a car bomb so that you could steal a candy bar.

So on September 11th, 2001 the President and Vice President orchestrate their plan by running two planes into the Trade Center buildings and then, later, setting off precise detonations already planted within the building that actually cause the collapse.....oh, and they knock down Building 7 with charges as well but nobody really notices that (which was exactly as planned). They even go so far as to launch a cruise missile into the nearly empty, heavily-fortified side of the Pentagon building. And, sticklers to detail as they are, George and Dick even make up a story about how brave Americans sacrificing themselves in some field in Pennsylvania so that the White House would not be destroyed as well.

But here is the real genius....the amazing brilliance of the plan....they blame the whole thing on terrorists! Brilliant! Now George gets to deccimate an enemy without cause and talk about cherries on the whipped cream on the sundae of this grand theory, guess whose company gets contracted for the multi-million dollar clean up of Afghanistan after we level the place? You got it, Haliburton, the very company once-owned by Vice President Dick Cheaney! This even paves the way to go to war with Iraq, nocking out another vital source of oil energy, and thusly boosting the prices for oil everywhere else. In otherwords, the President's pockets are sure to get well-lined with greenery as well. God, I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

....but there's a problem. Actually, there are a hundred thousand problems but I will address one. It has to do with the Pentagon getting hit by a cruise missile. You see, this is one of the main and most highly touted points in the entire theory. I shall attempt to prove that a plane did, indeed, hit the Pentagon and I shall do it with three counter-points.

Point one, according to the theory, nobody saw a plane anywhere near the Pentagon. Where are the witnesses, they ask? Well, according to this site there were quite a few witnesses talking about a plane flying dangerously low over I-395. In fact, I found so many witness accounts that I must question by what means these theorists go about looking for witnesses? Do they search Yellowbook under Flight 77 Witnesses and when it comes up with nothing, they figure, "Hell, there must be no witnesses," or, maybe, they just walk the streets asking, "Hey, did you see Flight 77 hit the Pentagon?" After a good ten minutes of searching and finding nobody they must then logically assume that there were not any witnesses.

Point two, where is the wreckage of the actual plane? Well, if you read a few of the on-site witnesses a lot of the plane wreckage got covered up with the roof collapsed. However, when you actually google for pictures of the plane, guess what, all you find are websites full of pictures of the plane! I guess the conspiracy theorists have realized this as they have updated their argument to: "Where are any big hunks of plane?" which is idiotic since the 757 was going about 500 mph when it hit the building which means it looked something like this:



It would be tough to find a fully intact anything after a collision like that. But, of course, there is one popular picture of an actual piece of the plane but the theorists even denounce that. One guy even went so far as to attempt to use logic by explaining that while the piece of wreckage was authentic it was on the wrong side of the courtyard. Huh? According to him, there is no functional way a piece of one side of a plane could actually end up on the other side of the yard! I think I might buy the guy the first three seasons of MythBusters so that he might learn the proper way to use the word "logic". Anyway....

Point three, the theorists claim that the suggested flight pattern that the White House claimed was taken by Flight 77 and that the hundreds of witnesses actually witnessed could not have possibly been pulled off by a bunch of terrorists. They even point to the fact that one of supposed terrorists, Akbah Mujah Whatever (honestly, his name isn't important), didn't even know how to fly a small plane let alone a 757. This is pointless unless there is some footage actually proving that Akbah Mujah was the actual terrorist piloting the plane!

Now you may wonder, or maybe you don't really care, why this so important to the conspiracy theorists? It's important because without it, nothing else works. It is vital to the theory that the two planes flown into the World Trade Centers were flown via remote control because claiming that pilots willingly sacrificed themselves to cover up bad energy dealings would be just preposterous! But trying to get people to swallow somebody remotely flying a plane into the Pentagon, because the flight pattern was so extremely intricate, would be a tough sell as well.

Lasty, Why did I write this: Because its five years and, really, this theory should be losing steam and yet it is gaining it like a wildfire every year. They even made a "serious" documentary about it. Two-thirds of the American population actually believe it! Its time to tune this one out, change the channel, stop listening, stop watching. Besides, anybody with half a brain knows that the aliens are behind everything anyway.

UPDATE (9/12/2006): Actually, it's one third of Americans believe in part of this conspiracy. So to the third that I might have offended, I apologize.

Look At Me, Look At Me!

This week I discovered yet another individual who will go to great lengths in order to garner a little attention. My previous culprits have been: Ned Danny and Jill Greenberg. Now I shall add Germaine Greer from the Guardian to the list. It would seem that Ms. Greer (I'm assuming this lovely lass is not married) had a real problem with the recently deceased Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. I know this because she wrote this lovely article in response to his death, knowing that millions of people would be searching his name on Google, Yahoo!, and the like. Honestly, what--other than attention--can you gain from calling an extremely popular conservationist an idiot only hours after his death? Well, I should be fair, Germaine called him a larrikin which annoyed me instantly although I did not have a clue as to what the word larrikin even meant. After searching around, I discovered that it means a few things, none of which are all that complimentary (unless you call yourself one which is a bit odd). Personally, I think that when you have a problem with somebody you should disagree with them before they are dead since waiting for their actual death does little to stimulate alternative viewpoints. I mean, just speaking for myself, I would probably find it difficult to formulate a rebuttal when I'm in a steel box six feet beneath the ground. Oh, and completely dead, of course. But, I'm no Crocodile Hunter so I'll give a prayer out to Steve-O that he makes a quick recovery from that whole death incident, does a little Kill Bill II-inspired digging out of the grave, and swims over to England to kick Germaine Greer in the ass with one of those mud-covered combat boots!

