Happy Birthday, Helen! It's not quite your birthday here but it is where you are so there you go!
Godspeed and safe travels on your vacation. Have fun (but not too much fun) and don't do anybody anything I wouldn't do.
I got a call from Lovely Wife this morning. I usually do and my morning isn't really started until I get one. This particular call had one of those spooky beginings that sounded suspiciously like "Do you know what your son did?" Those are the worst calls since you're effectively powerless. If whatever your son (not hers, at least at this particular moment) did makes you furious you're shit out of luck. You're at work buddy and by the time you get home it's ancient history. Of course since you're a grown up you've festered on it for the entire day and when you do get home you try to do the corrective counseling thing but by that time the kid doesn't even remember what it was that he did and your oh-so-carefully crafted and mentally rehearsed speech falters and dies on your lips when confronted by stupefyingly honest childhood ignorance.
If whatever the boy did doesn't happen to irritate you or (God forbid) you don't think it was such a bad thing anyway you are equally screwed. You are on the phone with a woman who is so pissed she has temporarily disowned her child. You. Must. Agree. With. Her. Not doing so, and doing so in colorful and excited terms I might add, will allow her to transfer that rage from the son to the father. That's you, remember. This is a bad thing. You always want to place children between yourself and your spouse's rage, never the other way around. Hey, that's the basic reason you had the little beggars in the first place.
Samizdata reports on a correction in The Australian. Personally, I think the retracted statement was just as correct as the replacement.
(Hat tip to Dopple-G)
The Letter of the Day is "J".
"J" is for Jokes, like this one about drowning Democrats.
"J" is for Jackasses, which accurately describes several of the commenters of this post.
"J" is for Jerking Around, which is what happens to Jen in the comments of this post.
I had my first memorable nightmare in quite some time on Saturday night. It was one of those genuinely distressing heartwrenching real-emotion emoting dreams.
Most of the dream was fuzzy and I don't remember it. The scene that so affected me was in a garage with a generic androgynous friend (does anybody else have generic androgynous people in generic roles in their dreams?). He/she was smoking and offered me a smoke when he/she realized I didn't have any. I said no but took a drag of his/hers.
Then it hit me. I had just had a damned cigarette in my mouth and I smoked on it. Immediately following that realization was crushing guilt and extreme anger at myself. Then I was pissed and basically said fuck it. If I had a puff I might as well have a whole cigarette so I took one from generic friend's pack (generic friend wasn't there anymore - can't blame him/her as I was quite irate and most likely not fun to be around).
I smoked that thing in an absolute rage. I was so unbelievably mad and feeling like crap because there are a whole bunch of people pulling for me to quit smoking successfully. There's also a $100 price tag on the first puff of nicotine and I was mad as hell that I screwed up that bet too.
The dream sort of faded out (at least out of memory) after that. I woke up angry, which is never good. When I realized that I had dreamed it and that I had actually not smoked a cigarette I felt blessed release and a great calming.
I'm going to make it, y'all, but this psychological warfare that my subconcious is playing on me is totally unfair. Damned id.
Been off the Welbutrin for over a week. Occasional cravings but otherwise doing quite well.
One month, three days, 5 hours and 6 minutes. 644 cigarettes not smoked, saving $101.47. Life saved: 2 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes.
hoppin' through the forest,
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny FooFoo
I don't want to see you
scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And now I'll give you one chance, and if you keep it up, I'll take care of you for sure.
Little Bunny Foo Foo
kept hoppin' through the forest,
kept scoopin' up the field mice
and boppin' em on the head.
And down came the Blue Fairy, and she said:
You disobeyed me!
So she smacked him and his brother over the head with a shovel until they were dead
But it's okay, y'all. She's been cleared by the district who ruled that smackin' bunnies on the head is accepted veterinary practice. Some of her students thought it was a bit wierd and she's still facing two civil penalties for animal cruelty. She's vowed to fight them, though.
Back off the Blue Fairy, y'all. It's just part of farming. Besides, Bunny FooFoo was asking for it.
A lot of people just don't quite understand what the big deal is. I mean, if you break the law you go to jail, right? Well, here's the best way I've found to explain it:
WEEEE-OOOOOOO WEEEEE-OOOOOO (that's a siren, y'all)A State trooper with the lights on and siren blaring is in your rear view, letting you know that you're screwed now. You pull over to the side, heart a bit a-flutter and sharing confused and slightly frightened glances with your passenger. The trooper walks up to your window with one hand on his gun and the other holding his shoulder mike. He leans in menacingly, never taking his hand off of his weapon.
Trooper: Do you have any idea how fast you were going?
You: I'm sorry, officer. I thought I was going the speed limit.
Trooper: And just where did you get the idea of what the speed limit was?
You: Um, from the road signs?
Trooper: ARE YOU SURE?! I think that your passenger there told you what the speed limit was. I don't think you saw the sign at all!
You: Please, officer. I really saw the sign. It said "Speed" on top and then it had a big "55" in the middle and it said "Limit" on the bottom. I swear!
Trooper: You're under arrest.
You: For what? I wasn't speeding!
Trooper: Because you lied about seeing the speed limit sign.
You were cruising along, not breaking any laws. The cops stopped you without cause and started interrogating you as if you had broken a law. You really were told about the speed limit from your friend but you panicked or were intimidated or freaked by the situation or whatever and you said you saw the speed limit sign. Even though you didn't speed and there was no reason for you to be pulled over you are now going to prison for lying about where you got the information that you used while not breaking the law in the first place. The kicker is that you were allowed to get the information from the sign or your friend so there was no reason to get flustered over it in the first place.
That is why the whole Martha Stewart thing irks me. There was no crime until the feds germinated one.
Just kidding. Heh. (Or am I?)
I've tried to write it before but I didn't get anywhere near as funny as Paul of Skirting the Perimeter Sanity's Edge. For experienced bloggers it's a hoot. For newbies it's ironically apt instruction (in a tongue-in-cheek fashion). For non-bloggers it's as close to Nirvana as you're likely to come (unless you get a chance to suck on Courtney Love's boobies outside your local Wendy's restaurant). See the Blogging 101 series starting here and including the 3 posts following.
Harvey has unearthed a treasure trove of pirate pick up lines, but he's missing the best one:
Lassie, you're a pirate's dream - a grand poop deck and a sunken chest!
Or was that the best pirate insult?
Here's proof that Christine got robbed in the King of the Blogs competition. With the command of the English language that she's got you just know that the fix had to be in for somebody else to have won.
"Juxtasuppository". Oh, man I'm still giggling over that one.
The Letter of the Day is "I".
"I" is for Invitation, as in Did y'all get your invitations to the party at Munuviana?
Update: Results are in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
My apologies for the time gap with the sham/shares. I got a little bit tipply last night whilst watching Matrix:Reloaded and Second Hand Lions. Both were good movies. I don't see what everybody was bitching about with Matrix2 there. It's an action movie, y'all. Don't be looking for a Tom Clancy plot in a Keenu vehicle. Anyway, I'm not tipply tonight but I am big time sleepy. I didn't want to put y'all off for another day but I was going to anyway until I thought of a great short anecdote and a great way to sham it. A short check with my pseudo-random number generator to find out which version to record for posterity and here it is for your guessing pleasure.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
In my crazy youth I worked at Wegman's grocery store. Just about all of the people I hung out with (and/or moved in with) also worked there. Thursday's were paydays so every Thursday we'd all go down to a local bar/restaurant to drink pitchers of beer and throw darts. And eat chicken wings - this was Buffalo, after all. This particular establishment was our place of choice because the Weggie's crew had established itself there and they didn't bother to card anybody in the group. I and my underage coworkers appreciated and exploited this trust.Anyway, my step-mom had been on me for a while about drinking too much and basically challenged me to go a night with the crew without drinking anything. She did it in an obvious and pathetic reverse psychological way (You couldn't go out with those people a single time without drinking!) but I was ornery enough to want to prove her wrong anyway. I might have just needed to prove that to myself as well.
I had my teetotaler evening with my pitcher of Coke sticking out like a lone sentinel in a forest of amber beers. I was the first out when we broke for the evening since I didn't have to pony up for the tab (non-alcoholic beverages were free - designated driver program or some such). As I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed a car pull after me from a parking lot on the other side of the street. Yup, coppers. They followed me for about a quarter mile until I'd turned onto the Boulevard (the first big thoroughfare from the bar). They seemed a bit pissed when I told them I'd had only soda to drink and they quickly realized I wasn't bullshitting.
Fortunately for a couple of my friends it was only the one cruiser working that bar. The ones who might have had a problem with the police were spared due to my red herring.
Current Standings:
Four Correct
jim
Two Correct
Helen
Mike the Marine
mitzi
One Correct
Brian Jones
Jeremy
Lovely Wife
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
Update: Results at the end of the extended entry.
Ah, yes. It is time once again for the Cheddar X
Ryan Rhodes has left the nightmare that is Blog*Spot for the comfort and security of the woobie we call Munuviana. In other words, Rambling Rhodes is now a MuNu blog! Woo hoo!
Go ahead and visit my new neighbor. I did the template but the artwork is 100% Ryan.
The 17th Bestofme Symphony is up at Rocket Jones. Ted's a bit under the weather but he's still put together a kick-ass edition. Head on over and get your Monday started up right.
Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note and I'll get you on the schedule.
Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.
Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Ted a hand by spreading the word. He's a guy so he doesn't have that "everybody links automatically 'cause a chick wrote it" thing going on.
Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.
 I am Chocolate Flavoured.I am sweet and a little bit naughty. I am one of the few clinically proven aphrodisiacs. Sometimes I can seem a little hard, but show warmth and I soon melt. What Flavour Are You? |
(Snagged from Dodgeblogium)
Send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and win a million dollars! (Please note that sending in a submission does not make you elligible to win a million dollars.)
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Rocket Jones.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. Now that's accomodating!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Expect nuthin' today, y'all. The weather is gorgeous and I've got serious Spring Fever. I'm playing hooky and will be spending the bulk of the day in relaxation at various outdoor locations.
