Hey Mr. President, take one more big step forward! Huh huh huh.

Get it? Huh? See, because if he took a step forward -- haha -- then he'd be a big phallus, and then, like, he'd be a big dick. See? Hee-hee. Ha. Ho. H... well, alright, so it seemed funnier before I posted it.

Permalink: 01:49 PM | Comments (3)

I want you...

Has anybody ever stolen food from co-workers at the office? Or, has anyone ever had food stolen from them at the office? If so, please e-mail me. I'll explain why in the e-mail.

Permalink: 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣WHO WILL BE a dorkus malorkus with me and download the NPR All Things Considered ringtone? As soon as I figure out how to get a ringtone from my computer to my cell phone, baby, that ringtone is mine.

♣WEIRDEST NEWSPAPER STORY lead of the week: "It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a bull moose hanging by its antlers from an electrical power line in the middle of the Alaska wilderness."

♣QUICK POLITICAL ROUND-UP: In Florida, the all-important swing state, one Bush supporter wanted to do his part in decreasing votes for Kerry, so he tried to stab his Kerry-supporting girlfriend to death. Meanwhile, Bush releases an ad called "Whatever it takes," featuring a doctored photo to make it appear as if more military men were at an event of his. Whatever it takes, indeed! And looking to the future, here's a test-run (video) of new electronic voting machines.

♣FINALLY, A MOVIE with a legitimately interesting premise? Check out the trailer for Birth: A woman whose husband died 10 years ago has finally begun to move on, and has a new man. Then, a little boy shows up at her house claiming to be her dead husband, and he's got the knowledge to prove it.

♣GUESS HOW MANY dead people make more money than you. If you guessed a lot, you're right.

♣WAIT, YOU MEAN "B-Legit" isn't his real name? And, huh? Same goes for Pusha Ton? And Shade Sheist? And Silkk the Shocker? Man, hip-hop names are so real, who would have known?

♣IT WAS SURE cool when Australian scientists discovered an old race of little people, but let's get to the important detail: who gets to name them? And can I put my vote in against "hobbits"?

♣A LOVE STORY, told in spam.

Permalink: 09:58 AM | Comments (4)

With a slightly different typo, Maine would have been hoppin'

(From boston.com)

Permalink: 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

The long, peaceful sleep of victory

It's hard not to wonder: Now that the Red Sox have won their first World Series since 1918, will New England's population suddenly drop, as all the old men just hanging on for this moment finally got what they were waiting for?

So, we all know what the best moment of the game was -- well, uh, Sox fans do -- but what were the two worst moments? It's a clear tie: 1) the singer of Creed singing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch, in a dreadful delivery punctuated by lots of dramatic groans that sounded like-- well, wait, do I even need to explain this? It was the singer of Creed singing a cappella at a baseball game. Ok, moving on.

2) The Sox win, the players celebrate, there's lots of hugging, and then, wait, there's Jimmy Fallon making out with Drew Barrymore! What the hell? How did David Ortiz not take a bat and send them out of the park? I don't care if he was there shooting a new ending for a Farrelly Brothers movie; Sox fans have waited 86 years for this moment, and the last thing they need to see hogging the ballfield is some two-bit trend chaser. Listen, Jimmy, you were sort of funny on Saturday Night Live, but we all liked you a lot better when you were just an Adam Sandler rip-off and not some kind of desperate hipster. Oh, yeah, and your new movie was a real career-launcher. Good thinking, hopping early on the budding new film genre, "Wacky Queen Latifa Helps The Hapless White Man."

Go Sox!

Permalink: 08:17 AM | Comments (0)

Red Sox fans wonder: what do we do now?

A funny thing has happened here in Massachusetts, as the Red Sox are on the verge of winning the World Series for the first time since 1918 and breaking the supposed "Curse of the Bambino." Some fans and talking heads are wondering, is breaking the curse a good thing? Do we love this team because we can bond over failure, and success will just tear us apart? As a doctor told this newspaper, "In a sense, the Red Sox are like everyone else. We have bad luck....We're not celebrities....That's what makes you have an intimate bond with them. They're just like us. They have bad luck and they have success stolen from them for accidental reasons." And as a friend of mine wrote in an e-mail, "In short, the misery will be over, but so will the dream. The feeling will border on euphoric, but we will all know in the back of our minds that no Red Sox victory will ever taste quite so sweet. The best days will be behind us."

Yes, this is indeed how much thought goes into baseball in this town. This is how much Boston loves to make itself miserable. Sad, isn't it? But my friend Roberto, a die-hard fan, has some choice words for people who think victory isn't sweeter than defeat. And from a mass e-mail he sent out yesterday, they go something like this:

Continued after jump...

Permalink: 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣SO, JUST WHAT were they talking about during the Republican National Convention? This video edit does a great job of finding those major points. (And after they've sufficiently scared you, why not have a bowl of Fruity Frosted Freedom Flakes?)

