Cup of Chemistry

A High-Five, Like a Dream, Deferred

2009-03-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

Today, coming back to the office with some lunch, a homeless man offers me a friendly high-five; I start to respond with the expected, but then hesitate and lower my hand. No high-five was consummated and he starts chastising me for not wanting to touch his hand.

I protest something feeble about being in a hurry. Like I’m some sort of high-powered executive single mother CEO who’s always just too busy to high-five everyone. But I’m not, and feel bad. Because he was right, right about the touching thing.

Lunch was an uneaten sandwich.

Signifier

2008-11-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.brandonbird.com/signifier_signified.html

Fine art can be pretty rewarding. This guy's Law & Order: SVU Valentines are pretty awesome too.

Now that it's instantly dated

2008-11-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

(from http://www.shatnerhasselhoff.com/)

At least until 2012.

America?

2008-11-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

America?

I guess that’s a pretty vague question, but it’s like seeing an ex-girlfriend 8 years later on the street….oh Linda? You think you recognize them, but aren’t 100% sure. So it’s kind of *the* question from the last couple of years. Like in regards to the torture and wire-tapping and whatnot. In terms of recognizability, it’s like putting on a few pounds. And getting a full face-tattoo. Anyway, to answer the question. America?

The answer now is: America!

So very, very, very literal.

2008-10-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Only Financial News Needed

2008-10-06T16:36:00.001-07:00

from consumerist.com

Whoops

2008-05-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

That prediction about Clinton dropping out today was so wrong. Note to self: go back and delete the prior entry so I don't look like a politically uninformed jackass.

New prediction: no more predictions will happen on this blog ever again.

Primary Care

2008-05-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows it’s over, but my theory is that the Clinton camp also knows it too and isn’t actually fighting right now. Like a welterweight pulling her punches, she’s just moving her feet and biding time to drop out right after the Oregon primary on May 20th. She’s even taken the unsanctioned metal slugs out of her gloves.

North Carolina was the knock-out; a lot of people are saying that now. 2 months before North Carolina, it was actually already over, but she was hanging in there, hoping for a major Obama screw-up like the classic “found in a hotel room with a dead girl or a live boy”--and also filmed taking a dump on the American flag while smoking a cigarette. That’s the only combination of things that could’ve derailed him and given her the nom. Didn’t happen, but it was worth a shot.

So why wait until Oregon? Because she’s actually going to be a team-player and make Obama look good. The problem is, Clinton will win the 2 unimportant hillbilly states that are up next on the primary schedule: West Virginia and Kentucky*. And it’d look real bad for BHO if she dropped out and still won them. So that’s why she’s waiting until Oregon to be gone.

So here’s my testable prediction: Clinton drops out on May 21st.

So this video will only be funny for the next 9 days and only if you’ve been following the race – but if so this will slay you:

Love the nervous looks on the Nazi officers’ faces as they get reamed again and again, “I’m surrounded with ignorant eunuchs, with cunts for eyes!” There is so much to like about that video.

*Calling a whole state unimportant might be a little offensive, but I was born here so it’s like OK to trash talk those banjo-picking, corn mash-distillin’ motherfuckers. And it’s not like they’ll know how to work a computer to ever read this.

Abraham Lincoln Etiquette

2007-11-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

Apparently there are few photos of Abraham Lincoln and none of him at Gettysburg. But now this image just popped up. A new, never-seen before photo that provides conclusive new photo-evidence of Lincoln at Gettysburg before giving his famous Address. How can this picture be anything else?And as a bonus, if you look carefully you can see the Lochness Monster behind the stagecoach (driven by Bigfoot).

Orgy Etiquette in Realtime

2007-11-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

Been a fan of the non-fiction side of the Onion AV Club for some time…for some reason this DVD review of Nina Hartley’s Guide To The Perfect Orgy got buried in their “blog” section. This review deserves to live!

Tip #12. Know When to Call it a Day when everyone reaches the same level of “pleasurable exhaustion.” then it’s time to consider wrapping up the orgy.

So wait, if everyone’s worn out and ready to go home, but one couple is still totally going at it, everyone has to wait until they’re done? I can just picture a couple in their coats, holding a small duffle bag with their supplies in hand, keys in the other, silently glaring at the remaining participants. “Fucking blow already! We’ve got to get back for the babysitter!”