Ahhhhhh...Spring...
Just like Mel's production, only less scourging and more color selection. Let's play Jesus Dress-up!
District's stance against transgender policy threatens budget
The Westminster School District is taking a costly stand against the State of California. They have chosen not to comply with mandated changes in their anti-discrimination policy and this threatens their state and federal funding. As a consequence, Bank of America has rejected their application for a $16 million credit line that was to be used for upcoming facilities improvements.
Three of the five members of the school board twice voted against new language for the district's discrimination policy that would allow students to file complaints if they were discriminated against based on their gender or "perceived gender."
Preceived gender? What in the world is that? Apparently it is confusing PC-speech for transvestites and/or transexuals. So if a girl dresses up as a boy I'm guessing that this California law protects her rights to use the mens room and allows her recourse to cry discrimination if somebody treats her like a girl.
School board trustee Judy Ahrens said she and the other members who voted against the change are "standing up for morality."
In this case standing up for morality is going to cost funding amounting to half of their annual budget as well as the money needed for fixing and expanding their infrastructure. Personally I couldn't agree with them more.
(Cross posted from Zero Intelligence)
(Snagged from Electric Wildebeast)
After being MIA (or should that be AWOL) for a week, the gang at Wetwired has returned. Seems that the problem was in the registration (as surmised by Rob).
Welcome back Pylorns, fnliii, Robin, et al!
How much of the pricetag on that bottle of Jack Daniels is going to the taxman? In New York it's over $6. In Alaska it's almost $13.00. Other states are anywhere from a buck to several bucks. Then there are the states (18 of them) where the government completely controls all sales and profits from alcoholic spirits.
How about that pack of Marlboros? How much of that price is added by the state? If you're in New Jersey, more than $2.00 is going to the government. Yeah, the State can impose a 100% user cost penalty on these consumers and nobody says "Boo".
And why is that? How can the government get away with such phenomenal taxation schemes? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? These are immoral items. Only immoral people are being forced to pay extra taxes. Plus, they aren't healthy. Consumption of these items leads to deteriorating health conditions and that creates a burden on society. So if we make the consumers pay up front then the State won't have to foot the bill later on.
A smaller button for those who have size issues with the first one.
Jen will be getting her 40,000th visitor sometime today. Could it be you?
More importantly, she has scientifically proven that Snickers kick Milky Way ass.
She's going to be repeating the experiment with Cadbury Creme Eggs vs. Cadbury Caramel Eggs but that's a waste of time. Everybody knows that Cadbury Creme Eggs are the quintessential Easter treat. They didn't spend millions of dollars genetically engineering a rabbit that clucks for nothing, y'know.
I am a Neutral Good Elf Ranger Bard! (Way too much information in the extended entry.)
Every parent thinks their kid is special. Well, unless the kid has to wear a helmet or something. In that case they think their kid is special, meaning retarded. What I'm talking about is pre-politically correct special, as in actually special.
Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. Damn, need background here. Murphy is a mouse (stuffed) that goes home with the kids of Bear's class on the weekends. One kid per weekend, that is. The kid who's hosted Murphy takes pictures of the rodent and writes about the things that Murphy did in their Murphy Journal. Seeing as these are pre-schoolers they're obviously not actually writing the stuff in the journal - they dictate to us secretaries parents. So anyway...
Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. Crap, need a bit more background. Bear learned lower case letters in preschool and also how to sign his name. They haven't learned any upper case letters in school but he's picked them up all by himself through a combination of observation and questioning us. The point is, I already knew that he knew his printed alphabet in both cases. So...
Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. As intimated above this means I was writing in the journal as he dictated to me. (Hah! Bet you half thought I was going for more background in this paragraph, didn't you? Joke's on you 'cause the story's on, Baby!) Lovely Wife had done the previous entry and that was in script. Being the toady follower type person that I am I was also writing in script. After a rather longish bit of dictation Bear looked over my arm at what i was writing, rather in the stern aspect of a strict and micromanaging employer. He began reciting the letters as I wrote them down.
He knows letters in script. We did not teach him letters in script. His school most certainly did not teach him letters in script. I don't think he's picked this up from SpongeBob or the Power Rangers either.
Is my boy precocious? How will I ever know, seeing as my proximity in affection and location makes me a hopelessly compromised judge?
And more importantly, if he is a child genius, do my genes kick ass or what?
Just came across this book excerpt. This looks frighteningly accurate, doesn't it?
Islam and the Palestinian ProblemPublished by: Dar al-Salam, Cairo, Egypt
Year Published: 2001
The author: Dr. Abdallah Nasih AlwanNo other nation in ancient and modern times has carried the banner of fraud, evil and treachery as has the Arab nation. No other human race throughout history or from anywhere in the world has acted in such a cruel and corrupt manner and provoked such conflicts between nations as has the Arab race. (pp. 23-24)
... [in] their [the Arabs'] machinations in present times, at the beginning of the 14th century after hijrah [the "Prophet's" journey from Mecca to Madinah], the Arabs (may Yahweh's curse rest upon them) have been using devious ways of conspiracy and deceit in order to achieve their aspirations and carry out their plans of establishing their rule over the world, and take control of the world's core powers. They are targeting three main objectives:
- The first objective: spreading dissent among the nations
- The second objective: corrupting the faiths of the nations
- The third objective: founding the State of Palestine, with Israel as its center, and stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile. (p. 36).
Isn't that amazing, coming from an Egyptian publisher and by an anti-Israel radical? Well, I have one little confession. I altered the excerpt according to The Radical Islamic Cypher of Truth ™. It's really pretty easy. Take anything written by any Murder Bombing supporter and switch "Jew" for "Arab" and vice versa and "Yahweh" for "Allah" and vice versa. You will transform tripe to truth faster than Jesus changed water to wine.
Pretty cool, eh?
POINTS: Where does the title of this post come from? 3 points to the first person to tell me. No searching, y'all!
Y'all thought that Easter was about how Jesus died for our sins, didn't ya? Well, with Bill Cimino around we're going to need a new sacrifice soon. The evidence:
Bad people killed Jesus who is the son of God. Don't ask me why. It's a long story. And don't ask me why God didn't save his own son because I don't know that either. Ask God. But don't expect an answer any time soon. He's not real talkative. Now shut up and listen. So Jesus is dead and they throw him into a cave. Three days later he rises from the dead. As a bunny. Yes, he has long ears and a fuzzy tail. And a beard. Then he ascends to heaven in a ballon type thing made out of a basket and marshmellow chicken rabbits which is where peeps come from. That's also where Easter baskets come from. And today, once a year, Easter bunny Jesus travels the Earth in his Peep Balloon leaving candy and Caramel-filled Eggs and stinky, colored, hard-boiled eggs for all the good little girls and boys. And he hands out leg of lamb to all the adults. That's where "lamb of God" comes from. Now go to sleep or you'll make Easter bunny Jesus angry.
(Hat tip to Jen, Queen of Historica)
I am constantly and consistently astounded by the open hatred that forms the wellspring of peace rallies. These fuck-knobs scream about the USA being a dictatorship while marching in open protest. How fucked in the head do you have to be before you get it into your skull that those two are mutually exclusive? Try protesting in the peacenik's favorite land of Palestine. "Gay's for Palestine"? That's a fucking joke and a half. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death there and these cretins support terrorists blowing up babies in the name of eliminating the only democratic country in the Middle East?
The king of the jackasses for this latest travesty is the bastard that Laurence posted on this morning. You sir have earned the title of Flaming Ass. Wear it until your untimely timely death.
(First seen at Kelley's, then at Michele's and finally decided to post on it when I saw it at Jen's)
A little sidebar button for us Tactlessly Correct blogs:
As you can likely tell by the title to this post, it is Tactlessly Correct essay time. The subject of today's conversation is profanity and the misperception that camouflaging profanity allows us to discuss it in a non-profane manner.
Take the title for example. When you read it you did not interpret it as F!Bomb you, you fcuking f*ck!. You interpreted it as Fuck you, you fucking fuck! That is of course what my intent was. So what did I accomplish by obscuring the actual words? Well, I made it a bit clunky for the reader. It adds another level of forced interpretation so it takes a short bit longer to read. If the reader is not familiar with F!Bomb then I've added a confusing element where the message will not be understood until yet another level of interpretation is completed.
Look, language is all about interpretation. If i say F-word what I mean is fuck and what you understand is fuck so why would I say F-word at all? Because it's more polite? Whatever we're discussing it has something to do with fucking so it's not going to be targetted towards delicate sensibilities, right?
...since we moved to Georgia, are our kids going to grow up to be whitetrash or rednecks? And then Bear will say something like what he said at dinner last night:
"When I get bigger I'm going to be a daddy. I'm going to be in charge. Cordelia will do what I tell her because she likes me and she's going to marry me."
And I realize that the answer is of course "rednecks".
Tulips on your organ.
The 16th Bestofme Symphony is up at Practical Penumbra. Our superfine ultrasexy uberfeminine hostess Susie has a wonderful theme for this edition, featuring my first two girlfriends (Nell and Natasha). Head on over for a wonderful Monday read.
Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note and I'll get you on the schedule. It's way easier than you think it is. I mean - hey, Susie did it, right?
Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.
Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Suzie a hand by spreading the word. Remember what Confucious said: A little linky love today will come back to you twofold tomorrow, and not in the cornhole either.
Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.
Anybody know what happened to Wetwired? I wasn't worried when the newsreader feed failed the other day. That happens some times. When it was offline for a second day I tried to hit the actual site and it was offline. I figured a DNS problem or something like that. Well today is more than too many days offline even for a collosal DNS fubar so I email Pylorns to see what's up. The mail server couldn't be resolved at wetwired.org.
So what's up with Wetwired? Pylorns? Robin? Anybody?
Send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and help bring a smile to a little girl's face. Not that the one leads to the other, I'm saying you should do both.