♣HOW'S THIS FOR the perfect difference between the midwest and the northeast? In St. Louis, a Red Sox fan puts red socks on a statue of a Cardinals hero, and a Cardinals fan sees it and tells the New York Times, "Oh, that's all clean fun. That fellow was just showing his love of the game, just like we do." Meanwhile, a Boston Globe reporter goes to profile St. Louis, and his report is headlined, "Nice try, St. Louis: The residents are polite, but the city hosting the World Series isn't quite world-class."

♣REMEMBER KATHERINE HARRIS, the Florida Secretary of State who just may have screwed Al Gore in 2000? As a U.S. Rep, according to this site, she's still playing with politicians' dangling chads -- but, uh, maybe not the paper kind.

♣THE WALL STREET Journal yesterday ran a correction stating, "News Corp.'s Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause." Media pointman Jim Romenesko adds, "How the reporters made that mistake isn't explained." But really, come on. Can't we, as a culture, stop pretending like Fox News isn't sympathetic towards Bush? It's absurd -- embarassing, really -- to even do this little dance.

♣BUSH'S CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS in one county in California has been vandalized, and of course they're blaming it on Kerry supporters. But after reading this piece about Karl Rove's dirty tricks, I can't help but wonder: did they do this to themselves, just to blame Kerry's people? It sounds outrageous, I know, but it's totally Karl's M.O.

♣AND JUST BECAUSE these Table Scraps are primarily political today, here's something every voter can enjoy: underwater pumpkin carving.

Permalink: 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

The forecast calls for lots of bad jokes

South Florida tv weatherman Bill Kamal saw the five-day forecast, and it wasn't too sunny. But when he went to his computer, he sensed a warm front coming on, and thought maybe it had to do with El Niño (quick fact for the folks at home: that translates into "little boy"). He tried to follow his weather vein, you see, but suddenly it became cloudy and the pressure increased. Now, looking ahead a few days, it seems he'll be feeling somebody else's warm front.

Er, that is, Bill was busted for trying to seduce a 14-year-old boy over the Internet.

Permalink: 06:32 PM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣LOVE'S HARD TO find when you're full of hate, but that hasn't stopped a movement of white supremacist members from trying. According to the Palm Beach New Times (second item), one website has become a clearing-house for aryan personal ads. Many, like this one, lament the lack of good aryan mates: "...every girl I have ever met at a gathering or what not is half assed in their attempt at joining our glorious aryan movement, they either claim White Power and listen to rap, or think it's ok to be friends with some niggers but not all of them." Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? It kind of reminds me of Kim Jong Il's ballad "I'm So Lonely" from Team America. (And if you haven't seen it, go here and click on the "film clips")

♣WHY DID ANN Coulter get to dodge these pies? (video)

♣I SCREWED UP in posting a video on Friday. But even though it's now fixed, this is really something so superb that I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it: Tupak as Barney.

♣AND IN OTHER musical disasters, don't miss Ashlee Simpson's Milli Vanilli moment on Saturday Night Live. (And after you watch the video, you can just look at this all day long. Or, check out the "open forum" in the "community section of her website, where, as the New York Daily News noted, people have just been ripping into her. But as a great editorial in Salon says, the real person to blame is Ashlee's father, who has thrust her into the spotlight in a shameless bid for money that, I'd say, borders on child abuse.)

♣NO STARVING ARTISTS here. Duran Duran has reunited for a new album, and chose St. Tropez in southern France -- where they stayed at a friend's yacht and another friend's mansion -- as the place to write the songs. Frontman Simon LeBon, who apparently thinks it's still 1983, explained it this way: "We could have done the album in a hut in Siberia. But we didn't want to suffer for our art. I mean, we are Duran Duran." Yeah, uh, but at this point, you're really just a kitch novelty, like trucker hats.

♣"DURING THE SOCIALIST times, two of my relatives got married without knowing they were related. After a big wedding party, they had children who were all deformed." To make sure things like that -- and other problems -- stop happening in Mongolia, everybody is being forced to choose a surname.

♣SIMON & GARFUNKEL vs. Krudder & Dorfmeister? Michael Jackson vs. Engineers of the Hawaii? Elvis Presley vs. El Time? No, it's just notable album covers ripped off by less notable artists.

Permalink: 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

The curious incident of the cat in the nighttime

It is 1:08 a.m. as I begin this blog entry, and I just witnessed a really curious event outside my window. For the past half an hour, a cat has been whining mercilessly, sounding a bit like a car alarm running low on batteries. I live in a fairly quiet neighborhood, but animal noises aren’t uncommon. Everyone, it seems, owns a barking dog.

But here’s what I don’t normally hear: at 12:30 a.m., some guy letting out a very gutteral, “Shut up!”

Cat keeps going. So, again, as if the cat takes kindly to direct orders, the guy screams again, “Shut up!” More cat. More guy. At this point, they’re competing. Then, he gets angrier: “Shut the fuck up!” The cat is unrelenting.