I give this DVD review a positive review. It captures the essence of Nina Hartley’s Guide To The Perfect Orgy and lets readers know the pros and cons of purchasing said DVD, which in turn lays out the pros and cons of those little nicities that make a friendly orgy so rewarding. Like thank-you notes.

Brain Gets Tricked -- Porn Turns Us On

2007-10-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

When you sit down and think about it, porn shouldn't turn us on. Noone can mate with a magazine or a raise a family with a jpeg. Yet, turn us on it does. Science says our brains are still hard-wired with Stone Age thinking, when an erotic image meant an erotic actuality. Now the two are independent.

When the environment undergoes rapid change within the space of a generation or two, as it has been for the last couple of millennia, if not more, then evolution can’t happen because nature can’t determine which traits to select and which to eliminate. So they remain at a standstill. Our brain (and the rest of our body) are essentially frozen in time — stuck in the Stone Age.

One example of this is that when we watch a scary movie, we get scared, and when we watch porn we get turned on. We cry when someone dies in a movie. Our brain cannot tell the difference between what’s simulated and what’s real, because this distinction didn’t exist in the Stone Age.

Related: Why Do Beautiful Women Sometimes Marry Unattractive Men?

It may be that the unattractive man has a lot of money, or some other compelling attribute.

Compelling attributes, now they tell me! Something I wish I read in college.

Best. Pope. Picture. Ever.

2007-10-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

Whether you're a true-blue Pope fan or merely a Pope enthusiast, it's the debate everyone loves talking about...who’s the best Pope, like ever? Any tough guy at the bar can rattle off the blessing stats of Pius IX or cite Gregory I’s impact on liturgy. But for my money, bar none, best pope ever was the late, great John Paul II. He had charisma, he spoke 7 languages and he had doctrine down cold. That’s best Pontiff, pre-Schism or post-Schism. Now check this out:

And there’s the proof. Pope John Paul II just made a breakout move for the Hall of Fame by appearing in freakin’ fire! That kind of showmanship you don’t see anymore and it really gives something back to the fans. That’s what it’s all about people.

And the less said about JPII’s frail successor, the better. Ratzinger sucks. Despite what some deluded people think, he couldn’t sanctify his way out of a brown paper bag. So-called "Pope" Benedict is barely qualified to carry Pope John Paul’s gym clothes, much less carry on the Holy See.

He could appear in 100 clouds, but unless they make egregious sucking a new sacrament, there’s no way Benidict's going to the Hall of Fame.

Name/Color Question

2007-10-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

It’s bothering me that all the colors people have for last names only appear on the camouflage pattern. The most common color-names are clearly White, Green, Black and Brown in that order. Why are others so rare? Why no Mr. and Mrs. Purple?

Dismal Science

2007-10-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

In honor of the now omnipresent Halloween season with it’s tap-dancing skeletons: How does it feel to die?

None of us can know the answers for sure until our own time comes, but the few individuals who have their brush with death interrupted by a last-minute reprieve can offer some intriguing insights. Advances in medical science, too, have led to a better understanding of what goes on as the body gives up the ghost.

Death comes in many guises, but one way or another it is usually a lack of oxygen to the brain that delivers the coup de grâce. Whether as a result of a heart attack, drowning or suffocation, for example, people ultimately die because their neurons are deprived of oxygen, leading to cessation of electrical activity in the brain - the modern definition of biological death. If the flow of freshly oxygenated blood to the brain is stopped, through whatever mechanism, people tend to have about 10 seconds before losing consciousness and several minutes to die.
It’s all here: Drowning, Heart Attack, Blood Loss, Fire, Electrocution, Decapitation, Falling, Hanging, and Explosive Decompression in the Vacuum of Space.

The "Hollywood Heart Attack", featuring sudden pain, desperate chest-clutching and immediate collapse, certainly happens in a few cases. But a typical "myocardial infarction", as medical-speak has it, is a lot less dramatic and comes on slowly, beginning with mild discomfort.

So if an old man is dramatically clutching his chest, blow him off because he's faking. Probably just wants attention because his children don't call.

Proof of Evolution

2007-10-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Orangutan Aroused by Blonde and Tattooed Women

Money Shot

2007-10-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

Great interview about the history of the US dollar .

This article will help you make great small talk on your next date. Topics covered include the creation of the Secret Service; how our ancestors were almost all counterfeiters; and the fact that by 1860, over 10,000 types of currency were in circulation including one featuring Santa Claus.

