Non Sequitur Friday

3/30/07


Just a bunch of random crap for your viewing pleasure, dear readers.

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She Wet Her Pants, Too; Probably Brought On By Peeing Herself


Okay, I actually overheard this conversation:

Broad #1: Yeah, my niece went to the ER, but it turns out it was just a panic attack.
Broad #2: It was probably brought on by stress.

Yeah, you know, as opposed to all those panic attacks brought on by eating pudding in a hot tub. I wonder what it’s like to run through life with your mouth on autopilot, just totally disconnected from your brain.

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Save Nose-Goblins, Collect Valuable Prizes

Why are people still using handkerchiefs? I saw one make an appearance just the other day. A dude took it out, blew his fucking nose, looked into it at what he’d made, of course, then just calmly put this snotty rag back into his pocket like this isn’t the behavior of someone who might keep cat heads in his freezer.

You would think those would have been retired with the advent of Kleenex. I can scarcely think of anything more disgusting than a nasal-discharge storage device you just never throw away. My Dad had some of these when I was a kid, and I remember coming across used ones here or there, as if he was saving them for some future archeologist to discover. Maybe people who use handkerchiefs are simply fascinated by their own boogers…like a heinous Rorschach test or something.

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While We’re At It, Let’s Lose Regis & Kelly, Too

If I never hear the giggled phrase “I think that’s an HR issue!” again it’ll be too soon. This is the workplace equivalent of “oh no she did-nnn’t!” and is used exclusively by people who mistakenly think they’re funny. You know the type; usually older, dangerously out-of-touch individuals who think Dr. Phil is a scream and do anything Oprah tells them.

The phrase should be retired. So should the people. Either that or shot. I care not which.

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Cut; That’s A Wrap

Parents, lose the male hoodie if you want to help give your boys a stronger levy against HIV and AIDS. The World Heath Organization and UNAIDS has recommended male circumcision as a method toward prevention of the rampant AIDS epidemic in Africa. Circumcision lends a 53-60% reduction in the risk of HIV in heterosexual men, according to a study done last year. Not only does it give the cock a charming level of personality, but hacking off that turtleneck is helpful for those who would rather risk a prolonged, agonizing disease than wrap up their junk before putting the old skin-flute to the town pump.

I guess HIV likes to hide inside that little sausage-case tip just waiting for its chance to shine. Good news for the 30% of the world population (665 million) with a naked wiener.

Read the full story here at allAfrica.com

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What's Orange, Ripped and Dangerously Unfunny?

Just what in the bloody blue fuck happened to Carrot Top?!

Jesus...

She Doesn’t Look Like a Helen

3/29/07


A few days ago I did a post concerning all of our most loved of emails: the desperate plea of a downtrodden aristocrat overseas begging for some helpful American to allow the transfer of millions of dollars into his bank account. I posted the email and my admittedly awesome response (see original story on the 2nd half of this post) and low and behold what fruit the tree of my humor hath brought:

Dearest one,

Thanks for your mail; I thank you for your kind mind to assist me in
this hour of need. I contacted you to be my Guardian so that you will look after
me and help to look for a better investment, so that I can invest wisely when
the money is transferred to you. Everything about this money is clean. I
have suffered a lot since my father died. I have been living in a church guest
where my feeding is on charity. I can hardly take care of my self, my only hope
is for this fund to be transferred successfully to you and you come and take me
with you or you send me some from the fund that i will use to get my traveling
documents and to pay my ticket to come and meet with you. Where i will complete
my Medical Studies and start a new live.

I would like to know you a little more before I will notify the bank
director about you:

1) Your full name and address
2) How old are you
3) Are you a Christian or?
4) What do you do for a living?
5) A copy of your photograph
6) Finally Promise me that when this money gets to you that youwill not
change your mind and sit on the money.

This information will be used by me to notify the bank director about you
as a credible person that will be helping me afterwhich I will get back to you.
You have to keep this confidential and no other person should know about this
because if people that killed my parents hear of it I am finished, until the
money is transferred to you and you bring me up to your country.

I will be looking forward to your urgent response.

Sincerely,Helen

She sent me her picture, too.

I have yet to craft my response, but I did notice that Helen’s grammar and syntax has gotten astoundingly better since last week. Maybe she’s taking classes to gear up for whenever the two of us meet in financial wonderland. I don’t know what name and address I shall give the poor royal lass, but I’m thinking the following answers to her questions may go something like this:

1) (Yet to be determined)
2) 21
3) Oh no; I’m a Scientologist. Long Live L. Ron!
4) Cattle Rustler
5)
6) Perish the thought! I assure you, dear, it never even crossed my mind; you may rest assured in the knowledge that cattlemen keep their word.

The fact that I actually take time out of my day to play games such as this is a serious clue as to why I am not independently wealthy. This little interaction between myself and Helen did remind me of the best scam-o-la that I’ve ever received, this time involving a poor working-class Russian female looking for freedom and companionship in the US of A: Read Spam…With Tits! Part II.

2 Shorts

3/28/07



Uh, Problem?


There are few things in this life less helpful than your car’s “Check Engine” light. The manufacturers might as well just have a giant middle finger illuminate in its place.

BAM, Y’all!


