BlogoftheBard

Take Advantage of the Recession

2009-08-11T01:56:00.002-04:00

According to this article you can take advantage of the recession by stealing away with a hot car bargain. It's a Yahoo! News article which I always enjoy because they are usually funny despite their obvious seriousness. This particular article wants to help out the car buyer looking for a good deal in an obviously battered auto market. The first suggestion? The Audi A8 which normally goes for $122,000.00. According to the article you might be able to land this for, well, actually, the writer doesn't know but he (or she) suggests don't over haggle it (I guess start at $110,000.00 and get ready to haggle from there). Other suggestions from the article were for a Lincoln Town Car at $53,000.00 and a $46,000.00 Cadillac (I guess buying the top-end vehicle from near bankrupt companies is now the "in" thing to do). You could even get some leverage on the dealer of a Hummer H2 (starting price around $63,000.00) but, again, as the article urges don't get greedy. Sure your house might be worth less than half of what you paid for it and your taxes will be paying directly into the car industry for the next ten years but that is no reason to think that you should get an insane deal on something that is worth twenty percent less the moment you drive it off the lot. Of course, the article might be envisioning a near future where our houses are so worthless we might have to live in our cars. Sure, that is a highly pessimistic future but that considered I guess its a pretty good article after all.

I Might Have Over Used YouTube

2009-08-09T01:30:00.005-04:00

I love America's Got Talent. It is by far my favorite show but it causes me to go absolutely crazy on YouTube. I waste a lot of time (and drink way too much) looking back on the many super-talented "what might have beens". Of course, this year, Kevin Skinner is the big thing. I like Kevin more than I liked Eli last year and--by God damnit!--I loved Eli last year! Kevin just was so amazing I actually googled "chicken catcher" more than five times over the two days after I watched him. Before that, I imagine I googled that like once, maybe twice, over the previous year. I know that sounds weird but my dad had an impromptu foster rooster living in his back yard last spring and I thought I could catch it but, well, I'm not nearly as fast, even with the Internet, as a local dog and so the problem took care of itself way before I could build my elaborate chicken catching trap. Anyway, back to my point. I was searching "If Tomorrow Never Comes" on YouTube and I found this guy and I thought he was just awesome. Take a hear here:

That is John Rainey and he is friggin' awesome! And he can sing Elvis even better. Is he better than Kevin Skinner, the guy that has a good chance (if he stops being so nervous) of winning America's Got Talent? I don't know. But he is good and he is what I found when I spent too much time browsing around YouTube.

Screech in News

2009-08-04T01:59:00.006-04:00

I'll admit I watched more than my fair share of Saved by the Bell but I was nowhere close to being a fan. My sisters were fans and as I result I had to watch it or nothing else since my sisters had complete control of the TV. I cared very little for it at the time but I did like the pretty girls. But I still hated the show and it was mainly because of Screech's voice. It was the single most annoying sound my ears had ever heard. When he spoke I immediately thought of icepicks....icepicks bludgeoning out my ears. And the icepicks were the good thing because that was what I wanted in order to, as I said, bludgeon out my ears. Anyway, funny thing is that Screech, or Dustin Diamond (really? is that his name?) is back in the news and because of that I found this photo:

That is Screech now. And I thought his voice was freaky. Pixar could not better animate a live action character that is quite obviously an animated live action character than that. His cheeks are so rosy and tight they nearly pop off his face like little cherries and his chin is easily a full hand length from his bottom lip!! And his lips are scary because they only seem to be there too frame his freakishly large and shiny top teeth. No bottom teeth shown there at all. Whooga! Still, he maintains the Screech hair which leads me to believe he is still Screech although I still think he is some sort of clone sent down from aliens to take over the world. Now I shall sit in wait for Jaleel White to turn up in the news.

Cars For Cash

2009-07-31T03:52:00.002-04:00

So the cars for cash program is going broke...lovely. I only thought of that about seven years ago and in that vision I had it going horrendously broke as well. Hold on...I'm fidgeting through papers on my office floor..it'll be a moment....Sorry, I was looking for a quote Iwrote about this but I couldn't find it. The best I found was this, which I rather like:

His name was Ed Meese. He had been the only night janitor in the National Archives building for nearly thirty years. When he first took the job there were three night janitors in the building but Ed was born from a father from Beijing and a mother who was the last full blooded Cherokee Indian. Both of them told him to be happy that nobody was trying to kill him right now and because of that he should work his ass off. And so Ed worked his ass off. From the very first day on the job he worked so hard that his manager immediately fired the other two persons on the night crew and promoted Ed to Night Manager. At same pay. Over the years Ed figured out how to do the job of three people without having to come in three hours early. Ed was a master of Mop Skates.

I only had to edit out about three paragraphs there and it actually has no relevance to my first paragraph at all but...hmmm, there it is then. Ed Meese. A true Chinese-Native American hero. That should surely fill a much needed social chasm out there.

So Long Jones

2009-03-29T23:28:00.002-04:00

It is difficult to consider the ramifications of spending the last year and a half of your life trying to help people achieve their goals only to realize that they would have been better off having never met you. But, to some degree, that is what I did. I worked hard as a financial advisor building a new business in a rural community and I had some significant success at it...even despite the downward turning market. I was getting good clients who trusted what I told them. I was actually surprised that a simple (yet brutally difficult and oftentimes impossible) strategy actually could reap rewards...even in a bad economy. You see, simply put, I knocked on people's doors and asked them to invest their money with me. Usually such a strategy was reserved for Jehovah's Witnesses and guys selling meat out of a mobile freezer or, occasionally, a local politician with a lot of motivation, no money, and two good feet. As I think back on it I knocked on many doors over the past two years--too many to count--and I met a lot of very nice people. A few of them gave me money, some even gave me all of it. Then the bad market tanked. Companies my company always called "safe," and, "could never hurt anyone," were either on the ropes (and still are) or gone completely. I spent three weeks in a faraway city, calling all those people I doorknocked on a number from out of town, trying to sell them Lehman Brothers bonds or Citigroup stock. Why? Because they were safe. Thankfully, I never sold anything on those intense trips because deep down I knew that calling people and trying to sell something I knew nothing about was not a good way to build a successful small town business. Today, Lehman Brothers bonds are gone and Citigroup stock is down 98%. Two months ago, when I was fired for failing to perform to the standards of the company by a person I've never met, I really thought that I had failed. But now, as I think about it, I succeeded because I didn't do what they told me to do. I didn't sell any of their "safe" investments and, because of that, my clients--the people who trusted me to tell them the right thing to do--are better off.

Good Christmas!

2008-12-24T01:31:00.002-05:00

I would say "merry" but I kinda felt Dickensy and I figure "good" works just as well. We have entirely too many words in the English language anyway. I wish it to you by the way. Good Christmas. I figured it was implied but, well, I shouldn't assume and all that. Its been good for me, this Christmas. Kinda laid back, no big worries. Rather lovely actually. I asked for nothing as I need nothing although there are things I would like. Job stability being high on the list. But I shant complain as it is the holidays and Santa or Jesus or somebody might be listening. If it's Santa, I really dont' want anything other than to make my kid less selfish. If it's Jesus, please make me a better man. If it's the somebody else; uhhh, free cable for a month or two would be nice. Regardless I say as I said: Good Christmas.

Christmas...Again...Really?

2008-10-21T00:29:00.002-04:00

So here we go once more 'round. Ol' holly jolly will grace us once more with his yuletide cheer and what not while we gotta run about buyin' stuff and smiling gleefully as we offer forth monetary pledges into little metal containers in hopes that the people controlling the containers will stop ding-a-ling-linging happy little hemorrhages into our heads. Oh yes the holidays are fastly upon us. And I, for one, am quickly settling into the spirit. My goals for this holiday season:

1. Don't go into any further debt. It's a tough, probably losing, cause but I'm remotely passionate about it.

2. Stay positive. They say that a good attitude can create miracles. That said, I'm not staying positive to become the next Messiah. I'm just doing it in hopes it will stop me from killing somebody over the next two months.

3. Surprise myself. Sure, that might sound difficult or odd but the other day I drank two full glasses of water and put my underwear on backwards before I went to bed. I woke up the next morning in a flat out foot race and found that I had some serious trouble at the end. It was a very unexpected adrenaline rush.

4. Buy some candy canes. Really, I used to love these things but you just don't see 'em much anymore. I really think we need to bring the candy cane back into the holidays.

5. Lastly, thaw the turkey. Three years now we've had fried turkey and three years we've nearly burned down the house (or garage last year). I think some serious prep-time needs to be set aside for this endeavor because I really believe we've just gotten really lucky in the past (or maybe that was just me thinking positive).

Don't Argue With Your Wife

2008-05-22T23:25:00.002-04:00

This is just sound advice that I still have trouble adhering to...she is right and you are wrong. Why? Because your not a woman, that's why. I decided to argue with mine four days ago and I'm still reeling from the aftermath of the thing. Of course, I am taking the low road by stating that she won because she is the woman in the argument because, in truth, she won because she was completely right. And by right I mean that she was only slightly more correct that those great scholars and world explorers were right when they assessed that the course of the planet might be in some sort of circular pursuit as opposed to merely being flat and squarish. As I look back on the confrontation I wonder where, exactly, I went wrong. I was so right during so many of the smaller arguments, how did I fuck up the really big one so badly? Because I'm a dumbass I guess and yet, now here's the funny thing, I think the relationship is better now. Still, if I had to do it all over again I don't think I would have tried to argue with someone who is obviously much better at it than me. Now I'm off to bed because my right ear bones are starting to click which is a good sign that I'm overstimulating my brain.

I'm Done With Dress Socks

2008-04-04T00:01:00.003-04:00

That's right, I'm done with em; and here's why:

Just look at that classy bitch!! It's got a leather heel and rubber padded front sole insert. That is a mack daddy dress boot! I'm totally gonna own that and for no other reason than to wear comfortable friggin' socks all day for a change. Sure it looks like a pimp boot but, hey, pimps are on their feet all day long so maybe they just might know a thing or two about proper footwear. No more going through my drawer searching out a matching pair of suit socks. I'm tossin' on a pair of comfortable Wilson super-padded Wal-Mart specials and then my new pimp boots. I spent an hour in the rain such trying to find a pair to purchase but I guess I'm the first to the demand or last to the supply. Regardless, I have to order the damn things and I'd order 'em now but it's late and I got way too much stuff to do tomorrow.

Hopefully, I have a couple of dress socks still left in the drawer that kinda resemble each other.

The Quest At End

2008-04-03T00:33:00.002-04:00

I'm down to five. Five left socks left. Five with no partner to return to the fold. Two are new and I feel really bad for them, the other three...well I knew their fate long ago. Still, I'd hope to find the match for all of 'em but I didn't. And I'm a bit sad about that. I don't wanna tell 'em I stopped searching for their match but I did (days ago, if truth be told). Now, as the wife keeps naggin' about them and I keep having to walk over them as I get up, I know a decision must be made. I have to let them go. I have to chuck 'em into the trash. I want to save one in particular (an expensive off-brown one with detailed embroidery across it's top) but it would only prolong the inevitable. I saved almost thirty five of my socks by actively seeking out their life mates but I can only think about the five I lost. The five I failed.

Oddly, I discovered over the years I also own hosiery: little thin, dainty socks that can stretch all the way up to my sack'n'crack. Maybe I was a Russian ballerina in a past life.

I Have Guinea Pigs

2008-03-16T00:41:00.002-04:00

It's odd, how we define animals in America. Some are pests, some are pets, some are food, and some, the poor beasts, are a multitude of different things. I guess all cultures have their own rules on animals but, here, in the ol' US of A, I think we push it right to the very edge. For instance, I definitely do not want to be a rabbit growing up in the United States. Sure, Bugs Bunny was a funny hare but every year he had to foil Daffy's constant quest to start "Rabbit Season" early. Besides that, he had "lucky feet" but only when they were chopped from his body and attached to key chains (not so much anymore I guess but all trends come back around in time). Then there was that sadistic little girl who always wanted to keep Bugs as a pet. He would escape and find a nice farm full of fat carrots only to have Fudd shooting at him with an ol' Pilgrim style shotgun (and it wasn't even Rabbit season!). Alright, anyway, what was my point here?

...Yes, of course, I have guinea pigs and I don't know what to make of 'em. What the hell is a guinea pig anyway? They really aren't like a rat or a rabbit or really anything else. They are definitely pets, that I'm sure of, because I've never heard of even the most redneck redneck ever speaking of eating one (and I know a lot of rednecks), they have nice fur but PETA has never tried to free a guinea pig farm because they were being raised to be nice coats for really rich people. They certainly don't live in the wild because all they do when cornered is blink a lot and poop even more (two things, I very much doubt, that would deter any focused predator). My grandpa would shoot a squirrel on sight but if a guinea pig landed on his lawn, I'm quite certain he would have instantly felt sorry for the creature and invited it to live in his home. Now that I think about it, guinea pigs might be the smartest creatures in the world because being a simple pet is all they really can do....although they do fatten up quite nicely.

My Left Sock

2008-03-09T00:32:00.002-05:00

Currently occupying my bedroom floor are 7 black, 5 brown, 15 multi-colored, and 12 extremely complicated looking socks that have no match. Some of these socks I bought less than a month ago, others I've owned for years and yet they all have no match. How is this possible? Seriously, the biggest thing I dread ever waking morning is finding a damn match for my dress socks! And now I know why! I don't have any damn matches for my dress socks! Today, I spent a solid hour searching out their matches and found none! Not a single one! I spent a good ten minutes just staring at them, turning them, hoping that I can find a match amongst their numbers. Nope. I got almost 40 socks without a partner. I even did two loads of laundry....and I don't do laundry. Still, no answer to this great riddle of life. Where, I wonder, are all of my left socks?

BME Final Round is Fake

2008-02-18T00:27:00.002-05:00

Obviously, I don't blog much any more but this whole BME Pain Olympics Final Round crap has forced my hand. And after watching it for the twentieth time (all disgusting) it is definitely fake. So I'm gonna stop watching it now. In fact, I even suspect the final two contestants are the same dude. Imagine that, it comes down to two guys loppin' off their privates and it's just one guy doin' it twice! Funny, you think these kids today would catch onto the truth a bit quicker but in their defense anybody who watches it more than twice is disturbed in the head. Yet I watched it over twenty times (because I knew it was fake although I wasn't sure until after about the fifth time...Uhhhhh!). I'd go ahead and debunk the other ghastly videoes out there but they mainly involve puking and poop and I really don't wanna watch that upchucked crap twenty times only to find that it was absolutely real. Blecht!

Now With Hoodia!!

2008-01-07T19:58:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you just don't know what sells until you see a commercial from somebody trying to sell it. Take, for instance, Mega-T Green Tea Dietary Supplement.

Now you can tell right from the start that this product has a lot of good things going for it. First, it's NEW which is always good because nobody wants to buy something that says OLD on the box. Next, you can lose up to 20 pounds which is a solid round number. And if you wanted to lose, say, 40 pounds I'm sure you could just double the dose. Also going for it is the fact that Green Tea is definitely the new big thing. Heck even green tea has green tea added to it. But what really makes this product heads and shoulders above the thirty million other dietary supplements out there is the claim (and twice no less) that it NOW contains South African Hoodia! What exactly is Hoodia? The commercial spokesperson didn't bother explaining but you know Mega-T Green Tea Dietary Supplement is better with the Hoodia in it because why else would they put it in there? They even go so far as to mention that their Hoodia hails from South Africa which indicates all of the other Hoodia's are of inferior quality.