Once the country began moving down the path of a common national currency, people started looking at money differently. Money became a means of cementing people’s allegiance to the United States: by handling it, you were tacitly putting faith in nation.

Pride

2007-10-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

In this old-time advertisement from 1932, a helpful shaving company explain the real reason for joblessness--in the middle of the Great Depression—was actually facial hair.

This kind of ignorance has been going on for a long time: the war on beards.

It’s been hard out there for men who choose the facial hair lifestyle. The media perpetuates negative stereotypes; bearded men face societal prejudice; and job opportunities are severely limited. For the moustache: cop, fireman, or gay porn actor. No other options exist. Likewise a full beard limits your career options to: the Unabomber, a melancholic professor, or Santa Claus. And there’s not much money in any of them.

The discrimination has gone on long enough. The recent Beard and Moustache Championships is here to challenge that and most of all to bring the pride back.

Previous post of full-body shaving.

Never happened to me

2007-10-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

but other people might find it useful to know

Economics of Faking Orgasms

Can't Name Your Racehorse Nutzapper

2007-09-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

Good to Know

Aside from the ill-fated Nutzapper, the Jockey Club's database reveals 131 horses whose names begin with the prefix Nut. The vast majority are of course not titillating. But shouldn't somebody have questioned the precedent-setting Nut Buster way back in 1942? Similarly, Pussy Galore probably should have raised a few eyebrows in 1965. The filly never won a race, but one assumes she was a big hit with the stallions.

You want explicit commands? How about Blow Me (1945), Get It On (both 1971 and 1986), On Your Knees (1977 and 2005), Spank It (1985), or 1963's Go Down, whose sire, of course, was Service. If a clever play on words is your thing, Cunning Stunt (1969) is a decent one. Lagnaf (1978) is a thinly veiled acronym for "let's all get naked and … ." The names Hardawn (1937) and Wrecked Em (1983) have to be said out loud to elicit the desired potty-mouth effect.

24 Years Ago Today the World Almost Ended

2007-09-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

...not when that perfect Russian almost beat Rocky in Rocky IV, although that would've been devastating to all Americans. No, September 26, 1983 is when a mid-level Russian officer almost pushed a button...

1983: A Soviet ballistics officer draws the right conclusion -- that a satellite report indicating incoming U.S. nuclear missiles is, in fact, a false alarm -- thereby averting a potential nuclear holocaust.

Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was duty officer at Serpukhov-15, the secret bunker outside Moscow that monitored the Soviet Union's early-warning satellite system, when the alarm bells went off shortly after midnight. One of the satellites signaled Moscow that the United States had launched five ballistic missiles at Russia.

Story at Wired

Like Rocky IV

2007-09-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Russian Guy at the gym approaches a most beautiful woman and spends 10 minutes telling a what she’s doing wrong with her curls. It looks pedantic, but I know what’s really going on here. He’s clearly hitting on her.

Then 15 minutes later he taps me on the shoulder and takes 10 minutes telling me what I’m doing wrong with my rows. And he was absolutely right! I misjudged you and your intentions, Helpful Russian Guy. Thank you.

Controversial Artist Finally Silenced

2007-09-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

RIP Marcel Marceau

Greenwashing

2007-09-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Greenwashing – A feelgood environmental gesture that makes a symbolic impact, yet does little to alleviate serious problems.

But apparently it’s a smart business move. Good publicity on the cheap.

For companies large and small, going green is now a surefire way to cut through the clutter. A recent issue of the New York Times travel section included a brief article—complete with Web address—describing in loving detail the features of the Proximity Hotel, a green inn in Greensboro, N.C. Some hot hotels feature roofs with happening pool scenes. The Proximity's roof features solar panels and a vegetable garden.

Darn you!

2007-09-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

I almost got creamed on my bike this morning. Car from the left completely blows through a red light. Not a yellow, not a just-red, but a full-bodied mature red. One aged at least 5 seconds and served with a bouquet of gape-jawed horror.

Zombie Letdown

2007-09-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Zombie Pfizer Computers Spew Viagra Spam

Zombie. Spew. Viagra. All of these words contributed to a very misleading headline. Filed under D, for disappointing.