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Practical Penumbra.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Yeti another penguin as a missile game. This time it's the vertical hammer throw and damn, it's still fun as hell.
Top score of 402.66 for me. Oh, yeah. Who's yo' daddy?
(Snagged from Rob)
Update: Results are in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
At one time I was living with 3 girls. No, it was not all panty dances and blow jobs. Sad to say there were no panty dances or blow jobs at all. From my housemates that is - I was doing fine in that department from other sources. Damn, where was I going with this? I'm sure I had a point here...oh, yeah - background info. All three gals were friends from work. I had previously enjoyed one of them on occasion until we figured that we worked a lot better just as friends. When we all decided to get a place together we made a partially joking rule that there wouldn't be any intra-roomie shennanigans unless it was all four of us at the same time.Now, on to the story: The Road Trip. At the time I was dating a girl who made up with exuberance what she might have lacked in brainpower. We ended up on a road trip with one of my roomies and her boyfriend. We drove down to roomie's parents' house in Pittsburg to go see a Steelers/Bengals game. No, I don't remember why I'd bother to go on a road trip to see either of those teams, much less both of them together. Must have been the promise of beer and companionship. The plan was to drive down on Saturday, sleep overnight, see the game on Sunday then drive back to Buffalo.
Roomie's parents were under the mistaken impression that she was a gal of demure behavior so three separate sleeping areas were made up in the den for me, my gal and her guy and she was (of course) going to sleep in her bed. After several hours of drinking Iron City Beer we all decided to hit the hay. My gal and I stuck our couches together and made quite a nice little nest. Roomie and her guy piled a bunch of sleeping bags and blankets on them to disguise themselves as well as possible and we all "went to sleep". Unfortunately for me my girl actually did pass out, leaving me a tad frustrated. From the sounds on the other side of the room that wasn't a problem for my compatriots.
Between my own frustration and the rather arousing noises from my neighbors things were quickly working up to a difficult point for me. I crept to the bathroom to take matters in my own hand (is that the worst pun you've ever encountered or what?). I was in there with the lights out doing my business when the door suddenly opened and the light came on. There was my roomie, nude and flushed. There I was, crank in hand and redfaced. There was just a few moments (hours?) of stunned silence until she smiled and then I smiled and she giggled and I laughed. She said "Don't be embarassed. I just finished myself and came in to clean up a bit." Turns out her guy passed out just as fast as my girl did and the noises I had been hearing were a solo performance.
We were both a little tipsy and both horny as hell and it was quite difficult not to let old habits take over at that point. We ended up in the shower and did a bit of wash me wash you but she left before anybody (meaning me) lost control and I finished things up by myself. It was one of those situations that would have made a great Letter to Penthouse if it had gone just a little differently but she made the right move - neither one of us would have been happy about it the next day if we'd cheated on our partners.
Current Standings:
Three Correct
jim
Two Correct
Mike the Marine
mitzi
MojoMark
Sue
One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
Collect the whole set!
My previous post got me thinking about superpowers. My favorite wouldn't really be the projectile dootie I linked to before. I'm not really sure what superpower I'd most like to have but it comes down to one of these three:
Polymorphic: That's a shapechanger for all y'all that's weak on your latin. That's like the blue naked lady in the X-Men movies. How cool would it be to look exactly the way you want to instantaneously? No more worries about bad hair days or having clean underwear. Just wake up, take a crap, poof into the look you want and you're out the door. Want to hang out at muscle beach? Poof, you're The Rock! Want to play runway model? Poof, you're Kate Moss! Want an ice cream but you left your wallet at home? Poof, you're a soulful eyed waif! In a fight with the Yakuza? Poof, you're superfast, superstrong, with skin harder than rhinocerous armor.
Flying: Yeah, I know it's common and trite but I've never lost my childhood desire to fly. This is the most common dream power I get, though I've gotten much slower as I've matured. A lot of times I'm really just gliding now. Still cool but I guess I'm feeling my age in my dreams.
Stopping Time: I used to have lots of fun imagining what it would be like to be able to stop time. This one has loads of opportunity for mischief (and outright criminal behavior). Sure, you could save the heroine by stopping the bullet inches before it hits her and moving her out of the way. Sure, you could save the four kids in the back seat of the runaway car just before it heads off of the bridge/cliff/parking ramp. But think of all the things you could do in your time off...every beach is a nude beach for the person who can stop time. And it's only the people you want to see nude who are nekkid. Money is no object. Well, I guess it's still an object it's just a really easy to reach object. Anything that you want is yours for the taking and as long as you're taking it from bad guys and jerk-offs your concience is clear, right? That is so sweet.
So, if you could have a superpower, what would it be?
Dopple-G loves MUD games. That's Multi-User-Dungeon, like the famed Everquest and others. You buy the game and then buy time on their servers to play at the same time thousands of other people are playing. They're not called MUDs any longer but I don't know what the current term is. They aren't my cup of tea.
Anyway, Dopple-G is all excited over an upcoming MUD game called City of Heroes. You get to make up and play a super hero. What could be cooler than that? Who hasn't dreampt of having a superpower? Hell, in my imagination I've had dozens of them. Still, I'm not into the playing nicely with others gaming concept so I doubt I'll play City of Heroes.
Besides, I doubt they have the superpower that I'd want.
POINTS: 3 points to the first person who can name the hero who yelled out the title to this post. No searching, y'all!
This week's Cheddar X is a special format. It's a word association thing where you're supposed to reply with the first thing that comes into your head when you read each word. Here goes!
Olympics = Olympics
Politics = Politics
John Kerry = John Kerry
George Bush = George Bush
Osama = Osama
Same-sex marriage = Same-sex marriage
What? Oh, the first thing that comes into my head besides the words given. Okay, let's try that again.
Olympics = games
Politics = games
John Kerry = Bill Clinton
George Bush = Kick Ass
Osama = fucktard
Same-sex marriage = Enough Already
Todd Bertuzzi = goon
Barry Bonds = cokehead
The Passion of the Christ = Enough Already
Beach = nude
Britney Spears = nude soon
Paris Hilton = Barry Bonds
Microsoft = All encompassing warmth, gratitude and security
France = Cheese eating appeasement monkeys
Hans Blix = ankle biter
Linux = Luxy
MTV = More (of) The View
Outsource = Profit
Hummer H2 = Poser Hummer
Honor = Harrington
Love = Ly Wife
Courtney Love = skank
Well, okay. Some of those weren't my real responses. The problem is that some of my actual responses blew. Okay, okay. The real responses are in the extended version.
...I had this wierd drunken rambling incoherent thought. It rattled around in my skull for the better part of a couplefew hours without getting much farther than the initial concept stage. Basically, it's this: Political Correctness sucks.
Yeah, that's about as far as I got. Join with me as I mentally expound without actually organizing my thoughts prior to writing them down (this should be interesting or horrific, not sure which).
Political correctness sucks. Big time. I mean, I got ragged on the other day for saying "Oriental". You can't say "Oriental", you have to say "Asian" now. Well, I didn't mean "from Asia" I meant "from the Orient", therefore I used "Oriental" which was a perfect description for what I was talking about. Doesn't matter. You have to use "Asian" because persons of Oriental origin might be offended if you use the word "Oriental". So does that mean I should go shopping for "Asian" rugs now? No, apparently it's still okay to call rugs "Oriental". So now how do we call a person who is of formerly known as Oriental heritage so as not to confuse said person with somebody of Russian or Indian heritage? Well, you just use "Asian" and then everybody knows that you really mean "Oriental".
Y'all know Tiffani as a regular commentator and leading competitor in the Snooze Points race. That's her at the #3 spot on the Leader Board o'er yonder.
Well, with just a smidge of help from Yours Truly, Tiffani has launched her own weblog. Go ahead and visit her at Breakfast With Tiffani. Cool name, eh?
It's been known for a long time that appeasement doesn't work. Kipling put it very eloquently a century ago.
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
鈥淲e invaded you last night鈥攚e are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.鈥
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you鈥檝e only to pay 鈥檈m the Dane-geld
And then you鈥檒l get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
鈥淭hough we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.鈥
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we鈥檝e proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
鈥淲e never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!鈥
Rudyard Kipling
(1865-1936)
(Hat tip to Dopple-G)
Did you ever have one of those times when you've got to take a leak super bad to the point where you can feel your bladder being constricted by your other organs and you finally get to the bathroom and drop trou as you get into position and you do the one armed lean in anticipation of the unbelievable satisfaction you are about to receive and you cut loose and sigh as the stream of urine cuts into the water like a Bali cliff diver and that delicious sound echoes about you but then you realize that despite these wonderful sensations you are experiencing the one critical one that you are not feeling is the sensation of having to urinate decreasing even the slightest iota and this strikes you as perplexing because how can you still feel like you have to take a piss while you're in the middle of pissing but then it hits you like a thunderclap.
You are asleep.
You are dreaming of peeing because the urge to pee is so bad it is invading your dreams.
And then you jolt awake in a horrific panic knowing, just KNOWING, that you are going to be laying in a pool of urine but thankfully the sheets are dry and the relief that washes over you quickly fades as you realize that your waking up in time on this particular occasion is no guarantee that you will wake up in time on future occasions and that maybe, just maybe, God really does have a sense of humor and this is his little finger in the ribs method to tell you that you'd better shape up or next time is going to be an even bigger relief but not in the way this one was.
No? Me neither.
Students suspended over pornography
Twenty male students have been suspended from Murray Bridge High School for accessing pornographic video clips on personal computer files at school.
That first paragraph alerted me that the article was going to be frustrating and have huge holes where necessary information should have been. Articles where technology is a central topic really must be written or at least edited by somebody familiar with the technology. The terminology used by this author shows that she clearly does not grasp the concepts involved.
An Education Department spokesman yesterday confirmed the Year 9, 10 and 11 students were suspended for up to a week after a "routine audit" by an Information Technology technician uncovered the files. The school is investigating how the students obtained the material."The school will be looking at the possibility of the material being accessed outside of the school and brought to the site in the form of a CD-ROM," the spokesman said.