"Crickey, wouldn't that be great!"

Diet Coke & Mentos.....Still Making News

When I was a kid it was Pop Rocks & Coca-Cola but we weren't nearly as cool back then. Currently, there are over two thousand videoes of people dropping Mentos into Diet Coke bottles on YouTube as if each can somehow do it better than the rest. Even television shows are getting into the fray as the guy from Ham On The Street recently broke the record of 17 feet by going a good six foot higher. I guess that guy doesn't watch much MythBusters since they bested that mark by another ten. Still, as far as YouTube videoes go on the matter, this one is the definitive best:



Now if you will excuse me I'll go back to watching Federer win yet another tennis match.

Belk: A Good Place To Get What You Want When You Want Nothing

I doubt I shop online as much as most people out there but I do occasionally like to look around for stuff when I'm really in need of something. Currently, I find myself in constant need of new shoes and spending a bit too much time in stores buying them so I figure why not make the purchase via the all-encompassing Internet. The funny thing is that when I went to Belk's website, they didn't offer shoes. Now I know Belk isn't the biggest retail store out there but I know as well that they do sell shoes. However, after being denied on all fronts to buy anything let alone shoes I gave Belk's customer service a call. Tamra answered my call and was extremely nice when she informed me that Belk does not sell anything on the Internet. Needles to say, I was a bit perplexed that a fairly large retail chain was going out of it's way NOT to sell it's merchandise over the Internet. Still, that wasn't Tamra's problem as I wished her the best, hung up the phone, and immediately began searching for other department store chains taking part in this new trend. After a good half hour of research, this is the list I've come up with:







Belk









There you have it. Every retail chain NOT using the Internet to sell their goods. Interesting. I wonder what it is about the Internet that Belk finds so darn discouraging. Is it the convenience of the customer being able to walk into a room in their house and immediately shop through their store? Is it the idea that you can reduce your inventory since you don't even have to have the product on hand before you can sell it? Maybe it's the pesky way you can inform customers about various sales and product launches which they can take advantage of merely by clicking a button. Maybe those wise Belk managers (all related and all extremely well paid) think this "Internet trend" will blow over what with Google at nearly four hundred dollars a share and Ebay and Amazon making money hand over fist. I guess only time will tell but I'm gonna hold off buying any extended warranties at Belk until it does.

Things That Make Ketchup Flavored Chips Sound Yummy!

After a quick visit to weird foods, I have returned with the knowledge that traditional eating habits can actually be ingrained into the very fabric of human DNA. It might sound insane but how else can you explain why a society of people would willingly want to eat something like this:

That rancid stuff is called shiokara and it consists of bits of various kinds of sea things soaked in those various sea things fermented viscera. "What is fermented viscera?" you may ask. Well, fermented viscera is actually the guts of the various sea things aged over a month until they turn into that delicious looking goo-gravy you see there. That looks so damn delicious that I think it is actually causing my new flat-screen monitor to gag just a little bit.



But shiokara isn't the worst of it according to weird foods. People in Iceland enjoy the occasional Fermented Shark. Sure, you would think fermenting an entire shark would be tricky but all you have to do is chuck the carcass under a bunch of rocks for a while and then hang it for a while longer (hanging it near a friend's house is an added bonus although it will not enhance the flavor of the shark). Now your ready to host your rotten shark party but remember to have lots of Icelandic potato wine--or Black Death as the natives call it--on hand because nothing compliments a fermented fish corpse better than the occasional sip of death.

In Indonesia they like their monkey toes but fried only (something I can respect), in Poland no child can resist and nice big slice of Jellied Cow's Foot, and in Asia there isn't anything better to bring the family to the table than a nice big beef pizzler. You can figure that one out yourself. My personal favorite proof that there is an inherited food gene comes from the fine southern states of Georgia and Alabama where the citizens just can't get enough of that good old-fashioned dirt. Clay to be exact. Come on, if that isn't proof that eating nasty shit is genetic then I don't know what is! As for me, I'll abstain from partaking of mud; at least until they come out with Clay Lay's and then I guess I'll have to try it.