A few minutes pass, and then two men drive a car right next to my apartment building, get out, and start searching around with a flashlight. I figure, they’re going to kill this cat, aren’t they? I consider going outside, but decide it’s best not to confront an angry man woken up at 1 a.m. So, like the coward I am, I turn off the lights in my room and peek out the window. That's when I hear their conversation:

Guy One: It’s in the tree.

Guy Two: (inaudible)

Guy One: Exactly.

Then they get back in the car, and drive away. Half an hour later, the cat is still going strong. I really wish I knew what Guy Two said. It's the difference between "This is too hard, let's go to bed," and "You know what this calls for? My shotgun."

(Oh, and kudos to anyone catching the reference in this entry's subject title.)

Update: At 9:36 a.m., I get out of the shower and hear my landlord and some other people walking around, trying to find the cat. I run out to join them, and we find it: 50 feet up, stick in a triage of tiny branches that barely support it. Poor thing. My landlord is now trying to figure out how to get the thing down -- and if she needs a "cat posse," she said, she'll come find me.

Final as-if-anybody-actually-gives-a-damn update: At 1:46 p.m., a tree company shows up and sends a guy up in a bucket to get the cat. After much thrashing and meowing -- and screams of "Come on you dumb bastard!" by the tree guys -- the cat is finally brought back down, and a guy from the tree company says, "That's the same cat we took out of a tree last week!" From about 10 feet up, the guy in the bucket drops the cat. It hits the ground and tumbles around a bit, and then runs like hell away from everyone -- probably to go climb another tree.

Permalink: 01:17 AM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣IT'S GOOD TO know that the magic of stop-motion animation is alive and well.

♣TWO VIDEOS NOT to miss: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog taking on spin alley, and Jon Stewart taking on the spinsters. (Ok, so they're a little old, but still totally worth it. And hey, did you know Wal-Mart has taken a stand against Stewart? Can't that company make one good decision in its entire existence?)

♣AND WHILE WE'RE watching videos, here are two non-current-events ones that absolutely must be watched: Tupac reincarnated as a purple dinosaur, and Nintendo characters living it up.

♣THIS BUSH BULGE thing just isn't going away, is it? Here's a recent summary of all the theories and accusations, and here's a good compilation of various bulges spotted on Bush in and out of the debates.

♣SEE HOW THERE'S an arrow pointing to the side? The thing underneath "Stupid"? The arrow? Yeah, I know there's no one there. But you're supposed to—no, no, it doesn't matter that there's no one there right now. Some things, like novelty t-shirts, are beyond explanation.

♣CELL PHONE COMPANIES are getting way ahead of themselves. Phones are now cameras, personal organizers, Internet providers, and coming soon, televisions. But I think they'd better serve themselves by holding off on all this useless innovation, and instead focus on improving the technology for actually makes these phones work: reception. There simply isn't the kind of widespread service necessary to make these phones as useful as they're supposed to be. It's so simple: just divert some money away from new bells and whistles, and put it towards solidifying the very basic service cell phones should provide. Then these things will actually be worth something. Why is that so difficult for cell phone companies to understand?

♣THIS SCHOOL SYSTEM is either the most absurdly politically correct in America, or the most amazingly respectful of non-mainstream religions. Either way, some parents are irritated that one Washington state school district is banning Halloween activities, in part because costume witches might be disrespectful to actual witches.

Permalink: 08:55 AM | Comments (0)

A base run for half off? Outta my way, sonny!

And to boot, doesn't it look like he's sporting a pair of Depends under the pinstripe pants?

(Btw, I can't take credit for that graphic -- it was just forwarded to me.)

Permalink: 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

When an undecided voter is the better voter

I quite literally did a double-take after reading these two sentences from a New York Times story about a Nader campaigner ("Mr. Hickok") going to McDonalds to talk to voters:

Mr. Hickok began talking up Mr. Nader with a customer, Michelle De Acutis, who described herself as a Bush supporter ("I like a tough man for America") who always backs Democrats because they represent the party of the people. Told that the president was a Republican, she was stunned.

What? Are you kidding? How is this woman serious? Now, I'm not suggesting this, but don't those two sentences make you wonder if South Park's Matt Stone had a point when he said, "If you really don't know who you're gonna vote for, or are uninformed, or haven't really thought about it? Just stay home." Is that a bit undemocratic? Sure. But come on -- I understand not everyone has the time to follow politics, but if she doesn't know what party Dubya is in, how can she possibly know who's a better man to run the country?

In semi-related news, I should point out that the NYT article linked up there has mysteriously been given two headlines. In print, it was "Carrying Nader's Message to the Golden Arches." Online, it was "On the Campaign Trail, With Trail Mix." That's pretty unusual. I wonder who screwed that up.

Permalink: 12:29 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣THERE SHOULD BE an "America's Funniest Home Videos" for criminals. After all, the entire show was just shots of people falling down, and there are plenty of criminals -- here and here -- hitting the ground.