I watch a great deal of Food Network, given that I find few things more enjoyable than cooking. Now, I don’t dislike either Emeril or Paula Dean, but I loathe their fans with a passion unequalled except by my distain for anyone who talks about their pets for more than fifteen seconds. In Emeril’s case his studio audience makes me want to run through the crowd just lopping off appendages with a chainsaw. They are so far up Emeril’s ass I’m surprised I can’t see the breathing apparatus trailing from his rectum. I like spice as much as the next guy, but merely adding garlic to something doesn’t give me an awe-gasm the way his audience moans and applauds as if watching a Roman orgy. Dude, he’s an awesome chef, but this level of worship should really be reserved for people handing out poisoned Kool-Aid, okay? It’s fucking paprika; get over it.

Admittedly Paula Dean’s accent annoys me, as it’s “Southern genteel” tweaked to the point of madness. I can’t really fault someone for their regional dialect, to a point, but neither can you expect to fault me when I want to strangle you for saying “y’all” every six words. For that reason I don’t watch her show, but I bear the woman no ill will. The people who do watch her show, however, should be buried in cement up to their necks and have their facial orifices sexually assaulted by rabid helper monkeys. I only know this because every bloody day in the lunch room a gaggle of ten women hijack the TV, giggling and guffawing at every country-fried quip that falls from Paula’s mouth. Where Emeril’s fan club messes their pants every time he uses garlic, Paula’s crew of menopausal zeros unleashes gales of cheers and laughter at the very mention of her adding “butt’ah” (butter) to something. Why milk fat should elicit such an uproarious response can only be understood by those afflicted with hysterical lunacy, but it might go a long way to understanding why every one of these women sort of look as though their heart might attack them at any given second. I hate them.

The Ultimate Pop-In

3/27/07


Do any of you out there in reader-land have the same, random person popping up in your life over and over again? It seems like the casting director for the Universe is just running out of character actors in the story of my life, because he’s started recycling the same person over and over every few years, and her name is Erin, though I’m not sure that’s how you spell it. She could, of course, be conducting the most lackluster and subtle stalking job the world has ever seen, but I have my doubts, as she’s actually quite attractive and seems not even marginally interested in conversing with me. What I find even more terrifying is the idea that she thinks I’m a huge cosmic joke, preceding her everywhere she goes like something out of the Twilight Zone.

I first met Erin in the summer of ’99, when we both started working customer service at the First USA credit card company, which became Bank One and is now owned by Chase. (If any of you click on that First USA link, you may want to consider whether you’re the most boring person on the planet.) We worked together for about six months before natural attrition took her. I succumbed to same about another six months after that.* As you might understand, I never expected to see her again. Or, if I did, it would be in some random bar where we’d exchange awkward “I know you enough to speak to, but we have nothing in common” greetings, and of course I’d creep her out with my drunken advances; case closed.

I worked at the worst job I’ve ever had** (packing live fish) for a few months, then started up at Southwester Bell, which became SBC and is now AT&T. Customer service jobs had been tainted forever from the year I worked at First USA (also, I hate people) so I got the job fully intending to quit once the ludicrously long and well-paid training period was over. One day, out on a smoke break, whom do I see outside but Erin taking her own cancer stick. It seems she was in the training class that had been hired just behind mine. Small world, huh? Her presence did not yet smack of something sinister going on behind the ebon folds of reality, just a happy coincidence.

Finally the day came when I had to “get on the phones” and I promptly stopped pursuing that avenue of employment. After a nice, long hiatus from the rat race I eventually got the job I have now in 2001. Around 2003 I had pretty much forgotten Erin ever existed, that is until for reasons which elude me at the moment, some friends and I went to Dennis’ Place, a local semi-countrified pool hall with karaoke. And who should be not only working there but waiting on our table but Erin. I believe something tickled my brainstem at that encounter, but after five or six 7&7s I vaguely recall clumsily pawing a card with my number into her hand before stumbling out into the night. Thankfully she didn’t call yours (creepy) truly, as I had no sober interest in this perfectly nice human being.

Fast forward to 2005 and some friends and I are going out again. Guess who’s the cousin of one of them, in some convoluted, backwards way? Yeah. Erin. This has become officially weird. Thankfully I don’t make another whiskey-soaked pass at her, as I’m now sort of afraid she’s after my organs.

Yesterday. For some time I had been suspecting it, but yesterday I had a confirmed sighting; Erin is indeed working across the street at some furniture warehouse or something. I saw her leaving yesterday when I was out on a break and I would like to take this opportunity to give the Universe the finger. My life is perpetuated by the laziest screenwriter ever. No longer freaked, now I’m flat-out horrified. Clearly one of us has to go.

Wouldn’t that be fucked up to pick up the paper and read “Small Local Man Stabs Blond; Drunkenly Mutters Something About Lazy Universe,”?

* Around the Jett household we refer to the time after I quit First USA as The Dark Period for reasons which would be apparent if you’d known how I lived at the time. Think “early caveman” without all the bothersome hygiene or social skills. This is a swath of time which definitely deserves its own blog, if not several, in the near future.

** Read my blog about the horrors here.

Wood Spiders

3/26/07

I know some of you may be leery of watching anything I post, given the Chopper Dave debacle, but if you’ll grant me another chance here, I promise you won’t be disappointed. This video is Hanni-approved.