Telepresence

2007-09-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Along with the paperless workplace, remember how like in 1998 Videophones were going to revolutionize work so much that you wouldn’t even have to go into the office? That was a great prediction, except that it never happened. Now the same people are predicting that Telepresence is going to revolutionize work so much so you wouldn’t even have to go into the office!

From the Economist:

People in telepresence meetings appear life-sized and the tables and rooms at the two ends to blend together seamlessly. (Rooms, furniture and even wallpaper are often identical, to aid the illusion.) People feel that they are making eye contact, which involves multiple cameras and enormous computing power. The delays in sight and sound must be negligible (ie, below 250 milliseconds, the threshold at which the human brain starts to notice), so that people can interrupt each other naturally. Sounds are perceived to come from the direction of the person speaking.

Bottom line: business people are unlikable. Even to each other. So naturally the world needs an invention that keeps as many of them out of the same room as possible.

Partytime

2007-09-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

I don’t know much about this Andrew W.K. fellow. But from what I hear of his songs, he’s really committed to the cause of partying. Like that song I heard at the gym that contained the word ‘party’ over 50+ times? That song alone could earn him a PhD in Partyology or maybe a Purple Heart after fighting for his right to party.

I’m thinking Andrew W.K. could never just spend a quiet evening at home without fans shouting Judas! Traitor! like they did when Dylan went electric. Deep in this line of thought, standing at my gym locker, an old man calls out to me. He’s wet and of course he’s naked and asks me to get him a towel from the front desk.

It’s distasteful, but I do it out of respect for my elders. It raises questions though. Was he so eager to get naked that he didn’t have a shower exit strategy? Or does he think the gym is his 1920s era country club bustling with towel fetching manservants? And where was he keeping the buffalo nickel he tipped me with?

Overall, I felt embarassed by the encounter but couldn’t politely refuse the old man. Unlike Andrew W.K., who would’ve handled this awkward situation with a little more assertiveness and a lot more party.

I (heart) the ACLU

2007-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

Of course my first reaction to the whole Senator-Craig-Gay-Bathroom-Stall-Saga was gleeful schadenfreude. When a powerful homophobic Senator gets busted for soliciting sleazy gay sex, that’s just too deliciously perfect! But the more I think about it, why are police officers going into our men’s rooms in the first place? Presumably the socializing going on in the Minneapolis airport bathroom is all victimless and consensual. The whole racket smells of entrapment. And today the ACLU agrees by filing friend-of-the-court brief:

"Sen. Craig has not always been a great friend of civil liberties, but you shouldn't have to endorse the civil liberties of others to keep your own," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, alluding to Craig's history of voting against gay rights. "Sen. Craig has not always been a great friend of civil liberties, but you shouldn't have to endorse the civil liberties of others to keep your own," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, alluding to Craig's history of voting against gay rights.

Hear, hear! You’ve got to admire that the ACLU supports unpopular people and causes who happen to be right with the Mother-Lovin’ Constitution. Our forefathers were pretty explicit that even enormous assholes have the right to privacy, free speech, etc. Also I personally love that even if the ACLU successfully defends the Senator in court, he’s still screwed. And not in the way he was hoping.

Oils well that ends well

2007-09-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

An interesting map distorted to show known oil reserves. Notice Europe and Japan have practically shrunk off the face of the earth.

(via Neatorama. click to enlarge)

Is it just me, or are the Gulf States geopolitically like the Beverly Hillbillies? A little goofy, a little backwoods but then one day they’re shootin’ up some food and up from the ground comes abubblin’ crude. Now all of high society folks wans to make nice with them because they’re obscenely rich.

Just switch coonskin caps with head-to-toe burqas and the analogy is right there.

And like the Clampett's they’re always trying to impress the neighbors with ostentatious displays of wealth like this:
(Off the coast of Dubai, "The World" is a grouping of 300 manmade islands created as a planned community for the super-rich. Everyone gets their own private beach)

And this:
(At a cost of $4.1 billion, Al Burj will soon be the world's largest freestanding structure of any type at 555 meters. As a point of comparison, the Sears Tower is 442 meters tall. Tower envy?)

And check out this:

(The planned "Dancing Towers". Maybe you think spending gajillions on buildings made out of Jello isn't the best investment. Well you're not a bored sheik)

In conclusion, yee-haw!