♣FOR THE VONNEGUT lovers of the world, here's one last conversation between the author and Mr. Kilgore Trout.

♣ONE DAY, YEARS from now, Mary may explain it to us. For now it's a tale about a woman trapped in a tower circled by bats. This is a common gay conceit, a misconception: "Mary needs to be freed from all this." But just when you think she's rescued, she's back in that fortress again. The mystery of Mary Cheney, considered.

♣HERE IS HOW much Alan Keyes hates gay people: he now says gay couples cannot raise a child because that child will not know its biological family, and therefore may end up accidentally having sex with a long-lost sister. No joke. "If we do not know who the mother is, who the father is, without knowing all the brothers and sisters, incest becomes inevitable," he said. But Alan, what does that mean for adopted children? Hello? Alan?

♣NEW CHARGES HAVE been filed against O'Reilly. Keep 'em coming! (But please, keep him away from the falafel.)

♣MORE WEIRD ANIMATION than you can shake a gigabyte at.

♣HERE'S YOUR REGULAR Gary Benchley alert.

Permalink: 09:42 AM | Comments (2)

The name's Bond. Fatface Bond.

That's a picture of my girlfriend's parents' new puppy, which is currently unnamed. Like any new pet owners, they're trying to come up with a name for it -- and inevitably, some suggested names are inspired by the puppy's appearance. So many pets are named this way (Spot, Snowflake, Midnight), or based on the pet's personality (Trouble, Frisky, Old Yeller). And this got me thinking: what if people named their new children like this? After all, at least pet names have some relevance to the pet; we just pick our human names out of the ether. But alas, babies aren't always the most appealing at first, so we'd all be named Droolster or Baldy. Imagine kindergarten: "Class, say hello to our new students, Spitup Thompson and Wrinkles Goldstein." Yes, life would be good.

Permalink: 01:15 AM | Comments (2)

Table scraps:

♣DURING THE SECOND debate, Dubya said that he heard about some rumors on the Internets, and I'm so glad all the Internets have come together to mock him for it. In particular, turn on the volume and head over to www.RumorsOnTheInternets.com.

♣WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if a turtle mated with a cricket? Or a cat with a mouse? Nature may not know, but talented Photoshoppers do.

♣SO, SOME GUY walks up to you and says, "Listen, this girl here is going to slap you in the face, and then we're going to zoom the camera in and you're going to say something. Ready?" And you'll say, what?

♣YOU KNOW WHAT I hate? When I'm stuck in traffic for half an hour, and when I finally get to the scene of whatever it is that's causing the back-up, it's nothing special. Like, it's two people chatting on the side of the road. Or a lawn chair. Or a minor accident. And so, would I be more or less pleased to have been stuck in an accident caused by a spill of smelly pig innards?

♣ONE MORE REASON to fear your cell phone: People who have used cell phones for at least 10 years might have an increased risk of developing a rare brain tumor, according to a study published Wednesday in the international journal Epidemiology.

♣THIS IS FAIRLY disturbing. A man puts up a poll on whether or not he should kill himself, and 3,470 people say he shouldn't. Good, right? But 8,435 said he should, and 8,686 said they'd like to do it for him. (Don't worry, though: it turns out the whole thing was an experiment.)

♣NADER MAY GET the headlines, but according to the New York Sun, he may not be getting as many votes, or making as much of an impact, as another third-party candidate. Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, has been drawing decent polling numbers, thanks to conservatives upset with Bush. Could he be a spoiler?

♣IN THE BELLY of the beast, a New York Observer columnist does a great job of profiling Fox News's production of the second debate. Most interestingly, I think, is that there are signs that the fiasco surrounding Carl Cameron's posting of a fake news story about Kerry seems to have finally got to him. Too bad he didn't feel any remorse when his wife was actively campaigning for Bush while he was supposedly covering -- to the best of Fox's meager ability, of course -- the 2000 election.

♣SCHOOL BULLIES MAY demand lunch money, but this is absurd: an 11-year-old boy was held at gunpoint at a bus station, and the gunman wanted for his lunch money. The boy had $2 in his pocket, but was so scared that he forgot.

♣HOW MUCH DOES this man love football? Enough to eat nothing but pudding, in protest, until the Virgin Islands receives football broadcasts on Sundays. What does pudding and football have to do with each other? Ask him.

♣SO TUCKER CARLSON tells Jon Stewart, "I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion," and Stewart says, "You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show." That, and many other great exchanges, came as Jon Stewart went on Crossfire to tell those idiots that they're creating theater, not debate. I don't know what's weirder -- their inability to understand him, or their really lame attempts at changing the subject. Either way, the transcript is really worth reading.

♣WHAT CAN WE expect in these final weeks before the election? Given Karl Rove's history, just about anything. Check out this Atlantic Monthly piece about the extreme and morally corrupt lengths Rove will go to get his man elected. They've included starting a whisper campaign to accuse one politician -- with a career-long history of working for underprivledged children -- of being a pedophile; distributing nasty flyers attacking his own client and then blaming it on the opponent; and other really morally depraved stuff. And interestingly, another GOP candidate just copied Rove's flyer trick.