Canada...Where Bad Food Goes After It Dies

Long, long ago I used to actually work in Wal-Mart. Yes, it was a sad time in my life but it wasn't so bad as you might think because I didn't actually work for Wal-Mart, I just worked for a company who wanted me to work in Wal-Mart for them. And the only reason the company I worked for wanted me to work in Wal-Mart was because a bunch of other companies were paying them to hire me to work in Wal-Mart. Confused? I imagine you are so I'll explain it like this: when ever Kellogg's made a new cereal or wanted to set up some sort of Tony the Tiger display, instead of relying on Wal-Mart employees to do it, they paid my company to pay me to do it. It was boring as hell but they paid me well enough, they gave me a car, and they really didn't give a shit what hours I worked just as long as I did what they told me to do. But what I really found fascinating about the job was some of the really horrendous crap they wanted me to put out in the store. For instance, once, some company (now bankrupt I hope) came out with lunchtime push-ups. You know those yummy orange push ups you used to eat as a kid (and maybe you still do), these things looked just like that except instead of delicious orange sherbert, they were filled with Chili & Cheese Macaroni or Lasagna & Meatballs. It was a bad idea but even worse was how absolutely horrendous the product looked on the box. At best, the things looked like they were filled with heaps of wet dog food which was funny since you had to eat them without your hands or exactly how a dog would have to eat them. I went to seven different Wal-Mart's at the time and not a single box sold in a single store. The only thing that ever sold worse--or maybe just as bad--was when a company created this huge pepperoni and cheese tray for Superbowl season and somehow packaged the pepperoni in such a matter that it turned deep gray. For some reason, gray meat was not a big hit and I spent an entire week filling my car with these nasty trays; trays which caused my car to smell like a combination of rotting meat and old people.

I say all of this because I enjoy the occasional potato chip every now and again and I even like to get adventuresome with my chip sampling. In fact, I have probably sampled every assortment of potato chip on the market today and although I've found some to be rather unpleasant there are only two that I would deem completely inedible. They were both by Lays and, thankfully, they were pulled from the shelves within a week of their appearance. Those two chips were:

Dill Pickle and Ketchup although the Ketchup is much worse. I thought these were old bags being sold on eBay because of how horrendous they tasted but if you will look, that is a promo of the recent Superman movie on the bags. It would seem that these fine flavors are still being sold in Canada. Poor friggin' Canadians, I know they had bad food but this, well this is just wrong!! Then I went to the Canadian Lay's website and found out the even darker truth. Those bastards over at Lay's are making Canadians eat Curry flavored potato chips....and Wasabi...and Roast Chicken! Friggin' Roast Chicken-flavored potato chips! But even that isn't the worst because they even sell a Fries 'n Gravy potato chip. A potato chip that is trying to taste like a french fry with gravy on it.....even Willy Wonka couldn't pull that kind of shit off. Still, I don't know whether to feel sorry for the Canadians or call up those people who used to make Chipped Beef 'n Cream Push Ups and see if they want to take a road trip because I think I might have finally found their target market.

A Really Bad First Date

Back on July 26th I blogged about the obvious love found between Venezuelan leader Chavez and Russian leader Putin. The hands, the eye contact, everything in the picture indicated a relationship that will certainly weather any storm. Today, I give you this pic:

It would appear that the only weather that Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and United Nations chief, Kofi Annan, are going to endure together is a very bitter and long lasting cold front. I could be wrong but I think they are even having a little handshake battle there. I imagine if they would've kept the handshake up a little longer an all-out Thumb War might have taken place. Still, you can be for certain that Mr. Annan is going to be sending President Ahmamuiji-whatever a very nastly email when he gets back home. Because it's one thing to say your not going to stop playing with uranium but it is entirely another to not groom up your beard a bit or at least put on a tie before you meet the leader of the United Nations. That's not being disagreeable, that's just being rude.

World's Most Powerful Woman Is Not A Superhero!

According to Forbes, the most powerful woman on Earth is newly-appointed German Chancellor Angela Merkel with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice coming in a close second. As for Halle Berry, she isn't even on the list despite getting a more expanded role as Storm in the recent X-Men III movie. Personally, I think that makes no sense since the German Chancellor's greatest power is being able to "get along with other world leaders". As for spontaneously created hurricanes, tornadoes, and other various forces of nature, so far the Chancellor has failed to create so much as a slight breeze (well, unless, of course, you count that time she partook of too much camembert at a local campaign dinner). Also not in the ranks are Angelina Jolie despite her ability to play dual roles of super assassin and Mother Teresa and Lynda Carter who was not only Wonder Woman but also principal over all the world's future superheroes in Sky High. However, Oprah did make the list although she was pushed all the way down to number fourteen. I don't know much about the German Chancellor but I doubt she is worth as much as a small country and I doubt even more that she gives out impromptu houses to her people. But, then again, I'm not German so I couldn't really comment on such matters. Still it was nice to see that an American lady took second although it wasn't one of our really good female role models. Nothing against Condoleezza but I'm starting to get really tired of seeing those caricatures of her big ol' head with that big ol' smile with that big ol' gap between her front two teeth. Here's a bit of advice for yah Condie: either stop smiling so much, fix the gap, or use that power to off a couple hundred political doodle artists. Which ever way yah go won't matter a bit to me.

You can find the Forbes article here.