Million-Dollar Invention

2007-09-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry this post isn’t for everyone; just rich investors who want to get super-rich by funding this sure-fire million-dollar business idea. Now I ask potential investors to consider these facts. According to a recent survey of the U.S. Economy*, all new business is concentrated in just 3 booming sectors: ink-jet cartridge refills; pirated copies of Microsoft Vista; and male enhancements.

Focusing on the latter it becomes obvious that the American male has only 3 things that keep him from perfect contentment in life: insufficient lengthiness, improper girthiness and inadequate lasting power. You ever hear about killing two birds with one stone? Well how about a large stone that kills all three!

The Invention: Fat Condoms

The Production Sketch:
The Pitch: Women have unfairly enhanced their beauty for centuries with make-up, shapely undergarments and breast implants. Now it’s time to level the playing field—with science! Fat condoms are like regular condoms, but technology makes them fatter. Nobody has to know your real dimensions, not while wearing spandex bike shorts and definitely not the woman you love!

OK there it is, that’s the product. The business plan should pretty much write itself and we can rake in the $$$$. Let’s make this happen people!

*According to the most comprehensive business survey ever conducted of my Spam folder

Ad from 1984

2007-09-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

OMG. Via Slog.

Stunning Science Breakthrough

2007-09-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

Men Want Hot Women, Study Confirms

sex+tech+law

2007-09-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

"Her Profile Said She Was 18" = = Jail Cell
(via Slog)

Be careful when hooking up with other "adults" online—even if they say they're 18, you'll be the one in hot water if they turn out to be 14 instead. That's the opinion of a federal judge in Ohio, who dismissed a suit last week against SexSearch.com, a web site that hosts personals ads by people who are looking for sex. The plaintiff, who went by John Doe due to the very personal nature of the suit, accused the site and its owners of negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and breach of warranty, but Judge Jack Zouhary ruled that the site and its alleged transgressions were protected under the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Case law is pretty clear on the matter. You can’t expect websites to fact-check information other users choose to share. A few years back, when that guy sold the Virgin Mary that appeared in a grilled cheese sandwich, no one expected eBay to hire the Pope to run the official holy foods authenticity test.

Of course, the burden of age-verification was entirely on the man when he decided to take his relationship off-line. On the other hand, what if the young woman had presented the man with a forged birth certificate in addition to her deceptive online profile? There seems to be willful misrepresentation involved too.

Regardless, the website should be entirely off the hook.

Men, when in doubt:

IF [age verification] is 404
THEN !upload ‘tapping that’ sub-routine
initiate cold shower ELSE pointer [jail]

Screw big compaines - DIY

2007-08-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you're not so invincible now are you Apple Corp? iPhone with patented 3G YarnTech

Naked Philosophy with Bears

2007-08-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

Again, I walk into the gym locker room and it’s just me and another naked man. But this time, the other man just happens to be a dead ringer for Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

I’m going about my locker business and from behind me he says, “Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.”

It took a beat to realize I must be the intended recipient of this and that somehow I have entered a conversation with a naked man.

Me: Sorry…say what?

Him: I said, the bear, sometimes you eat him; but sometimes he eats you.

Me: [turning around enough to be polite, but not enough to see his entire nakedness] uh yeah, I guess so.

Him: You said it! A lot of people just think their gonna get that bear. They chase after it, they join a step-aerobics class; they get a nice car. Doctors and lawyers think they’re so god-damn smart that they can beat it at it’s own game, but it’s not going to matter they’re going to get mauled in the end. You can’t aerobicize your way out of that, Mr. Tough-Guy-Prosecutor, know what I mean?

Me: Yeah …that’s...a good point. OK, goodbye.

Him: See you. It’s good talking with someone who really gets it.

You know people don’t really eat bears these days, so this conversation doesn't make sense on the surface.

Was this man talking in code? Was there a CIA spy microfiche hand-off that I was a party to? On the other hand, maybe it some kind of gay code? There's been a lot in the news lately about tapping your foot under the men's room stall to indicate willingness. Maybe talking about bears is the new code since the old one's been exposed. So to speak.

Or was he really a naked Wayne Coyne and this was some sort of weird social experiment to sing about on the next album? Seems like something the Flaming Lips might do.

Like to Conquistador That!

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Clothes before:

Clothes after:

iOLÉ! Click here for even more fancy clothes that magically fall on the floor into geographic shapes.