Enjoy this hilarious and educational spot from our Canadian brothers.

$30 If He’s a Mexican…

3/23/07

I saw this MySpace bulletin today:

This is fun to do. Just read the "offense" and if you've done it, you owe that
fine. Keep going until you've read each "offense" and added up your total fine.
Title your bulletin "My Bar Tab is$........" You don't have to confess your
answers, just the amount of your fine.

Most of the laundry list of “offenses” involves lewd sex acts such as banging some jailbait broad on an airplane, or smoking opium through your eyeball or something. But this one caught my attention:

Ever had sex with the a Puerto Rican -- $20

What the fuck? Does this strike anyone as blatantly racist? There’s no mention of other races on here with their “penalty” price tag, and I’m only left to infer that whoever composed this originally has had less than ideal dealings with our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters. I mean, it doesn’t even say “had butt-sex with a Puerto Rican,” which would be more in line with the theme if not slightly offensive to gays. But no…just…did you ever bang a dirty Puerto Rican?

Fucked up, man.

Bouncing on a boner from the P.R. isn’t quite as bad as humping in the house of Allah, it seems; church-fucking garners you a $25 fine. I only counted my fine on that score as $15, since all I did was ejaculate into a bible. Those thin pages really soak up the jism!


P.S.

Holy smokes! I thought these emails were a thing of the past, like circus freak shows or the right to privacy, but look at what I got in my inbox today!

From: Helen kolonga
Lot 125 av. des
Quais rue 7 08 BP 441
Abidjan Cote d’ivoire.

I do apologize for approaching you in such a manner, but circumstances
forced me to contact you. I was formerly a medical student of the university of
Abidjan, Cote d’ Ivoire till my parents and my only brother where killed by the
current government because my father was an opposition leader to the present
government. Before the death of my father, he has $4.5 m USD (four million,
five hundred thousand dollars.) in a domiciliary account with a bank in Côte
d'Ivoire which I am the next of kin. I humbly need your assistance in the
“following ways”:

1) To help get this money transferred to you.

2) To serve as the
guardian

3) To make an arrangement for me to come over after this money is
transferred.

4) To look for a good venture where the money will be
invested.

I am ready to compensate you for your effort in assisting
me.

You’re Sincerely,Helen.

There are no jokes I can make about this sort of thing which haven’t already been beaten into a bloody pulp. Is it a little hacky to do a post on hilarious internet scams? Perhaps. But it still makes me smile, and even a little nostalgic for the good old digital days when this sort of thing was considered shocking. I did send her a response, however:

Dear Helen,

First let me say that I are shocked and sadened by your loss. You
have mine sympathies. Of course I would likes to hepl in any ways i
can. What do I need to do? I dont mind saying any compensation would
be helpful, as my mother is needing an opperation to remove allthe tumors she
got from drinking gasoline while pregnant with me. But my real desire hear
is to help you with what seems a bad situatioin. Please let me know
what I can do.

Sincerely, Jettman

Flex That Face, Fucker!

3/22/07

Normally when surfing the glory that is the World Wide Web I can safely ignore the fairly benign advertisements embedded into just about every web page imaginable. But every once in awhile you come across something so newt-vomit-insane there is no choice but to give it your full attention. Today I found this on a random web page:

Total Face Exerciser, $49

Why spend more on devices that twist
& pull the face down?

flexawaysystem.com

Whoever wrote the copy on this madness is either a bona fide lunatic or a marketing genius, because I don’t know how anyone can read that and not click the link. It just sparks so many instantaneous questions: What the fuck is a Total Face Exerciser? Why would I need to exercise my face? Are there Partial Face Exercisers? How can they sell such a fantastic product for a mere $49, when clearly so many companies are passing off devices which “twist & pull the face down” and, presumably, directly off your goddamn skull?

So naturally I had to follow the yellow link road to Flex-Away Systems. This site, ladies and gentlemen, is an insignificant comic blogger’s wet dream. There seems to be no limit to what people will subject themselves to in order to keep a stranglehold on their fading youth and beauty; I recall much merriment when I happened to catch a show on MTV which spotlighted some 20-something douchebag bodybuilder who, unhappy with his human calves, got silicone implants. Leg boobies. This product, apparently, melts away unwanted lines and wrinkles in the most ass-way possible; you put some jacked-up device into your maw for two minutes a day, and you can expect results “by the end of the second week, and will progress (not necessarily at a steady rate) for at least six months.” Just…Jesus, just take a look:

What in the bloody blue-fuck is that? I love the scientific explanation of how this device from the Spanish Inquisition works:

"Most adults habitually use only a select few face muscles, eventually creating
an imbalance between those most and least used. You might compare this to a
thread being pulled from fabric, puckering the material as it shortens. Lengthen
the thread and the fabric lays smooth again."

Yeah, you might compare your face to a piece of thread; then again you might compare elephant dung to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, that doesn’t make it so. Who knows, maybe I’m a total prick and this face-stretcher works like gangbusters. I mean, it’s not like a company would prey on human insecurity with the promise of quick, cheap and easy beauty reformation just to make a buck.

