Scariest playground antics ever?

Let's take a trip back to childhood innocence -- of the times on the playground playing duck-duck-goose, tag, hide and seek, and the choking game. Wait, the choking game? From a Nevada newspaper:

Duana Harmon said her 12-year-old son Ethan had mentioned a game he played at school where friends choked him until he passed out. There are several names for the game, including the "choking game," "pass-out game" or "fainting game."

Yeah, that sounds like tons of fun! Hey, maybe when they wake up, someone can kick them in the teeth! Whee! But I really can't get over the next graf, which is a quote from the mom:

"I told him it was not good for him because he had asthma," she said recently from her home in Lakeview, Ore., where the Harmon family moved shortly after Ethan's death.

...because he had asthma!? Uh, how about it's not good for him because HIS FRIENDS ARE CHOKING HIM UNTIL HE PASSES OUT! Must there be another reason?

Permalink: 12:46 AM | Comments (8)

Always at home in the House of Cosbys

I've already linked to the House of Cosbys, a brilliant online cartoon, but I must do so again. The show just doesn't get old, and tonight I discovered, thanks to Waxy, some wonderful House of Cosbys extras. It's funny -- I can't remember ever watching the Cosby Show and I don't think I've seen Cosby do stand-up, but for some reason this show is still just so damn great.

If you haven't seen it, start by going here and watching all four episodes. After that, check out the House of Cosbys soundboard, outtakes from Curiosity Cosby's recording session, a music video and battle sequence storyboards.

Permalink: 12:21 AM | Comments (0)

Young love. Very, very young love.

Matthew Koso, 22, is being charged with statutory rape because he married a 13-year-old girl named Crystal and then got her pregnant. It was done with the blessing of both their parents -- and the ceremony took place in Kansas, where you can't learn about evolution but you sure can marry little girls. The happy couple now has a 5-month-old baby daughter.

But Matthew's mother is proud of him -- because he isn't a deadbeat dad. She told the New York Times: "He could have left, but he didn't. He said, 'Mom, I love Crystal; I love this child.' "

Uhh... when he says "child," does he mean his wife or his daughter?

Permalink: 08:22 AM | Comments (2)

Here's a quarter. Go buy something nice.

The New Yorker has an interesting little piece on tipping and its evolution in America. When tipping was first introduced in America after the Civil War, people were livid:

Tipping, the activists held, fostered a masterservant relationship that was ill suited to a nation in which people were meant to be social equals. William R. Scott, in his 1916 polemic “The Itching Palm,” described the tip as the price that “one American is willing to pay to induce another American to acknowledge inferiority”

I think that's still a valid point. But even more so, though, I hate the role I play as a tipper. I’ve got to make a judgment about a person in a way different than any other judgment in any other business situation -- and then I’ve got to act on it. On Sunday, a friend and I went out to dinner, and my options at the end of the meal were to leave a fantastic tip or ask the waitress for change and then leave her a normal one. I just tossed the money on the table and said to my friend, “Well, whatever, she was cute.” Seriously, how disgusting is that? I disgust myself.

In Australia, there’s no tipping. It was odd to break out of the habit when I was there, but I loved it. I loved getting a bill at a restaurant and knowing exactly what to pay. No thinking, no calculating, no judging. Just paying. Apparently people earn reasonable wages there -- what a novel concept! -- and so there’s no need to tip. I was talking about this with a woman in a Melbourne tea store one day, and she said tipping is beginning to creep into the country and there’s a backlash against it. The more people tip, she said, the more employers realize they can pay people less and just rely on customers to pay the wages. It’s like feeding wild animals, I guess. They begin to forget their instincts.

Ultimately, tipping is like a band playing an encore. The band leaves, everyone claps, and then the band returns to play a few more songs. Before that routine, though, everyone knew it would happen: The band planned on leaving and coming back, and the crowd knew the band planned on that. The crowd's clapping and the band's returning are a scheduled, non-spontaneous shows of appreciation, and therefore don't really say anything at all about either the band or the crowd. Same with tipping. It’s expected. And since it’s expected, why not just factor it into the bill all the time? It’s a service fee. Sure, that’s still disingenuous because the service fee should just be factored into the price of individual meals or cab rides or coffee or whatever, and that's not happening because it would make the food or service seem too expensive. But hey, whatever. I’ll take it. Just tell me what to pay. Don’t make me think about it, don’t make me judge my restaurant-going experience or the underpaid person who brings me the food. Just tell me what to pay, and I’ll pay it. Simple as that.