So my hat goes off to those smart people at CCA Industries for giving us the opportunity to use such an innovative product. I'm hopeful that one day they will add a little South African Hoodia to their PlusWhite Extra White Whitening Toothpaste. Sure I don't have a clue what good Hoodia taste like but it couldn't make that foul flavored stuff taste any worse.

My Holiday Ebay Rant

2007-12-22T00:10:00.000-05:00

Ahh, another Christmas is complete, my holiday shopping is nearly done and as I sit here and nastalgitate, I'm left feeling bitter (yet again) about my Ebay shopping experience. Sure, I got those hard to find items that were sold out and I even found a couple of things that I didn't even know existed but, really, I feel like Ebay doesn't give a shit about the holiday consumer. Specifically, I take into question this whole antiquated positive ranking system by which we judge whether or not we should purchase an item from a seller. For instance, if I buy from a seller and immediately pay with PayPal that seller has no obligation to give me a positive feedback...they have my money in their account and yet there is no requirement to give me a positive rating on the transaction. I've bought over sixty things on Ebay and about half have given me any rating at all and none, not a single one, has given me a rating before I gave them one. Sixteen transactions using PayPal, which is instantaneous money into each seller's account, and everyone of them (every damn one!) has waited for me to give them positive feedback before they gave it to me. That's insane. Ebay promotes the fact that you can haggle the price and WIN an item but nowhere do they say you have to compliment the seller before you deserve the same (and oftentimes that won't compliment you back although you gave them the money days before they gave you the item. I know I already said that but I'm ranting!). Let's take this situation to the real word and since it's the holidays let's shop at a store we only go into when it's near Christmas time: Radio Shack.

Radio Shack dude: Hello, sir, my name is Derek. can I help you find something?

Customer: Yes, Derek, I'm actually looking for a game chair.

Derek: A game chair? Do you mean a chair game?

Customer: No, it's a chair that plugs into your Xbox or something.....I don't know my sister....

Derek: Oh, well, we have some Xbox stuff over here....but nothing about chairs I don't think.

Customer: No, this is a real chair that plugs into your game thingey and plays the sound I guess.

Derek: Oh, ahhhh, let me get Todd. He's the manager.

Customer's Wife: Let's just go to Sears and pay the eighty dollars.

Customer: No, no, he's getting Todd. Todd's the manager.

Todd: Sir, I'm Todd, the store manager, and we don't have what you want in stock but if you give me a second I think we can order it for you.

Customer: That's fine but I don't want to pay more tha sixty dollars, Todd, and I want free shipping?

Customer's Wife: Free shipping? Why do you want free shipping?

Customer: Shut up! I'm caught up in the moment here!

Todd: Sir, if you would just give me a second.

Customer: Alright, Todd, but time is running out because Sears closes in twenty minutes.

Ten minutes later.

Todd: Sir, you have your chair! There was only one left and I got it for fifty dollars and with free shipping! How would you like to pay?

Customer: Very good! Just put it on my card, Todd, my boy!

Todd swipes the card and places the order.

Todd: Alright, sir, if you would just fill out this survey stating that you had an absolutely fabulous experience at Radio Shack today I can complete this transaction.

Customer: Survey? But I just completed the transaction. I paid for the item.

Todd: Yes, sir, you did.....but you still need to complete the survey. Just answer "absolutely fabulous" to everything and all will just be fine.

Customer: Oh, alright.

Customer fills out survey and gets to the comment line.

Customer: Should I put something here Todd?

Todd: You don't have to but I would recommend: Great seller!! Super communication!! Buy with confidence!! A++++++++++

Customer's Wife: We should have just gotten it at Sears.

My Wii Moment

2007-11-23T01:00:00.002-05:00

As anybody who has ever played the Nintendo Wii knows there are stories abound about how the Wii can bring on destruction without a moment's notice. For me, that moment came in a rather heated game of Wii Tennis about three months ago. To begin with I was not very good at Wii Tennis despite my near mastery of nearly all of the other Wii Sports and so when I got things all tied up in the third set, I was anxious to get it over with. My opportunity came in the form of an overhand smash which I took with a great amount of vigor. What resulted was my shoulder popping completely out of joint causing a pain which I can only describe as "insanely horrendously horrible" to cascade from my shoulder and then throughout the rest of my body. Thankfully, I hit the living room floor hard enough to pop the shoulder back in place which did well to subside the tears and cussing. As I lay there clutching my arm, my son, a good boy, walked over to ask, "Daddy, are you gonna get up and play or can I watch my toons now?" Yes, my son loves his daddy.

Anyway, I tell this story only to say that I figured this was my "Wii Moment." It was my story that I would tell about my horrible experience with the Ninentdo Wii. I thought that until today, Thanksgiving Day, when we went to my mom and stepdad's house to eat Thanksgiving dinner.

Recently, my stepdad, after two years of debating on what new TV to buy, purchased a 42 inch Sony Bravia LCD HDTV. Arguably, this was, and still is, the finest LCD HDTV on the market. Even more recently, my stepdad won a Nintendon Wii at work. He even called me at the time to tell me about it since he rarely won much of anything his entire life. Take that and add a bunch of family members eating turkey and drinking adult beverages and you can see the perfect storm beginning to form here.

Long story short, my Wii Moment was not my shoulder wrenching out of joint, it was hearing the sound of a mortar blast as a family member went for a strike on Wii Sports Bowling and accidentally sent the Wii remote at Mach 10 into my stepdad's new Sony Bravia HDTV.

Really, looking back on it, there was no way we could have avoided it.

The Pains of Life

2007-11-16T23:34:00.000-05:00

The one thing I've discovered as you grow older is that life likes to occasionally deal you out some serious pain just to make sure your still paying attention. Sometimes it hits you early, with a nasty earache at the age of six or a broken collar bone at the age of ten, but mostly it just comes as a product of time, like taste comes to finely aged wine. For me, I thought a nasty ear or toothache was the worst pain ever until I went to college and got my nose shattered playing racquetball. That sucked. Then, after college, I wrenched my back out and cried for a bit until it finally reset itself and I was good, fairly pain-free, for a few years until I got a kidney stone. A kidney stone, for any who might not know, is akin to having a small tornado placed on your intestines where it just sits and spins for what feels like forever. Kidney stones, I'm certain, actually have the ability to stop time itself. Ask a woman who gave birth to a child and also passed a kidney stone which was worse and I'm certain she would say that she would have gladly given birth to the kid sideways as opposed to passing a kidney stone. Long story short, I thought the stone was the worst pain I had in my life until I stopped by to see my dad today (a man of tough pedigree and a survivor of no less than three kidney stones) to discuss sports and general chit chat. He appeared gravely ill despite still being at work. He had his foot propped on his desk. He had gout in his foot. I didn't have a clue as to what gout was although I did associate it with World War II for some reason. I asked dad how bad it hurt and he replied with great conviction,

"Well, I tried to find some twelve guage shells to shoot off my foot a couple of nights ago."

"That doesn't answer my question," I told him. "All I want to know is if it is more painful than kidney stones?"

"Right now, I'd take a kidney stone over this," he answered after little thought.

Not liking his answer, I quickly turned the conversation to sports and general chit chat for the next half hour. Dad didn't seem to be into talking that much so I had to support most of the conversation but it was still good as it kept my mind off the idea that I might have to one day deal with another, even more painful, life pain.

New Suit Day!

2007-11-16T00:01:00.000-05:00

So I bought a new suit about a year and a half ago.....a really good suit. Grey with pin stripes. All wool. Very nice. Anyway, so I buy my suit, and I'm really stoked about wearing it to work (yes, I know, that's sad but, hey, I like new suits) when I discover the next morning I have somehow gained about ten pounds overnight. I stare down at the two sides of the dress pants, each failing by a full two inches to meet each other in the middle. Looming over them is my belly button, hovering like a skin-covered jelly supervisor, telling them it's their problem for being pants not his problem for being an overweight belly. Me, feeling caught in the middle, chose not to have an opinion as I abandoned the suit to a far off corner of my suit closet and chose a nice pair of expandable slacks and a sports coat to wear instead.

Like I said, that was a year and a half ago. Today, feeling frisky, I decided to try on the suit again and I'll be damned what was two inches is now a manageable quarter of an inch at best! Long story short, after a year and a half of waiting, I have a new suit! I must have somehow lost weight despite watching more T.V., eating more crappy food, and playing a shitload of Wii.

The new Wii Table Tennis game to be exact.

My point: screw your carb diets and exercising. I eat crappy food and play the Wii and now I've got a new suit to show for it.....what have you got?

If I Were Still Dumb

2007-10-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

So I was refilling my unrefillable laser printer drum with toner out by the porch in a rather hefty wind while wearing my suit when a thought dawned on me. Toner is a real bitch of a thing to deal with! That was the thought. I could have bought a whole new drum for like seventy bucks plus shipping but I ain't got that sorta cash at the moment so I shopped around and found out that I could heat cut my current drum, drop in a flask of eBay bought toner, and seal the drum and I'd be good to go.....for like eight fifty plus two bucks shipping. You do the math on that and you save quite a few nickels there. Or so one would think.

If you would check up there somewhere I mentioned wind. I discovered that wind during toner transfers is kinda like doing brain surgery on a roller coaster. The printer drum, much like a brain, is sensitive to shit, mainly shit fucking with it during an extremely detrimental state. However, I would argue that my changing out the toner on my drum on the cheap was more difficult that brain surgery as I had to contend with a bee that for some odd reason fell in love with my left ear at that exact time. I named the bee Jeff as I attended to my toner troubles. I named him Jeff in hopes that it would appease his obvious low self-esteem issues (as he should have been busy making honey) as well as appeasing my lifetime need to find a bee I could bond with enough to give it a name.

Long story short.....I could've paid $65.00 for a new drum of toner but instead I paid around ten bucks and ruined a four hundred dollar suit. Oh and I met a bee named Jeff.

P.S.: I had to kill Jeff. I had to kill Jeff because he was a bee. I don't like bees...even bees with names.

Verizon Help Desk

2007-08-27T19:53:00.000-04:00

You know when you have to call customer service your day is probably going to start heading downhill pretty quickly. And when the customer service belongs to the telephone company "pretty quickly" is probably an understatement. Still, when you have a phone line draped across your driveway, through your neighbors yard, and another fifty yards down the street, you pretty much have to call somebody. For me, the first call was to call the owners of the line that was draped across my driveway. Fortunately for me, I got to talk with Mrs. Ham, probably the best customer service person I have ever spoken with in my life.The conversation went something like this:

Mrs. Ham: Hello? How can I help you?

Me: Yeah, I've got a phone line laying across my driveway. I think it fell off the pole.

Mrs. Ham: You say your phone line is down?

Me (as I stand beside the line surveying the large cable on the ground): Oh, yes, it is most definitely down.

Mrs. Ham: Alright, sir, we'll have a truck there on Monday to take care of that for you.

It was Friday when I called

Me, sounding rather shocked: Um, well, that just won't do. I've got to get out of my driveway and I don't know if this thing is even live or not!

Mrs. Ham, sounding quite confident: Sir, I can assure you that nine times out of ten them lines ain't live.

Me, still sounding shocked: Nine times out of ten? Well, that's not very good! I've got a four year old kid! I can't have this thing laying in my yard all weekend!

Mrs. Ham, still sounding confident: Sir, hold on and let me speak to my manager.

During the wait, I took the time to walk down the street to the end of the line. Farther down the road I could see the nice new garbage truck. The nice new extremely tall garbage truck.

Mrs. Ham: Sir?

Me: Yeah.

Mrs. Ham: Sir, I talked with my manager and he is almost absolutely sure that ain't no live wire but he thinks we might be able to get a truck there tomorrow.

Me, getting frustrated: Look, I don't think you understand the situation here. Something has ripped this line off of the pole and now it is laying across driveways, and yards, and the road. Somebody needs to look at this today! What am I supposed to tell my neighbors when they come home? That this thing is almost absolutely safe?

Mrs. Ham, getting equally frustrated: Sir, like I said most of the time them lines ain't live and we'll have somebody out there to take care of it tomorrow!

Me: Fine but I'm calling 911.

Mrs. Ham, really startin' to steam: Now hold on there sir! You don't need to do that! Mrs. Ham is takin' care of this!

Me, starting to become confused: Well, I still don't think you understand the situation here.

Mrs Ham: Alright, sir, explain the situation again.

Me: There is a phone line, a very large phone line, laying across my driveway, my neighbor's driveway, his yard, and the street across which I and all my other neighbors travel. Previous to today, the line was quite securely attached to two telephone poles.

Mrs. Ham, sounding suspicious: Sir, are you talking to me on your phone right now?

Me: How can I be doing that when the phone line is no longer attached to itself? Its laying on the ground in front of me. It looks very much like a vehicle has come along and it got hung on it and the vehicle ripped it out.

Mrs. Ham, acting befuddled: Sir, don't you think if somebody ripped out a phone line they would call us and let us know about it?

Me: Well, I don't know but....

Mrs. Ham, interrupting me: Look, sir, I understand the situation and I've spoken with my manager. Mrs. Ham is gonna take care of this quicker than you can think! You don't have to worry about it. Mrs. Ham gonna have somebody come out there first thing tomorrow.

Me: That's fine but I'm almost absolutely sure I'm gonna go ahead and call 911.

Then I hung up the phone.

To Mrs. Ham's credit, the phone company was there in less than a half an hour. Nobody ever came from 911.

Cedar Point....Greatest Place To Get Shitty Food

2007-06-18T01:30:00.000-04:00

So I've just returned from an extended weekend at Cedar Point, the greatest rollercoaster park in the entire world, and I must say that the press is correct more now than ever before; Cedar Point has many of the best rollercoasters in the world. The Millennium Force is an absolute must ride (although it still can't match the Magnum's view as you whip into the double banked turns) and the Top Thrill Dragster is just....well, there isn't really a good way to explain that damn thing. However, unlike before when you used to have to wait two hours just to ride a coaster, nowadays you can even get on a good one in less than half an hour which leaves a lot of time to grab some grub. Sadly, at Cedar Point "grub" is only slightly better than actually foraging through the woods looking for actual grubs to eat. Mainly, they have hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, and chicken fingers; all served at various different venues about the park and all of equally poor quality. They even had one pizza place that was touted as being "new and improved!" that served food of such poor quality we concluded that it must have previously been a restroom or garbage area before being turned into a restaurant; thus giving it the "new and improved" status.

Later, at the Snoopy Fire-Grilled Burger Place (which served the same horrendous burgers as everyplace else) I tossed a few inedible fries into the river that meanders through a portion of the park. Immediately, the carp by the shore jumped at the fries but all quickly spit them back out. They chose to instead eat their own feces as opposed to sucking down a Cedar Point fry. Personally, I was impressed by their decision at first but then I figured they had probably eaten the fries for many years before they figured out their own shit tasted better.