The best part of any website is always whatever slapdash, crap-weasel layout Frank in Marketing took thirty seconds to approve, and while Flexaway Systems isn’t the worst design I’ve ever seen, it doesn’t really inspire confidence. It’s sort of the digital equivalent of the sad, sort of worn end-cap display of store brand tomato soup at Big Lots. I do like this banner, though:



Don’t they look happy? I’ve named them. From left to right that’s Peaches, Whitey, L-Train, Swizzle, Mamma Frog and Hoops. Hoops is a riot if you get a few Fuzzy Navels in him.

They’re my runnin’ crew.

All Along the Watchtow-ERee-DOO!

3/21/07

Does anyone else think that Adam Sandler looks staggeringly like a young Bob Dylan in the previews for Reign Over Me? Like, really freakishly so? Admittedly, it’s a chronically-depressed Dylan who you can just tell is going to have at least one Chernobyl-sized meltdown before the final credits.

Then again, Dylan now kinda looks like Terry Gilliam's Baron Von Munchausen.

Days of Laughter and Violence

3/19/07

I realize that humor continues to change and evolve over the years, at least to some extent. The real innovators and comedy giants hold a sort of timeless quality that remains relatively undiluted over the passing decades, but there seem to be different half-lives for each medium. Sanford and Son, for example (bweh-bweh-BWEH-NEH!) is just as funny to me now as I’ll wager it ever was back in the day. Same goes for Night Court, Cheers, and All in the Family. Sure, some of the jokes are dated, like Fred Sanford making some jibe concerning Nixon’s trustworthiness, or Dan Fielding making us all remember just how nicely the sexual revolution was humming along before AIDS went and ruined everyone’s sticky party, but by and large classic TV shows stand the test of time.

One step down from that we have stand-up comedy. Stand-up doesn’t hold water quite as well. By its very nature stand-up can be somewhat transitory, because once the public has heard a certain type of joke you can’t get away with it anymore. We don’t want to hear about how they should make the entire airplane out of the “black box” material anymore, thank you very much. That little gem was funny for about 3 minutes back in 1981. Once again, though, the giants of the genre stick with us. Classic Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Eddie Murphy before he decided he didn’t want to be funny anymore; their performances from the past are all still wicked hilarious. But it hasn’t all aged like fine wine. Sometimes late at night on HBO they will show stand-up from the eighties and…wow. Just…I find it hard to believe comedy survived at all. I seem to recall thinking there was a lot of funny stand-up back then, and I realize now that it’s because all the jokes that were original and fresh have since been sodomized and rammed directly into the repetitive ground. Even some of Seinfeld’s old stuff is pretty hard to take, ladies and gentlemen.

Then, at the bottom of the stack, we have newspaper comic strips. Near as I can tell these are the humor equivalent of a cup of mayonnaise sitting in the sun, because that’s about how long they stay fresh before turning into something that looks like a venereal disease. The following are a few old classics ranging from the turn of the 20th century to about 1925. If any of you can make sense of this one, I’ll give you $100:

(If pics don’t come up, click here.)



Seriously; I don’t have a fucking clue what that means.

This next one has dialogue which is pretty unreadable, but I’ll give you the rundown, which you can probably guess from the illustration anyway. This one makes sense, in a twisted sort of “I’m a psychopath” way, but it leaves you wondering why anyone thought it was a worthy subject for a newspaper strip.



I suppose you can blame this one on being made in an era when to even see a woman’s ankle was considered pornography. The man who looks curiously like our current president is introducing his wife to a business associate. It turns out his wife and the fellow have met before and have just oodles of things to talk about. Apparently the husband is either drunk or Bobby Brown, because he gets steamed over being ignored and hits the dude in the head with a fucking stool. Like you do… I love the fact that this strip is called “Say!! Did This Ever Happen To You??” Just the other night, in fact.

Sticking with the theme that women are really just a cum-dumpster that occasionally has the annoying habit of speaking and going out in public, I present the following:



Yeah, man! Women are fucking dumb. Dames don’t get funny stories; let’s pay ‘em 40% of what we make and not listen to them! Ah, the good old days.

Here’s another one I just don’t get at all, though I do like the artwork:



If you can't read it, here's the gist: We have here 6 panels of two men discussing how the one on the right learned to toss a cigar into his mouth. That's it. Am I just missing something here? Was there something inherently funny about either cigars or anti-gravity tricks back in the roaring 20’s? Were our great grandparents just kind of simple? I suppose all the bathtub gin and phamaldahide-laced whiskey could be to blame.

Delightful sexism and random violence aside, this stuff is like Family Circus-level un-funny. Then again, even the awesomest of newspaper comic strips is a pretty low-bar form of humor. It’s just not that easy to translate balls-to-the-wall hilarity into four tiny black and white squares on low-quality paper. Clearly Doonesbury, Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes are exempt from this ruling.


Bonus: Awesome Advert

This is high in the running for my favorite liquor ad ever.

Chopper Dave

3/15/07

As you may be aware sometimes I like to cruise the magic that is You Tube, and last night I came across this video. It's a little long, but you don't need to watch the whole thing to understand why it's wicked awesome. Just give it at least a minute of your time. Enjoy, dear viewers.

If for whatever reason the video doesn't load, click here, my prettys.