Permalink: 02:41 AM | Comments (0)

GAYS WELCOME! (except for homosexuals)

The couples-only resort chain, Sandals, has quietly lifted its ban on gay couples. According to the USA Today, the change in policy was made in August -- but you wouldn't have known that if you were a gay couple in September, which is when I wrote Sandals to ask about their policy and received a shockingly discriminatory response.

So, what's the deal? Is Sandals trying to dodge all the heat it's taken for this policy, while at the same time keeping things so secret or confusing that no gay couples will actually show up? I was curious enough to call Sandals up today. It took a few minutes to reach a spokesman, but here's how our conversation started out:

Me: Hi, listen, I read today in the USA Today that Sandals has reversed its policy on banning gay couples--

Her: We're taking couples in love. It has nothing to do with--

Me: Right, but you were--

Her: It's about couples in love. It's not about--

Me: Ok, really, I don't want to squabble with you about it. Here's my question: the article says the policy was reversed in August, but I wrote Sandals in September to ask about the policy, and received an e-mail saying gay couples were banned. So, I'm just curious about the timetable of the policy here.

She said she couldn't explain it, and would have the director of public relations get back to me. I'm still waiting for that call, and will let you know what happens as soon as -- or if -- he calls.

Permalink: 03:04 PM | Comments (0)

It's the No-Spin Zone, baby, and your clothes are spinnin'

For quite a while, reasonable people across the nation have been waiting for some white knight to come along and embarrass Bill O'Reilly beyond his breaking point. Al Franken was a good start, but we wanted more. O'Reilly is a man who makes a living out of spreading misleading information and massacring people that don't line up along a hard-right ideology, and we needed some kind of signal that there was fairness in this world. We wanted blood and tears -- if you cut O'Reilly, does he bleed? -- but we had no idea who was going to deliver that beautiful, much-needed blow. And now, it turns out, we found just the person to bring Bill O'Reilly down.

His name is Bill O'Reilly.

Ah, yes, it turns out the Alpha Male likes to do more than bark and yelp -- he likes to hump legs as well! Word is quickly spreading about a pretty nasty sexual harassment suit filed against Bill, which claims he engaged in multiple sessions of unwanted phone sex with a Fox producer, along with many other classy exhibitions. (Full text here.) Bill tried to one-up the suit with a counter-suit, alleging that the producer was engaging in extortion and politically motivated attacks. That's an extremely unusual move, which shows just how worried O'Reilly and Fox are about this lawsuit. (It's also surprising that O'Reilly didn't just resort to his usual mode of defense, by screaming, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!")

Continued after jump...

Permalink: 08:27 PM | Comments (0)

FCC to change acronym to GOP COP

That’s right: in its never-ending crusade against anything offensive to the Amish and ultra-right-wing Christians, the FCC has apparently taken on a new role and a new acronym – Group Of People Cataloging Obvious Perceptions. Its latest success story: a litany of complains against Fox for its lame reality show “Married by America,” which led to a $1.2 million fine. Included in its very astute and insightful findings are:

“Even with Fox's editing, the episode includes scenes in which partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies in a sexually suggestive manner.” To which we all say: show us a scene in which partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers’ bodies in a non-sexually suggestive manner.

“Although the nudity was pixilated, even a child would have known that the strippers were topless and that sexual activity was being shown.” To which we all say: wait a second, isn’t the point of pixelation that nudity, if it exists, won’t be shown on television? What’s the new rule now, no content in which people have any idea what’s behind the pixilated image? "Hey, Martha, look at this show! There's a woman's head floating above a blurry box of color! I didn't know we got the sci-fi channel." "No, Harold, that's the Playboy channel."

The show was intended to “pander to and titillate the audience.” To which we all say: oh, really, we thought it was to help students with their SAT scores. Come on, FCC, what the hell do you think almost all of television is, if not pandering and titillating audiences? And since when did that become illegal?

Permalink: 10:50 AM | Comments (1)

You can keep these voters, Mr. President

Here are actual questions asked by supporters of George W. Bush at an "Ask the President" campaign stop in Sedalia, Missouri, on Sept. 7.

Q: My question is, why are the French so ungrateful for what all we have done for that nation, especially in the past?

Q: A lot was made over John Edwards's great head of hair when he decided to accept the nomination, but I would take Dick Cheney's cute little smirk over that great head of hair any day of the year.

Q: Will you please require that our schools teach English? And will you rescind President Clinton's executive order so that they can read a ballot in English and not have ballots and other driver's license and Social Security all in whatever language they -- is their home language?

Q: I don't want you to worry about those weapons of mass destruction. They're going to find them. They're there.

...and to think, there are enough of these people to keep Bush alive in this race. Scary, isn't it?

Permalink: 08:27 AM | Comments (1)

Constitutional martyrs, fire when ready!