As for myself, I'll double up on the Happy Meals and maybe pack a bag full of, well, just about any sort of edible shit I can find before my next trip to Cedar Point.

From The Land of Pampered Comes....

2007-06-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

This article on Yahoo! Pets: 5 Tips for New Cat Owners . Now, I don't have a problem with giving nice suggestions on what to do when buying a cat but what I find absolutely insane about this useless article is that not one of the five suggestions is even remotely useful to anybody buying a new cat. Let me go through them quickly:

Tip 1. Do your homework. Talk to a vet. Read cat books. Learnnnnnn. Holy horse shit, it's a fucking cat, lady! If it's fluffy and you like fluffy then buy the fluffy fucking kitty!!

Tip 2. Start out with the right equipment. I've owned over fifty cats in my lifetime and I don't even know what that means? Buy a litter box, show the kitty the litter box and it will use the litter box. Buy it a hundred fun toys and scratchy thingys and it will still ruin your couch.

Tip 3. Make your home cat-safe. This is without question the dumbest single statement I think I've ever heard. Cat-safe? I could throw a cat at a drawer of knives and it will somehow jump out unscathed as I would spend the next five days nursing a sore shoulder because I threw a wiley cat at a drawer of knives. So what is cat-safe? According to the article, cat-safe is securing any dangling open wires so that the cat doesn't try to play with them. According to me, if you have danging open wires you might wanna try and get people-safe first and try your hand at buying a cat in a couple of years or so.

Tip 4. Make your home cat-friendly. Alright, I was wrong, this is without question the dumbest single statement I think I've ever heard.

Tip 5. Remember--your cat is not a dog. Yes, that's right, despite your every desire to buy dog food for your cat or, I don't know, teach it to fetch shit, it's still a cat. And if you honestly thought that your cat might be a dog then, well, you could possibly be more mentally out of whack than the person who wrote this article....although I greatly doubt it.

In The Land of What The Hell Is It?

2007-06-05T22:07:00.000-04:00

According to the 2012 London Olympic committee that is the logo that will inspire everyone to become more involved and truly unite the world. According to just about everybody else, it's pretty much about the ugliest damn logo they've ever seen. Even more to the point, according to this Sporting News article the animated version of the "modern, world-inspiring" logo may also cause some people to have seizures which I guess does suggest that the logo does inspire some people to immediately get involved; although it is less in a volunteer capacity and more in a flailing about the floor while trying to swallow their tongues endeavor. Still, that is more than previous Olympic logos can say for themselves. The website is also quick to point out that the logo is an evolving creature and will certainly change by the time the 2012 Olympics come to London. Even with such a long time line I still doubt that they will get very many people to embrace the new logo although I feel confident that they will cut down on it's seizure-inducement. At the very least they can figure out the best place to stick a warning label on it.

The Next Great Invention

2007-06-02T00:30:00.000-04:00

Funny thing, great inventions. The Post-It Note came about as a result of bad glue while the airplane came about as a result of many, many years of trial and error. The paper clip, oddly, was never invented by anybody despite it's great usefulness while the coat or clothes hanger is claimed to be the mind's product of President Thomas Jefferson, the same man who invented our very Constitution. Inventions, it would seem, are very fickle beasts that somehow have the ability to crop up from everywhere and nowhere at once. So when you find one you should take hold of it because there is a good chance it might have already been invented and improperly marketed or, even worse, marketed properly but been improperly invented. I know you are confused but I'm working hard on inventing something that makes you less confused while reading this blog. Your donations are appreciated.

Onto my invention. It's simple really. I had some free time and needed to do some sit down colon-related business. I was in the mood to discuss but I was not in a "discussion" setting since I was otherwise detained by the colon-related business. That's when I thought, "You know, a talking toilet would be sorta nice about now." Quickly, I realized that such a thing wasn't plausible but then I thought, "A toilet that said something every now and again...that would kinda be funny...wouldn't it?" And from that thought sprung my invention. A talking toilet! It says random things but only rarely so as to not make itself mundane or expected and it says many things so repetitive is not an issue. Really, I didn't give it a lot of major thought but the few seconds I did think about it I feel quite confident in saying that I think that the Talking Toilet will change peoples lives.

It's the next Post-It Note. But without all of that nasty non-sticky glue.

The New Way To Make a Great Movie

2007-05-31T00:03:00.000-04:00

It seems that over the past many years the new trend to movie-making is to not necessarily make a good movie but rather make a good "buzz" heading into the movie so that you can get enough people watching it by the first weekend that it doesn't matter whether or not the movie is even good or not. Take, for instance, the movie, "Bug." Now this movie might be good, I don't know since I haven't watched it, but I do know that after watching this trailer:

I came away with the clear impression that this might be a really creepy "Bug" movie. Then I saw the reviews. The critics loved it and yet the audience hated it beyond words. Why? Because, apparently, there aren't really all that many bugs in the Bug movie. Instead, Bug is a psychological thriller of another sorts that, obviously by the fact that every critic reviewed it, the critics knew about ahead of time (because critics never review any mainstream horror movie-despite how good or bad). As for the audience, they all saw the same trailer as me and assumed that it was about.....oh, I don't know.....bugs maybe? Sure, they could have marketed the movie for what it was....two crazy people gettin' together in a small room so that they can spend the night gettin' all kindsa crazier but crazy is for Cannes, Bugs opened nationwide...which begs the question once more, "Why?" Why not target an audience of true interest instead of tapping the mainstream horror movie watching crowd (that being the teen to twenty somethings)? I don't know but it isn't the first time it happened.

In Gladiator (yes, I know, it was a huge blockbuster), the trailer showed the main enemy as a man in a gold mask while in the movie the guy in the mask was actually an overweight nothing as the true enemy translated to little more than a crybaby in tights when compared to the overly-testosteronized Maximus character.

In the Matrix sequels the made us believe they were gonna be awesome and yet they sucked. Alright, I guess that's more of a personal issue but still: trailers awesome, movies sucked ass.

I've got many more examples but, for some reason, my movie brain isn't working anymore so I guess I'll leave it for edit later.

Sometimes Even Better And Popular Ain't Enough

2007-05-21T01:15:00.000-04:00

So I'm outside tossin' around this weird spongy saw-blade thingy with the kid (it's supposed to be the newest, coolest take on a Frisbree) which causes me to wonder, "Didn't we already solve the whole "what is the best Frisbee" dilemma a few years back?" Currently, we own five different forms of circular throwing things (none of which are made by Frisbee) and they all suck. Sure, they go pretty far on a good toss but I remember something that could easily go twice as far with half the effort. It was a great toy....they even made a really cool Boomerang that always looked like it was heading back to you before it landed on the roof of the neighbor's house. The company's name was Aerobie and their amazing product looked like this:

Aerobie's were on the verge of becoming the numero uno of outdoor disc-throwing thingys as they began to take over the summertime park and yard scenes across America. Somebody even set a world record by chucking on of the things over twelve hundred feet. But, then, as suddenly as they came, they went. I was saving up to buy one (they were quite expensive) when they suddenly disappeared and I believe I bought myself a nice pair of Hammer-style black and white balloon pants instead. I imagine that price was what finally got the best of the Aerobie (unlike poor money management which was Hammer's final downfall) but, really, that seems to never stop Apple from coming back out of the grave every five years or so. I'm hopeful that the same will be said for Aerobie since I really don't enjoy throwing out my arm just to watch a heavy piece of sponge go forty feet and then crash like a plane that suddenly ran out of gas.

I did find Aerobie's website but they don't sell their products directly which is a shame. I guess I'll just have to wait until Apple innovates the flying disc in a couple of years. Sure it'll cost five hundred bucks but it will also automatically download all of your favorite tunes as it zips through the air.

Turkeys Are Poor Swimmers

2007-05-20T00:38:00.000-04:00

Well, it only took three weeks to figure out how to get back on this thing! And for what? Because of turkey, for one thing. More specifically, Hormel Natural Choice Oven Roasted Deli Turkey.

I paid an extra buck fifty because this particular turkey contained no preservatives which I figured was worth the money. It even says "Taste the freshness from Hormel Foods....naturally." on the box which was a nice little slogan. When I got home and took a sample taste of my newly purchased healthy turkey I began to suspect that what Hormel called a "fresh taste" was actually what most people would call a "tastes like wet rubber" taste. Oddly, it also smelled like an old tire which, while equally unappealing, did at least tie into the flavor pretty well. Two days later when my bad-tasting, foul-smelling turkey turned almost glow-in-the-dark pink I knew there were more than a few people back at Hormel having a good laugh at my expense. That's when I really read the packaging. It said, "All Natural Ingredients," which lead me to wonder if it was all natural with no preservatives shouldn't the only ingredients be fucking turkey?!? Apparently I don't know a damn thing about natural turkey because natural turkey contains Turbinado sugar, baking soda, and carrageenan (which comes from seaweed). I'm no expert but I don't think that a turkey ever naturally encounters seaweed. What do they do, drown these turkeys in the ocean in order to lock in that oh-so-good natural turkeyness? Personally, I'd rather eat a few preservatives as opposed to eating seaweed turkey again. Now I'm off to try some of my naturally cooked deli ham which contains no seaweed. However it does contain"lactic acid starter culture" which sounds waaaaaay better than eating a nasty ol' preservative.

A Three Year Old's Tips On What To Expect When Trapped In A Cave With A Bunch of Monsters

2007-01-27T15:03:00.000-05:00

Now some might question whether or not a three year old should be watching The Descent, one of the scarier movies to come out in recent months, but to those people I say, "I'll fuck up my kid the way I want, you fuck up your kid the way you want." Besides, I warned him ahead of time that it was a scary movie but he refused to leave the room. His fault. Not that I thought he couldn't handle a scary movie because this is the same kid that watched Alien vs. Predator when he was two although he did leave halfway through because he said it was "silly" (I didn't ask why but he was mumbling something about how two kinds of monsters in the same movie was stupid. He thinks silly and stupid are the same word and interchanges them often.). As for his opinion of The Descent, I must say that he did have some solid tips for anybody who might be trapped in a pitch black cave with a bunch of "Tiger monsters" as my son called them. Actually, to me, they looked more like demon-vampires but I don't watch as many scary movies as my son. Anyway, according to a three year old, here are few good tips to follow when trapped in a cave with a bunch of monsters.

Tip #1. When you have successfully killed one or two monsters be ready to expect a bunch more monsters.

Three year old: That's not all the monsters.
Me: How do you know? You just came in here.
Three year old: Because there are always bunches of monsters in caves, silly daddy.
Twenty seconds later, ten more monsters appear from nowhere
Three year old: See, I told you so.

Tip #2. When you kill a monster and it falls in a large body of water and then you fall into that body of water next to the dead, floating monster....chances are, you haven't killed the monster.

Three year old: That monsters pretendin' to be sleepin'.
Me: Oh, you think--[I nearly scream as the monster suddenly grabs the girl around the neck]
Three year old: I told you that monster was pretendin to be sleepin. That monster is silly.

Tip #3. Always be on the lookout for large pools of blood.

Three year old: Did she just fall in a pool of blood?
Me: Yes, I believe she did indeed fall in a pool of blood.
Three year old: Pools of blood are gross! Me and mommy think pools of blood are gross!
I didn't ask him to elaborate on that one.

Tip#4. Expect cave monsters to be suffering from some sort of respiratory infection.

Three year old: That Tiger monster is pretty snotty. I think he has a cold.
Me: You said the same thing about the monsters in The Cave movie we watched last week.
Three year old: I know, that monster had a cold too. Cave monsters have lotsa colds all of the time.

And, finally, Tip #5. If you go into a cave then your stupid because everybody knows all caves have monsters....and spiders.

Three year old: I'm done watchin' this stupid cave monster movie.
Me: Why?
Three year old: Because I just am. This movie is stupid.
Me: Really? Well, just so you know, Peter Travers gave this a really good review. I just think your scared.
Three year old: I'm not scared! But I just don't want to watch it anymore. I don't like silly cave monster movies.
Me: Well, your gonna miss the surprise ending.
Three year old: I don't care. I don't like this movie. It's stupid.
Me: So you've mentioned. Maybe your just prejudice against cave monsters. I think we need to go visit some caves tomorrow.
Three year old: No, I don't go in caves!
Me: Really...why is that?
Three year old: Because caves have cave monsters, stupid daddy!
Me: Yup, just like I thought. Your prejudice against cave monsters.
[Long pause]
Three year old, almost whispering: And spiders.

No More For Gore

2007-01-15T23:57:00.000-05:00

According to a Reuters article I found in the Huffington Post, Al Gore will definitely not run for President in 2008. Instead, he will continue his popular campaign of trying to get the United States to lead the campaign to end our world's current climate crisis. Now while I do think that this whole climate crisis thing is a bit debatable (much like nuclear power, lead in gasoline, and recycling every fucking thing we can get our hands on) where I fundamentally disagree with Mr. Gore on this issue is that it definitely should not be the United States leading the way towards lowering global CO2 emissions. Mr. Gore says that we should lead the cause because we are the ones causing most of the problem (we currently produce 20 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita) but I must ask: Do we ask the crack addicts or the heroine junkies to solve the drug problem? If somebody gets shot in a drive-by do we tell them that it is their job to stop street violence? No, we do not because they are the victims much like America is the victim of it's heavy dependence on fossil fuels and other CO2 causing dependencies. Hell, per capita-wise Canadians use fossil fuels nearly as much as Americans and yet they are constantly heralded as a nearly Utopian society--kinda like France but with at least a semblance of an sense of humor. Yet Canadians are never discussed in the global environment picture (hell, Canadians are never discussed period) and yet they are doin' the same shit Americans are doin' except maybe only on the weekends or when their buddies from college decide to stop by and crash for a few days. Yeah, sure, we might be sellin' a bit on the side to the little guys but we have over 5,000 airports to support! We gotta sell the shit just to keep the two-thirds of the airline industries that aren't profitable from going bankrupt! Of course, even if an airline does go bankrupt, the government just jumps in and gives it special status until it gets back on its feet! Oh yeah, we got a problem, we got a big problem, but we are supposed to be the ones to fix it? Yeah right. Now that I think about it, we don't have a problem at all...we're just under a lot of pressure. It's tough being a world leader.

Now if you will excuse me I'm off to the local 24-hour grocery store (its only four miles away) because I feel the need for a Slim Jim and a bag of Bar-B-Q Frito Twists coming on.

The Church of Ultimate Peace.....and Prosperity

2007-01-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'll be the first to admit that I think Scientology is on the very fringe of kooky religions but sometimes I gotta give props when props are due. Take this quote of Ute Kiessel, a spokesman for Scientology, during the recent opening of their big ass building...err, I mean Church...in downtown Berlin, Germany. Mr. Kiessel outlined the Church's "Big Picture" plan by saying:

"The aims of Scientology include a civilization without war, without criminality and without insanity, where honest people have rights."