Conservatives Protect Our Children From Knowledge

3/15/07



Sick and tired of what he views as an unacceptable liberal bias in Wikipedia, conservative Andy Schlafly has created a competing site, apparently out of sheer spite, called Conservapedia. It’s a supposedly “fair and balanced” alternative. Which really means it’s the opposite of that, and every entry is saturated with enough conservative bias to choke Rush Limbaugh.

Schlafly believes Wikipedia has been hijacked by insane liberal editors which he compares to crucifying, America-hating organized criminals when he says, "if anyone tries to put in facts that are friendly to Christianity or American history, those facts are likely to be diluted or censored by the mob."

Here’s a full list of the “Bias in Wikipedia,” but I thought I’d give you a few highlights.

1. Dates – “Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E.* instead of B.C. and C.E.* instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise?”

2. Wikipedia’s article on Jesus puts forth the theory that he might not have existed.

3.Wikipedia’s editors, through some dodgy math, are supposedly 6 times more liberal than the American public, whatever that means.

4. Wikipedia is anti-American – “Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American…Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.” Seriously? This is actually a complaint?

5. Wikipedia is a gossip – “Many hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles -- perhaps over half its website -- are about music, Hollywood, and other topics beneath a regular encyclopedia…zero educational value.”

I suppose it should go without saying, since the thing was created to have a conservative interpretation of reality, but it still annoys me when the whole reason behind creating something purporting to be explanative and educational is really just to further an opinion. Naturally some encyclopedia entries can’t be entirely free of bias, but to not only fail to try and make them that way, and indeed saturate as much as you can into the text just seems irresponsible at the least and downright petty and dangerous at worst.

I get that you dudes believe in God an all, but you don’t have to put AD after every fucking date in your article, like some kind of impotent “fuck you” to your nemesis. I think we’re all aware that the Great Depression started 78 years ago in 1929 AD[1], and that you’re not referring to 1929 years before Christ was born, you loony fuck. Oh, and if you want to find out what the definition of “uninformative and idiotically short” is, go actually read their entry on The Great Depression. It won’t take you long; it’s one paragraph. I guess when they say they are “clean and concise,” they really mean they’re keeping you safe from all that dangerous and boring “information” most encyclopedias have. Here are a few other entries:

Sex

“This page has been deleted, and protected to prevent re-creation.”

Apparently we’ve adopted the fingers-in-ears, eyes-closed policy to human procreation and banging.

President Bush

First of all, I was shocked that this entry is only about 500 words long. To put that into perspective, this blog is about 900 words. So…yeah. You’d think that at least this article would be a shining jewel in the Conservapedia crown, but I guess they just didn’t have the time. Their article on kangaroos (more on that later!) is longer.

There are three, count ‘em, three sentences on the war in Iraq. One of those is a quote from Bush himself, another says he is “working tirelessly to end the insurgency in Iraq,” and the last one (in which Afghanistan has to share it’s one and only mention) says, “As part of the fight against terrorism, he has instituted regime changes in the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq.”

In the section on economic issues there are roughly seven clever little “subliminal” jabs specifically designed to make you realize what a radically leftist society is oppressing them. I can forgive the fact they apparently don’t have spellchecker (“single” is spelled “signle”) but this is just unnecessary:

Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy,
they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has
improved.

They go on to say that the facts that Exxon Mobile posted the highest profit ever, and executive salaries are at staggering levels are evidence that the economy is doing well. That’s sort of like saying that the fact the kid of the guy who donates millions to a private school is on the honor roll is evidence that education is A-OK in this country. I’m not even going to touch on how they claim Bush had the economy “recovering from the Clinton years.”

Kangaroos
The best part about this entry is the “origins” section, which is entirely composed of the idea that all kangaroos are decedents of the two original specimens put aboard Noah’s Ark. Well, there are two sentences on “other theories,” including evolution and the fact that Aborigines believe kangaroos were “sung into existence” during the Dreamtime. Oh, and one theory that kangaroos got to Australia “rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters.”

As I’ve said about many things in the past, Conservapedia is perfectly entitled to its dumb-ass opinion.


*CE stands for “Common Era,” and is used in place of AD, “Anno Domini,” which means “the year of our Lord” in Latin. BCE stands for “Before Common Era,” whereas BC means “Before Christ.”

[1] From the economic section in the George W. Bush entry.

Hear the NPR story on Conservapedia here.

Immediate 3 Strikes

3/14/07

Two of my adult coworkers just had a 15-minute conversation about baseball cards. I do not understand this. You could say it’s odd for a nigh 30-year-old man to collect comic books, but at least comics have a story, and artwork, and, I dunno, a friggin’ point. Baseball cards are essentially small, useless cardboard pictures of people paid gross amounts of money to hit a spheroid with a cudgel and then run around in a diamond. Can someone please explain to me why anyone over the age of 10 would collect these things? Unless purely for investment purposes, I mean.

Even those lame-ass Magic: the Gathering cards have a game associated with as opposed to just being photos of things that play a game. Well, they’re associated with virginity, too, but that’s not the fault of the cards themselves.

In reference to the picture, the next time I get drunk I want to be called "Chief Bender."

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This

3/13/07


What I love about tripping the light-fantastic which is the internet is that it’s impossible to know what kind of madness you’re going to run across at the next click of the mouse. Will it be urine-obsessed Europeans drinking forensic evidence out of martini glasses? Or perhaps, hiding in the backwater of ones and zeros we will discover a simultaneously awesome and deeply disturbing Hasselhoff video. Or maybe, like me yesterday, you’ll stumble into one of the oddest informal “scientific” research projects of all time.

