Someone has a future writing for "Saturday Night Live"

My friend Joe is an art teacher, and his kindergarteners this morning were telling each other Halloween jokes. He passed along some of his favorites, which were apparently major knee-slappers in class:

Q: Why can't the skeleton go to a wedding?
A: Because he doesn’t have body.

Q: Why can't a skeleton go to a marriage?
A: Because he is just bones.

Q: Why can't a dead ghost go trick or treating?
A: Because he's dead.

Q: Why couldn’t the mummy go trick or treating?
A: Because he was all tangled up in that stuff their bodies are wrapped in.

Q: What do you call a mouse getting candy?
A: A scaredy eagle.

Permalink: 06:18 PM | Comments (2)

But do they dress up like Jesus?

When I hear stories of parents being especially protective or touchy about their children, I tend not to sympathize. Perhaps it’s because your perspective changes when you pump out little humans of your own, but I like to think it’s just because I have more common sense. Still, there are times when I read a story and glimpse into my future; that is to say, there are times when, as a parent, I know I am going to go absolutely apeshit.

And if this country’s religious fervor doesn’t die down by the time I’m ready to contribute to America’s overpopulation, Halloween will be one of those times. Apparently, an increasing number of evangelicals are handing out religious tracts -- “a concise, colorful handout telling how to attain salvation through Jesus Christ,” according to the AP -- along with their candy. From the story:

"It's the only time of the year when people come to your door and ask to interact with you," says Wayne Braudrich, senior pastor at Frisco Bible Church, which offers tracts to members for Halloween distribution. "That just seems like a chance that shouldn't be missed."

Wrong, Wayne. It’s the only time of the year when people come to your door and ask for your candy. The kids don’t want to hear much else than “Happy Halloween,” or maybe, if they’re really young, “Oh, how scary you are!” They’re not even looking at you; they’re looking past you, to spy your bowl of candy.

You don’t want to celebrate Halloween? Totally cool. Don’t answer the door. Or, if you want to spread your message, put up a sign that says, “We’re Christians, so we disapprove of this holiday. Come join us!” I’m sure that’ll bring in the converts. But if I, a parent, bring my child to your door on Halloween, and you answer that door, you’ve entered into an agreement. It is this: We’re going to have an innocent interaction, you’re going to give my kid some candy, my kid’s going to be polite, and we’re all going to part ways. But if you think this is the time to subvert a very basic thing I’ve taught my children, then by golly, I am going to go apeshit on you.

Consider this a warning, people. I don’t have kids yet, so you have plenty of time to prepare.

Permalink: 08:12 AM | Comments (3)

Sing the swan song, scoopers

First the blog post, then the Weekly Dig essay. Today, the campaign against Cold Stone Creamery's tip song goes national. I'm quoted in a story, "Good Service Goes Bad" on R4 of today's Wall Street Journal. Because it isn't online for free, here's the relevant part:

Twelve grafs in, the reporter writes: At Cold Stone Creamery ice-cream shops, young employees scooping ice cream into dishes labeled "like it," "love it" and "gotta have it" (instead of small, medium and large) are expected to sing in unison whenever a patron drops a tip into a cup near the register. The musical thank-you, which varies from store to store, is supposed to add to the light-hearted atmosphere that the franchiser tries to cultivate. Then:

Well listen up, Mr. Donnellan: You're an ice cream store. You sell ice cream. That should be the cornerstone of your company's business. If you want to open up a community theater and put on under-funded renditions of "Hair," be my guest. At least at that point, the three people who show up will know what they're getting themselves into.

Anyway, I'm pretty thrilled with my quotes. I kept that reporter on the phone for half an hour, rambling about all the different customer service gimmicks I hate. Being the talented, well-employed person she is, she managed to find the 10 seconds of useful material I sputtered out, and slapped it on the page. Awesome. I'm not sure where she got the idea that I live in Cambridge from, but that's fine with me. I wish I did. I'll just live vicariously through the version of me that's in the WSJ.

Permalink: 09:59 AM | Comments (0)

Best argument yet for unisex bathrooms

So I'm reading this story about a Washington man -- a prosecutor, no less -- who was arrested for having sex in a women's bathroom at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. He was drunk, he was in one of the stalls, and there was a long line of women outside. Upon being discovered, he was arrested and kicked out of the stadium, and is now "under investigation for obstruction and trespassing." But all this time, I'm wondering: Was there a woman involved, or was having sex a euphemism for masturbation?