Permalink: 08:12 AM | Comments (7)

Emoting emotional emotions

I went to an art show this weekend, but one of the best pieces came from a visitor. It was the "Getting Emotional" exhibit at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art -- a show that questions "whether artists can depict humans experiencing emotions without resorting to sentimentality" -- and this was written in the guest book:

Everything feels contrived, hollow even. Is that what happens when you look at emotions from outside the experience? Is it because emotions merely exaggerate and distort reality?

An arrow was drawn to the note, and at the end of it someone wrote:

He was recently dumped so you'll have to excuse his cynicism.

And then an arrow was drawn to that note, and at the end of it the first writer wrote: "Whatever."

Emotions!

Permalink: 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

Set your inner monkey free!

Those are the first two panels of my Duck and Monkey fan art -- and for the stunning conclusion, you'll have to go to the fan art page. My friend Joe, who runs the daily comic site, is now giving away free D&M buttons to anyone who creates fan art. It's fun. It's easy. Hey, my fan art is essentially just revisiting a gag I used on an old blog post. How demanding can this be?

Now, if only Mort Walker asked people for fan art... actually, bad idea. I'd probably end up with a restraining order.

Permalink: 08:41 AM | Comments (0)

CNN's #1 source for news: me

Remember when Anderson Cooper stole-- er, I mean, reported on a Washington Post story I wrote about a year ago? (No? Go here and scroll to "CNN officially out of things to talk about") Well low and behold, the network has come back to me for more content -- this time from the blog! In the shorthand of teenagers everywhere, OMG WTF?

Apparently this site was shown on the "Inside the Blogs" segment on Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room" on Monday. I had no idea until late yesterday, when I saw a reference to it on another blog and then tracked down the transcript. Sure enough, here's CNN internet reporter Abbi Tatton talking about Monday's post about a model who was arrested in Bali:

This is HappyScrappy.com -- obviously wins the blogpost name of the day -- they're talking about coverage that Schapelle Corby got earlier on this year and saying that he was out in Australia where the networks were giving a 24-hour devotion to Schapelle Corby, there on the left, wondering if Michelle, there on the right, will be getting the same kind of attention.

You hear that, people? CNN has awarded me the Blogpost Name of the Day, whatever the hell that means. Anyway, this reminded me that I saw a spike in traffic on Monday but couldn't figure out where it came from. Turns out it was CNN. Hilarious, especially because I was essentially making fun of CNN in that post. Too bad they didn't point that out.

Don't be deceived by my snide tone, though. I totally love this. Come back for more, CNN! You know where to find me.

Permalink: 12:10 AM | Comments (2)

Table scraps:

♣VIN DIESEL DOESN'T actually have bones or internal organs. Underneath his skin is another slightly smaller Vin Diesel and underneath that is yet another even smaller Vin Diesel. After the third layer his body is filled with rich, creamy nougat. And so goes a quote e-mailed to me by a reader, plucked from this excellent Vin Diesel fact generator.

♣DURING LUNCH ONE day in high school, some friends and I went outside to play basketball. A teacher was sitting on a bench alongside the court, holding an umbrella and reading a book. Someone threw a really hard bounce pass to someone else, the player didn't catch it, and it slammed into the teacher's head. Her umbrella went flying and she slumped down on the bench. The ball had knocked her out. We were kind of stunned, but didn't feel that bad: She was really mean, and a few minutes later she was up and ok anyway. In any case, here's a video of a similar situation at a soccer game. Keep an eye on the right-hand side. (And if that whets your appetite for videos of people meeting unfortunate fates, check this out.)

♣DO YOU HATE cilantro? My friend Rob, who I recently mentioned had started an anti-cilantro website, is now taking it a step further by encouraging people to join a community of cilantro-haters. I'll be honest, I don't really hate cilantro. But, I do like participating in Rob's projects, and therefore have already signed up. Join us!

♣BOB DYLAN FANS can get extreme. Here's extreme extremeness.

♣ONE REPORTER INVESTIGATES the question we've all been wondering: "Is it possible for a man to order a Zima in a tough-guy bar and not get his ass kicked?" Sadly, he didn't take the experiment too far, but the effort was valiant.