Here's the concept that gun lovers never seem to understand: just because you have a constitutional right to own a gun, a deadly weapon isn't appropriate in every single circumstance. The latest example: a N.H. teen wants a photo of him and a shotgun to run in the yearbook, the school says it violates a ban on violence, and so he's legally pushing the issue. But really, why is this even being taken seriously? If he had something else in his hand -- say, a dildo, which could be just as offensive as a gun to some people but is also a legally protected item -- would anybody even think twice about this?

Listen, kid: despite what the NRA is telling you, nobody's trying to take away your darling death machine, ok? Prance around with it in the woods all you want, but the yearbook isn't a glorified round of show-and-tell. Do you see anyone else taking pictures with their constitutionally protected leather S&M mask, or bong (legally sold as a "water pipe")? No? Ok, then. So what are you afraid of? Don't worry -- after this, I'm sure everyone in school will remember you for your love of shooting cute animals to death. Isn't that what you wanted in the first place?

Permalink: 08:23 AM | Comments (0)

Rock out with your cock out?

Hypothesis: The faces of rock-n-roll are identical to the faces of victory over constipation, or many other, less family-friendly activities that do not involve pants.

Preliminary evidence:

Further research: Pictures from this local rock show, particularly here, here, here and here. But mostly, this:

Conclusion: True.

Permalink: 10:20 AM | Comments (3)

Table scraps:

♣NOTE TO ISRAELIS: In movies, only the bad guys are supposed to give away their secret plan before it comes to fruition. Somebody needs to tell Israeli Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, head of the Israeli army home front command, that if a suicide bomber manages not to inflict the most sever damage, he probably shouldn't go announcing how they could do better next time. Still, he tells the AP, "To our relief, the bomber who entered the hotel did not enter the hotel restaurants, something which would have brought down at least half the hotel." Gen. Naveh, check your mailbox: you probably have a thank-you card from hamas.

♣MANY WEBSITES SELL merchandise through a company called Cafe Press, and while I've never ordered anything from them, I've always wondered what kind of quality can be produced from a company that pumps things out so widely and generically. For instance, are the t-shirts even printed, or are they ironed on? I still don't have an answer for that, but for anyone also wondering about the company, I found the comments on this blog insightful.

♣WHAT IS THIS, Maxim Public Radio? The NPR online shop is selling a girl's t-shirt with the following descirption: "OK girls---show it all off---your love for NPR, and your curves! ... the NPR logo will let the world know just how smart you really are!" Why, because normally women wearing well-fitted t-shirts look dumb? What's going on here? Not to mention, the logo on the just-how-smart-the-women-are t-shirts is actually the same one promoted as "for our younger fans."

♣IF YOU HAVE a dog in New York City, good luck. There's a loophole in city law that allows every city department refuse to investigate dog attacks on other dogs -- even when the attacks are from a pack of wild hounds who routinely attack people.

♣FACE IT, AMERICA: You do not speak Chinese. More importantly, your tattoo artists do not speak Chinese. But the Chinese speak Chinese. And when they look at your tattoos of Chinese letters, they laugh. They have good reason to.

♣YEARS AGO, AFTER Kurt Cobain killed himself, we heard that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic was embarking upon a career in politics. And then, we heard nothing. Now, an update: he's still embarking upon a career politics.

Permalink: 09:52 AM | Comments (4)

Doesn't Cheney have better things to do?

When conspiracy theorists ask if Bush is covering up his mystery bulge, I know this isn't what they're talking about. In fact, when I first heard about the bulge -- that is, the mysterious wire-looking thing inside his jacket during the first debate -- I tried as hard as possible to not learn anything about it. After all, who wants to run the risk of hearing something about Bush's, uh, bulge?

But still, it's hard not to appreciate this artistic rendering. Above, you'll see Edouard Manet's "Olympia," which Paris freaked out en masse over in the 1860s, and the recent rendition, "Man of Leisure, King George," which was just taken down from the City Museum of Washington and moved to -- ironically, both in a historical and current events sense -- the Gare d'Orsay Museum in Paris. Bush does seem like the kind of guy to go lounging around naked in the White House, doesn't he? I wonder if he left skid marks in the Lincoln Bedroom, and that's why Laura's so busy redecorating in there.

Permalink: 01:03 PM | Comments (1)

Ok, I give in. I'm a blogger.

So, it's official. I have a blog. Blog software, blog appearance, blog entries. (For those of you new to HappyScrappy, it's been around in various forms since 1997, so succumbing to the world of blogging has been a long and slow transition.) No use hiding it anymore. In February, when I last made a major change to this site, I declared it was now following a "blog-like format." No more. This, folks, is a blog. Time to get used to it.

So, why the change? A few reasons: one, up until now I had to do everything manually -- build the page, make any permalinks, archive, etc. That's all gone. The blog software does it for me, and that makes me want to give it a big, wet kiss. Second, permalinks and comments! Permalinks and comments! Permalinks will make it so much easier for other sites to link to content here. Comments will allow you to tell me how stupid I am. Or, I mean, awesome. How totally, totally awesome I am. Totally.