By stating the Church's goals so plainly, Mr. Kiessel quite effectively distinguished Scientology from all of the pro-war, pro-criminal, pro-insanity, anti-honesty religions out there. I mean, its right there on the packaging now...unlike Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim(ism?), and even Atheism; all of which get bogged down with these hard to grasp "afterlife" concepts (or non-concept when the Atheists are concerned). Usually I disregard anything that comes out of the mouth of the Church of Scientology but now they have my attention because, well, I'm a huge Star Trek fan. Sure, Scientologists have yet to make a battle plan to thwart the Romulans and Klingons but it sounds like they are gonna attack "insane" people pretty aggressively which is nice (just think, no more crazy hobo on a bike bugging you when you buy gas at the nearby gas station!). Still, I do have one major concern and that is why go after Germany so aggressively? I mean, doesn't the Church have a good thing in the heartland of super-rich people who skipped their SAT's in order to appear on an episode of General Hospital? The German government doesn't even recognize Scientology as a religion and yet the Church has spent untold millions of dollars actively trying to recruit...I mean enlighten...the country. Still, I don't remember a single German character on Star Trek....ever. Is there something in Germany's past which might lead The Church of Scientology to think that they would be excellent recruits...er, I mean, members?

Something.....something.....

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."

--Adolf Hitler

Ahhh....Those Were The Days

2007-01-10T20:24:00.000-05:00

Being a child of the eighties, I grew up in the real golden years of women's liberation and, to me, nothing expressed that movement more than this pink can:

That's Tab, baby! The First Lady of diet drinks. When all other beverages cowered to the male-dominated world, Tab strutted her stuff in a bright pink can that said, "I don't need no man to be happy! Am I right ladies? Am I right?" In the sixties, when Tab was introduced, no other beverage dared to be so brazenly pro-woman but by the eighties Tab was the Queen Diva of the social scene. Girls would huddle together at the local skating rink, outwardly sipping their Tab's while laughing at the boys and primping their roller skate Pom-Poms. I remember when my mom started drinking Tab; I remember because it wasn't too long after that when she divorced my dad. To me, a youth of eleven, Tab was only below a box of tampons on the list of things that made me feel both extremely uncomfortable and greatly curious at the same time.

Sadly, during the nineties, women abandoned Tab as they embraced independence by other means, mainly by becoming more active in politics and starting day time talk shows. Soon Tab was less of a memory than Jordache jeans, Aqua Net Super Hold hair spray, and, sadly, C. Thomas Howell. That was until February 2006, when a new beverage started hitting the streets.

Maybe you've seen this slick little can in the store shelves. It's Tab Energy and, just like Tab, it's just for the ladies. But don't get confused, this is not your momma's Tab! The ingredients for Tab Energy read like a voodoo witches grocery list. Sure, Dr. Pepper has 23 ingredients but Tab Energy contains Guarana, a shrub found in Brazil, and Carnitine, which is a quaternary ammonium compound for those who might not already know. The can doesn't say whether the quaternary ammonium compound is the secret to the drinks "Jolly Rancher" like flavor but I'm guessing that the answer might be a solid, "mayyyybeeee." So what do the ladies think of the new heiress apparent to the "ladies only" Tab franchise?

One need not look far to find the answer to that question:

Tab Energy is Fergalicious!

From The Land of Ultimate Convenience

2007-01-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

Comes this delightful AP story on Yahoo! Finance about the horrible inconvenience of having to take off your shoes as you pass through the airport metal detector. Apparently there is nothing worse than having to go through the cumbersome task of taking off your shoes, putting them on a conveyor belt and then putting your shoes back on once they come out the other side. Luckily, as the article explains, certain oh-so-lucky people will no longer have to go through such a burden whenever they board a plane. Instead, for a minimal one hundred dollar fee they can step on a special scanner that checks their irises and fingerprints to confirm their identity, checks their fingers for remnants of bomb-making materials, and also checks their shoes for actual bombs. As of yet, there are no plans to add an anal probe to the scanner.

Of course, now here is my idea, how about instead we all go out and buy some nice comfortable slip-on shoes instead of...you know, giving away another big hunk of our personal freedom? We could even practice kicking them up onto the scanner on one side and jumping into them when they come out the other side. Or better yet, why don't they just shoot us through the scanner with our shoes still on our feet? That way when some terrorist figures out another way to get a bomb on a plane we will already be covered. Then again, I guess we could give this hundred dollar, fingerprint, eyeball, bomb residue shoe scanner a little more time. Hey, and if you lose a foot or something, they might even give you fifty bucks back!

23....Really? But I Still Just Taste The One

2007-01-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

I've always been fascinated with advertising campaigns: the successful ones, the unsuccessful ones, and the just plain peculiar ones (can you say Mentos?). But sometimes I just gotta scratch my head and ask, "Uh, what's the point?" Take, for instance, Dr. Pepper's recent massive ad campaign heralding the popular beverage as having "23 unique flavors." Now I've never been a big Dr. Pepper fan but I do know that it has always had one flavor and that flavor was Mr. Pibb flavor. When, suddenly, did Dr. Pepper become a complicated blend of 23 flavors? It doesn't even have 23 ingredients and sometimes those ingredients change (sugar or corn syrup) depending on where it gets distributed from! Even ballsier than that, is that the actual flavor of Dr. Pepper is exactly the same as it has been for the last one hundred years...it's just now it is a perfect blend of 23 unique flavors! Hey, at least Coke said it's suddenly unique flavor was because it was New Coke....which everybody hated of course and prompted the return of Coke Classic (which actually was a Newer Coke but...you get my point). Obviously, Dr. Pepper is just making this shit up but I must wonder, "Why 23?" Why not..I don't know...42? Or 3 cubed plus 2? Is there something about the idea of 23 separate flavors that is subconsciously appealing to the average soda drinker? Who knows although I do think that Mr. Pibb should start a "mediocre second place soda war" with a counter-campaign; maybe they could do a, "Drink Pibb: It tastes the same and we do it with just the one flavor. Pibb flavor," or, "Choose Mr. Pibb...because we heard that one of their flavors was boiled beef balls." Regardless, I hope Dr. Pepper great success in their expensive campaign although I do fear that if it is successful Hardee's and Carl Jr's might come out with a 23-flavored slop burger...as if watching people eat that revolting chili burger wasn't bad enough.

UPDATE: 1/5/2007--So it seems that Dr. Pepper actually started out as having 23 fountain flavors which explains the 23. However, that fact still doesn't make me wanna start drinkin Dr. Pepper. A funny note though, when Mr. Pibb changed it's name to Pibb Xtra I did go out and buy some just to see what that "Xtra" was all about. I discovered it didn't taste all that different than regular ol' Mr. Pibb but I did have two people ask me what the "Xtra" was while I was drinking it which was nice (so I guess the Xtra might be the added attention you get while drinking your new Pibb).

Saddam's Dead....So What's That Mean on Ebay?

2006-12-31T01:04:00.001-05:00

Yup, they hung him but is it a good thing? My guess is that he probably kinda deserved it.....he was sortof pretty much completely evil (with the understanding that evil is entirely debatable in this day and age). Regardless, I was more interested in seeing what Ebay had to say about Saddam's hanging. And what Ebay had was nothing less than super news for the opportunistic Ebayer! Did yah know that the actual rope that hung that actual dictator is for sale...er well...anyway, Look here and you can find an exact replica of the actual rope they used to hang the actual dictator, Saddam Hussein!!

But here is my whole opinion of it. You take one ruthless dictator, call him A, and add one piece of rope, call it B, and you get C....I'll explain below.

A (Once Ruthless Dictator)

+

B (Long Piece of Rope)

=

I guess people just don't like dicators all that much anymore. Still, if the rope is real as the Ebay sale suggests then it is a super-steal at a penny plus 9.99 shipping. Personally, I'm holdin' out for his shoes. I always thoughts his shoes looked really nice.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

2006-12-28T22:46:00.000-05:00

With another whirlwind holiday season starting to fade into the past, I must take a moment to reflect. And by reflecting I mean talking about all the stupid shit my son got as gifts. Let me get right to the first gift from Santa: Moon Sand.

Moon Sand is pretty cool because it won't absorb moisture of any kind but once you get past that initial "coolness" you'll soon realize that it's basically just fucking sand! The manufacturer claims it's easy to clean up but apparently these studies were done in labs by very slow and meticulous lab technicians with large hand held vacuum cleaners. After about five minutes of watching my son slap and squish and throw globs of Moon Sand (which obliterate into miniscule particles when they hit anything), I quickly retired this little gift for night's over at the grandparent's houses (since they supplied my child with roughly two gallons of this amazing stuff).

Next is a lovely little thing called the i-Tattoo Boys Tattoo Maker.

First, I think it is a little offensive in this day and age to label a Tattoo Maker for "boys" when a lot of young little ladies would probably love to emulate Britney or Paris by putting a nice tat over their ass crack or fancying up their exposed pre-teen belly buttons with a ring of poison ivy or what not. Second, who in their right minds thinks that a machine gun pen loaded with permanant ink is a smart thing to give to an adolescent? My three year old's arms look like they were transplanted from a Manson-lovin', Skoal-dippin', trucker midget. This one goes with the Moon Sand straight to the grandparent's house.

Now this next guy is just plain ugly and it's confusing to boot.

The Monster Tumbler is touted as a flipping, rolling, turning, stuntatistic RC car! However, with its super hard plastic wheels (and large plastic Rollerblade wheel on top that I affectionately call "The Hammer") that are covered in little plastic knobs and it's complete lack of any true turning ability, the Monster Tumbler is really nothing more than an insanely fast piece of spinning terror that will crash into toes, cats, furniture, and anything else that appears innocent or damageable. Even better is that my son has found that it can be controlled from any room in the house because the remote has a range of two miles. It's a nice effect as my son casually watches toons while pushing the levers up and down in a completely random manner. Occasionally, you can hear the wife scream in some part of the house to which my son yells from the comfort of the couch, "Sorry mommy! I'm playing with my car!"

Of course not all of my kid's Christmas gifts were potential hazards. For example this guy was a huge hit in my opinion:

That's Transformers Cybertron Primus and he is almost as awesome as the original Transformers Optimus Prime. Add to it the four bonus mini Transformers that came with it and, well, I just can't be too upset with Santa's performance this holiday season.

It's Amazing What People Perceive As Important

2006-11-07T23:59:00.000-05:00

Apparently, this whole "election" buzz is all that people are thinking about right now while serious issues--things that actually effect our daily lives--continue to go ignored. Take, for instance, Burger King's recent partnership with the soon-to-be-released Happy Feet movie. On the surface, this would appear to be a rather harmless endeavor. Much to my great pain, I soon discovered that this pairing was anything but harmless as I purchased my three year old son a Happy Meal from Burger King. A Happy Meal containing an innocent little penguin toy called Heartsong Gloria. "What is it? What is it?" my son exclaimed as I chucked the toy back at him, remarking, "I don't know...it looks like some kind of penguin," as I pulled into the nearby gas station to purchase more milk (always more fucking milk!). When I returned to the car (the car I parked next to the gas station entrance and locked fully) my son chirped over and over again, "It's another whistle daddy! It's another whistle!" to which I answered, "Oh, great, another whistle." It would seem that the recent trend in Happy Meals is whistles of all varying types: Superman whistles, Duck whistles, every fucking type of whistle you can think of. But this whistle was differend and I should have known it was different when my son said, "Listen, daddy, but hold your ears first!" Instead, I ignored my son as I pulled onto the open highway. I reiterate, I ignored a three-year old, a seasoned veteran of whistles of all shapes and types, who went out of his way to tell me to hold my ears before he took to blowing his whistle.

Next, I can only remember an explosion in my brain as I immediately went blind, causing the car to speed out of control and--since I had been delaying getting the wheels re-aligned--probably straight towards the large granite median. Thankfully, the shrilling pain in my head stopped just in time for me to regain control of the vehicle although it took a great deal of panicked blinking before my eyesight completely returned. "I ran out of air," my son said as he added, "But that's a good whistle isn't it?" I never replied as I passed a dog convulsing on the off-ramp. As I pulled onto the road towards my house I had to steer around two dead alley cats and an owl that was leaning against my fence as if in a drunken stupor. The ringing in my ears continued as I parked the car, let my son out of the back seat and calmly told him, "Now hurry up and go show mommy your whistle."

Thankfully, Burger King has eleven more of these delightful toys for my son to collect.

My Christmas List

2006-11-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

With Christmas fast approaching I figure now would be a good time to compose my list for Santa (because I'm a fucking shoe-in for "Nice" this year). First, I headed over to the single greatest place to mark off all of those must-have items for the yuletide....you probably already guessed where I'm talking about. That's right, ThinkGeek.com, the greatest toy store on Earth. Alright, to be honest, I already own most of the good stuff like the Curiously Strong Magnets (I saw those on an episode of MythBusters and just had to have them. Besides I have a job and if Santa really wanted my business he'd come around a little more often) and I've got like five different laser pens of various colors (the blue is the coolest). As for the ColdHeat soldering device, the bending butane lighter, the USB storage pen, the PowerSquid, and the Acrobot, got it, got it, got it, got it, and....well, I decided I didn't want it. I don't have this awesome watch though.
Sure its pretty sleek looking but what is really cool is that baby tells time in binary! How awesome is that? If they had cool shit like that when I was in high school I would have probably gotten my picture in the Senior Yearbook! Hell, I might have even went out on a date! Regardless, that baby is as good as mine. Next is something I've wanted for years.

A tiny RC helicopter. It's like an annoying little bug that only I can control! Whuh-hahah-hahaha! One day I shall learn to operate a thousand tiny RC helicopters and then I will begin my quest of stopping Tom and Katie from taking over the world so that I, and I alone, can take over the world (the wife really isn't into that sort of stuff but she does tolerate my hobbies).

Once that happens I'll probably ask for a pair of these sweet boxers for Christmas....

....of course, then I'll probably be on Santa's "Naughty" list but I won't care because I'll rule the world which means Santa will be my little bitch!

Once, long ago, I read this poem.....

2006-11-03T00:43:00.000-05:00

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

....after that, I got totally hooked on fantasy shit. I've read it over and over and yet I can't find a subliminal message in it anywhere. Odd that something so insane can effect a person so greatly. To this day I can still see the child wielding that great vorpal blade and downing that deadly Jabberwock!

They even did a Ghostbusters cartoon of the Jabberwocky a long time ago although it was slightly less memorable but to it's credit I do still remember the episode (but, then again, the poem did touch me so).

IE 7.....It Looks So Familiar

2006-10-30T23:26:00.000-05:00

So I just downloaded IE 7 and I must admit that the experience was very similar to watching an episode of Deal Or No Deal. At first, I didn't know why I was doing it, then I spent a good deal of time being absolutely frustrated, only to realize, at the end, there really wasn't any fucking point to any of it to begin with! If you don't know IE 7 came out a good while back but it might have slipped under yoru radar because it was released under the name of Mozilla Firefox back then. Sadly, the updated IE7 version of the popular Firefox browser is actually much worse than the leaner albeit older original. But at least the IE7 version totally fucks up my blog by putting the side bar at the very bottom of the blog which is a layout choice I never would have considered at first. My suggestion, steer clear of this updated version of the great browser and go with the classic instead. You can find it here.

Now I'm off to watch a few episodes of my recently purchased DVD of SuperFriends, Volume Two.

I wonder, is it just me or does Robin really have the legs of an Amazonian Goddess?