♣LAST SUNDAY, THE Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a column attributed to former Milwaukee Mayor Frank P. Zeidler. Unfortunately, though, Zeidler didn't write the column, and now the paper has no idea who did.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

A message to you, Judy

I wrote Judy Miller a few weeks ago for two reasons: One, I wanted to show my support for her; and two, I figured she's got nothing better to do in jail than read mail, and it'd be pretty interesting if I could strike up a dialog with her. Yesterday, I received a card with a pre-printed message from her. It said this:

Thank you for your kind words and expressions of support, and for taking the time to write. I would love to answer personally, but there is no typewriter in jail and my hand is worn out. I have been overwhelmed and humbled by letters like yours.

Jail is certainly not how I imagined spending the summer, but it was the only course my conscience would allow. If you want to help, please write your Senators or Members of Congress and urge them to support a Federal shield law for reporters. Thank you again for taking the time to boost my spirits.

Sincerely,

Judy Miller

I suppose this makes sense, considering she's probably receiving a ton of mail and wants to play it safe by not providing quotable material to people who may not have her best interests in mind. But I was mostly struck by the mistaken capitalization on "senators," "members of congress" and "federal." A seasoned Times staffer should know better. Also, it was mailed from zip code 20005 -- Washington D.C. -- while she's being held at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia (zip code 22314). Now I'm kind of curious about what system the Times has in place to respond to her mail. I'm guessing she didn't write that note in the card, and obviously she didn't send it from jail. Curious.

Permalink: 11:55 AM | Comments (1)

Because Pat knows how to get a rise out of you

Just what happened yesterday? Pat Robertson said America should assassinate Venezuela’s president, and suddenly an international incident broke out. I don’t get it. Sure, Pat Robertson was saying something absurd, but that’s his schtick. That’s his entire career. He does it to get a response. Why are people surprised -- or, why do they even care -- when crazy Pat Robertson says something crazy? It’s like everyone being shocked and horrified that the supermarket is selling bread. Like, it’s always selling bread. Pat Robertson is always saying something crazy. Big deal.

So to lighten the mood, I’ve collected a few quotes of his and changed the word “Christian” to “people with erectile dysfunction.” Why? Well, just look at the title of this blog post.

"If people with erectile dysfunction work together, they can succeed during this decade in winning back control of the institutions that have been taken from them over the past 70 years. Expect confrontations that will be not only unpleasant but at times physically bloody."

"The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by people with erectile dysfunction. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of people without erectile dysfunction, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society."

"It is interesting, that termites don't build things, and the great builders of our nation almost to a man have been people with erectile dysfunction, because people with erectile dysfunction have the desire to build something. He is motivated by love of man and God, so he builds."

"The public education movement has also been an anti-people with erectile dysfunction movement... We can change education in America if you put erectile dysfunction principles in and erectile dysfunction pedagogy in. In three years, you would totally revolutionize education in America."

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to people with erectile dysfunction."

Permalink: 06:06 AM | Comments (0)

When it comes to dog pee, Truth is lying

I received the wackiest phone call today:

Me: Hello?

John: Hello, man. My name’s John. I was hoping I could talk to someone about a business idea I think your company might benefit from.

Me: What is the nature of this business, though?

John: Oh, I’m glad you asked. I’m a professional dog walker by trade. And my dogs, they pee a lot. Usually on fire hydrants or people’s flower beds. I thought that’s a total waste of quality dog urine, and why not collect it and sell it to you people?

Me: Hmm.

John: Well see, dog pee is full of urea, and that’s one of the chemicals you put on your head every morning, and I was hoping to make a little extra spending cash under the table, you know what I’m saying?

Alright, so I didn’t actually get this phone call. But if you change “you put on your head every morning” to “in cigarettes,” that’s just about a word-for-word transcription of the beginning of a Truth radio spot in which a guy calls up a cigarette company and proposes selling them dog urine. (Hear it by going here and clicking on the "radio ad" link.) The goal of the spot, I’m assuming, is to gross people out by implying that dog urine is in cigarettes. Tobacco companies sued Truth, claiming ads like that one aim to vilify the tobacco industry and violated the litigation settlement with 46 states. Today, the tobacco companies lost.

I don’t know what the legal threshold for “vilify” is, but I can tell you this much: Even if Truth isn’t vilifying anyone, that spot is spreading a health scare as recklessly as the people who continue to claim deodorants cause breast cancer. (That, for the record, isn't true, even if, as I wrote recently, many deodorant companies act like it is.) I don’t smoke and I never have, but I used to hate Truth simply because its desperately hip ads pander to and demean its young audience. Now, though, I also hate it for being so extremely careless with facts. Truth might as well just go door to door selling dog pee to everyone it considers a sucker, including us. You use urea. I use urea. And no, it’s not made from dog pee.