No, really: I'm really hoping you all use the comments section. This page gets more traffic than I'd have ever expected it to, so it would be great to see it foster some sort of dialog. Comment away.

I don't really know html, so the page you see in front of you took a considerable amount of time to build. A few thank-yous are in order, to two people whose advice was critical: my web host Ian, who publishes the online cultural mag Ink19; and my friend Rob, who is a hell of a bee keeper. Also, my friend Joe, of Duck and Monkey fame, drew the characters in the banner, who longtime readers might recognize from earlier versions of HappyScrappy. The disembodied head in the middle resembles somebody, but I'll leave you to guess who.

If anyone notices something screwy with the design of this page, or has any suggestions for how to make it a bit better (for one, I could never figure out how to get the thing totally centered), feel free to drop me a line.

Thanks, and enjoy.

Permalink: 11:39 AM | Comments (9)

Are you screwing with us: yes, no

I always take online surveys when the option is available -- usually through pop-up ads on washingtonpost.com, slate.com, nytimes.com, etc. I enjoy this because it gives me an opportunity to tell major companies that I don't like them. Inevidably, the surveys ask the same questions about the same companies: "When thinking of comfortable shoes, what companies come to mind?" it will ask. I always enter obscure companies, tell the survey I've never seen the ad it's asking me about, say I view the company "very unfavorably," and so on. It's somewhat empowering -- here's this company asking me for advice, and I get to say, basically, that it sucks. I love it.

But after taking one from usatoday.com yesterday, which asked me many questions about how much I'd be willing to pay for access to online videos, I'm starting to reconsider my tactic. (continued after jump)

Continued after jump...

Permalink: 08:47 PM | Comments (1)

Table scraps (oct 8):

♣THE MIDWEST AND the Mideast -- far apart in geography, but what about in other ways? The Black Table looks at the gap between them and finds, well, some winners and losers.

♣IN DENMARK, THE Zappas would be screwed. So would, in fact, most hippies. That's because the Law on Personal Names forbids parents from naming their children overly eccentric things. Strict, yes. But it would have saved Jett Travolta and Rumer Willis some trouble.

♣THE LEDE SAYS it all: A drunk driver was arrested Friday morning after he stole his own car - from the police - and ran it into a ditch, officials said.

♣HERE'S A FOLLOW-up on an item from yesterday's Table Scraps, about mean kids nominating dorky kids to homecoming court. One of the victims said she's ready to stand up for herself and everyone like her: "I represent everybody who isn't a jock or even a cheerleader and who doesn't shop at Abercrombie & Fitch."

♣THANK YOU, STAR Tribune! At least somebody out there is asking why no media outlets made a huge fuss over Fox News posting a fake news story mocking Kerry, which was written by its chief political correspondent who, in case anyone has forgotten, has a wife who volunteered for the Bush campaign in the same year he covered it! What the hell is going on over there -- and moreover, what the hell is going on with the rest of the media? Why isn't this getting the kind of attention all this crap about Dan Rather did?

♣OK, JOHN? JOHN? Mr. Edwards? We all love that bright smile of yours, but maybe it's time to, you know, take it down a notch.

♣WELL, IF THERE was any time to come back to life, this guy found it. A little while later, and he'd have woken up in a coffin.

Permalink: 08:46 PM | Comments (0)

De bate, boss! De bate!

Before Tuesday night's debates, I had already envisioned the next day's blog: it would feature a chart stolen from weather.com, with Edwards's smiling head just making things warmer and warmer. It would have been headlined something like, "It was cold outside, but Edwards brought his 100-watt smile." It turns out, Edwards did bring the smile, but he left his A-game debate style at home. The two squeaked to a draw, with a slight edge to Cheney.

But oh, now it's time to complete that weather graphic idea -- this time, with what it must have been like for ol' Dickie after the debate. He got in some great blows last night, but as night turned into day, we learned that they're all embarassingly false. For instance: he said Edwards's hometown newspaper has taken to calling him "Senator Gone," but the newspaper says that's not really true. While attacking Edwards's senate record, he said Edwards is gone so infrequently that the first time he met Edwards was the night of the debate. Again, not true -- and there's photos and video and Tim Russert to prove it! Of course, then there's the time Cheney advised people to check out some facts on factcheck.com -- but he must have meant factcheck.org because the other one auto-forwards to an anti-Bush site. Oh man, Dick. Does everything you touch turn to stone?

Permalink: 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

Table scraps (oct 7):

♣WE LIVE IN a world where public sex is considered far more controversial than wholesale ecological destruction. This lesson is learned first-hand by Fuck for Forest, aNorwegian Internet porn duo trying to, uh, grab a piece of the porn industry's profits and funnel it towards environmental groups. It turns out, as my friend Lissa reports, they're not the only ones getting naked for Momma Nature.