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

2006-10-02T01:11:00.000-04:00

So I was digging around trying to find the article I read earlier about Anousheh Ansar, the lady that will one day make space flight affordable, when I came across an article about Light cigarettes instead. Apparently, the cigarette companies are getting sued once more for stating that "Light" cigarettes are better for you than regular cigarettes. It would seem that the tobacco companies knew that "Light" cigarette smokers tended to smoke more cigarettes, take longer drags, and, in general, just "smoke them harder" than they would regular cigarettes. In effect, because of how smokers smoked Light cigarettes, they were no less dangerous than smoking regular, hard-core, cigarettes. Popular opinion would probably agree with such a statement and to popular opinion I would say, "get a fucking clue!" I don't like cigarette companies, I think they are a bunch of profit-mongers just like most other large corporations but I don't blame them because they are not to blame. I don't like cigarettes either (although I am a social smoker and probably down about one a day on average...or used to when I had some semblance of a social life) but I don't believe we can just cheat the system in order to abolish cigarettes: which is what this is all about. Light cigarettes have less of the "evil" substances than regular cigarettes. If Light cigarette smokers end up smoking more or "harder" then what fault is it of the company selling the product? Really, how are they even able to actively promote Light cigarettes as being more healthy? Not by advertisement, since that money is spent on trying to get people to stop smoking (as ordered in the decree of the previous lawsuit). Not on their website either or by giving out cool shit since Marlboro Miles are worthless nowadays. Still, even if the lawsuit does end up going against the cigarette manufacturers, how will that change anything? Sure, they will stop selling Lights but they will just come out with Smooth or TT name instead which will be code for the same thing as Light. In the end, cigarettes will still be around and just as accessible as before. Why? Because as much as cigarette smokers are addicted to cigarettes, the government is just as addicted to all that yummy tax revenue from it's "sin" tax on the product, and those people constantly suing cigarette companies: they will get their little piece of the pie so that they can go out and buy a bunch of new shit and still feel like they are changing the world.

As for the thousands of teens who act like fools in cars and end up dying, shoot each other for no reason, take experimental drugs that can kill them instantly (and not years upon years later like cigarettes), and constantly think about taking their own life through suicide: well little is being done about that. But nobody should be blamed for not trying to stop any of that because, honestly, there just isn't any money in it.

Here's the article.

The Spoiled Giant & The Giddy Flea

2006-09-30T00:18:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-29T00:24:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-28T00:28:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-27T01:45:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-26T00:27:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-21T00:16:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-20T00:19:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-18T23:02:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-16T00:00:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-14T22:25:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-13T20:59:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-09-13T00:38:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-09-12T12:39:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-10T23:00:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-10T01:09:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-07T22:54:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-06T21:38:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-04T23:38:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-03T20:55:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-02T00:55:00.000-04:00

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.

The Infamous Farting Preacher

2006-08-31T23:44:00.000-04:00

If you don't know about Robert Tilton then you might want to read up on him over at Wikipedia before continuing to read here. Or, you can just get my nutshell version of this sleazeball which pretty much summates what is said in the link. Mr. Tilton is, in my opinion, one of the lowest forms of life in existence. In the nineties, he became extremely wealthy by telling poor people and sick people that they could get rich or get well simply by sending him money (preferably a thousand bucks). Nearly all of his show was spent claiming that the only way to escape from the devil--which was why they were poor or sick--was to fork over that cash to his piece of shit ass. He spent very little time actually preaching good faith or attempting to uplift a depressed soul or doing anything that might possibly hint that there was any value in sending him a buck. And a lot of people sent him a lot of money throughout the beginning of the nineties until Dateline blew the whistle on his game. After that he drifted into obscurity for a while only to be replaced by a video clip of The Farting Preacher which was just Mr. Tilton preaching with different fart noises dubbed in during opportune times. If you haven't seen it, your first reaction might be slight apall (unless you have a negative opinion of Christianity or religion which means you will find it hilarious sans guilt) as you laugh and chuckle. Personally, I've known for some time that Robert Tilton is two floors down from the devil himself (hey, at least the devil is honest about what he's doing). But the really good thing is that thanks to YouTube you can experience all five of the Farting Preacher remixes. This one here is the latest (although it still might be old) and my personal favorite. Oh, and thanks to Micks for the contribution because I now realize that a decent humor blog would be incomplete if it didn't have a link to The Farting Preacher:

Finding Old Friends That Never Knew You

2006-08-31T00:16:00.000-04:00

Back in the days when I used to live in an ugly apartment and spend my time hussling about in a white delivery van, there was precious little to look at on the Internet (besides porn, of course). This was eight years ago, I guess, and I was obsessed with two things: overclocking my computer and trying to figure out if anything from Trivinity, a long-winded, senseless thing I finished writing (actually, quit is a better word) a year earlier, was salvagable. I had success with the former (a Pentium III overclocked from 333 to 456...can I get a "Hell Yeah" from the geeks in the room?) and only wasted hours of my life rewriting and editing things that were better left buried on my hard drive with the latter. Somewhere in that time, I came across Xander Mellish, a struggling writer who started a website based on her many short stories. The characters in her stories were always amusing because they were these extremely smart yet completely innocent women who were forced to become treacherous despite their golden hearts. Romance novels were full of women with such potential but unlike romantical heroines, Xander's heroines did not contain the vital "Swoon Gene" which is so prevalant in most female leads. Once a month, I would get drunk enough to write Xander about writing, inspiration, the simple randomness of it all and she would always reply with a positive, uplifting response that always completely annoyed me. Still, she was nice and she could write and I followed her site as she went on the quest to finish her first book, The Five Georges. She would update her site about how things were going until, one day, it just stopped. I found out later that she moved to Denmark and started working for a paper there. Today, I discovered that her site is back up although it is no longer just the funny short stories of the past, instead it has an array of stories about many different things although her old stories are still intact in the "Classics" section. If you need a good read, this is a good place to get it. I suggest you start with Xander's stories about Denmark because them Danes are a bit of a peculiar bunch.

You can find Xander here.

A Definite Case For Holmes & Watson

2006-08-29T23:31:00.000-04:00

So they just came out with this report where 31 states recorded increases in adult obesity. It seems that despite government initiatives at both the state and federal level, people are still getting bigger. It is quite the quandary. Of course, this news comes only a mere week after McDonald's launched their new Arch card. That's a bold move, creating a debit card that can only be used to purchase crappy fast food but I guess that's why McDonald's is the number one fast food chain. They know how to think outside of the box. Not that the other fast food chains are slackers. Hardee's has their award winning Double Thickburgers and it's co-partner in the business, Carl's Jr, has the peculiar Pastrami Burger. Wendy's has the Classic Triple which begs the question of just when did three slabs of meat on top of each other become classic? But not to be outdone Burger King just came out with Stackers that can go four patties high! That's impressive, but even more impressive is Dairy Queen's jump into the burger fray with this little gem:

That there is called the Chili Meltdown Grill Burger. Dairy Queen claims that it'll make a man out of you which I will not disagree with since only a real man can eat two burger patties, a lot of cheese, a whole onion, and a bowl of chili all at the same time. A real man with a real deadly amount of heartburn afterward.

All that said, the people that I personally blame for all of the obesity issues in America isn't a fast food chain at all. I blame companies like Dockers with their innovative individual fit waistband. Really what is the incentive to lose that little bit of extra weight in order to fit into your pants when your pants will automatically change size to fit you? Sure, it's convenient but there is something to be said for the motivational humility of having to sew the button back on your pants after your belly just launched it across the room and scared five lives out of your always nervous house cat. But I could be wrong and maybe the fast food people are really to blame. But I doubt my cat, who has lived exclusively under my bed for the past two years, would agree.

Americans Are Addicted To Crap

2006-08-28T23:55:00.000-04:00

I've had this thing sitting atop my router for three years now:

What is it? That is the heaviest friggin' bobblehead ever created. It's of Tiger Woods, it's called "Major Force", and it weighs no less than a pound and a half. Why has it been sitting atop my router for the past three years? Honestly, I haven't a friggin' clue. It was a gift which tells you why I own it in the first place but why I have kept it atop my router for so long is anybody's guess. The really funny thing is that if you try to bobble his head, he will immediately fall forward. I know this because for a couple of months I thought that I would make him useful and tap the bill of his cap for luck before I went out to play golf. Every single time I tapped his cap, his head would take to bobblin' and he would immediately jump off of the router and onto something on my desk that was infinitely more important than a stupid bobblehead made of lead. I used to own a very expensive Hewlett Packard financial calculator until I had an exceptionally early tee time and half-asleep I bobbled Tiger for luck. Needless to say, I no longer own a Hewlett Packard financial calculator but I do still have my Tiger Woods "Major Force" bobblehead although he did lose a pointy finger from the exchange. Last year my son got hold of him and decided to highlight his shirt with a Sharpie. And yet there he still sits atop my router pointing at me with his stub of a finger with embarrassing streaks of Sharpie across his face, body, and clothing. As I look at him, I can only guess that I'm addicted to crap. I don't know when I got addicted to it and I don't know how. However, after looking at the movement of bobbleheads in general on Ebay and spending a full hour with my wife at the Dollar General store I think every other American is addicted to crap as well. So I guess that's why I never hear anybody talking about it....we are a country still in denial.

Way To Drop The Ball, India

2006-08-27T22:25:00.000-04:00

The country of India has a dream. A dream to end the suffering of millions if not billions of lives. In simple terms, India wants to create an effective poultry vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu. Kennedy wanted to go to the moon, Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to stop hundreds of years of racial biggotry and separation, and the nation of India wants to keep their chickens from getting the flu. I figured they would want to stop mad cow disease since cows are sacred or maybe they would want figure out how to stop monkeys from flinging crap on people since monkeys are sacred but, apparently, the people of India are fairly fond of chickens as well. Regardless, because of their drive and focus, India might have indeed created a vaccine that will stop poultry across the nation from ever again having to deal with a stuffy beak and an inability to cluck due to sore throat. However, in their quest, India forgot to build a facility that can actually house a live vaccine; which is absolutely crucial if you want to stop chickens from getting the flu. How embarrassing. When America decided that it wanted to go to the moon, the first thing it did was build a shuttle that could damn well take it to the moon! Why? Because if your gonna think big you gotta be big! When Reagan decided he was gonna end the Cold War by amassing thousands of nuclear weapons, what did he do? He amassed thousands of nuclear weapons, that's what he did! So, India, if you say your gonna stop millions of chickens from ever again experiencing the ill effects of the flu you better be damn well able to back that shit up! Otherwise, leave the dreaming to the countries who don't just dream, they do the dream.

Here's the article.

The Flavor Is In The Fungus

2006-08-25T23:18:00.000-04:00

I caught this article on the Brazil Post today. Apparently, the true flavor of coffee has nothing to do with the coffee itself, it has to do with the fungi within the coffee. I know what your thinking, "Fungus makes coffee taste better? That's crazy!" But it's true! In fact, this isn't the first time I've heard of such a thing because in the past I used to enjoy the occasional glass of port wine until I read an article that wineries in Portugal had started using people with athlete's foot to stomp the grapes because the foot fungus enhanced the flavor of the port wine. Telling me that the grapes were stomped by incontinent swine would not have made me any less ill to my stomach at the time. But, then again, back then I really didn't have any appreciation for the extraordinary flavor-enhancing properties of a really funky fungus.

Now I must wonder how long will we have to wait before somebody comes out with the first mushroom juice? If these little funguses make beverages so much more delicious, certainly a nice big Portabello or Shitake will be ten times as delectable in liquid form. And it is certainly an untapped market because even V-8, the quintessential juice full of things that should not be turned into juice, doesn't even use mushrooms in their recipe. Halfbakery agrees and thinks they should just get rid of the coffee altogether and start serving frothy mushroom juice instead. As for me, I'll stick with my slightly less psychotropic Coca-Cola for now.

The Pet I Always Wanted

2006-08-25T00:26:00.000-04:00

For my tenth birthday I got a copy of the Guiness Book of World Records which I read from cover to cover at least twenty times. It was the 1982 Special Edition and within it's pages were listed some fun facts that I use to this day. For instance, I discovered the world's hardest tongue twister which took me a full week to master: The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick. Or the world's most alcoholic city: I remember it was some place in Siberia where each person consumed three gallons of vodka a day and that was counting every man, woman, and child. The 1982 Special Edition even had the fat twins on the minibikes and those African ladies with all those brass rings around their necks. However, my single favorite thing above all other things and the page I looked at the most was the one about the world's smallest monkey. I remember it as the "thumb monkey" but it is actually a pygmy marmoset. I wanted one of those monkeys so bad I used to dream about having one all the way into my teen years (which was around the time my brother traded my 1982 Special Edition copy of the Guiness Book of World Records for a pack of Levi Garrett chewing tobacco). That was nearly twenty years ago so it came as a bit of a surprise to me to see the pygmy marmoset once again on the front page of the Herald Sun. Now I want one all over again.

Just look at the little buggers. Sure kitties and puppies are cute but they don't have little hands and little people-like faces. It's a fact that the people of Lilliput were direct descendents of the pygmy marmoset. Alright I made that up.

Maybe I'm still scarred by the whole Sea Monkey fiasco which was a pretty bad event in my childhood. I know your thinking, "Hey, who didn't get disappointed by Sea Monkeys? Get over it." But you didn't have my brother. I spent twelve bucks of my own money on the bowl, the castle, and other various kingdom related items and just before my Sea Monkeys voted on their first form of Parliamentary government, my brother dumped a cup of bleach into the bowl. No Sea Monkey survived, not one.

That left a hole in my heart and I think I need a wee monkey to plug that hole. Either that, or I need to read Catcher in the Rye again. Either way, it means I've gotta go shopping on Ebay.

In The News....A Long Friggin' Time Ago

2006-08-24T00:27:00.000-04:00

The one thing about blogging that can get you in the most trouble is blogging about a topic that is considered "yesterday". Mainly, that's why I try to refrain from current events unless I am absolutely certain that my topic is absolutely current. Yet, even then, I am sometimes a bit late (for instance, the Charlotte Church video I blogged was over a year old but, hey, it was new to me). It is even one of the ten golden rules of blogging, number four I think: Don't Blog Old Topics. Of course, they say to avoid trying to do a humor blog as well which makes me a real sinner in the blogging community. That said, I felt a sense of mild relief to discover that even Yahoo! sometimes makes a blunder. On the main page of their website right now is the famous folding t-shirt video. I first saw this thing no less than two years ago and while I thought it was interesting I would not put it in my top ten videos even back then. Which is why I find it rather amusing that Yahoo! has put it on their website now. You can find the link to the actual website for the actual folding t-shirt video here. As for me, I've seen it about a hundred times but the video did cause me to remember JibJab which I will now put in my Links.