Permalink: 08:41 PM | Comments (1)

Pretty girls make ratings

Bob Costas made headlines by refusing to host a Natalee Holloway-themed “Larry King Live” show, and that’s now become the latest flashpoint in a debate over the media’s lopsided coverage of missing pretty white girls versus, well, anybody else that goes missing. I think it’s a good discussion to have, even though the real solution -- cable news stations focusing on real news and leaving these sensational stories alone, regardless of the race of the missing person -- is simply never going to happen. But if you think America is bad about this, check out Australia. It’s damn near comical.

Those are two Aussie ladies with a few things in common: Both are involved in the beauty industry, and both have been arrested in overly-tough-on-drugs Bali for drug possession. When I was in Australia, news stations damn near had 24-hour devotion to Shapelle Corby, the girl on the left, who was being held there and faced some serious jail time. Today, I learned that another pretty girl got busted -- Michelle Leslie, a model, on the right -- and no doubt the media circus will begin anew.

Seriously, just look at those two. What are the odds? It’s like the God of Sensational Cable News -- let’s call him, oh, Rupermurdo -- just threw those girls down to please the network execs. Larry King must be so jealous that he’s considering moving to Oz. Sorry, Kingmeister, you apparently just didn’t sacrifice enough real news at the alter of Rupermurdo. Now Rupermurdo is angry, and his scorn will come in the form of the 2006 Congressional elections. Oh no, Larry! Oh no! Not real news to cover! Nooooooooo!

Permalink: 10:15 AM | Comments (1)

The evolution of an idea

I think I've found common ground with creationists. Here's the vice president of the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank that's been at the forefront of the anti-evolution movement, in talking to the New York Times yesterday about "intelligent design":

"All ideas go through three stages - first they're ignored, then they're attacked, then they're accepted," said Jay W. Richards, a philosopher and the institute's vice president. "We're kind of beyond the ignored stage. We're somewhere in the attack."

Wait, all ideas go through those three stages? I can dig that. So, here's an idea: You, Jay W. Richards, are the face of willful ignorance. First, I expect you to ignore my idea. Perhaps someone notable will repeat this idea, and then you'll attack it. But eventually, according to you, it will be accepted. Phew! Good thinking. I'm glad to get that process started.

Permalink: 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

A great googly moogly

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't think so: There's a cow pasture that a farmer turned into a giant personal ad. Now, quick, tell me something about the farmer. Something simple. Like, the farmer's sex. I'd guess female. After all, she's identifying herself as a single white female, right?

Wrong. It's a male looking for a single white female -- and although the AP has had a good time writing about this, nobody seems to have noticed that a farmer went through all this trouble and totally screwed up the personal ad. Well, I mean, aside from the personal ad being viewable only by plane. I wonder what's going to happen when some beefy farming man sees the ad and parachutes down to meet his fantasy S.W.F., only to find out it's a guy who doesn't know how to write a freakin' personal ad. Oh, some corn husks are gonna fly!

Permalink: 08:14 AM | Comments (2)

The abuse on the bus goes round and round

Activist journalism is usually just bitter and forgettable, but a piece in the Hartford Advocate is worth some reflection. Actually, there's no need to even read the story: The laughs are all in the headline. Here it is:

"It's the bus, man": Connecticut's public transit system — the bus — is underfunded, slow, inconvenient, and designed to humiliate the people who use it. This year's state budget allocation does little to fix it.

I've never stepped on a bus in Connecticut, so I'm willing to accept the premise that the buses are underfunded, slow and inconvenient. But are they actually designed -- like, someone sat down and engineered them specifically -- to humiliate the people who use it? What would that actually entail? Seats that give wedgies and announce passengers' weights? Doors that open and fling pies into people's faces? Maybe the rear-view mirror is warped to make people look fat? Oh, I know! Before you get on, the driver announces your SAT score. "All aboard, you dumb sons of bitches!" he says afterward, as you roll slowly and inconveniently toward your destination.

Permalink: 08:43 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣LACHANIA GOVAN HAD some problems with her Comcast service, and called to complain. Her bill arrived the next month -- but instead of being addressed to her, it was addressed to "Bitch Dog." (Update: Two employees have been fired over it.)

♣WANT TO PLAY "Auld Lang Syne" on your phone? It's as simple as 11113212321139##9331212321##91. Here are some other tunes.