Then, five grafs down into the nine-graf story, we get this bit of mysterious information:

The 31-year-old woman found with the man was not detained or arrested.

Oh! Well then. I suppose as long as you're in the bathroom of your own sex, you can take care of your needs as you see fit. If they were in the men's bathroom, I wonder, would she have been arrested? If so, would there have been fewer charges against her? (He's charged with obstruction, presumably because their little hoo-haw was contributing to the long line at the bathroom. Men's rooms don't typically have that kind of wait, so there's less risk of obstruction.) Seems like these are some valuable legal questions that need answering before the next time you get horny at an athletic stadium.

Permalink: 08:27 AM | Comments (2)

Fly the ironic skies

Here’s two things you might not have known about Spirit Airlines: One, it exists. Two, it’s running a special called Return of the Mullet, in which its price structure corresponds to the ol’ “business in the front, party in the back” shtick. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Hey, Spirit, welcome to the party. Too bad you couldn't make it when it started -- back in, oh, 1994.

But hey, maybe this isn’t such a bad marketing strategy. If you wait until everyone’s moved on from a joke, you’ve cornered the market on it. Next up: Spirit dubs its long-haul trips “Viagra special: We stay up longer!” Or, oh, it has special cigar-smoking trips called “Flying with Monica Lewinski.” Maybe, instead of peanuts, they can give out trucker hats. Now that’s the spirit!

Permalink: 10:50 PM | Comments (1)

Artsy tartsy

What do you get when you combine conceptual art with a curator who dislikes the concept of a gallery? Why, you get this wacky art show I wrote about for this week's Boston's Weekly Dig.

Permalink: 08:16 AM | Comments (3)

Table scraps:

♣BEWARE OF THE dangerous drink: A flying bottle of Gatorade knocked out a football player, and poison Jägermeister killed a man and blinded a woman.

♣ANYBODY WATCH NIP/TUCK? Couldn’t you just imagine this as an episode?

♣WHOA: “FRAGGLE ROCK” is being turned into a movie. But, uh: It’s going to be live action. And, wha?: It’ll be a musical. Well then: Chase your cares away, worries for another day, let the music play down at Fraggle Rock. (clap clap)

♣THE HISTORY OF the world: a series of random, sometimes fortunate incidents, or a long bitch-fest driven by men with menstrual cramps? You be the judge.

♣THE BEST AND worst part of an election year are all the insane political ads that come out. Here’s a great collection of over-the-top ones that were recently e-mailed to me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Then there’s this one, which seems nice and positive but, hey, who's that candidate?

♣YOU CAN VISIT a sex blog, but please, don’t be so lousy as to think about sex while there. (Link doesn’t bring you to the sex blog. It’s probably SFW; there is a nudie picture, but with black bars over the naughty bits.)

♣IF I HAD science classes like this, I might be a chemist today. (Alright, that's probably not true. But I would have done better on the final exam.)

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this. (And there's more where that came from.)

Permalink: 08:09 AM | Comments (2)

Kwellerstravaganza

For no good reason, I took this video at Ben Kweller's show in Boston last night:

Take him back, Boston! As Ben bounced around with his chubby face and mop of hair -- which is exactly how he looked when I saw him a few years ago -- I thought of a modified line from "Dazed and Confused": "I keep getting older, and Ben Kweller stays the same age."

The real attraction last night wasn't on stage, though. It was a drunk college girl near the front that, when she wasn't simply pointing and screaming at Ben, was acting out the songs like a wobbly, flailing version of this. Occasionally she'd stop to kiss her boyfriend, who was standing behind her and wearing earplugs, or kiss her friend, some girl who spent the evening sending nonsensical text messages to a guy named Vincent. If there was any indication that she realized she had become a spectacle, it was a subtle one: At one point, she was clearly preparing to take her shirt off, and then looked sheepishly around and buttoned back up. Self-conscious? Perhaps. Or, maybe she just noticed all the cameras around her.