I've Been Voodoo Hexed

2006-08-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

I lost my third pair of sandals today in less than two months. The latest pair to come undone were barely four weeks old and showed no sign of even the slightest bit of wear or tear. But right there in the parking lot the left one just blew right out on me. I nearly dropped my corn dog as a result of the event. I've asked around and I have yet to find a single person who has lost a single pair of shoes in a similar manner and yet I've already lost three pairs...in less than two months! I've thought about it a lot and I can only come to the conclusion that I have been hexed in some manner of voodoo or possibly witchcraft. Obviously, the person behind the cursing is really not all that good at what they do because if they were I should be covered in boils or have already jumped in front of a moving bus. Instead, I'm walking around with one foot unshod. Still, I'm concerned. Footwear--decent footwear, I mean--isn't all that cheap and I can't keep throwing out five bucks every couple of weeks just because I ticked off some waitress who is one tenth Haitian and likes to dabble in Wiccan lore or some shit. My wife says I just need to stop buying cheap flip-flops from discount stores but she doesn't understand what I'm dealing with here. And, apparently, she forgets that the first pair were actually Birkenstocks; sure they were eight years old and no longer had any cork on their heels but they were Birk's! Only voodoo witchcraft can take out a Birk! No, buying new shoes is definitely not the answer. What I need to do is go on the offensive and bust out a little old school hexing of my own. I'm one sixteenth Cherokee (or Apache maybe?) so I've got a little bit of the ancient spirit swirling around in me (I know, because it really starts to stir when I eat Indian food). First, I need to find out who has cursed my shoes and then it is on! I'm not gonna give away exactly what I'm gonna do to the person but I will say that he or she might want to invest in an umbrella real soon.

A Game For The Disgruntled Middle American

2006-08-22T00:09:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you but there are many times throughout the day when I wish I could just start killing people. Not randomly, of course, but sort of in "impromptu premeditated" fashion; a sort of spur of the moment flash kill if you will. And not road rage-like either, where you just whip out a gun and start shooting at different vehicles, because that's just insane! The random slaughter of somebody's pet Shitzu or the haphazard maiming of somebody's granny (even if she might be a minger) is just senseless violence and only promotes more senseless rage and eventual chaos! I'm talking about weeding out the daily assholes, dumbasses, jerks, and bitches you meet on any given day. I know that it isn't possible in today's society but I'm hopeful that we might reach some future utopian society in which such a thing is not only allowed, but it is encouraged. Until then, I guess I'll just play this fun little expansion pack for The Sim's:

I think I'm gonna start off by building up my education so that I can land a really good paying corporate job. Then I'll probably get married and have two kids. We'll move to some place nice in Pennsylvania, not a big city but close enough that we can go to some of the bigger plays and eat at a nice restaurant every now and then. I'll probably even put in a pool and start throwing parties. I might even teach a few classes at the local college. After that, I'll probably murder the jerk off who just ripped me off on my new Lexus. Next, I'll assassinate that couple in the RV who kept honking their horn at me because I wouldn't pull up to the next pump at the gas station. I'll explain to them that there was clearly a sign which said Out of Order on the pump--something I repeatedly pointed out as they were honking and cussing at me--before I slit their throats. Next, well, let me just say that I foresee a definite drop in population in the fine Sim's state of Pennsylvania.

The Church of Charlotte

2006-08-21T00:12:00.000-04:00

When Bianca Ryan won the America's Got Talent million dollars this past week it got me to thinking about Charlotte Church. Sure, Bianca has talent but Charlotte Church was one of the most talked about voices anywhere. That's because when Charlotte was a kid she was singing in prestigious opera houses and being compared to some of the greatest singers in history. Which is why I found it odd that I had not heard much about her over the past few years. I figured she was still doing opera and Christmas songs but I was still curious to see if she still had such an amazing voice so I searched her name at YouTube. It didn't take long for me to discover that Charlotte is quite grown up and grown up Charlotte has decided to take her singing career down a new path. Look out Britney, Jessica, and Christina because the little girl from the UK has come to play.

Oh, and if you want to download YouTube videos onto your computer and don't know how, check out my latest link. You might find it to be very educational.

Gone Is The Granny Pic, Back Is My Optimism

2006-08-20T00:30:00.000-04:00

Alright, after some personal debate, I took the naked granny pic off of my blog. I did this because, well, it made me feelt kinda uncomfortable everytime I would sweep over it while checking for typos. However, what contributed mostly to the decision was that I had received zero hits ever since I blogged it. I had been going steadily upward and then, bam! Nothin. Not a single visit. For two straight days. Normally, that wouldn't matter much to me since I blogged for six months to nobody just to get the hang of it but I had already made over two dollars on AdSense; and I've got my eyes on some new deodorant (and not the cheap shit either...I'm talkin' the fancy Old Spice stuff here!). But if things kept going like this, I would barely have enough money to buy a pack of breath mints. Then a couple of hours ago I remembered that I forgot to put my counter back on my blog when I changed my template. That was a real rookie mistake. But now I'm back on track. Heck, now I might even hold out for some new blades for my Schick Quattro....and those cost like eight bucks.

A Celebrity Inspired Website That Isn't Pointless

2006-08-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you but I find the three hundred million blogs, pages, and websites dedicated to celebrities to be a bit redundant. Really, how many times do I need to know that Jennifer and Vince are married, not married, married, eloped, aren't really together, have a love child, don't even like each other...well, I think you get my point. I don't care if Kirstie Alley gained the weight back, Lindsey Lohan is feuding with Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise likes to snack on imported cheese, or Star Jones is really a man.

But what I do care about when it comes to celebrities is how tall I am in relation to them. Seriously, when it boils right down to it, isn't that what we all want to know? If you walked up to Kevin Bacon, wouldn't you want to know whether you would have to look up or down at him? I've always thought that Mr. Bacon looked short in his movies so I'm guessing I'd look down but I can't be for certain. However, now that I've found SizeMatcher.com I can be for certain! Thanks to SizeMatcher, I'll know whether or not I will have to look up or down at nearly every celebrity in America!

Oh, how liberating it is to finally know!

(and I thought blogging a top ten worst movies list was a waste of time)

I Thought I Would Brighten Up The Place

2006-08-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

So out with the old and in with the new as they say. After yesterday's blog I decided I needed a template that lets things jump off of the page a bit better. If you don't agree that this template accomplishes that, just take a quick glance at the naked granny and see if I'm not right. Yesterday, on the previous template, she was just extremely unpleasant to look at but now she actually comes out of the monitor at you. Literally. Not but an hour ago, I was checking the blog at the 1280x720 setting and when I tried to scroll over her really fast, she popped her head out and asked me if I could run down to the liquor store and pick her up a bottle of gin and a carton of Lucky Strikes. I even have proof because her right boob swung out and knocked my drink onto my keyboard. So now I have a sticky keyboard and a pissed off wife because she thinks I'm drunk and smoking in the house. I tried to explain that it was just a better template but she got all hung up on why I would blog a picture of an old naked lady in the first place. I tried to explain that the old lady was a minger but that only caused my wife to think I was so drunk that I was now making up random words. I told her to look it up on Wikipedia but she only walked out of the room, stating, "See, there you go making up words again. It's called an Dictionary."

Still, I'm gonna give her some time. Eventually, I think she'll come around.

What Is A Minger?

2006-08-18T00:35:00.000-04:00

According to the Urban Dictionary a minger is:

a male or female who fell out of the ugly tree at birth and hit every branch on the way down

And definition three claims that it derives from:

Scottish Gaelic, meaning 'septic vagina'.

Wikipedia offers no insight as to the meaning of this word but after viewing a few pics on Mingers.com I still don't have a clue. Here are a few examples of mingers on their website.

Alright, it's a bad pic, I'll give you that but it certainly isn't the face that makes it so horrible. Sure, the face doesn't help much but the leather jacket, the pose, the glasses, the funky big-ass ear rings all do their part. I'm guessing that a minger is somebody who isn't all that attractive and has absolutely no fashion sense.

Next pic.

Again, the face ain't the problem here but, really, the fashion sense is what saves this guy. Come on, a fat guy wearin' a "I Beat Anorexia" shirt. That's funny...and yet he is still a minger.

On to the third pic.

[Due to a certain level of offense caused by this picture I will now describe it instead of showing it. It was of a fairly seasoned woman sitting in the tub smoking a cigarette with a very suggestive look on her face. Yes, her extremely spent boobs were exposed but the poster of the image had blacked out her nip--actually, I explain that below. So, there, image gone. I went too far with this one I guess and I apologize for any of the unfortunates who had to witness it.]

For the love of...that is twice in one week that I have run across a pic of somebody's naked grandma! I will tell you right now, that isn't right....that is not right at all. Thank God for the person who had enough compassion to at least void out granny's....gulp!....nipply areas. Why couldn't they do something about the suggestive look on her face? The really sad part is that a pic of a naked elderly lady leaves me even more clueless as to what truly is a minger. But, then again, after seeing that pic I really don't care to know anymore.

News From Lewiston, Maine

2006-08-16T23:47:00.000-04:00

It would appear that the folks up there in Lewiston have finally caught them a bonafide "creature-critter". The "dog-cat-thing" had been terrorizing the town for some time now; killing cats, staring at people in the night with it's beady glowing eyes, and in general just stinkin' up the place with it's complete disregard for personal hygiene. Some even suspect that it might be the legendary Chupacabra which is just silly because what would a creature of Latin-American lore be doing all the way up in Maine? Taking in some skiing? Learning to crab fish? And just look at it:

Just one look and you can tell that ain't no friggin' Chupacabra! The disheveled mane, the warthog-like teeth, the bulging eyes, and the demonic ears....that all points to one, and only one, thing. It's obvious that what they have in Lewiston, Maine is a baby Warg. It's probably barely a few months old but, despite it's youth, I doubt that something so wimpy as a car took it out. By my guess, I would say a club-wielding Dwarf, or possibly an adolescent Troll, downed this beast. I only hope that the Orc who owned this thing doesn't find out because they might have a real problem up there in Maine if it does.

Here's the article in the Lewiston Sun Journal.

UPDATE (8-17-2006): The link the the Sun Journal doesn't work anymore unless you subscribe to their site. Yeah, right, like anybody is going to do that. Your the friggin' Lewiston Sun Journal. I'd have a better chance of getting people to subscribe to BlogoftheBard and I don't even have a stinkin' baby Warg story! Oh, wait....I guess I do...and people can see mine without subscribing to see it. Get with the times Lewiston. Get with the friggin' times.

I Hate Terrorists Just As Much As The Next Person But...

2006-08-16T23:13:00.000-04:00

...this might be takin' it a bit far. In their latest attempt to thwart evil from boarding aircraft, some airports have started using full body x-ray scanners. While this may sound like a good idea in order to keep innocent travelers safe, I must wonder to what extent are we willing to go in order to ensure that safety? For example, here is just one image showing the full body x-ray scanner at work:

I don't know about you but I think that on the "how far should we go to protect ourselves from terrorists" meter, that there is probably too far. Sure granny might be packin' but if the terrorists are gonna force us to look at their grannies exposed asses all of the time, I say we just give up now. I don't know about you, but I'd at least consider skimmin' through some Cliff's Notes of the Koran as opposed to having to look at that image again. But thats just me and I have been known to be a pretty shallow son of a bitch at times.

Finally, A Soldier Receives His Pardon

2006-08-15T23:42:00.000-04:00

Private Harry Farr's family couldn't be happier that Harry finally got his pardon from the British government. I can see where they would be happy since it did take ninety years of fighting with the government before they finally exonerated Private Farr. As for Private Farr, himself, I doubt he really gives a shit since the British government shot him waaaayyyy back in 1916 for cowardice. I wonder if that pardon comes with some sort of resurrection clause or, at the very least, a shiny new tombstone? Now don't get me wrong, I know that World War I and World War II were true "fight to survive" wars but, come on, it shouldn't take ninety years to say that maybe your country was wrong for putting your own soldiers in front of a firing squad. These were young men that had already seen action, they had already served a part in defending your country; at least give their families something more than a meaningless pardon. Give 'em a new car or, at the very least, some free bus passes! And for the love of all things that are sane, pardon the other 306 young men you shot along with Private Farr! You do that and maybe we'll think about changing our tactics over at Guantanamo Bay......note I said maybe but if you throw in those new cars that maybe could change to a good chance pretty soon. But I still wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

Here's the Private Farr article.

Ishtar, Popeye, Caligula, & The Last Action Hero

2006-08-15T00:19:00.000-04:00

They are all saved as Round Three eliminates them as well as these others from my top ten worst movies of the last thirty years:

3000 Miles to Graceland
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever
Congo
Cutthroat Island
Drop Dead Fred
Godzilla
The Gospel
Heaven's Gate
Joe's Apartment
Judge Dredd
Last Rites
Lost In Space
The Postman
She-Devil
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Town & Country

It would seem that if some movies are bad enough that they will almost always gather a cult following. Caligula, Star Trek V, and Joe's Apartment are all proof of that. These movies were bad, bad, bad and yet they were saved by alot of people giving them perfect ten reviews. Watch Joe's Apartment and I dare you to say this movie was anything above wretched. I dare you! It's singing cochroaches on a toilet with no friggin' point! Sure, I like Jerry O'Connell but even he was bad in this movie and I'm certain that if you were to ask him if he could go back in time and choose between still doing this movie or gaining all the weight back from his Stand By Me days he would probably....well, actually he'd probably still do Joe's Apartment. Which proves that Jerry O'Connell is an idiot because he agreed to do the hideous movie in the first place! As further proof, he also did Kangaroo Jack some seven years later. Hey, Jerry here's a bit of professional advice: Get A New Agent. Either that or gain the weight back and do a sitcom. There are plenty of less talented guys making a killing in Hollywood doing that.

When you can't find a giant squid, a hydro-electric car will have to do

2006-08-14T23:36:00.000-04:00

I was going to blog about this article I saw on Yahoo! News today because an immediate theme came to mind. That being a parody of The New Colossus but instead of your poor, your tired, you know, it would be, "Give us your murderers, your rapists, your felons longing to steal our shit," but I really couldn't find a way to go with the story after that. Really, it isn't all that funny of a story (save my reference to the poem), especially not for the victims and certainly not for the felons because they are in Texas now and in Texas they treat their criminals a bit differently than they did in New Orleans. I'm not sure but I think they still hang you if you steal a man's horse in Texas and if your Hispanic they not only kill you but they also condemn your soul to live inside of an angry burro for another thirty years.

After that, I hopped on Metacafe and found this video on a hydro-electric car from GM. Now I know everybody has seen videos of these little gems because they are the cars of the future but what makes this one different is that it is the future of the cars of the future. Those smart engineers at GM already make the assumption that hydro-electric cars are the future and therefore they make a car that takes that concept to the next level. What they came up with is another cool-albeit it still quite ugly (why are these cars always so ugly?)--concept of what we might see on the road fifteen or twenty years from now. What I thought was super-cool about the thing was that you can turn your sedan into a truck into a coupe into a whatever. Screw environmentally-friendly, we can use something like that right now. I've got shit in my yard I'd like to haul to the dump and there is only so much rock, bricks, and fallen tree limbs that you can put in the back of a family sedan.

I am a slave of convenience

2006-08-14T00:04:00.000-04:00

For some reason, my Chinese pick up was late which absolutely never happens. I've ordered from there like a hundred times and when the lady says, "Fifteen minute," she means, "Fifteen minute." Oftentimes I even show up early (the Chinese place is like a mile away) and my food is usually still ready. But this time it wasn't and so I had to wait which wasn't so bad except that just then the grocery store where I used to buy my groceries walked in, prompting a very uncomfortable conversation. Here's how I best remember it.

Me (as the grocery store took me entirely by surprise when I turned around from the cashier's counter): Whoa! Hey, excuse me, I didn't know....oh, hey, grocery store."