[Click to biggerize]
What's your job like? Mine is a whole lot like that picture above. I take tools (in my case they are computer programs) and use them in ways that the designers never contemplated having them used. Anything that I can do is fair game. The designer never intended me to use my forklift to pick up another forklift that was picking up industrial tanks and lifting them way, wayway higher than allowed in any of the specs? Well, if the designer doesn't prevent me from doing that I'm going to do it 'cause you can be sure as hell that eventually a user is going to try to do it (the proof is in the picture).
Of course there is one big difference between how I abuse product and the way it's being done in that picture. They're stretching the limits in an attempt to get something constructive and necessary done. If it was me doing QA testing I'd be rocking that thing back and forth until something broke or crashed.
The moral of the story: I love my job.
Another moral of the story: It's probably a good thing that I work in software and not at a forklift manufacturer.
Lovely Wife went out with her galpal last night to get nails done and do some kbitzing. That gave me just enough time for an abbreviated Guy's Movie Night. I decided to watch Underworld. I'd heard mixed reviews on it but since Susie recommended it I knew it had to be good (five points for Susie, by the way).
As far as vampire movies go it wasn't very good. As far as werewolf movies go it wasn't very good. As far as action movies go it was awesome. The vampire/werewolf thing was really just used as a story device and to add flavor and I thought it did really well as such. The action was excellent with lots of nifty Matrix-like effects.
Just how valuable is a single vote? Let's find out!
I am offering up my vote in the next general election to the highest bidder. This includes the Presidential race as well as any Congressional, Senatorial, State, County and Local elections, and any ammendments or resolutions that appear on my ballot. Items that are not on the ballot may also be included and I will think about those unavailable choices with simulated regret while voting for actual ballot items.
The above are offered up for sale in a mixed auction right on this very site. If you wish to bid silently you may send an email to votebid@jpeacock.net. If you would like to bid publicly you may do so right here in the comments to this post. Bidding rules are:
- You may bid as many times as you wish.
- Bid increments will be a minimum of $1.00.
- All bids are in US Dollars.
- Offers of goods or services will be accepted in lieu of cash. Auctioneer will be the sole arbiter of the cash value of goods or services offered. You may contact the auctioneer to receive an assessed value before bidding with goods or services or just go for it and the auctioneer will post the assessed value when he gets around to it.
- Bidders will not refer to themselves in the third person. Third person personal referral is reserved solely for the auctioneer.
- 3rd party goods or services may not be offered. For example, you may not bid "Sex with Kate Beckinsale" unless you yourself are Kate Beckinsale.
- If you are Kate Beckinsale and you bid "Sex with Kate Beckinsale" you win.
- Bid entry must include at least a Presidential vote choice and may include selections for all ballot choices available in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
- Bids will be accepted through the end of the auction. Auction will end at some random point in the future when the humor potential of this post has petered out.
- Hehehe. I said "petered". That was cool.
Good luck and may the wealthiest person with the loosest morals win!
Helen's having a bit of a bother trying to open a bank account in merry old England. You know how it is - they want three forms of ID, utility bills, body fluids, firstborn child, etceteras.
I had a bank experience like that. It was back many a year when we were putting a new roof on my Dad's house. It was a lovely Saturday, just about 140 degrees on the roof (or near enough you couldn't tell the difference). We were pounding away and laying shingles when out of the house pops my step-mum. Normally this was a welcome occurence as she'd be bringing out iced tea or cool-aid, or perhaps sandwiches and a beer ration. Hopes for cool beverages or sustenance were crushed when a quick glance showed her hands to be empty.
Lo, she said unto me: "Jim, didn't you have to go to the bank today?" This struck me as an odd question. Of course I did. I had spoken of it quite specifically the night previous. My aquisition of my very first muscle car (a 1970 Mustang Grande) would be jeapordized were I to miss hitting the bank this day. A thought occured to me then and I asked her "Prithee, what time is it?" Her reply of "It is approximately 2 minutes before the bank closes. Or, using the New Math, it is exactly 42 seconds too late for you to get to the bank regardless of what you do to try to speed up your travel process" did not fill me with joyous feelings. However, I was always a polite lad and responded thusly. "Thank thee, m'lady. Wouldst thou care to remove thine self from my directeth patheth as I shall be travelling forthwith post haste?"
Guinness bubbles really do sink!
(Hat tip to Dopple-G)
I was really sad that Spain elected a communist socialist government. I mean, hasn't the failure of the socialist system been more than amply proven? Seriously, name a socialist country that isn't bankrupt or rife with monetary problems.
Perhaps more apropos to America's interests, it also means that Spain will be pulling out from the Coalition of the Willing unless we turn over control of Iraq to the UN. As that's remarkably akin to turning over a gas pump to a pyromaniac I seriously doubt that Dubya is going to go that route.
Spain pulling out of the only organized anti-terrorist coalition in the world really struck me as bad. I mean, the terrorists are definitely going to be looking at this as a win. They blew up some trains, murdered a whole bunch of people and scared the Spaniards enough that they elected the Appeasement Party. Al Qaeda and the rest of those scum are going to look at this as proof that their terror tactics work.
There once was a man from Iraq,
With holes down the side of his cock.
When he got an erection,
He'd play a selection,
From Johann Sebastian Bach.
What's your favorite dirty limmerick?
The 2004 Peacock Invitational is now in progress. Our contestants are:
The five of us are now on our honor to not smoke until March 15 of 2005. That's no smoking, period. No taking a single puff off of a buddy's cig. No pipe or stogie in the champagne room. No chaw or other sneaky ways to get nicotine either*.
The penalty if anybody fails is to pay each of the other betters $25 each. That means that for all of us the next cigarette we smoke in the next year would cost us $100. If that's not an incentive not to suck on a butt then I don't know what is.
Good luck my compatriots. I sincerely hope I don't see a dime from any of you.
* Exceptions are valid quit-smoking aids like Nicorette Gum or the Patch.
Update: Results are in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
I wasn't always the sober and responsible person y'all know today. In my foolish youth I was quite a bit...wilder. No, that doesn't quite gather the feeling I'm looking for. I was more...reckless. No, that's not it either. Stupid! That's it! I was remarkably stupid.For example, one evening out on the icy streets of Buffalo I lost control of my vehicle (it was a Chevette!) and crashed into a guard rail. That's not the stupid part - this sort of thing is an accepted part of living in Buffalo. I crushed my front left quarterpanel and snapped my front left spring in half. I took my tire iron out and pounded the folded metal out of the way, enlisted some friendly neighborhood types to get out of the snowbank and went on my merry way. That's not the stupid part either. You don't spend money to tow a winter beater car when you don't have to and half a front spring is still more than enough anyway. I drove it like that for the rest of the winter.
Very early that spring my step bro and I spent two entire days rebuilding that front end. I got a new panel from a junkyard, he found the spring really cheap somewhere, I got new rotors and calipers on sale (those weren't related to the crash damage) and we went to town. It was a bitch and a half. We didn't quite have the correct tools so we were doing crazy things like using a rope pulley for the wheel pulley (they're both pulley's, right?) and hammers and wedges where hammers and wedges have no business being and some rigged up contraption to compress the spring. This wasn't the stupid part either, though it probably would have qualified if that spring had let go.
The stupid part came about a week after that monumental effort of car fixing. After a night out with the lads I had a drop or fifty too much beverage in me and I spun out on the bridge near our house ("bridge surface may freeze before road" - those signs tell the truth). As the laws of karma demanded, the corner of the car that smashed into the guardrail was of course the same corner we had so recently spent pain, blood and tears fixing.
Current Standings:
Two Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
mitzi
MojoMark
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Sue
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
Update: Results at the end of the extended entry.
Here it is - Friday already. Sweet!
Let's start the day with a slice of Cheddar X.
The 15th Bestofme Symphony is up at The Owners Manual. This is the Bloggywood Squares Edition so get on over there and play along!
Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note any you're in like Flynn.
Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.
Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Gary a hand by spreading the word. A little linky love goes a long way.
Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.
As mentioned previously tonight was Guy's Movie Night. The festivities began with Die Unendliche Geschichte, more commonly known as "The Neverending Story" (and just what the hell is up with IMDB putting up a title like that as the primary one? Sheesh!). The boys loved it (the two older ones that is, the little guy didn't make it to movie time) and I appear to have been spared from anybody screaming over scary wolf nightmares (knock on wood). Helen gets the points for this one. She didn't just recommend it, she bought it for us. Helen, you're awesome beyond words' poor description.
Once the lads were abed the grownup fare came out. I watched Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I'd been putting this one off for a long, long time. You see, Terminator is one of my all time favorite absolutely most loved and cherished movies in the universe. Terminator 2 is quite likely the first sequel I've ever seen that didn't totally piss me the fuck off. On the contrary, it rocked as much as the first one (although in a different way). So I've been terrified of watching #3. I mean, Cameron wasn't even involved in this one! What if it totally sucked? Or didn't totally suck but went all eXtreme and shit and pissed me off in those more subtle suckass ways? Well, it didn't. It wasn't the movie that 1 or 2 were but it wasn't that far behind and it most definitely didn't tarnish its predecessors. Once I started to relax (when I acknowledged that it wasn't sucking ass) I really started to enjoy it. Very excellent ending, too! So long as they keep Jerry Bruckheimer very very far away from it, I'll watch #4 too (you just know that there's going to be a #4 after an ending like that). Points for this recommendation go to Christine.
Honorable mention go to Underworld and Intolerable Cruelty (Susie and MojoMark, respectively). Those were my next choices and will probably fill my slate on the next Guy's Movie Night.
Send in those submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and I'll make ya hot like you had enough!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at The Owners Manual.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Q. What does HMO stand for?
A. This is actually a variation of the phrase, "HEY MOE". Its roots go back to a concept pioneered by Moe of the Three Stooges, who discovered that a patient could be made to forget the pain in his foot if he was poked hard enough in the eye.