And on a final Ben Kweller note, I found this video of him doing his old rendition of "Ice Ice Baby" at some music store. The song's great, but be sure to check out the comment some kid left:

Awwww sweet!! My dad said this is a rap song? I like it this way. ^.^ (never mind I haven't heard the rap version~)

I, uh... a little part of me just died.

Permalink: 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

And you wondered why more law enforcement resources weren't being used on terrorists

Check out the lede of this story. I'm assuming a "not" was supposed to be in there.

Permalink: 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

Between lines, there's nothing but space

Stick with me through the first two lecturing paragraphs, will you? I’ve got something amusing to share.

There are, as far as I can tell, three things that prompt calls for bias in the media: actual bias (Fox News); someone making claims for political gains (White House v. New York Times); and a person who feels passionate about an issue, reads a story he or she doesn’t agree with, and assumes the author must have a similar passion for the opposite side of the issue (stay tuned).

Let’s talk briefly about the last one. I think it’s like the psychological version of physics: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, push something and it pushes back with equal force, etc. We tend to think like that, especially when we’re emotionally invested in something. So if you, say, are so passionate about squirrels that you run an organization called America for Squirrel Solidarity, and then you read an article in the Washington Post about how squirrels carry diseases, you might think, “This person hates squirrels.” It isn’t necessarily true, of course. Your action comes out of passion; the journalist’s comes out of something else entirely -- curiosity, editor’s assignment, simply discovering something interesting. It could be anything, but probably not passion.

Permalink: 08:17 AM | Comments (3)

Table scraps:

♣THE FAMILY CIRCUS would be so much better if those damn little kids already knew God is dead.

♣VIDEOS WORTH NOTING: The human camera takes on an ancient city, a kangaroo takes on some lady, Guess Who takes on you (that one takes a minute to load), and Skidboot takes on the world. Added multimedia goodness: Check out this train-wreck of a song, and be sure to stick around until at least the one-minute mark. (Via 14G.)

♣PREPARE FOR MOTION sickness: Here's a story written by a real journalist who went into a fake world to write a story about a real journalist who reports in the fake world.

♣I'M NOT GENERALLY one for celebrity gossip, but holy moley, have you seen San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 20-year-old girlfriend? (More here.) Holy veto power, Batman!

♣CAN SOMEONE PLEASE turn this list into an album?

♣THE MASONS, THAT group of funny-dressed dudes who didn't grow tired of fraternity life when they turned 21, are so desperate that they're actually recruiting people. This explains an Masonic lodge's open house we walked by a few weeks ago, at the front of which was some dope smiling dumbly at us.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 12:13 AM | Comments (2)

Endster of Friendster

The New York Times yesterday had an interesting behind-the-scenes piece on why Friendster went so quickly from a promising, hyped-up social networking pioneer to a stagnant, bland and ultimately failed venture. I have a Friendster account that was set up in the site’s early days and has barely been touched since, and remember the two chief reasons I stopped using it: the site was too slow; and after I found some old friends, I couldn’t think of anything else to do on there. I wondered if the Times reporter, with his insider connections to the business end of it, would step back and hit upon these user problems, and was impressed that he did. For one, after he examines the confused make-up of the site’s hot-shot board of directors:

But the board also lost sight of the task at hand, according to Kent Lindstrom, an early investor in Friendster and one of its first employees. As Friendster became more popular, its overwhelmed Web site became slower. Things would become so bad that a Friendster Web page took as long as 40 seconds to download. Yet, from where Mr. Lindstrom sat, technical difficulties proved too pedestrian for a board of this pedigree. The performance problems would come up, but the board devoted most of its time to talking about potential competitors and new features, such as the possibility of adding Internet phone services, or so-called voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, to the site.

That’s fascinating, because I remember wondering why the folks at Friendster seemed so oblivious to the site problems. As a user, it was my primary complaint.

Google once offered to buy Friendster, but the Friendster founder turned it down. Now Google’s bought YouTube, and it reminds me of something I thought when YouTube first blew up. Here was this video company gaining traffic at a rate it could have never expected, and it relied entirely upon a medium that takes up a lot of bandwidth. And yet, it never seemed to stall. I wondered if the YouTube folks had taken a lesson from Friendster, and maintained the site’s functionality above all else. It would explain why YouTube did so little tinkering with the features on the site, but managed to stay so reliable. And now, the YouTube founders are swimming in cash, and the Friendster people are in the dumps. Lesson learned.