♣THERE'S A NEW Gary Benchley story up. No more needs to be said.

♣IT'S NOT JUST in movies from the 1980s anymore: schools are starting to change their homecoming rules, after mean kids have begun nominating nerdy kids to homecoming court just so they can make fun of them. Hey, uh, is everyone still blaming Columbine on video games? Yes? Ok, just checking.

♣SO, LADY, I understand you have some concerns about the jackhammers across the street doing damage to your unborn baby, but let me just say that -- wait a second, what's that in your hand?

♣IT'S PORN FOR people who get turned on by paper cuts! Or, well, maybe not. But whatever -- it's still erotic oragami.

♣HOORAY FOR PEOPLE sharing their embarassing moments.

Permalink: 08:35 PM | Comments (0)

Table scraps (oct 6):

♣FOR ANYBODY WHO missed this, Fox News let slip its ultra-Republican bias and posted a completely fake news story that claimed Kerry called himself a metrosexual and bragged about a manicure. Josh Marshall noted it first, and it then spread to the LA Times and the NY Times. Pretty shocking stuff, considering it was written by the station's chief political correspondent. I think we'd all like to know exactly what he's doing writing fake news stories mocking Kerry, and why he's still even allowed to cover this election. But then again, Fox Newsdoesn't care about objectivity, does it?

♣AND THERE'S EVEN more reason to laugh at Fox! It posted a story that quoted a member of a group called Communists for Kerry, who the Fox reporter portrayed as a serious Kerry supporter "before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group." Although, as Atrois notes, it wouldn't have been very hard for the reporter to learn that the group totally is a parody group. But again, that's not a detail Fox is really interested in.

♣"OUR PIT BULL logo is not a hollow charade or a lame marketing gimmick. The logo represents what we believe our firm stands for." Lawyers everywhere wonder why they have a bad reputation, while one Florida legal team registers the phone number 1-800-PITBULL.

♣CALLING ALL NPR junkies: Bob Edwards's new show on XM starts today, and you can hear it for free through the station's website all this week.

♣HOW ABSOLUTELY PERFECT is this? Two people get into a physical fight over who Jesus would vote for in the election. If that doesn't sum up, well, almost all of history, then I don't know what does.

♣EVERYTHING YOU DID -- or didn't -- want to know about the legality, biology and meaning of cousins gettin' it on with cousins.

♣JOHN KERRY, REPORTING for booty. AnisContractor, reporting for, well...

Permalink: 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

Sorry, we're out of Kerry dartboards today

Along with the typical t-shirts and bumper stickers, the Kerry campaign is selling some pretty amusing items, including seven-day pill boxes (message: Stay alive until November !) and a shot glass (message: Drown your sorrows until November!). But the absolute strangest is the above-pictured deck of cards. Sure, it might be a fun item for card-playing Kerry supporters to have, but did his campaign even stop to consider the implied meaning playing cards now have? After the Saddam administration cards given out to the military, Republicans and Democrats have sold cards to mock the other side. In other words, being on a playing card isn't actually flattering. It's kind of like a Kerry doormat, or dartboard, or toilet seat. Not such a hot idea.

Permalink: 08:13 PM | Comments (1)

Eat onion rings, and terrorists have won

In a fitting tribute to the woman who spilled coffee on her lap and sued McDonalds, a Chicago man sued White Castle because an onion ring he bit into allegedly scalded him. But the lede of this Sun-Times story just drives me nuts.

If you thought White Castle's Slyders are tough on your body, wait till you try the onion rings, according to a lawsuit that calls the rings "unreasonably dangerous."

Ok, one: let's try not to use the word "till" in the place of "until" in a real newspaper. What is this, a third grade creative writing assignment? And two, I like the "unreasonably dangerous" description, which seems to imply that onion rings do carry a level of reasonable danger. Well, honey, if I don't see you again, tell the kids I love them and always follow your heart. Me, my calling is a deep-fried onion ring.

Permalink: 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

Round one: Kerry. And not a moment too soon

Kerry helped himself last just as much as Bush hurt himself. Kerry finally learned how to talk in short sentences and make his point as clear as possible, and Bush stumbled and squeaked and just generally looked lost. What a relief. Of course, the GOP spin machine is so strong that it remains to be seen how much sway they'll have in delaring this a Bush victory -- laughable to anybody who watched the debate, but unfortunately most people will learn about it through this morning's television and radio cycle, and at that point they're not getting all the information.

I wish Kerry did two things differently, though: one, he needed to do a better job refuting the flip-flop claim, which Bush hammered (and stammered) on about all night. Kerry has a good rebuttal: he says, rightly so, that being unwavering isn't any good when you're unwavering and wrong; and that the ability to see all sides of an issue and act accordingly isn't a weakness, it's a strength. But instead, in the one question Kerry decided to bust this out -- towards the end of the night -- he spend most of his time on another issue.

Continued after jump...

Permalink: 08:06 PM | Comments (0)