Q. I just joined an HMO. How difficult will it be to choose the doctor I want?
A. Just slightly more difficult than choosing your parents. Your insurer will provide you with a book listing all the doctors in the Plan. The doctors basically fall into two categories--those who are no longer accepting new patients and those who will see you but are no longer participating in the Plan. But don't worry, the remaining doctor who is still in the Plan and accepting new patients, has an office just a half-day's drive away and a diploma from a third world country.
Q. Do all diagnostic procedures require pre-certification?
A. No. Only those you need.
Q. Can I get coverage for my preexisting conditions?
A. Certainly, as long as they don't require any treatment.
Q. What happens if I want to try alternative forms of medicine?
A. You'll need to find alternative forms of payment.
Q. My pharmacy plan only covers generic drugs but I need the name brand. I tried the generic medication, but it gave me a stomach ache. What should I do?
A. Poke yourself in the eye.
Q. What if I'm away from home and I get sick?
A. You really shouldn't do that.
Q. I think I need to see a specialist but my doctor insists he can handle my problem. Can a general practitioner really perform a heart transplant right in his/her office?
A. Hard to say, but considering that all you're risking is the $20 co-payment, there's no harm in giving it a shot.
Q. Will health care be different in the next century?
A. No, but if you call right now, you might get an appointment by then.
(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)
Dateline - Oakbrook, IL
Ronald McDonald has gone into hiding since a mob of obese burger lovers attacked McDonalds Corporate Headquarters earlier today. The super sized protesters had gathered to peacefully complain about McDonald's decision to discontinue its Super Size Value Meal program but things quickly got ugly.
The rotund eaters were gathered on the headquarter's grounds either pacing slowly or relaxing in straining portable canvas chairs when several busses arrived and disgorged members of CEA (Competitive Eaters of America) and FaBELOS (Fat Bastards Eating Lots Of Stuff). While the two groups are often at loggerheads they had apparently united to demand the return of their beloved Super Sized fries and a Coke. The high energy gluttons incited the protestors who were already present with an end result of a waddling wave of jiggling flesh crashing into the building. Glass windows were shattered from the concussive force and several floors lost power.
Police and National Guard troops were called in to subdue the rampaging gastrophiles while Ronald McDonald, Grimace and at least one other company spokesman were smuggled out the back of the building and spirited away to safety. Ronald called later from a secluded location to make a statement on the attack.
"I have never been so terrified in all my life. The shear weight of the opposition was daunting. This is a monstrous burden but it is one I am prepared to bear. McDonalds will not bow to terrorist tactics and we are sticking with our decision to eliminate the Super-Size options as well as cancelling the proposed Monstro-Size and Garganto-Sizes. We are committed to helping create a healthy America." The distraught clown closed his statement with a plea. "Everybody come on - let's put a smile on."
Burger King, McDonald's chief adversary in the fast food field, voiced support of Ronald's decision but regretfully declined to follow suit with his own menu. According to Mr.King "While we respect and admire Ronald for standing by this difficult decision, our company works on a different basic premise. At our restaurants you get it your way and if your way is a pound and a half of tallow soaked potatoes washed down by a half gallon of carbonated sugar water then by God that's exactly what you'll get." When asked if he expected an increase in Burger King sales as high content eaters moved away from the lighter McDonalds menu he responded only with "Oh, I'm sure I'll be lovin' it."
Third rate competitor Dave Thomas was unavailable for comment.
UPDATE: Results in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a share or a sham?
I did a certain amount of experimenting with drugs in my youth. Well, okay - a very limited amount of experimenting. I smoked weed a handful of times. Maybe two handfuls. That's not what this anecdote is about though. What I'm getting at is that I dropped acid too. Twice.The first time was while drinking and smoking weed and either I was too messed up already from the other stuff or it was exceptionally weak stuff and I didn't notice any effect.
The second time was stupid. It was a Sunday. My previous experience made me discount the effects of acid. I had a hugemassivefantasticterrifyingunbelievable trip. It lasted through Monday. I was in Operating Tech School. I was performing surgeries on Monday. Scheduled ceasarian sections. I saw ants crawling out of a uterus and almost cut my own thumb off.
I never dropped acid again. Ever.
Current Standings:
One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
Lovely Wife will be going on hens' night this Saturday, leaving me all alone and at the mercy of the three spawn boys. This is cool for a couple of reasons.
First, she gets out and away from the kids to bleed off some of that accumulated kid rearin' pressure. Sure our kids are an unbearable trial great but she's got at least one of them 24 x 7 except for the rare occasions when she runs out to the store when I'm home. This lets her relax so the chance that she'll snap and just de-skin one of the buggers is dramatically reduced.
Second, she comes back with cool stories. Like the older lady that was trying to pick up The Godfather (part 1) when he was visiting from The Netherlands. Or the time she got touched by Bill Gentry (while she was wearing her galpal's shirt so she can't possibly give that shirt back now). Or even the infamous Purple Velvet Cowboy. Yes, an actual human type person went to a night club in a metropolitan area dressed in a purple velvet cowboy outfit. You just can't get stuff like this from a night at home.
Third, and most importantly, I get to watch movies. Don't get me wrong, we do watch movies together as well. It's just that those movies are ones that only she likes we both like. Ones from the Lifetime Network or Oxygen or The Oprah Channel or like The Usual Suspects or From Dusk Til Dawn. Pretty much anything that makes a temporary vagina grow on male viewers or ones that are mob, true crime or vampire related but not a lot else. Specifically, no sci-fi or fantasy or general horror.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to suggest movies for me to watch this Saturday evening. They should be very good ones that are available now on DVD and for the love of GOD, no chick flicks. They don't have to be recent ones - I sure haven't seen everything.
POINTS: Why the heck not? Five points if I end up watching the movie you suggest. Points awarded to the first suggester only.
I couldn't resist. I asked the Googlegods what they thought of my weblog.
sbd is the backbone of the allied air to ground
Support our troops!
sbd is still considered "under development"
There's always room for improvement.
sbd is a very real threat
Um...Dude, calm down. My writings tend towards humor, I'm not out to overthrow the government or anything like that.
More than just an exercise in existentialism, it's also a direct question for the Googlegods. Just what is Jim anyway?
jim is wrong
Frequently. Constantly. Currently.
jim is tired and formulaic
Okay, so content has been a bit spotty quality-wise lately. Give me a break here! I've been busy.
jim is seeking public input on matters affecting all cheshire
Because I am very concerned about matters affecting Cheshire.
jim is all confused
I'm getting there.
We're getting close. The 2004 Peacock Invitational starts this Sunday night (at midnight). We've got 5 people who are willing to pony up $100 if they smoke at any time for the year of the bet. Care to join us?
I started a bit early, having had my last smoke on Feb 27. That puts my quittin' stats at: One week, five days, 22 hours and 5 minutes. 258 cigarettes not smoked, saving $40.70. Life saved: 21 hours, 30 minutes. (Stats courtesy of this nifty little proggie I heard about from Tiger.)
Most arcade game manufacturers go for racing, fighting or some sort of shooting galery concept. As far as I know the repeatedly ram a giant plastic finger into a virtual rectum milieu is virgin territory. Or it was until recently anyway.
The Boon-Ga Boon-Ga game allows the intrepid player to sodomize one of eight characters including ex-girlfriend, mother-in-law, prostitute and child molester. As you spank and invade the nether regions of your selected victim they scream in agony on the game screen. At the end of your session you get a card that gives you your sexual proficiency rating.
Although the game might seem a bit gratuitously violent (and otherwise disturbing) at least it is promoted by big soft cuddly characters. One is a giant version of the probing fist of doom and the other is a six foot tall shit monster.
I don't have anything else for this one. It's well beyond any satirical skills I may have previously possessed. I'm pretty much just stunned and running on at this point. Let me leave you with a portion of the game review from SeanBaby:
This game does more than threaten the future with an army of highly trained madmen proctologists, it shames America's industrial complex. First we lose the space race to the Commies, and now Japan and Korea have beaten us in the great Virtual Digital Rectal Stimulation Simulation race. And if you're anything like me, you've already asked yourself about the dangers of this ass technology being in the hands of two foreign powers known for giant radioactive monsters and nuclear weapons, respectively. And again, if you're like me, this train of thought quickly hits a wall when you realize that you're not an accredited expert on foreign colon-probing policies. So until one of us is, let's just assume that we're all going to die, but not quite as quickly if we stay far away from Boong-Ga Boong-Ga.
Amen, brother.
(Hat tip to Dopple-G, may he burn eternally for exposing me to this)
A powered dish scrubber? I couldn't believe my eyes when i saw a commercial for this one. It's a powered screwdriver with a scrubber at the end! The commercial showed the happy housewife getting a bunch of fresh food residue off of otherwise squeeky clean plates, just like any other dishwashing commercial. The difference was she did it with this extrememly slowly rotating two and a half pound appliance.
There is no poor-man's dremel that is going to make dishwashing fun and easy and this seven dollar toy isn't going to do anything that some hot water and a sponge can't do faster and better.
It's a shame that Wal-Mart is going to sell a bajillion of these things and encourage some other dumbass to give birth to the next useless helper appliance.
I've got this love/hate thing with cats. Some are ultra cool. The cats living in my house are this type. Henk is a sexy black beast who thinks he's a dog. He comes when you call, wants to play and be petted constantly and gets along well with the canines in the house. Apple is a fat lazy thing and the only doglike quality she has is that she's a bitch. In other words, she's more of your typical cat. She's still cool though since she likes me and comes out specifically for a Jim petting when the mood strikes her.
I've lived with cats that I thoroughly hated as well. When I was in high school my sister had an evil black monster named Misty (which was also the name of one of my cousins and boy did I get a couple laughs out of that). She hated men. No matter how nice my dad and I tried to be with that cat it would hiss and run away and get its fur in a bunch just like those Halloween stereotype cats. I still kept making the overtures until one day when I got home from school and noticed a nasty smell in my bedroom. Specifically from my dresser. Because that spawn from hell had pissed on my clothes. It was open warfare after that and I took extreme glee in waging a guerilla campaign against that beast that made the last years of its life a frightening glimpse into the hell in which it would spend eternity.