Permalink: 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

Heil floor!

Allston, Massachusetts: Home to drunken college students, funky coffee shops and, apparently, Nazi floor designers. That last part's probably not true, but how else to explain the lobby in my friend's apartment building? And don't give me that "ancient Indian symbol" stuff. Nobody's sending smoke signals from this building (unless, I suppose, it's a signal to buy more weed).

Does anyone know what's going on here? Maybe this is some sort of normal, outdated tile design that was laid down before the 1940s?

Permalink: 08:08 AM | Comments (13)

It's a small Internet after all

Every so often, you’ll read a news story in which the premise goes something like this: Person A posts X online, Person B finds and uses X to sue/fire/upset Person A, Person A is surprised. These are the stories about employers checking applicants on Facebook and weeding out the druggies, or about lawyers using blog posts in a courtroom. I rarely read them; they're just more expected extensions of an obvious foundation. It’s as if people forget the Internet is accessible to everyone; they’re surprised when something sent out into the world is actually received. I see these stories -- stories that frequently make the front page of major newspapers -- and say: “Duh.”

And yet, now I know why these Peoples A were so surprised. Check out this cute baby:

That’s from a post on Sweet Juniper, where a proud papa describes how he came around to making iron-on shirts for his baby. It’s a great idea. And, dare I say, a great shirt. It came from my site.

About four years ago, I put out a little zine of open letters called Dirty Laundry. There was only one full issue, which I distributed for free and posted online. Each letter was illustrated by my friend Kevin; for a letter from a girl crushing on a guy who looks like Steve Buscemi, he drew the profile you see above. I haven’t thought about Dirty Laundry in years -- it was a fun idea that I quickly ran out of enthusiasm for -- but a longtime HappyScrappy reader, Moni, happens to also be a Sweet Juniper reader, and she noted the connection. (Ironically, Moni also happens to own the original drawing Kevin did; I sent it to her because she’s a big Buscemi fan.) After she told me about this yesterday, I called Kevin. “You made my day!” he said.

It is pretty rad. I’m not sure if I’d want Buscemi’s face on my baby, but hey, it’s certainly more appropriate than some of the other illustrations Kevin did.

Surprising, though. Just like Person A in the newspaper, I feel somehow shocked about the simultaneous vastness and interconnectedness of the Internet. I mean, I know everything I post goes out into the world, but who would think that someone in that world would actually do something with this stuff? With a world full of information, it’s easy to assume everything you post just gets lost in static. But it turns out it’s there, fully formed, easily plucked from the ether.

So rock on, baby. Your parents dress you well.

Permalink: 08:58 AM | Comments (0)

Extra, extra! Dog bites man!

I sometimes wonder what headline writers are thinking. Readers of the Toronto Star should wonder if their headline writers are thinking at all. Today's blockbuster headline about a funeral for two babies:

Mourners sob at funeral

Perhaps "Funeral is sad" was too short.

Permalink: 08:07 AM | Comments (0)

Wait 'till India hears about this one

I know I'm creating a self-fulfilling prophesy here -- every time I post about foot fetish Google searches, I rise higher in the Google rankings for foot fetishes -- but how can I resist making note of someone from Pakistan finding my site by searching for, "i am a foot fetish 15 year old boy my sister are 20 her sexy feet." Yipes. If it's one girl in the world who really should be encouraged to buy as many shoes as possible, it is that dude's sister.

Permalink: 07:57 AM | Comments (1)

International big diss

Ha ha, Hotline! Kim Jong Il'in -- that's a good one. Except -- oh, wait -- I beat you to it by about two years.

(Alright, alright: I'm sure someone thought of it before me as well, and it's not that clever anyway. But allow me this gloat, will you?)

Permalink: 06:44 PM | Comments (1)

When you can't find love in a city full of it

I know what you're thinking: Nicole Kidman's got nothin' on me.

When we first arrived at our hostel in Paris, the woman at the front desk told us that our area of town is alive all night. That's excellent, we thought. Although, we didn't realize why until we started walking around: We had booked a place in the red light district.