♣THE NEW YORKER has, for the first time, sold all ad space in one issue to a single company. The big winner is Target, and the ads will feature New York landmarks with Target logos. One writer wisely asks, "How many mid-six-figure geniuses did it take to come up with the idea of ads that feature BULLSEYE TARGETS painted on New York subways, bridges, and skyscrapers in 2005?"

♣PICTURE THIS: A horde of desperate people trample over each other, each trying to get their hands on a limited supply of something they so strongly desire. So, is it starving people in Zimbabwe trying to get food from humanitarian groups? No, just crazy Americans trying to get cheap laptops.

♣THE KANSAS SCHOOL board may be giving equal time to Intelligent Design, but it's really doing children a disservice by refusing to teach the Truth -- and that, of course is that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.

♣HEY THERE, YOU kingpin of evil. You wretched human scum. You think you know how to insult people? Perhaps you need to take a lesson from the brilliant scribes behind North Korea's propaghanda machine -- now in an easily searchable format! (And here's an article about it.)

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:03 AM | Comments (2)

This little piggy went to market, and this little piggy stayed home, and this little piggy’s cuticles were trimmed...

There is an unspoken language to pedicures, and it involves a lot of tapping. Tap the left foot, it goes into the water. Or out. Or turned. Or lifted and massaged. I’ve never felt more like a computer mouse: one button, lots of functions. I suppose that’s good, though, considering a spoken language would have been just as difficult and possibly more awkward. At least, that’s how my sole verbal exchange went with the non-English-speaking woman who gave me my very first pedicure on Saturday.

Her: Ca-la?
Me: Excuse me?
Her: Ca-la?
Me: Ca-la?
Her: Ca-la?
Another customer: Color.
Me: Oh, color! No, no color.
Her: No ca-la?
Me: No, no color.

My masculinity could survive a pedicure, sure, but I had to stop at nail polish.

Women speak of pedicures as if they’re religious experiences, and so Saturday seemed as good a time as any to try one. I had gone to visit a friend in New York, and arrived just as she and her sister were about to go get pedicures. They asked if I’d join, and considering the alternative was sitting around and not getting my feet massaged, I said sure. Truth be told, it’s not a bad experience at all. It’s nice, even. There’s some clipping and scraping and rubbing, and my lower legs received what I believe was their first-ever salt scrub. The hardest part, really, was being nonchalant about having a stranger spend so much time on my feet. I barely pay attention to my feet at all, but then there was this lady face-to-toe with them, cleaning them like they’re fresh fruit.

But here’s the thing: Afterward, they felt like fresh fruit. Or, well, they felt fresh. Fresh and clean and quite good. I took the above picture a few minutes afterward, as I sat in the flip-flops they handed me and decided that, hey, my feet deserve a few more minutes of cleanliness before going back inside my grubby shoes -- ca-la or no ca-la.

Permalink: 08:53 AM | Comments (4)

There are many words in today's Washington Post

...and I wrote about 350 of them. It's a little health item about why some ingredients are left out of "natural" personal care products, which I got interested in because I use some of those products. I probably would have looked into this on my own eventually, but I much prefer to research something that interests me if I can also get a clip out of it. Luckily, the WaPo obliged.

Permalink: 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

Notes from yesterday’s 6 p.m. Greyhound bus from New York City to Boston

1. The girl sitting next to me does two things, and two things only: She reads trashy romance novels, and she receives phone calls from her extremely impatient and lonely and so-sappy-I-want-to-reach-through-the-phone-and-smack-him boyfriend. There are numbers for these: Four-hour bus ride, two romance novels read, four calls from the boyfriend. Each call went like this:

Girl: Hello?
(pause)
Girl: Aww, I love you too.
(pause)
Girl: Ok.
(pause)
Girl: Of course I do!
(pause)
Girl: A few more hours.
(pause)
Girl: Ok, I love you too.

There’s only so much of this I can take.

2. There is a man sitting in front of me, and even before the bus began to move, he had put his seat back. Way back. Reclined all the way back so it bumped into my knees, which he took as a sign to continue reclining further, occasionally thrusting his body backward to get a temporary extra inch of recline. Now it’s three and a half hours into the ride, it is dark outside, he’s trying to sleep in his ultra-reclined position, and he cannot. It’s the light: A reading light -- my reading light -- is in his face. He keeps looking at it, perturbed. If he were not reclined so far back, of course, my reading light wouldn’t be in his face at all. He does not understand this, though. I continue to read.