So what has got me thinking about evil cats all of a sudden? The feral beasties that live around my house. I am sick of finding dead bird pieces in my yard. I'm sick of cat prints on my car. I am sick of cats shitting where my kids play. I have had enough of these half wild, half starved, vile, disease carrying felines. I am declaring war.
I am buying a pellet gun and any time I see any of the 8 or 9 miscreants anywhere near my property I am going to shoot the fucker. I'm going to shoot it as many times as I can before it gets out of my range. I'm going to teach Lovely Wife how to fire the gun so she can defend the castle when I'm at work.
And if that doesn't do the trick I'm going to escalate the conflict and get a paint ball gun. I'll put out cat traps. I'll go Carl Freakin' Spackler on their asses!
This is your notice, cats. I'm coming for you and there's not a damn thing your friends at PETA or in France can do about it.
POINTS: 2 points for the first person to source Carl Spackler. No searches, y'all.
As long-time readers know I occassionally run out of new material (this never actually happens) or am just too lazy to come up with an interesting post (yup, that's the one). When this happens I delve into the deep, dark, recesses of my referral logs and find the oddities that all y'all are looking for when you find my site in the search engines. Some of these are funny, some are just...ewwwwwwwwwwww. Either way, they earn a comment from moi.
deodorant commercial
I can understand the attraction. I am also drawn to these vignettes of American culturalism like a moth to the flame. Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. Indeed.
my pants r 0n fire
In the good way as in "I'm a horny skank" or in the bad way as in "I really need a fire extinguisher"? Either way, I'm sure you can make some money if you get it on video.
homemade melting cheese
Is this for real? Can I really make my own melting cheese at home? I am sooooo sick of supporting the cheese establishment and their militant cheese monkeys forcing me to pay my hard earned money for their crappy melting cheese. My life would be close to perfect if I could make melting cheese at home. Fight the power!!
chippendale's man video download
If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times. Works from my "artistic" phase are available only from my agent. I don't sell or distribute anything directly.
bloody penguins
Yeah! Stinkin' rot grubbers! Always eating their fish and waddling around all over the place without so much as a "how do you do" or a "nice day we're having". I hope they all get eaten by a bear!
dirty little whore stories
Ah, I never get tired of talking about Joe Theismann.
Do I believe in Capitol Punishment? Damn in-deedly-deed-I-do! Pull the lever, flick the switch, hit the button, squeeze the trigger, repeatedly bludgeon with a blunt object, whatever it takes to kill this fucker.
Prince William County Circuit Judge LeRoy Millette Jr. made the decision after reviewing a jury's recommendation.Millette said the jury correctly found that Muhammad, 43, would be a "continuing, serious threat to society" if allowed to live.
Millette said he looked at other cases in Virginia for comparison, and "there simply are no other crimes" of the same magnitude.
(I will return to a non-bloodthirsty state tomorrow.)
Over at the ZeroIntelligence.Net site is my first ever original reporting article. Yup, that's all me there. Nothing taken from another site or found somewhere or picked up at another location. Took the raw info, made a news article. Wow.
I feel all empowered now. Cool.
Beware the Ides of March indeed! Food beasts look out - March 15 is Eat An Animal For PETA Day. Michele's got some nifty posters and I've even made my own contribution.
Kimberly Swygert of Number 2 Pencil is always entertaining and elucidating. Then there are the posts like this Nyquil induced beauty that take it to the next level and make me appreciate the unique benefits of a heavily medicated female mind.
Ahhh, Vampire Ninja Muslim Christians - whole families of 'em - working at Wal-Mart. In Texas. What grist for my Nyquil-induced dreams.
Hmmm...is Kimberly channeling LeeAnn?
Arleen Mathers (23) got a tad angry when her boyfriend Brad Pulaski (27) erased her pirated stash of songs off her iPod. So mad that she beat him to death with the violated MP3 player.
According to law officers, Mathers was hysterical when police arrived and told them that she killed her boyfriend only after he accused her of illegally downloading music and erased about 2,000 of her MP3s. Mathers complained that it took 3 months to build her music collection.
See? Those people who download pirated music really are criminals!
According to Apple鈥檚 website, the iPod is partially made of a hard metal plate that鈥檚 been praised for it鈥檚 resistance to regular wear and tear, like drops and coffee spills.
Drops of blood and brain matter? I wonder how well the iPod worked after this. Did this count as inappropriate use and void the warranty? Inquiring minds want to know.
鈥淚t took him a while to die,鈥 Dr. Klamut said. 鈥淪he must have stabbed him 40 to 80 times with that iPod. His death was not instantaneous, that鈥檚 for sure鈥.
This is why I stay very far away from Lovely Wife's MP3 player and never so much as click near one of her files or folders. Safety first, know what I mean?
(Disclaimer - Don't bitch at me, I know it's a horrible thing that happened and a life has been lost and another effectively ended. It's also highly ironic and odd and I'm not going to be the first or last person to poke fun at it. In the words of somebody more famous than you: We laugh at the absurd and the morbid for our only other options are anger and tears.)
Have you seen the commercials for these new Clearblue Easy Digital pregnancy tests? They're really neat. Instead of a line or colored mark that might or might not appear depending on whether you are or aren't pregnant, these give you your results in plain english on a digital display. The downside is that test results can be a bit irregular.
Sorry, y'all. No new sham/share yet. Work was a collosal whore today and I'm hating on the computer right now. I got the caption contest finished but that's all I'm going to manage. Look for whatever I didn't get done today to be done tomorrow instead.
Caption contest!
(Stolen from Speedscape)
RESULTS:
This was a riot. 17 contestants and a load of decent belly laughs among the submissions. Thanks for participating and congrats to the winners!
1st place (10 points)
Senator Kerry is told Howard Dean is re-entering the race. - Simon
2nd place (5 points)
GOTTA GO, GOTTA GO, GOTTA GO RIGHT NOW! - Tiffani
3rd place (2 points)
The power of GEE-ZUS commands you! - Susie
Honorable Mention (no points but a cheery hi-oh and a good day chap!)
The circle of life ended when Kerry dropped the baby lion. - tommy
Allegations of John Kerry's french-ness were proven today with this shot of the girlie-man attempting to catch an American football. - Clancy
POINTS: Hell, yeah. One point goes into the pool for each person who submits a caption and they'll be distributed 60/30/10 to the top 3 captioners. (So if 10 people submitted, the #1 caption would get 6 points, the #2 would get 3 and the #3 would get 1.)
Enter as many captions as you'd like.
Update: Results are in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote something I'm sharing with you or something I'm shamming you with?
Before we leave Chicago I'll share with you two other specific (and much shorter *cough* *Simon* *cough*) memories I have of my time there.The first deals with a Snickers bar. Two brothers, one Snickers bar. The equitable way to split it? One would cut it in half and the other would pick which piece he wanted. My big brother was the knife man and he cut it as close to the center as he could possibly estimate (since he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if one piece was markedly larger than the other I would snake it in a heartbeat). To the naked eye these two halves of a candy bar were indeed perfect halves. Many children would have simply taken a random piece and been perfectly happy with it. Not me. I stared at that split Snickers for what seemed like hours as big bro got steadily more irritated. The one on the left is a smidge bigger...no, maybe it's the one on the right that's bigger...hmmm...left, definitely left...but that's probably just what he wants me to think...is that cut at an angle...hmmm... Eventually he lost patience and yelled for Mom so I grabbed one of the halves randomly. I'm sure that if I had just a little more time I would have figured out which one was a tiny bit bigger.
The second memory is about a massive field that was near our apartment complex. I walked across this thing just about every day going to friends' houses (back then little kids could walk around their neighborhoods) and would pretend it was different things. Sometimes it was the tundra and I was a reindeer racing across. One time it was the ocean and I was a shark swimming. Other times it might be the plains of the west and I'd be the Lone Ranger riding my horse across them. Well there was one time when I was coming home and it had rained that day. The field was squishy wet but not soaked. I pretended that it was a lake and I was Jesus walking on the water (side note: we were practicing Catholics at this time). I was having a grand old time until I got half-way across and I stepped into a groundhog hole or other such depression and was instantly chilled up the leg by the water. I freaked. I just knew that it was God punishing me for my blasphemy and now he had made the field like water so I was going to sink into it. I scrambled up to my feet and ran across that field at top speed screaming my head off the entire way. I was incredibly relieved when I made it to concrete and slowed down to catch my breath. Then I realized that God could do the same thing to the concrete so I ran again until reaching the safety of the apartment. At least I wasn't screaming for that final sprint.
Current Shamming/Sharing standings:
One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon
Zero Correct
Everybody else
The 14th Bestofme Symphony is up at Irritable Blog Syndrome. It's short and sweet, a perfect Monday morning danish, served up with style by The Bull herself. Get on over there and enjoy!
Now where's my coffee?
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Some advice to today's youth, from author Charles J.Sykes:
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.
Dear Abby,
My husband is not happy with my mood swings. The other day, he bought me a mood ring so he would be able to monitor my moods.
When I'm in a good mood it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood it leaves a big fucking red mark on his forehead.
Maybe next time he'll buy me a diamond.
Sincerely,
Bitchy in Boston
Ah, listen to the weekend approaching, bringing with it balmy breezes, relaxing rays and buckets of booze the Cheddar X.
UPDATE: Points results are at the bottom of the extended entry.
I read The Littlest Angel Box early this morning. It's about the box of things that Helen sent ahead of her move so they'll be waiting for her when she gets there. Things too important and special to travel with furniture or clothing or common goods. The little mementos and important minutiae of life that you just can't lose. I read that and thought "Neat, I'll leave a comment with the stuff I'd put in that box". And I have been trying to "fill" my box all damned day but it's still almost entirely empty. And that really confuses me. I've got nothing so important to me that I would go to extra steps to guarantee its safety.