Grocery Store: "Hello. It's been a long time."

Me: "Yeah, I guess, it has been a while."

Grocery Store: "By my guess it's been five years, two months, and eight days since you last came in. You ordered milk, a root beer, and, what was it....oh yes, a Little Debbie Swiss Miss roll."

Me: "Yeah, I like those Little Debbie rolls."

Grocery Store: "So how have you been for the last five years, two months, and eight days?"

Me: "Uhhh, well, we bought a house and--"

Grocery Store: "Good for you! I always heard you talking with my many friendly employees about wanting to buy a house! That's great! So you buy your groceries online now? Over the Internet, I guess?"

Me: "No, umm, actually I live on the other side of town and--"

Grocery Store: "Yeah, I remember one time you were talking to Sharon--you remember her, don't you?--you were telling her about how much you liked the way you could always come in and not worry about waiting in line or not finding what you were looking for--you said I was a "friendly place" and "a nice store to not feel so stressed out when you were buying things". That's what you said. Before you moved to the other side of town, I mean, and stopped frequenting me entirely."

Me: "Actually, just the other day, I was thinking that I needed to see if you still carried those peaches. Nobody has peaches that taste like that. I can't find 'em anywhere. I was even--"

Grocery Store: "It's funny you say that because the store manager, Gary--you remember Gary?--advertised a sale on my peaches for the last two weeks. For some reason, we got in an extra twenty cases of the things. You didn't see that advertisement all over the papers?"

Me: "Well, yeah, I did...maybe that's why I mentioned the peaches. I was just so busy that I didn't get over your way. I did clip the coupon though. I might even have it right here in my wallet! Look--"

Grocery Store: "Smell me. I can tell by your face that you already have. You know what that is? That's over two hundred pounds of fermenting peaches. They should have been tossed in the dumpsters ten days ago but Gary forget to pay the garbage bill again so they didn't pick up last week. On top of that, I have thirty gallons of milk getting ready to go bad as we speak."

Me: "Oh, well, hey, my food is here! It was good seein' yah again though!"

Grocery Store: "Sure. Whatever. By the way, you might wanna go out the back way because I think I saw the video store you used to go to parking in the Handicapped space."

Me: "Thanks. I'll do that. But just for the record, I stopped going there because I have a late charge I don't want to pay...it has nothing to do with convenience."

Grocery Store: "Whatever. Tell it to somebody who gives a damn. Enjoy your Sesame Chicken."

Me: "Thanks. I will. It's better at the other place but, you know, the other place is like another five hundred yards farther away. "

Billy Jack is Back

2006-08-13T02:09:00.000-04:00

Honestly, I had never heard of Billy Jack until I started blogging and since then I've seen his name come up repeatedly. The reference to the legendary fake Indian activist surfaces in political blog conversation on more than chance occasions and, apparently, it is an easy way to determine personal viewpoints. To say, "I like Bush," or, "Bush is an idiot," certainly aligns you to some degree on a political line but to say you either liked or disliked Billy Jack will tell people things about you that even John Edwards couldn't fathom. I'm still clueless for the most part but I have at least a better idea after re-visiting BadMovies.Org and discovering The Trial of Billy Jack under the T's. If you have some time and enjoy movies then you must visit Andrew Borntreger's list of worst B movies in existence. Some of the video clips are flat-out hilarious but you will be surprised as to how many movie greats were involved with truly horrendous projects. Hint: Peter Jackson comes up twice as director. I'm only wondering why Son of Kong was not on the site. I can only hope that Andrew will continue to update his movie reviews.

A List Update

2006-08-10T01:03:00.000-04:00

Since I've been out of town I haven't had much time to do any research on my Top Ten List which I have now affectionately dubbed: The Most Pointless Thing I Have Ever Done In My Life. That might sound like a fairly empty title but this is from a person who has:

Worked every single Puzz 3-D ever made pre-1995
Spent two days building a 3-foot tall Eiffel Tower out of two thousand generic Magnetix pieces only to have my son kick it down two seconds later
Learned to do over ten Yo-Yo tricks
Learned to play Omaha Hi-Lo effectively
Logged over a hundred hours trying to figure out what is really up with The Church of Scientology
Got hooked on three seasons of The Real World, two seasons of The Osbournes, two seasons of Project Greenlight, two seasons of Survivor, one season of Big Brother, two seasons of American Idol, one season of Fear Factor, one season of The Apprentice, a half a season of Dancing With The Stars, a half a season of Skating With The Stars, five weeks of The Biggest Loser, three weeks of Newlyweds, two weeks of Hell's Kitchen, five days of Deal or No Deal, and the last episode of Joe Millionairre
Wrote over ten letters to my local Congressman and four to my State Senators
Tried the South Beach Diet: "Bread bad, pig goooooood!" I gained two pounds as my blood sugar plummeted to a very respectable 10 (hey, a perfect score!). Maybe I should call this one of The Most Deadly Things I've Ever Done
Created a MySpace account
Hit Ryan Adams video. He was right. Hit the link, you'll see

As for my movie list, gone are: Hard To Hold, Joe Dirt, Virtuosity, Hudson Hawk, The Stupids. All for various reasons.

Movies I have failed to categorize as of yet: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Last Rites, Town & Country, Are We There Yet?, She-Devil, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Those Funny Food Critics

2006-08-09T23:39:00.000-04:00

I'm back from my business trip to Leesburg, Virginia and I return with the knowledge that even the occasional snooty food critic likes to play a good joke every now and again. If you've never been to Leesburg it is one of those places that grows on an exponential basis. When they put in a new road going anywhere (and I mean anywhere) it is always a four lane with a median because they know that in another year it will be flooded with budding new commerce and strips of ridiculously over-priced townhouses. Leesburg is the type of place where people get their houses appraised every year just because they want to and they don't go out and buy new cars, they order them over the Internet and have them delivered to their homes. Personally, I love to visit the place because I get plenty of interesting restaurant choices. Last year, I went to the Tuscarora Mill and could not have been happier with the food. However, this year I had to dine alone and the Mill really wasn't a place where you felt good about yourself eating alone. So I went online and found a few places but I quickly narrowed it down to Johnson's Charcoal Beef House because it had better reviews than any other restaurant. The Washington Post put it on it's recommended list and the Observer Online had nothing but good things to say. It seemed Johnson's Charcoal Beef House had it all: local flare, small diner appeal, and great food. Plus it was pretty close to the hotel.

The first thing I noticed when I pulled up to the place was that they had actually changed the named to Johnson's Charcoal Beef House & Crab. I didn't really know what to make of taking a name with such local history and sticking "& Crab" to the end of it but I did get an odd feeling in the pit of my stomache. Two minutes later, I entered the establishment and my very first instinct was to leave but I couldn't as every eye in the place was on me. Most of the patrons were over the age of seventy and appeared to still be living through The Great Depression while the others had a look of almost desperation in their eyes. I could tell that a few of the children had been recently crying. Johnson's Beef House had the sort of "local appeal" you can only find in a really bad cult right before they all put on their purple shoes and drink the special lemonade. But as awkward as it would feel to eat there, it would feel even more awkward to leave so I slowly walked up to the bar and took a seat. A few seconds later I was greeted by what appeared to be a hobo just coming off of a good drunk. I learned quickly that he was my waiter as he did all of the waitery stuff by polishing the counter with a greasy rag before handing me a glass of water that had been sitting beside the coffee behind him. I thought that was quite charming as I kindly pushed the water away. The menu was an old plastic menu that somebody had hot-glued inside of a heavily-padded brown binder that I think the hobo pilfered from one of the garbage bins out back. Still, I was optimistic as the worse the place looked the better the food was going to be because what other reason would patrons keep coming to Johnson's when there were literally a hundred new restaurants going up every second? As I looked over the menu I remembered the Chronice critic mentioning that Johnson's signature, or most popular, steak was the porterhouse and so I figured I couldn't go wrong with that choice (in retrospect, I should have paid attention that he--the critic--ordered the "& Crab" and avoided the steak). As I waited for my steak I tried to take in the diner, hoping that maybe I would start to get a feel for it's history and charm. Maybe they would have a picture of some famous person who had dined there in it's rich past or an award from where they might have won some sort of steak grilling competition. But there were no pictures or awards on the walls, there were just guns, guns, and more guns. I started to wonder why a diner would be full of so many guns but just then I noticed an old man in the corner booth eyeballing me over his paper. I didn't like his stare, it was suggestively violent. I turned my eyes from the gun-laden walls and returned them to the task of pretending to read the two-day old copy of the USA Today's Sports section until my steak arrived. A few minutes later I got my steak and I was quite pleased. It looked about as delicious as a steak could look. I quickly took a bite and realized that Johnson's Charcoal Beef House must age their aged beef in an entirely different manner than any other beef house on the planet. You see, where as most slaughter the cow and then age the beef in order to better bring out the tenderness and taste, at Johnson's they age the beef while it is still in the cow! That is not easy to do becuase by my estimation, my porterhouse probably came from a cow that had been roughly sixty three years old when it was slaughtered or "finally taken off of the ventilator," as I like to put it. Getting a cow to live that long is nearly impossible and doing it time in and time out....well, you just never hear of such a thing. After about two bites and a complete lack of any steak sauce to help me get enough courage to take down another mouthful, I packed my steak into a to-go box, paid the hobo, and promptly left. I spent the remainer of the evening laying on my hotel bed as my empty belly grumbled and my brain toiled with ideas on how best to get back at that bastard at the Observer. I haven't thought of anything yet but I have a barely eaten porterhouse in my fridge that is just full of possibilities.

Disappointed and dejected and any other word that means the same thing as those

2006-08-06T23:26:00.000-04:00

Usually, The Discovery Channel is honest in it's pursuits (sure it exaggerates but, hey, what network doesn't?) so when it told me that I would finally get to see a live Architeuthis (or Giant Squid, if you would prefer) I got fairly excited. I've watched ten years of specials containing smart people with fancy boats and even fancier subs on quests to catch a glimpse of a giant squid and always in the end, I get to see the same old photos of some small fishing boat showing a slimey old giant squid carcass they pulled out of their fishing net. But this time was different as The Discovery Channel said quite firmly that this was a live giant squid, not the same old dead ones they show all of the time. Long story short, after nearly ten years of waiting I was finally about to get my geek on. I was psyched (so psyched that I almost taped it and I haven't done that since Babylon 5) and eager to see what had never been seen before by man. Instead, what I got was this:

Yes, that is a giant squid and, yes, it is alive. Some Japanese scientist snared it on a hook while some sort of crappy underwater camera snapped pictures of it's struggle every thirty seconds. Eventually the squid rips it's tentacle off and all they get to pull on board is that very same twitchy tentacle (which the narrator proclaims to be alive as if only to toy with my level of intelligence). Did The Discovery Channel really think that would be a satisfying sight? Some grainy still images every thirty seconds and enough giant squid sushi to feed a hundred guests and their spouses? If these Japanese dudes are serious giant squid hunters couldn't they at least get a better camera (like one that records maybe)? And isn't there some sort of law that says you can't hunt giant squid unless you have some sort of submersible vehicle by which to go down and investigate said squid on a face to face basis? However, if your plan is to snare a giant squid, wouldn't it make better sense to put an electronical tag in the hook and have the line break so that you can use the tag to track the squid for a bit (you know, so you can get a layout of it's travel habits) instead of forcing it to rip off it's tentacle? Or you could get a better camera...I know I said that already but, really....I'm beggin' yah....get a better damn camera. Your a Japanese scientiest and plenty of Japanese companies make really good ones so they shouldn't be too damn hard to find. You found the first live giant squid so you obviously have some skill as to finding things....that's all I'm saying.

To The Guy Who Lives In My Yard When I'm Not Home

2006-08-05T23:42:00.000-04:00

I gotta be honest, this whole relationship is starting to get a little bit out of control. It used to be I would tolerate your "antics" as those of a bored person walking around in my yard with nothing to do but here lately I am starting to question your motives. I guess I should have brought this up a few years back but I've been reluctant because, well, I figure you are at least better than having a dog because you don't have to feed a stranger who only lives in your yard when your not home (except for that steak I left warming on the grill while I went out to buy more beer. I know you ate that steak!). But, here lately, I am starting to get a sense that I may be "enabling" your behavior through my continuing non-action. For instance, when you filled the emply cat litter bucket in the garage with seventy five pounds of cement, I should have probably said something. You knew that my wife kept that bucket so that she could fill it with dirt in order to plant her new flowers every year. Sure, your heart was in the right place when you played the little trick but you weren't the one who had to feed her in bed for the two days following when she took up the bucket, thinking it was full of breezy summer air and not extremely dense cement. The same thing could be said for when you took all of my practice golf balls and threw them in all of my neighbors' yards; sure it was kinda funny but Mrs. Tanner ran over a scuffed Titleist with her lawnmower and nearly turned Mr. Tanner into an invalid while he was tending his garden (and guess who didn't get any free corn that year by the way? You got it. Me.). My wife wanted me to also point out that your drinking and smoking has gotten completely out of control! Just last Saturday morning as we came back from a nice breakfast at the new Bob Evans, the wife counted no less than twelve beer bottles on the picnic table and an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes. Who drinks twelve beers and smokes a pack of cigarettes before eleven o'clock in the morning? And in less than an hour? I called my brother and he swore he only had two beers when he came over that previous Friday night and he only smoked one cigarette; and I don't even drink beer and everybody knows I stopped smoking last week so the only person it could have been was you. Not that I really care what you do with your free time in our yard while were gone but at least clean up your damn mess! Because you know who gets yelled at? That's right. Me again. But, hey, I probably would have cleaned up your litter had you not committed the single worst crime of any person who lives in a family's yard when they are gone. You stole from me and with that action you have forever broken the strong bond of trust we had spent five years establishing! You can deny it all you want but I know you took the pH Plus and Algaecide I had sitting on the glass table beside the pool. Why would you do such a thing? Why steal from somebody you spent so long trying to earn trust from? Honestly, I don't care. That pH Plus was less than two weeks old and I had a good week left of Algaecide but now I can already see green algae forming in one corner of the kids' side of the pool. That's right, the kids' side! Did you not even think of the children? And my pH is totally going to hell in a hand basket as it is friggin' everywhere on the Test kit (and I'm about out of Phenol Red!) I can only hope the Alkalinity stays above 60 ppm until I can get to the pool store on Monday. I called mom and she swore that my stepdad and herself never used the pH Plus or Algaecide when they thoroughly cleaned the pool the other day and I can believe her because mom wouldn't lie about something like that!

As for a guy that hangs out in your yard when your not home, I guess he is about as dependable as a guy who walks by your yard when your not home. Now, I ask you, how sad is that?

And then there were...uuuuhhhhgggg...66.