Second only to finding weird crap online is my love for finding weird crap online that has kind of just been languishing out there for awhile; there’s nothing more stupendous than encountering somebody’s crazy-ass webpage from 1996. The science project I came into contact with, through a bizarre set of Google results I don’t even want to get into, isn’t quite that old, but it is from 2001, and I like to think it paints the last year I can really remember being really happy with my country in a very fitting light:

Scientists investigating laughter pick
the world's funniest joke.
Sydney Morning Herald ^ Thursday, December 20, 2001 Various
Posted on 12/19/2001 4:38:10 PM PST by aculeus

I’ll just let you all have a moment while you ponder the chain of events that must have transpired to create such a project. Clearly these boys have watched Monty Python entirely too many times. (See the skit here!) I would kill to see that grant proposal.

Scientist #1: What should we research, Scientist #2? I was thinking that cancer or AIDS looks promising. And they’re making fantastic progress
with that boner pill…

Scientist #2: What do you think is funny?

Scientist #1: Huh? Uhm, I was just thinking about our future, you know, helping
mankin—

Scientist #2: Knock-knock.

Scientist #1: What? Uh…who’s there?

Scientist #2: My ex-girlfriend.

Scientist #1: (Sigh) Not this again. My ex-girlfriend who?

Scientist #2: I don’t care what my bitch-ass ex-girlfriend says; I’m just as fucking funny as John Cleese, damnit. And I’m going to prove it!

Scientist #1: I want a new lab partner.

The project was nicknamed “Laughlab,” and it was devised by Dr. Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire in England. His team requested jokes from the public at large, and “the response has been enormous,” Wiseman said, “with over 10,000 jokes submitted and over 100,000 people in over 70 countries rating them.” The ratings were posted via a website, on a scale of 1-5 (“not very funny” to “very funny”) called a “Giggleometer.” That was just in the preliminary stages, it appears, as I located updates since that post, where Wiseman and his team announced the “World’s Funniest Joke” after a grand total of some 40,000 submissions and over 2 million ratings. And what was the overall winner? The following joke, submitted by the hilariously-named Gurpal* Gosall from Manchester, got the highest overall global rating:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to
be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and
calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The
operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There
is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now
what?"

That’s pretty funny, I must admit. This particular joke appealed to just about everyone, regardless of nationality, age or gender.

Here’s one of the runners-up from Sweden which I especially liked:

A guy phones the local hospital and yells: "You've gotta send help! My wife's in
labor!" The nurse says: "Calm down. Is this her first child?" He replies: "No!
This is her husband!"

The study, strange as it was, returned some very interesting if not seemingly useless data. Like the fact that different cultures find different things amusing. And, shock of all shocks, men and women have different senses of humor. I suppose Dr. Wiseman probably could have deduced that by watching any stand-up comedian ever.

Americans and Canadians seem to prefer jokes where one subject looks superior to another. We like to make others look stupid to feel better about ourselves, in other words. Britains, Australians and New Zealanders preferred word plays, which I find the absolute lowest form of humor, and can barely be called a joke. Puns are the dry-hump of joke telling. Other Europeans like the Danes and the French preferred more esoteric and surreal humor. Like this one:

A dog went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: "Woof. Woof.
Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof."
The clerk examined the paper and
politely told the dog: "There are only nine words here. You could send another
‘Woof’ for the same price."
The dog said, “But that would make no sense at
all."

One interesting finding was that the Germans seemed to find just about everything, no matter what type of joke, funny. I’ve never thought of the Teutonic people as possessing of a huge sense of humor, but apparently if you’re looking for an uproarious, undiscriminating audience, the Krauts are your best bet.

But by far the most fascinating of Wiseman’s findings is computer analysis that showed the closer a joke was to 103 words long, the funnier it was thought to be. The winning joke about the hunters contained 102 words.

If you want to read some more jokes, here’s a link to the top jokes by country. I think the jokes from Belgium, England and the UK especially amusing, and the German one at the bottom is just plain odd. Still not enough humor? There are a few more jokes listed in the original story I found here.



*Hanni, we totally have to name our first born “Gurpal!” It’s a Sikh name meaning “Protected by the Guru.” Gurpal Jett. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, that’s gold.


Sources: icWales.com – World’s Funniest Joke No Laughing Matter!
Free Republic – Scientists investigating laughter

Office Scourge: Sitting While Using Phone

3/8/07


I should preface today’s post by saying that I really do have the easiest job on the planet, and I do genuinely like all my managers and supervisors. They are actually decent human beings and effective at their jobs. That being said, there is one minor qualm I have with a particular portion of my job.

Today I completed a mandatory, online lesson on time management and, wow, let me tell you it is just choice. If this online training were voluntary you might get something out of it, but by making it mandatory you immediately assure anyone needing the lesson is going to just complete the ridiculously easy assessments and immediately go back to surfing on Ebay.

The best part are these little play-lets you get so see dramatic conversations dealing with lesson between people in the workplace. As you might expect, the dialogue is totally natural and doesn’t seem creepy or awkward at all:

Mrs. Wolf: I have a project that I need you to take
on.