The Rouge was just the start. All around it were seedy strip joints and sex shops, with well-dressed greeters outside trying to entice people in. Most places looked pretty bland, but two were worth noting:

That was in the window at some erotic museum. See the tongue-like thing in the middle? It rotates. Just... let that sink in for a moment.

That is, as you might have guessed, the Sexodrome. It was so big, it couldn't even fit in this picture. It looked almost fake, this glassy behemoth wedged between two traditional-looking Parisian buildings. And yet, it was so clearly the alpha male of the neighborhood. You could walk in there as pure as an evangelical pre-teen, and walk out 10 minutes later covered in lipstick and with a new appreciation for leather. They'll make you cry for merci.

Permalink: 08:13 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣A MAN ORDERS a seafood and pasta dish. It arrives. He eats the seafood, then sends the pasta back because he believes there wasn't enough seafood in the meal. He refuses to pay. He leaves. He's taken to court. And then, well, take a read. (And is anyone else upset at the jury's decision? I am.)

♣MUSIC VIDEOS YOU need to see: Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" and Royksopp's "Remind Me".

♣THIS IS EITHER the best job in the world or the absolute worst: full-time blogger for NPR.

♣THANKS, FCC, FOR protecting our children from smut! Otherwise, gosh, our future leaders would be tarnished by 200-year-old pencil drawings of nude couples having sex and a discussion of Louis VXI's apparent impotency. Oh, the horror!

♣A RECENT ADDITION to the blogroll merits special mention: Marmaduke Explained, in which a blogger walks you through every day's installment of America's least entertaining dog.

♣GOOGLE EARTH: GOOD for finding your own house, better for finding worldwide nude sunbathers. (via 14 Giants)

♣TAKING REVENGE ON lousy reporting is something I highly support. Here are two recent great ones: The Daily Show harasses the "investigative reporter" who caught a guy jerking off at a library and went overboard with the story, and Olbermann nails O'Reilly for saying the Mark Foley is a Democrat.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 11:12 AM | Comments (4)

It ain't the blue-and-white party

The Green Party: environmentalists, anti-corporate dominance, and... anti-Israel? As it turns out, despite all that Ralph Nader ra-ra-ra, the third party of choice among college students isn't especially fond of the Jewish state -- and in the Massachusetts chapter, that goes one step further. I take a look at it in this week's Boston's Weekly Dig.

Permalink: 07:47 AM | Comments (1)

Just wait for the steamy final exam

I found this on a street in Paris. It's obviously someone's corrected English homework:

Is that not so hilariously, stereotypically appropriate? (The blur at the top, by the way, is the student's name, which I've obscured because I feel a little bad about posting her homework on the Internet.) Paris -- the city of love, a culture of romance -- has its students practice English by writing first-person tales of tortured love. It's not even an option: The first line, "I'm in love with two people," is the foundation from which to work.

Again, I am envious. Not to put too fine a point on it, but could you imagine this being attempted in America? You'd have 18 angry parents knocking down the teacher's door faster than you could say "Sacré bleu!" Virginia may claim it's for lovers, but that's all marketing. Paris ain't fuckin' around about it. They're too busy actually fucking.

Permalink: 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

Baby, you can park my car

Massachusetts drivers are so bad, they have a name: Massholes. Universal Hub found a Masshole in his element, with a parking performance so dismal that it breaks two laws at once. Go check it out.

But don't think bad parkers are limited to Mass., or even to America. Universal Hub's photo reminded me of a bang-up parking job we saw in Berlin, after a person decided parallel parking just wasn't worth the trouble:

This wasn't the first time we saw something like this. Traffic laws apparently aren't a top priority over there, because we saw people riding mopeds on the sidewalk, parking on concrete medians and generally doing just about whatever the hell they wanted. Which, you know, seemed pretty reasonable to me. Look at what this guy above pulled off: He made use of a tight space, and hit nobody's car in the process. There's plenty of room left on the sidewalk, and the cars in front and behind him will have no trouble getting out of their spots. Of course, there might be a small child stuck under there or something, but let's stick to the positives, shall we?

Permalink: 09:12 AM | Comments (1)

The hottest crosswalk in town

...because car-driver ass is notoriously hard to see.

I took this yesterday in Harvard Square.

Permalink: 10:17 AM | Comments (2)