2006-08-04T23:12:00.000-04:00

What is it about The Piano that people love so friggin' much? Is it Harvey Keitel's penis because, personally, that's an image I would love to pay a few hundred bucks to get burned out of my brain. Your just going along, casually waiting for when this movie starts to make any damn sense, and all of the sudden, Bam!, you got an eyeful of Wolf weiner! Holy..what the...was that...Oh my God...your brain stammers as you try to get your senses to return to some semblance of order. Regardless, after I researched metacritic and imdb The Piano was the first to get a pardon. Here's a list of the rest who were saved from any further persecution:

UHF--Maybe it wasn't that bad but it certainly wasn't worth a 65.
Salem's Lot--I threw this one in there knowing it would immediately be saved. Of course, I could have tossed in any number of King movies (do you remember Maximum Overdrive or, I shudder, Graveyard Shift?).
Jumanji--Ehhh, it wasn't all that bad anyway.
Bram Stoker's Dracula--Horrible movie but it was pretty true to the book. I'm guessing purists saved this one.
Hannibal--Come on, people, this movie sucked!
Planet of the Apes--Proof that if you throw enough money at something people will think that it was pretty good regardless of how bad it truly is.
Mars Attacks!--I kinda liked this one so I was glad to see it off the list.
Meet Joe Black--First viewing, worse movie ever. Second viewing, a fine, fine flick. Timing is everything with this one.
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence--This movie was not very good...and apparently it was not very bad either.
The Four Feathers--Never saw it so I'll abstain from having an opinion.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen--Alright, I don't get it but I don't get a lot of things.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show--I guess kids still need a good reason to dress in drag one time a year.
Pee Wee's Big Adventure--It's a Trifecta! Three cult movies in a row. And all so uniquely different.
Vanilla Sky--What a load pretentious crap! Admit it, this movie made no damn sense! It's like Sixth Sense for intellectuals. I guess Jacob's Ladder was getting a bit too dated.
Natural Born Killers--My brother bought this movie when it first came out and watched it non-stop for ten straight days. Your warned.
April Fools Day--It was a joke? But...how...all those people were quite obviously...oh, forget it. This one gets tossed because of no critic reviews and nobody voting on Imdb. Too obscure and meaningless, I guess.
Simone--Critics hated it but the people saved it (Power to the people!!). I kinda liked it too so, take that you snobs! Now give us our snobby, highly unmarketable movie. Wait. Huh. How the hell did that happen?
The Frighteners--Man, I thought this was a bad movie when I first watched it. I thought the same thing when I watched it again a few years later. No Hobbits, no Nazgul, no One Ring. How is this a good Peter Jackson film?
Waterworld--And a big gun goes down. A potential number one already out. I'm not surprised because I've seen Waterworld and it was no Cinderella Man or Rocky. It had a weak chin despite it's huge budget.
Back To The Future, Part III--Thank you TNT, USA Network, and TBS for brainwashing a nation into thinking this movie is anything better than horrible.
The Godfather, Part III--Alright, it shouldn't have even been here but I couldn't stop myself.
Hook--It was a race to see whose career could fall faster. Winner: Dustin Hoffman. Loser: anybody who watched Hook.

Note To Self: Find A Better Hobby

2006-08-03T23:17:00.000-04:00

First things first, I shall pull my final ten list from this cesspool of crap:

Hook, Howard the Duck, Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas, Gymkata, Super Mario Bros, Caddyshack II, Caligula, Jaws IV, The Avengers, Joe’s Apartment, Cutthroat Island, Spice World, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Dumb & Dumberer, Popeye, The Godfather, Part III, It’s Pat, Leonard Part Six, House of the Dead, Gigli, Battlefield Earth, Bloodrayne, Mannequin II: On The Move, Back to the Future Part III, Zaat, Speed II, Godzilla, Joe Dirt, Arthur 2: On The Rocks, Boxing Helena, Waterworld, Hudson Hawk, The Frighteners, Adventures of Pluto Nash, Ishtar, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Superman IV, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Virtuosity, The Last Action Hero, Lost In Space, North, Wild, Wild West, From Justin To Kelly, Simone, Swept Away, Glitter, My Boyfriend’s Back, Drop Dead Fred, Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever, Last Rites, April Fools Day, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Cat In The Hat, Natural Born Killers, Vanilla Sky, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Catwoman, The Four Feathers, A.I.:Artificial Intelligence, Batman and Robin, Heaven’s Gate, Meet Joe Black, Inchon!, The Postman, The Stupids, 3000 Miles To Graceland, Town & Country, Jade, Wing Commander, Baby Geniuses, Judge Dredd, Mars Attacks!, The Gospel, Planet of the Apes, Hannibal, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Jumanji, Hard To Hold, Are We There Yet?, The Piano, She-Devil, Salem’s Lot, Garbage Pail Kids, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Congo, &, last but not least, UHF (because I did a Weird Al reference in a previous blog and this movie paves a whole new avenue of horrid).

My thought is that to do a list of the worst movies of the past thirty years (or round about that) I need to formulate a way as to how to evaluate the really wretched from the absolutely horrid from the just plain crappy. I figure using many critical reviews would be a good way to weed out movies that--while bad--were not really as bad as other, much worse, movies. Love 'em or hate 'em critics watch a helluvalot of movies. Next I should probably get popular opinion since only a movie that is hated by nearly everybody should be considered a top ten worse movie of the last thirty years (I sense Rocky Horror Picture Show getting a quick reprieve here. That sucks.). The other criteria I'll make up I guess.

Why do bad movies suck so badly?

2006-08-03T01:31:00.000-04:00

I've often posed that question to myself if for no other reason than to help alleviate--at least somewhat--the constant screaming in my head. I pay eight bucks (not counting the extra ten fifty for snack time pleasures) to watch a highly-advertised movie only to find myself leaving the theatre pondering upon why I didn't spend the money starting up a crack habit instead! I imagine this is why "The Worst Movies," lists are so prevalent on the Internet. You find them everywhere and anywhere and yet I still find myself drawn to the task of creating yet another; if for no other reason than to keep at bay the constant screaming in my head. Below are the list of my references. Tomorrow I shall put forth my fifty finalists of, "Worst Movies of My Lifetime."

Here are the links I shall use as research:

Films considered to be the worst ever according to Wikipedia.

Box Office Bombs. Again, Wikipedia.

IMDB. The Bottom Hundred.

The Stinkers–the 100 Worst Films of the Twentieth Century

Metacritic.com

Roger Ebert. The only critic I halfway agree with (although that's about half of the half of the time).

and four random sites...

Pajiba

Digital Dream Door

Greg Howley

and MaximOnline......because I like their editorial pieces...

UPDATE (7-3-2006): Huh, I wonder why the, "screaming in my head," stuff did not sound so redundant yesterday? Not only does it sound redundant but it also sounds a wee bit disturbed. Oh well, time to up the meds. On another note, I'm adding the Wander List to the resources because I forgot to put it in yesterday.

Doesn't everybody have a racist family member who drinks too much...or is that just me?

2006-08-02T02:20:00.000-04:00

Apparently, a lot of people are angry at Mel Gibson...and by a lot I mean a lot! Barbara Walters will never watch another thing that has anything to do with Mel Gibson. Ann Althouse thinks he is worse than O.J. Simpson. Right now, if Mel Gibson walked into any Starbucks on the planet I very much doubt he would walk out with a free cup of coffee.

But, really, how bad is what Mel did when considering he was in a drunken stupor? Isn’t he Australian and aren’t they known for putting on a really mean drunk at times? I’m not making light of what Mel said or did and I’m absolutely not defending the man (I haven’t even watched The Passion of The Christ and nor do I plan on doing so), I’m just saying that maybe we need to put a little perspective on the matter. For instance, when Mel asked one of the deputy’s, "Are you a Jew?" they never go on to say if the deputy was of Jewish faith or not. That’s important since Mel might’ve been merely trying to annoy the deputy by making fun of Jewish people during the entire time of the arrest (angry drunks enjoy doing that). As for Mr. Gibson also stating, "F-ing Jews. ..The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," well that is just the alcohol talking since Mel knows quite well that it was the English--not the Jews--who caused all that trouble in Scotland. He pointed out that very fact in Braveheart, a movie he directed, starred in, and won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Obviously, Mel is a bigot but only when he is totally plowed because the next day he was completely apologetic (something shared by most angry drunk bigots). If Mel had awoke the next day and called over that same deputy and said something like, "Hey, you Jew piece of s–t, I want my f-ing phone call," I would agree with all the "Mel Gibson is an anti-Semitic bastard," stuff going around the news the past couple days. But I think Mel truly tries to love and embrace all races, religions, and creeds: it’s only when he gets drunk that he yearns for a coming Apocalypse which will wipe the world clean of all Jewish people. I know it sounds bad but, really, it isn’t any more annoying than, let’s say, that friend who always likes to start fires when he’s drunk or that buddy who thinks there is nothing better than drinking too much and hitting a stranger across the head with a beer bottle. In the end, you only have three choices: force them to get help, accept that they are never going to change and live with it, or just stop hanging out with them.

Have you cast your vote?

2006-08-02T01:04:00.000-04:00

It would seem that David Hasselhoff's video Jump In My Car (which I linked last month) is up for a coveted V.A.N.I.T.Y award in the category of Just Plain Weirdest Video (aka the WTF award). If any video deserves such an honor it has to be The Hoff but the competition is quite stiff. I intended to give The Hoff my vote but seeing that he is holding a commanding 70 percent lead, I threw in a vote for the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah song just because I thought it was cool song (and despite the fact that I don't find the video to be weird at all). Of course, if I were gonna give out an All-Time Just Plain Weird award there is little doubt who would get my vote. Just take a run through his photo page and I'm sure you would have to agree.

You Can't Get an Oscar at Summer Camp

2006-08-01T01:37:00.000-04:00

Dakota Fanning is twelve years old and she cries a lot. I mean, in her films at least... she cries a lot. In War of the Worlds she was nonstop screaming and panicking and otherwise stressing me the hell out! In Hide & Seek she was no better (but, I guess I can forgive her since her dad was a schitzed out maniac). She stole the show in Man on Fire but, even then, she had a pretty stressful life (what with all the gettin' kidnapped and all). Long story short, did an obvioulsy stressed-out underage actress really need to get raped by a pedophile in the upcoming Deborah Kampmeier film, Hounddog?

Her mom thinks so because she figures Dakota can garner an Oscar out of the deal, her agent is proud that she did the "child rape" scene despite obvious great discomfort on the part of the extremely young actress. On all of that, I can't have an opinion. All I'm thinking is that Dakota is twelve and, well, after having to go from pretending to get kidnapped to having your dad try to constantly kill you to having aliens try to turn you into a blood Slurpee! maybe having to get raped might be a bit much. But, hey, I'm not a Hollywood mom, agent, or producer so I can't make that call.

Mommy, Please, I Want More Fish Oil!

2006-07-31T23:17:00.001-04:00

Every time some goofy study on what food is good for you comes out of the wood work I brace myself for the ensuing onslaught of insanity. We saw it with milk, we saw it with eggs, we saw it with ginseng, and garlic, and, vegan diets full of soy, soy, soy, and...well, it just goes on and on. But over the past twenty years one rather peculiar food source has been gaining steam despite the fact that it just sounds absolutely disgusting. That food--or thing you can eat if you are on the verge of dying from starvation--is fish oil. Fish oil contains Omega-3 fatty acids which are so absolutely amazing, if you shot enough of it into space, it would not only fix all of our environmental problems but it would bring on ten thousand years of world peace. In one study, they even fed poor South African children fish oil spreads in the flavors of curry, chicken, and tomato in order to further bring home the point that fish oil is good for you. However, they did leave out what these children thought about the taste of the spreads but I'm guessing that they were all two shades to the dark side of this foul stuff...

...which, I imagine, is why they used hungry South African kids.

Question: Why not just give the kids a tasteless fish oil pill instead of making them choke down vile fish oil spread?

Answer: Because you won't buy fish oil pills for your kids but you'll buy something that can be called a meal and is good for them as well.

Maybe in the not to far off future I'll be buying fish oil chicken spread for my kid's lunch. Sure, he'll want peanut butter but I'll just explain to him that peanuts had their run for long enough, not it's time to give fish oil a chance.

The World In a Vacuum

2006-07-30T01:51:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I added The World in News below my Links with hits to a few different publications from around the world. This was a personal pursuit mainly as I wanted to get a sense of the world from many different perspectives. In my mind, I thought it was better to get a "worldview" perspective on things as opposed to reading things from the New York Times or the New York Post (or any other American publication for that matter). So, about five minutes ago, I hit The Times of India link (a pop-up-tastic link as I noted on the link itself) in hopes to get some sort of feel for what the nation of India--the second most populated nation in the world--thought about things in life, the world, everything in general. What I got was this...

That's Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson. They got married in St. Tropez, some island outside of France or some shit, and their wedding made the lead story in India (which I think I already mentioned is the second most populated country in the world!)! I could get that same news from a hundred different crappy American news sources but, no, I found it on The Times of India. This leads me to think that either 1) The Times of India is a totally fabricated news source for the actual going's on in India or, 2) the people of India are just as bad as the people of America. I'm hoping that it's number one and not number two....

still, I'm pretty happy that Pamela and Kid finally tied the knot. I've been hoping for a number of years that they would.

Still Not Gettin' It

2006-07-28T16:39:00.000-04:00

Michelle Malkin thinks Jill Greenberg is an unbelievably sick person. Why? Because Jill likes to make little kids cry and then take their picture. Now why would Jill do such a mean thing to toddlers? Because Jill hates President Bush. Does this make any sense at all? Because, frankly, I ain't gettin' it. In the interview, Jill says she got the idea when a small boy:

....started crying on his own, and I shot that, and when I got the contact sheets back I thought, "this could go with the caption, "four more years,"" like he was apalled at George Bush's reelection. The images have a real power--they immediately get under your skin.

Certainly I would agree that the images get under your skin. Just look at the poor little tykes . Nobody likes to see kids suffer but I'm not blaming President Bush for it. I'm blaming you, Jill, the person who is personally making them cry! But let's be honest, who really thinks that Jill is doing this as some sort of political message against President Bush? The fact is that Jill is just another Ned Danny, a person with some talent but instead of taking the hard road like everybody else, they try to use, "shock and awe," to get an audience. It's just a shame that a few kids have to cry just so Jill can get hers.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to take a picture of me kicking a dog in the nuts. I have nothing against dogs, I actually like most of 'em. But, lately, the mail lady has been really getting under my skin.

Oh, and if you want to see somebody with talent and who doesn't have to make kids cry in order to take their picture, check out Tif's photos on the links.

Love The One Your With

2006-07-27T23:34:00.000-04:00

When I first heard that the weapons deal went through between Russia and Venezuela I, like most Americans, took the news badly. To be honest, I was really upset about the deal. I thought Russia and the United States had been getting along so well lately. But then they had to go and hook up with that loud mouth Venezuelan demagogue and totally damage what I thought was a blossoming relationship. I couldn't believe it but then I saw this picture....

....and I just couldn't be mad anymore. Just look at their faces. Putin with his smirky little grin and Chavez, readying for the long-awaited embrace. It's obvious that these two world leaders are in love. And not the, "we had a fun couple of weeks together but I don't think either of us is looking for anything long term," sort of love. I'm talking about the, "you complete me," sort of love. You can see it in the eye contact and the total lack of apprehension each has towards the other despite a complete invasion of their mutual personal space. They are in it for the long haul and personally I'm not going to be a part of standing in their way. It's tough enough to just survive in this oft cruel world so when you are lucky enough to find that one true one then, damn it, you should fight to hold on! So, I say, screw America and anybody else that wants to get in your way because you can't rationalize the decisions of love...its just crazy that way.