Candace: What project? I’m already working on
multiple projects that I’m not sure I can finish on time.

Mrs. Wolf: The project is not going to take as much time as the other projects
you’re working on. You many have to work a little over the weekend, but
I’m sure you can handle it.

Candace: I’m sorry, Mrs. Wolf,
but I’m sure that I cannot take on an additional project at this time. I
have already worked the past two weekends and I wasn’t planning on working this
one.

Mrs. Wolf: No, I’m sorry, Candace. I wasn’t aware
you were working so much already. I’ll assign the project to someone
else. Thank you for your honesty about your situation.

Sure, that’s probably how that would go. Leaving aside for a moment how empty that conversation would be without the word “project” (apparently this is a universe without synonyms) I find Mrs. Wolf’s reaction perhaps a little rose-tinted. If this broad is really such a C-U Next Tuesday to suggest so casually Candace cancel her weekend whoring, I have my doubts that she’d pull a 180 and accept “no thanks” without a fight. I think this is more likely:

Mrs. Wolf: Here. Do this.

Candace: But I have plans this weekend, and I’m already so busy that—

Mrs. Wolf: Listen, slave, I can get an intern in here to do your job for free,
you no-college-degree-havin’ bitch, so get to stepping or it’s the bum’s rush
for you.

Candace: Yes, ma’am. I guess now I understand why the gap between worker’s and executive’s wages has grown from 40 times in 1980 to over 400 times today*.

Okay, so maybe my scenario isn’t much more natural, but it’s a closer simulacrum of the truth.

Technology has made it a lot easier to look like you’re working when you’re actually wasting time. I know it has for me. I love the following exchange. My only hope is that Chris never commits a crime, because he’d be sprinting to the police with his verbal diarrhea of a confession.

Candace: What are you working on?

Oafish Chris: Well, actually, I’m not working on anything I’m supposed to be working on. I was trying to find some information on the Internet and got caught up looking at this site. I think I must have wasted about half an hour looking at this,
but it’s really interesting.

Butt-Into Other People’s Business Candace: Chris, you know better than to waste your time like that.

Easily Persuaded, Oafish Chris: You’re right, Candace. It’s just so easy to get carried away. I should really be more careful.

With that kind of spineless, immediate folding to anyone else’s will, this guy would be a perfect candidate for Scientology. And why is “internet” capitalized?

Here’s a tip to squeeze every ounce of down-time out of your day: Stand up while making a phone call. You shouldn’t, as some lazy fucks, “use the opportunity to make a telephone call as a break.” Yeah, ‘cause when I think “relaxing,” I think of calling Bruce in Supplies and hounding him for my weekly allotment of seven staples. “The less comfortable you are, the more you’ll stick to the point…” they say. Why not make your phone calls from our newly-installed, self-contained Mosquito Swarm Cubicle?

This is about not taking on more tasks than you can handle:

Chris: I just feel like if I tell Shawna that I need to lessen some of my
responsibilities, she might think I’m expendable.

Candace: I’m sure Shawna will understand that you think the
quality of your work is suffering. You should not be worried about being
expendable. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your honesty.

Oh, I’m sure. Because no one’s boss is unreasonable. I mean, how else would they get into a position of authority if they didn’t have well-grounded, logical and intelligent expectations and skills? It couldn’t possibly be they are friends/relations with the boss, or were promoted seemingly by finding the person with the fewest skills, could it? Nah, that only happens if you’re in the current Executive Branch of our government.

Oh, by-the-by, in the very next little example Shawna came in, fresh from having Chris vomit incompetence and self-pity all over her because his job is so hard, and asks Candace to take over. I’m beginning to think Candace is a bit of an office puppet-master, because she immediately claims to be too busy herself, and “suggests” Shawna pawn it off on heretofore unseen Suzanne. Oh yes, she claims, Suzanne is fairly rolling in free time! I couldn’t possibly take one more morsel of work, but that lazy bitch has been sleeping in the supply closet. Go get that ho-bag!







* William McDonough, head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in Washington, said in an April speech that large-company CEOs in 2000 made 400 times what workers did, up from 40 times in 1980. He went on to say, “There is no economic theory, however far-fetched, which can justify that increase.” – Source: Harvard Law Programs

Yes, It Is a Joke

3/7/07

I have commented on several of these before, but every time I see some internet warning flitting about cyberspace, being forwarded on by wave after wave of paranoia, I can’t help but try to bring a little bit of reality back to the chaos. Several people have posted the following bulletin on MySpace, and I felt it my civic duty to try and rein in the madness. Tell me if this looks familiar:

Subject: Fwd: Fw: Read this if you go online at all.
WARNING FROM THE
STATE POLICE. . USA (Not a joke.)

State police warning for online: Please read this "very
carefully"..then send it out to all the people online that you know. Something
like this is nothing to be taken casually; this is something you DO want to pay
attention to.

If a person with the screen-name of jokerkid613/Ja$on MoNeY contacts
you, do not reply. DO not talk to this person; do not answer any of his/her
instant messages or e-mail. Whoever this person may be, he/she is a suspect for
murder in the death of 56 women (so far) contacted through the Internet. Please
send this to all the women on your buddy list and ask them to pass this on, as
well. This screen-name was seen on Yahoo, AOL, AIM, and Excite so far. This is
not a joke! Please send this to men too... just in case! Send to everyone you
know!
Ladies, this is serious.