There is one exception, the sole item I've "got in my box" right now. That's Bruff. He's a bear. He's in his own box right now, safe and secure and ready to go anywhere at a moment's notice. He hasn't been out of his box in daylight since we had kids. He's way too cute and way too delicate to take any chance that they'll want to touch him.
I remember when I first got Bruff. I wasn't a stuffed animal sort of kid. I had a couple but never played with them (except when using them as targets). One Christmas I was about half way through the presents (we started with the little stuff and worked our way to the big presents) and I opened Bruff. He was a golden brown bear with a very handsome face, a green shirt and a nametag that said (you can guess this, can't you?) "Bruff". I was intrigued. Why would a bear be named Bruff? I didn't know any Bruffs. There weren't any Bruff Bears in any of the cartoons or shows or corporate tie-ins. Bears didn't have name tags. Did they?
Bruff did. He wasn't afraid to buck the system. He had a name and he wanted the world to know it. So what if bears didn't wear nametags? He didn't care. He was Bruff and he did what he wanted to. It was love at first sight (well, after I figured out that little bit I just explained).
Bruff has been though a lot. He lost an arm once. Surgeon Mom fixed that but the skin graft is very noticeable. He lost an eye once and Optrician Mom removed his other natural eye and gave him two brand new very cool button eyes (from the big can of Grandma's buttons). His fur is a bit less than spectacular. That's probably because he spent a lot of time wrestling and playing Karate Joe (that's what you play when you want to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but all you've got is that foot tall GI Joe. And a bear named Bruff). He also caught a good bit of vomit and other nastiness over the years, seeing as he always insisted on staying with me when I was sick.
And his reward for those years of selfless companionship? What does he get now in exchange for the countless hours spent as my foil, boon companion, mascot and assistant? He gets stuck in a box.
That's not quite all he gets, though. He also gets the knowledge that no matter where I go or why I go there, that box will be coming with me.
Magister Mundi sum!
"I am the Master of the Universe!"
You are full of yourself, but you're so cool you probably deserve to be. Rock on.
Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
(Found over at Jen's)
What happens when a corporation moves past the event horizon? When it becomes so immensely huge that not even federal regulators can adequately describe its girth? Why, its employees realize they can do human type things like writing with humor and nobody will find out about in in a billion nanoseconds because the beast is just too large to watch its own backside.
The introduction and instruction for the Tweakomatic tool is one of the funniest bits I've read in quite a while. Yeah it gets a bit geeky at points but it's good stuff the whole way through. Here's an exerpt:
As you probably know, Microsoft has a sort of love-hate relationship with the registry. The registry is the configuration database for Windows and Windows applications, and many options can only be set by manually changing a value in the registry. For example, if you鈥檝e ever read a Microsoft Knowledge Base article, you鈥檝e likely seen a sentence similar to this:To correct this problem, change the following value in the registry.
Now that鈥檚 fine, except that this sentence is invariably followed by a disclaimer similar to this one:
Warning: Don鈥檛 ever change a value in the registry. Ever. We know we just told you to do that, but would you jump off a cliff if we told you to? Don鈥檛 ever change a value in the registry. Don鈥檛 even say the word registry. We know a guy once who said the word registry, and three days later he was hit by a bus. True story. As a matter of fact, you shouldn鈥檛 even have a registry on your computer. If you suspect that you do have a registry on your computer, call us and a trained professional will be dispatched to your office to remove the registry immediately. If you accidentally touch the registry, wash your hands with soap and water and call a doctor. Do not swallow the registry or get it in your eyes!
Now, to be honest, some of those fears are a bit exaggerated, and the disclaimer is there largely for legal reasons (remember, this is the day and age when you can order hot coffee in a restaurant and then sue the restaurant when the coffee they give you turns out to be, well, hot). If you do it correctly, changing the registry is perfectly harmless. At the same time, however, it鈥檚 true that there are certain values in the registry that should never be changed. In fact, changing them can pretty much wipe your computer out, once and for all. It鈥檚 like working on the bomb squad: if you snip the right wire, the bomb is defused and everything is fine. But if you snip the wrong one鈥擝oom! You just created Microsoft Bob!
Um, not that we鈥檙e saying Microsoft Bob was a bomb or anything.
It's worth it just for the Microsoft Bob digs.
Oh, yeah - the Tweakomatic looks pretty good too.
The Symphony is coming and I'm here to shout it!
Ah, flashbacks to High School. And isn't that what the Symphony is all about? Flashbacks to the best stuff in blogdom?
Submissions are needed for the Bestofme Symphony. What are you waiting for? Dive into those archives!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Irritable Blog Syndrome.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
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The big hand is on the 3 and the little hand is on the 10. What time is it? Well we could say it's "ten fifteen". We could also say that it is "quarter after 10". Why can't we say "ten and a quarter" or "fifteen after 10"?
Why is "quarter after seven" okay but "three quarters to eight" is wrong? "Twenty after three" is just peachy but heaven forbid you should say "forty to four".
And why is it just fine and dandy to say that it's "half past twelve" but people look at you funny if you say "half til one".
Frankly I'm sick of it and I'm not going to take it any more. Free your mind and your ass will follow! Join me in rebellion against these outdated and nonsensical clock mores!
What time is it?
I said WHAT TIME IS IT?
It's fourty three to two!
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!
POINTS: 3 points for the first person to name my source for the title of this post. No searching, please! And my source is not a bunch of no talent copy cats either.
(The scene: James Earl Jones and I are sipping tea on the veranda. The kids are running about alternately chasing and being chased by the dogs. Lovely Wife is whipping up a batch of her unbelievably delicious potato salad to go with the steaks that James is tending on the barbeque. The blush of premature spring is in the air and our conversation remains light and idle until James springs a whopper on me.)
James: You know, sometimes I am so jealous of you.
Me: Really? Why? Because I'm married to a Teutonic Princess? A woman who's loving kindness is exceeded only by the gorgeosity of her legs?
James: No, although I will admit that was a spot-on description of your Lovely Wife.
Me: Is it because I'm surrounded by fine strong boys, the issue of my loins, manifest proof of my virility and masculine prowess?
Andrew's got a question: What are the top 5 biggest problems facing the world today?
That's easy!
- Terrorism
- Socialism
- Excessive Legislation
- Africa
- The Middle East
Why is it that we have to rename land-bound animals when we eat them? You don't eat a cow, you eat beef. You don't eat a pig, you have pork. Sheep become mutton when we eat 'em. Tortured baby cow? Not when it's on the plate - then it's veal.
This doesn't happen for birds. Chicken are chicken no matter if they are on the plate or in the coop. Same with turkeys, duck, geese, and the rest of them. Fish too - perch stay perch and a humuhumunukunukuapua`a stays a humuhumunukunukuapua`a. We don't suddenly call shark flesh by some new moniker just before we eat it.
Now that I think about it though, it's not every land animal. Bedouins eat camel, Argentinians enjoy llama and the tribes of the steppes never ever let horse go to waste. It's only the traditional western feedstocks that get renamed when they become food. Why is that?
It's been a while but the board monkeys have once again put up a winning loser on the message center as you come into the office. This gem now greets everybody who comes into the building:
Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is.
Okay, let's look at this from the position of a customer. Do I want to have a business relationship with a company with a philosophy of "take risks"? Hell no. I want a company with a saying like "Grab the low hanging fruit first". That shows efficiency and a direction towards taking in profits. It's saying "collect that easy money before you waste effort on stuff you don't have the reach for yet". It's also saying "take care of the customers you have now".
And what does this bad saying tell us employees? It's telling us to take chances, take risks, drive for the objective regardless of the consequences. "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" If it were my company I'd prefer a message like "If you can't reach the fruit, get yourself a ladder". Or maybe "What the hell are you doing picking fruit by hand? Get your ass into that harvester!"
I don't mind pithy sayings, I just can't stand idiotic ones.
Update: Results are in the extended entry.
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
This is the fifth offering overall and the first for March. To see how February ended up see the extended entry of Shamming/Sharing (#4).
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
Memories are odd things. Sometimes you have perfect recollection of important things in your life, and other times you can't remember these critical times worth a damn. The same thing happens with seemingly innocuous items. Why do I remember that my little brother peed on my step-sister's carpet when we went up to Chicago for her wedding? Why do I remember that years before that we all lived in Chicago but I remember so little of that time?One of the few things I remember was a chopper pedal bike. You know what a pedal car is, right? It's got those idiotic pedals that you keep pushing forward 2 inches, instead of pedals on a rotor (like on a bike). This was a metal tricycle that used pedal car style propulsion and had a chopper style front wheel - looooong front fork and little wheel. It sucked because it was a pedal car and was useless on any kind of incline (couldn't pedal uphill and going downhill you just went with the flow - putting your feet on the pedals was a recipe for a mauling) and you couldn't race against anybody else or even keep up with anybody else. A BigWheel toasted my chopper. Any kind of normal tricycle toasted it. I was the slowest thing in the apartment complex.
But it was also freaking cool. It was a chopper! What could be cooler than having a chopper when you're a little kid (especially in the mid 70's). Nobody had anything like my bike. Not even close. When I was on that thing (disdaining racing and the keeping up with others, of course) I was the King. I loved that chopper.
One day I went to ride it and it wasn't there. I don't remember the particulars of how it was stolen. I probably left it out but for the sake of my young pride we'll say that somebody else forgot to lock the storage area. Whatever the method, my chopper was gone. I was devastated. I wouldn't be special anymore. My unique bike, my ultra-cool chopper that nobody except me in my entire known world had was gone. No, not just gone, it was being abused by somebody else!
This was the first total meltdown in my memory. In fact, except for deaths it's the only one I can think of at all at the moment. My older brother took pity on me and went everywhere looking for it. He eventually found it in a dumpster. Whoever had stolen it had smashed it up pretty good. I remember him taking me outside to see it and saying that maybe we could fix it. I remember that I stopped crying and just felt nothing at all. The frame was totally mangled. It was busted. Gone. Useless. Over.