3. We are being shown an extremely awful children’s movie called “Are We There Yet?” It stars Ice Cube. We’re watching the part of the movie where the bad child actors are delivering stiff dialog, and the adults, including Ice Cube, are responding with-- oh, wait, this describes the entire movie! Why are children’s movies so bad? Why does Hollywood think children want to be talked down to, as if the big movie screen is looking down on them the way adults look down on a baby in a crib, and all simultaneously say, “Ahh-boogaboogaboo.” How insulting. I am insulted. I am insulted for the children. As well, I dread becoming a father one day and then having to sit through these movies on a regular basis. Note to self: I need to earn enough money to hire a nanny to do those sort of things.

Permalink: 09:26 AM | Comments (3)

This basically explains it all, doesn't it?

SCENE: It's 1950. Mort Walker has just started Beetle Bailey. We're standing in a field with a lot of trash cans.

Me: Mort, what if you could see into the future and saw that your comic strip was miserable?

Mort: I'd keep on plugging away.

Me: Really? Why?

Mort: Hey, the future could be wrong!

Permalink: 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

Doing more harm than good

I almost got into a major accident on the highway yesterday, and I blame the police.

I was driving to work in the morning, traveling in the left lane with cars in front of and behind me, when suddenly the SUV in front of me came screeching to a halt. It was making all sorts of noise and fishtailing wildly, as if on ice. I slammed on the breaks to avoid hitting it, and immediately began skidding forward.

I suppose the whole thing took only a few seconds, but I remember it in numerous phases: There was the initial shock phase, then the skid phase, and then the planning phase. The SUV came to a stop with its backside to the right, partially in the lane, and its front was partially in the breakdown lane to our left. That meant that I had a small amount of space in which to wedge my car between the SUV and the guardrail to the left of the breakdown lane, and if my car stopped properly, I’d hit neither. I aimed, I succeeded, I stopped in time. Then I heard a screech and saw that the car behind me also swerved into the breakdown lane, and managed to stop before hitting me. We were all fine. What an unbelievable relief.

I didn’t immediately know what caused the near-accident, or why the SUV in front of me broke so suddenly. I’m guessing it was responding to a car in front of it, and who knows how far ahead the chain went. But when I looked about 20 feet up and to my right, I saw what no doubt caused the problem in the first place: There were about five state police cruisers and troopers milling about, like some kind of grand outdoor reunion. There were tons of them, and they were tucked back in such a way that drivers would not see them up ahead. Instead, drivers would be surprised when they suddenly passed by the group. No doubt, some driver had seen those cops and slammed on the breaks, and that caused a chain reaction that almost forced me to plow into an SUV.

And for that, I blame the police.

Permalink: 07:33 AM | Comments (7)

Table scraps:

♣A GROUP OF cheerleaders saw a hit-and-run, but didn't have a pen or paper to write down the offending car's license plate number. So, what's a group of gals to do? You guessed it: "Gimme an M!" "M!" "Gimme a..."

♣LAST WEEK, I linked a few short quasi-tv shows I thought were funny. Here are two more: The 'Bu, and Kicked in the Nuts. And here's a great video that was on tv somewhere: Men in Coats!

♣I HATE PARENT-counselor meetings because it's always a bunch of intimidating adults screaming at a single kid, who hardly gets to say anything. Young teachers share their first impressions of the schoolin' world.

♣ONCE AGAIN, FROM the "Funny Joke Or Really Awful Product Department," we have Dog Condoms and their inevidable follow-up, the recall of Dog Condoms. Real or fake, my favorite line in the recall is, "Another 15 consumers reported choking incidents resulting from animals attempting
to ingest Dog Condoms® meat-scented condoms." (via Thighs)

♣HIGH-SPEED PHOTOGRAPHY is amazing.

♣IF YOU HAVEN'T seen Robert Novak curse and storm out on that CNN show, watch that now. Then, check out his exchanges with Frank Zappa when the Zap appeared with Novak on "Crossfire" 20 years ago to talk about obscenity in rock music. A early choice moment: When Zappa says profanity also belongs in politics, Novak says, "I don't understand that." Oh yeah? But more so than a comment on Novak, this clip is really about Zappa. He was awwweessommee. (Via Panopticist)

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:20 AM | Comments (1)

The eyes have it

That man has some crazy eyes, doesn't he? They're like the eyes of a wild beast, of a man who'd kill his wife with a claw hammer because she wanted to cuddle after sex and he preferred watching sports on television. And, of course, that's exactly what he did.