Jennifer S. Faulkner Education/Information Specialist Roanoke Fire-EMS

This, my dear readers, is absolute bunk. Of course, on MySpace the closing salutation is “Please repost. Thanks, Tom.” I love how this is a “warning from the state police” of the USA. That just smacks of authority right there. A version of this email with “Slavemaster” instead of “jokerkid613/Ja$son MoNeY” as the handle has been bouncing around the web since 2000. [1] This was the original June, 2000 warning and, as you can see, it’s been beefed up since then:

If a guy by the name of ----- _SlaveMaster ----- contacts you do not answer. He
has killed 56 women that he has talked to on the Internet.
PLZ SEND OUT TO
ALL THE WOMEN ON YOUR BUDDY LIST . ALSO ASK THEM TO PASS THIS ON. He has been on
{{ Yahoo- AOL-- Excite }} so far. This is no JOKE.!!!!

There is actually a very well exaggerated nugget of truth behind this “alert.” At least, there used to be. There was a man by the name of John E. Robinson, Sr. of Kansas who went by the internet name “Slavemaster.” In June of 2000 he was charged with murdering five women he apparently met through chat rooms. He was suspected in 6 other murders, but even with the potential victim list of 11 Robinson falls well short of the “death of 56 women.” Even then it’s odd that this email lark would be related, as Robinson arrested and jailed on June 6, 2000. He was convicted of 3 murders, and admitted to five killings in Missouri. He’s is now awaiting execution in Kansas, although that might be commuted to life since in 2005 the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state capital punishment laws unconstitutional, and they have yet to be rewritten. [2]

I love how we humans are immediately willing to give in to the knee-jerk reaction of believing horrific things like this, as apparently we are sure the next person we meet wants to stab us in the face and sodomize the corpse. I have my doubts that the first I’d be hearing of a serial killer prolific enough to butcher 56 ladies would be through a forwarded email or MySpace bulletin. You’d think at least one news network would have picked that up. You know, in between clamoring all over each other to see who can plummet to the lowest depths of the most recent Anna Nicole “story.”

[1] Urban Legends and Folklore – About.com
[2] John Edward Robinson – Wikipedia

Next They’ll Want to Vote!

3/6/07


Occasionally when I have nothing on hand to read, I like to peruse the Springfield News Leader paper, especially the Opinion page, just for a laugh. Today did not disappoint. In the spirit of the 1890’s, we have this wildly insane letter from Chris Fluharty of Springfield, who invites us to step back into the time before Christ. This is mad-awesome.

Women should work at homeRe: "Racism, sexism still exist, [sic] are often
ignored," May 3 Brian Lewis column.

To answer Brian Lewis’ first
challenge, I say no. No, a woman should not supervise a man. God in his infinite
wisdom established gender roles for society. We have ignored those commanded
roles to satisfy political correctness. When women were at home being moms and
wives, kids were not knocking over stores or being knocked up in anywhere near
as much frequency as today. When women were obeying God’s gender roles, divorce
was not 50 percent and the home was not violated. If you claim to be a Christian
and believe that the Bible is infallible and literal, then one cannot deny the
commandment of Titus
2:4-5. So Christians, either obey it all or none!

As for his
charge of racism and how a white man has no place to complain, well, Brian, you
must have never been denied a promotion because an unqualified minority applied
for the same job and the company needed some diversity. I have. Affirmative
action is just as racist and has no place in the workforce either. Let the most
qualified person get the job.

Chris Fluharty, Springfield

Gosh. I hardly know where to begin. In fact, I feel a little stupid in just having read it, let alone commenting on Chris’s staggering insights into the mind of the seriously deranged. Chris seems to feel that shackling women back into second-class citizenship will apparently cure what ails us from crime to underage preggos. I’m not entirely sure what he means when he says “homes were not violated,” unless Chris is aware of a rash of people sodomizing their electrical sockets or something. Why not get a return to the good old days when men were allowed to beat their wives and females had the wonderful choice of a fulfilling life of servitude and crushed dreams or be relegated to the classification of whoredom? How dare you dames want to do something more with your life than become glorified cum dumpsters and baby factories?! We let you cook and clean for godssake, what do you want, the moon?!

Far as the Bible goes, sure, if you’re one of these lunatic literalists that believes God Himself was penning the pages through some dude, and that said dude didn’t misinterpret or kind of adlib a little bit, and that the hundreds of translations over thousands of years have been perfect and totally accurate, then yeah, I guess you have to keep the misses at home. Then again, if you believe all that you might be too busy checking your underwear for the little gnomes that come in the night to invade your wiener-hole and cause wicked, sexual thoughts.

Just a few thoughts on Chris’s affirmative action attack: I think the most qualified person should get the job, too. Trouble is, that wasn’t happening if you had brown skin or funny, slanty eyes before we started affirmative action up. It’s an attempt to level the playing field for people who didn’t have the thousand-year head start that we did and have only been deigned with full citizenship for about fifty years.

I can sympathize with Chris, though. I myself am a white male and I can tell you, the discrimination is just shameful. It’s getting to be I can’t even rape a colored lady and get away with it anymore.

Get bent, douchebag.