We tossed it in our dumpster and went back in the house. Mom tried to cheer me up and even older bro was uncharacteristically attentive but I stayed in a funk for days. Eventually I got out of my depression and went back to being a little kid but even to this day I can remember that chopper and the feelings of hopelessness and despair I had when i saw it all busted up.
A Stink-O-Meter(tm) would be nice.
The basic model would just be installed on the bathroom door and indicate the relative stench in the bathroom by flashing a color code similar to the terrorism alert color chart thingy the government uses. Nah, better keep it simpler than that. Green is safe, yellow is use at your own risk and red is extreme danger - avoid at all costs, voluntary entry voids life insurance.
The advanced model would prevent the door opening from the outside during red states to prevent accidental entry and to protect the visually impaired.
A deluxe model would tie into your wireless network so you could evaluate stank levels from your desk and arrange alternate waste disposal methods if necessary.
Yes, there is a specific event that brought this thought process to fruition today. No, I am not ready to talk about it.
Ron, aka Acidman, aka "that guy at Gutrumbles", has gone and sprayed the proverbial waterhose on the hornet's nest that is the blogosphere. Lots of my regular reads have delisted him because of a couple of posts of a suspect nature. That suspect nature is blatant racsism and use of the bad word instead of one of the PC terms for dark skinned people. Don't ask me any more about it than that cause I don't know. I didn't read him before this event and don't see any real reason to start now so I've got no opinion on the matter.
It got me to thinking though...could there be any less appropriate time for me to put up a post that poked fun at some of our racial stereotypes? I mean, outside of a riot or OJ whacking another white chick. I sure can't think of a worse time to post such off color humor (bad pun was intentional) so of course that's exactly what I'm doing. May I proudly (but subject to instant retraction if I get delinked anywhere) present:
The Evolution of the Booty
One of the most common questions I get (besides the pervs asking about cow udders) is "Why do black chicks have such fine booty?" To which I of course reply "How can you say such a thing? That is a slander that perpetuates the stereotypes that black chicks must battle against every day of their lives and doing this is both unfair and at least marginally rascist despite the fact that they do indeed have ultrafine booty. And don't say 'black chicks' as that's neither respectful nor politically correct. Say 'black gals' instead."
But it isn't just black gals, is it? No, there are quite a few black fellas that have premium, Grade-A, USDA Choice keisters. But that's not really it either since a fair number of white gals have what we euphamistically call "bubble butts". In fact, the only race/gender slice that is universally known to never have a delectable booty is the white male*.
What's your fav, I say what's your favorite Foghornism? What I mean is what's your favorite cut said by Foghorn Leghorn? Cut, that is.
My favorite:
Boy's about as sharp as a bag of wet mice.
Runner up:
Pay attention, boy! I'm cuttin' but you're not bleedin'!
The Grande 2004 Peacock Invitational (update)
Want to know what it is? The original post is o'er yonder. In a nutshell, March 14 is the last day any of the participants will take a puff for an entire year or they'll pay blood money to the others.
Folks can still get in on the bet until midnight (your local time) on the 14th. So far we've got 5 people in:
I've also put up a sidebar item for the bet. This will remain up for the entire year that the bet is in effect. I've also handed out the points these folks earned by signing up. I've been a busy boy!
I got my feathers ruffled a bit yesterday. Wellbutrin can only go so far and some things that normally wouldn't bother me much now bother me out of all proportion.
The first was Dopple-G doing something that's normally just annoying. I yelled at him. At work. In the bathroom. Not exactly professional.
The second was in the van on the way home from voting. Bear was doing a repetitive mantra "Will you give me your autograph?" over and over and over and over and over. No, he wasn't looking for an answer and no he wasn't actually addressing anybody. Kids will just do this with new phrases. Normally it just gets ignored. This time I snapped and yelled at him.
It's definitely a successful (so far) and (relatively) event free withdrawal. I'll just have to do a better job regulating my snappy tongue.
POINTS: 2 points for the first person to name my source for the title of this post. No searching please.
Student handed out potent, and potentially fatal prescription drugs
An unidentified female student is accused of giving the students high doses of Zoloft, Thorazine, Seroquel, and Trilepital.
KRQE News 13 has learned the drugs were prescribed to the girl and brought to school from home. Pharmacists say those drugs in the potent quantities involved could do serious damage to an average person.
First, how in the world is a middle schooler diagnosed as being so fucked up that they need four, count them - four, powerful medications? An anti-depressant (Zoloft), TWO anti-psychotics (Thorazine and Seroquel) plus anti-seizure medication (Trileptal). Seroquel is a 2nd generation anti-psychotic. We don't even know why or how it actually works. I also can't find any reference that it would be used concurrent with a first generation anti-psychotic like Thorazine. Most references seem to indicate that it is used instead of older drugs. The first stop here is the kid's doctor to find out just what the hell he's up to.
Hey, gals. You know how when you're a passenger in a car and a guy is driving and when he has to stop suddenly or unexpectedly he puts an arm up across your chest so you don't fly forward? Yeah, well that's just to feel you up.
Update: Results in the extended entry
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Our fourth offering. Is this anecdote the truth or am I pulling your leg (or other body part of your choice)?
What could be more fun than a circus? To me in my youth, just about anything. I didn't see my first circus until I was two weeks shy of 12. The only reason I remember that so precisely is because during most of the circus that's what I was thinking about to prevent yawning, plus right after the circus we went to Toys "backwards R" Us to look for presents for me (of course that's not what Mom said but you aren't fooling a 12 year old 2 weeks before his birthday - if we're in Toys "backwards R" Us it's 'cause you want to know what to buy for me) and this was the year that I got a guitar and a machete* so it sticks out in my young memory.Anyway, the circus wasn't a bad one by any stretch. I don't think it was Ringling Bros but it was another of the bigger ones. Huge midtop, lots of concessions, games, carnies all over the place, clowns, pony rides and such. We pretty much breezed past all of the outside attractions and into the big tent. The only specific memory I have from the rush into the show was a midget riding a gigantic red dog and my little brother (he would have been 4 then) yelling out "Clifford! Clifford!" No, I'm not saying the dog was the size of Clifford. He was a mastiff or great dane or something - just really, really big. And dyed red.
So we rushed into the big tent and got seats and we were all tense with excitement. You see, Mom had been building this up for us for months. Telling us about the lion tamers and the acrobats and the clowns in tiny cars and the Lipinzaner stallions (no idea if I spelled that anything close to correctly) and singing this circus/parade song every five minutes. How did that song go? Something like "seventy six trombones in the big parade / a hundredy five coronets came behind". And when the performance actually started we were on the very edge of our seats, just breathless with anticipation.
And it sucked. Big time. I couldn't understand a single thing that the ringmaster was saying. The gymnasts were just doing stuff I'd seen all the time on TV (and was bored of watching there). There was a highwire but the guy just casually walked across the wire. With a net underneath him. The clowns were okay but that just looked like so much chaos since we couldn't understand a thing the MC was saying. The lion tamer beat the hell out of some lions and made them do tricks. He pissed me off. I wanted the lions to just gang up on him and take him down. The stallions looked filthy and sad to me. Where were the bright white regal beasts I was expecting?
One disappointment after another was piled on my youthful shoulders until I gave up trying to be entertained and just started thinking about my upcoming birthday. Just two weeks, two weeks, two weeks to muh birfday! I sang that song in my head for what seemed like hours but was probably more like 30 minutes. But at least it helped me to remember the date that I first saw a circus.
I like circuses now. I guess my disappointing first experience was due partially to the hysterical hype level my mom gave it, partially because I really didnt' have a concept of just how freaking difficult a lot of the things I was seeing actually were and partially because I was functioning with half a brain as the other half was totally preoccupied with my upcoming birthday.
* No, my parents wouldn't give a real machete to a 12 year old. Well, okay, it was a real machete but it was a steel blank blade (no edge). The cool thing about the machete was the scabbard. Hand tooled leather. My dad had picked it up in Panama earlier in the year. It was hanging up on my various bedroom walls until I was in my late 20's.
Current Shamming/Sharing roster:
2 Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
Sue
Tiffani
0 Correct
Everybody else
I've won the caption contest over at The Cheese Stands Alone. Go and bask in my cleverness and remark in wonder at LeeAnn's astuteness in selecting my entry as the winner. Now I shall sit back in anxious anticipation as I await my fantabulous prize.
Points: It's a gimme but what the heck. One point to the first person to name my source for this post's title. No searching, please.
The 13th Bestofme Symphony is up at Ambient Irony. Pixy Misa did some beautiful work. And all that after a hella day at the job! Get on over and enjoy some of the best reading in the blogosphere.
Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note.
Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.
Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Pixy a hand by spreading the word a little linky love goes a long way.
Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.
I can't tell you just how much time I wasted with Mario. But was it really time wasted? Is time ever wasted when you are enjoying yourself? Well, yeah, I guess sometimes it is. For those of you who don't give a crap about wasting time as long as you're enjoying ourselves, check out the Adventures of Mario:
(Hat tip to Dopple-G)
Bush is at it again. He has driven the leader of a foreign nation from his office and punctured the fragile sovereignty of a country's borders with American troops. Of course, as you would expect, he did this without following International Law, without UN approval and without a coallition of countries supporting his decision.
Now US Marines are off in foreign lands, the only thing holding a fragile country together. Occupiers who are now responsible for putting a shattered land back together. It goes without saying that companies like Halliburton are going to get the contracts to do all of the rebuilding.
Who does Bush think he is? Alexander the Great? Who will stop the rampaging imperialist American forces?
or...
Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide has resigned his position and fled his country. With US assistance he has taken exile in a central African country. US Marines were dispatched to Haiti to restore order as Port au Prince erupted in violence following Aristide's departure. The UN authorized a joint peacekeeping force several hours later.