A reader named Kristin pointed me to this man's eyes and asked, "Do crazy-eyed people have them all the time, and if so how do people like their wives, etc. not notice?!" It's a worthwhile question. Crazy-eyed people are in the newspaper almost every day, typically photographed at a court session, and I wonder how nobody saw their crime coming. It's the eyes! Where do those eyes come from? They're sunken and fierce, like screaming from the bottom of a well. Do you get crazy eyes just before doing something crazy, or do you always have them? Or, more likely, do you just get them from sleeping on an uncomfortable prison bench while waiting for your court session?

Either way, it made me think of the term "wild eyes." I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but "wild eyes" seems like the kind of sexy description found in a trashy romance novel. A quick Google search confirms it. I wonder if there are novels out there that say things like, "She saw his wild eyes and then his large, meaty hands, and then looked away for just a moment to savor the feel of his warm breath on her neck. He's the kind of man who would kill her with a claw hammer because he wants to watch the Giants on TV, she knew. But he wouldn't kill her with a claw hammer. They were in love."

This crap writes itself, doesn't it?

At least John Keats knew better. In "La Belle Dame sans Merci," he describes a knight who lay dying on a hillside. The knight explains how he ended up there after making out with a mysterious woman: "She took me to her elfin grot / And there she wept and sighed full sore / And there I shut her wild wild eyes / With kisses four." Wild eyes, I tell you! I'm not sure what's up with the elfin grot, though. Maybe Keats just couldn't think of anything to rhyme with "claw hammer."

Permalink: 01:18 AM | Comments (2)

Superstudly movie-going etiquette

I've been reading Paul Feig's "Superstud," which chronicles his awkward adolescent lack-of-sex life. It's entertaining at times but dull at others, vacillating between when he has a good story to share and when he's just struggling to stretch these things out into a full-length book. But during a chapter about him dating a girl named Nicole, he had this great little insight:

And then there was the fact that Nicole was what I like to term a “laugh-and-looker,” which means that every time we’d laugh at something in the movie, she’d look at me and we’d have to do a “wasn’t that funny?” smile to each other.

I’ve found over the years that there are a lot of laugh-and-lookers in this world. It’s one of the reasons I don’t really like to go to the movies with people. If you get stuck with a laugh-and-looker, you end up missing half the film because you’re always having to make that goofy smile and eyebrow raise to each other anytime something the least bit amusing happens on screen.

I can't agree with him more. This is wildly distracting, and it leaves me even more detached from the film because I end up wondering what's causing the laugh-and-looker to seek confirmation every time there's a funny moment. The only thing worse than a laugh-and-looker during a comedy is a laugh-and-look-and-nudger, which I've only met once. It was a girlfriend of a friend of mine, and she would jam her elbows into anybody next to her -- on both sides of her! -- whenever there was something funny in a movie. I hated that more because I didn't know how to respond. The laugh-and-looker response is easy: You just look back. But the nudger? Was I supposed to nudge her as well? Perhaps do something else? I never knew.

Of course, the worst movie-going habit comes from "the obvious reinforcer," the person who has to point out the can't-possibly-miss elements of the movie just after they happened, as if he's watching the movie with a group of mentally challenged deaf people. I see this happen more at dramas than comedies, but boy do I hate it.

Later on in the chapter, after relating an awkward and sad moment in a car with Nicole, Paul writes this: "And thus I became what I believe to be the only eighteen-year-old guy in the history of the world to turn down a free blow job from a pretty girl." But that's not so true, Paul. I'm sad to say you're not alone on that one either.

Permalink: 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

Experience this profoundly human phenomenon!

The New York Times today waxes philosophic on blogs:

It's natural enough to think of the growth of the blogosphere as a merely technical phenomenon. But it's also a profoundly human phenomenon, a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in.

It's hard to argue with that -- anything humans do that animals can't is classified, I suppose, as a profoundly human phenomenon. Being nude and chasing people with a sword? A profoundly human phenomenon. Going on hunger strike because you're a prisoner sick of turkey dinners? Profoundly! I guess it's a good thing for blogs, though: If my childhood dog were to have a blog, every post would have said, "Hey, where's the food?"

So here we are. Blogging profoundly. What else, I wonder, do people consider a "profoundly human phenomenon?" Google has informed me: Language, literature and the quest for marriage equality. But seriously, come on. Blogs are way more important than those things!

Permalink: 08:36 AM | Comments (1)

Did anybody else just notice that the U.N. emblem looks a whole lot like a dartboard?

To think, I never saw that until John Bolton stood in front of it. The arrow was my touch, but the goofy smile was all Johnny.

Permalink: 12:03 AM | Comments (2)

Table scraps:

♣THERE ARE PLENTY of fish in the sea, but apparently only 18,726 available and worthwhile to date. That's according to this guy, who has come up with a mathmatical answer to his hypothesis, "I will never have a girlfriend." Another reason, of course, is that he's too busy spending time calculating these sort of things to actually find a girl. And on the flip side, here's a blog post from a girl pitching herself as good girlfriend material -- but what's way more amusing is the comments from guys who very clumsily try to casually woo her.

♣HELL FREEZES OVER, and the New York Islanders sign Satan to a three-year deal. I wonder how many souls they can pay and still fit under the new salary cap.

♣HERE'S THE THING about people from Europe: Sexy women on golf courses just don't bother them. It's old hat. Short grass, men in funny shorts, sexy women -- seriously, what's the difference? At least, so says a woman who lives near a Chicago suburb's golf course, now the scene of an investigation after some golfers brought strippers in bikinis to perform on the course. "I don’t like the idea of this, but I’m from Europe, so I don’t think it’s a big deal," she said. (via Obscure Store)

♣WHEN YOU'RE ON an inflatable raft in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness and a bear starts chasing you, it's really bad news.

♣BILL O'REILLY GETS fascism confused with, oh, everything.

♣HOORAY FOR PUBLIC art like trash bag doodles and walk sign dress-ups.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 12:02 AM | Comments (2)

Meanwhile, at the school of hard knocks

This is an assignment, complete with a teacher's response, from my younger sister's elementary school days. She's in college now, but my parents found this recently and it's been hanging on my refrigerator for a while. It's funny: I think this is totally adorable, but if Bil Keane ever drew the same thing, its sappy innocence would make me want to puke.

Permalink: 12:11 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣GREG COOPER HAD a dream, and it was to pull out all his grass and install a plastic lawn. But does his hometown share that dream? And more importantly, did Greg ever get out from under the lawn after taking that picture?

♣WANT A T-SHIRT for a dollar? It's kind of small, but the price is right.

♣OH, TELEVISION SEND-ups, why do I love thee? Is it because so much television is lousy, and you show it? Is it because your shows are legitimately good? I do not know. But I do mightily enjoy these web tv shows: My Wife, The Ghost, Jesus Christ Supercop and Teen Homicide.

♣AND WHILE WE'RE watching videos, here's some more great stuff that actually did appear on TV: Some interview show gets dangerous when the set starts falling apart, Dr. Phil gets duped on Larry King, and the Family Guy gets all 1980's. (The last two via a dude.)

♣AW HELL, LET'S just keep the theme going. This time, though, there's no video -- and let's be thankful for that because we're turning to "Rock Star: INXS," the new reality show by Mark Burnett that's totally tanking. The show focuses on INXS's search for a new lead singer. "With an average audience of just 3.3 million young adults, according to Nielsen Media Research, the show is performing worse on many nights than the re-runs CBS aired in the time slots a year ago," according to the Wall Street Journal. But can anyone really be surprised about this? Seriously, INXS? Could Mark Burnett have picked a band anyone cares less about? Did anyone even know they're still around? I didn't. I think I'd be more interested if Mark put freakin' Average White Band on tv. The WSJ article asks if Burnett is losing his touch. Burnett says no. The rest of the world says, "duh."

♣OMG! DAVID BECKHAM! Aieeeeeeeee!

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 12:47 AM | Comments (5)

Sword-swallowing, with a minty aftertaste

Victoria's Secret is selling mints in the shape of high heeled shoes, which seems cute and gimmicky until you actually try one. Here's the thing about stilettos: There's a reason it shares a name with a dagger-like weapon. And here's the thing about mints: You're supposed to keep them in your mouth for a while. Bad design? My girlfriend brought a box home, and I tried one. It's like sucking on a piece of broken glass.

Alright, so it's not that bad. But it's still uncomfortable.

Perhaps this was a secret to Victoria, but there's a reason Altoids and Tic Tacs are shaped the way they are. And anyway, Victoria's Secret is known more for lingerie than shoes. It might as well have stuck with the theme and made bra-shaped mints. At least those are round.

Permalink: 09:24 AM | Comments (0)