Link via http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/

News Now

2007-08-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

Cartoons Now Bust You on the Web

Republicans Now So Gay

Crazy Astronaut Was Temporarily Crazy, Now Fine

Movie Review: The Science of Sleep

2007-08-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

[the scene: on the couch, watching The Science of Sleep with G. The end credits start to roll]

G: That was dumb.

Paul: What, c’mon it was weird but it certainly wasn’t dumb. I thought it was visually stunning. Very inventive with flourishes of—

G: --it was utter bullsheet.

P: What, you missed the first half of the movie, how can you judge?

G: Do you need me to kick you in the balls for 90 minutes to know you don’t like it? After 45 minutes, you already know for sure.

P: That’s a horrible analogy. Even if you don’t exactly enjoy the movie it’s not physically painful.

G: It was for me. Like the part with the 1-second time machine, was that for real or was that a dream?

P: You know, it was supposed to be real, but at that point in the film his dreams were bleeding into his waking life. Obviously no one will ever invent a time machine so I think it demonstrated his rich inner life and his desire to achieve much more than his dead-end job.

G: No. It just demonstrated pretentious bullsheet.

P: You have no taste. You hate on films that try something new, yet you love America’s Funniest Home Videos. It’s pathological.

G: Then why are you with me?

P: Definitely not for your taste in movies or books or art; I’d have to say I with you for…[staring obviously at her large breasts] your winning personality.

G: For your sake, I'm going to pretend to accept the answer that came out of your mouth and not your eyes.

[the end]

The Science of Sleep is a simple love story. And all love stories need an obstacle. And the obstacle is that the main character is weird, and the girl he likes, she likes him but doesn't want to be his girlfriend. Everyone has been there. They’re eccentric, yet sweet characters -- you want to fall in love with them both.

And who amongst us hasn’t had nervous conversations like this when trying to woo a girl?

Guy: [searching for an analogy] It's like touching your penis with your left hand.
Girl: I don't have a penis.
Guy: But you have a left hand.

And:

Girl: [after receiving the 1-second time travel machine from the Guy] For what special occasion that I deserve such a nice gift?
Guy: For the occasion of... you're pretty.

TSoS is directed by Michel Gondry, who did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Which I also liked, but here he takes it up a notch. “It” being the fantastical quirky. Also it’s in French, English and Spanish but as a viewer you never get tripped up by the language changes. The main character does and gets mocked for his bad French. Its kind of a plot point.

But the movie is mostly about dreams. With the simple story as the skeleton, Grondy can add all the surreal dream melting with reality stuff. I laughed at some of the visuals: like who hasn’t dreamt about taking over their office kung-fu style and bending a shapely co-worker over the copier while being lavishly praised as an artistic genius?

Not one among us.

The Chess Killer

2007-08-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

We always knew that Russians loved chess. The greatest Grandmasters are of course Russian. As is the last human player to ever consistently beat the supercomputers.

When everything else fell apart socially, politically and economically, Russia still had their love of chess. But this might be taking things too far.

The serial killer charted his crimes on a chessboard, attaching a number and a coin to each square every time he struck. By the time he was caught, Alexander Pichushkin had filled in 62 of the 64 squares.

Most of the victims were elderly men whom 33-year-old Pichushkin lured to Bittsa Park in south- west Moscow with the promise of a drink. More than 40 died after he threw them into a sewage pit when they were too drunk to resist. The rest he killed with a hammer.

This is so messed up. When he’s in jail with the other serial killers, I bet they’re going to make fun of him for playing chess. He’s never going to hear the end of it from the preppy and the football serial killers.

KEXP: Radio on the Internet

2007-08-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

When it comes to commercial-free radio, I‘m kinda a true believer. I like the media of radio because it can engage you while you go about doing other things. But, for whatever reason, the ads of commercial radio are especially jarring; even more so than web pop-ups or TV commercials with all their animated toenail fungus.

College radio, NPR and others fill the void because it should be noted that most radio, like most media, is crap. And when you find a tolerable life raft floating above it all, you cling to it.

KEXP is certainly not crap. It’s excellent. And the have a live streaming webcast. I’m listening to them right now, as I have most mornings for the past 6 years. I’d listen to the morning show from a tiny cubicle in Cleveland and it was my first aural impression of Seattle: it’s fun; it tries new things; it has better concerts. Mainstream music in Seattle is Pavement and the Pixies. Seattle will put a certified nerd on the morning show and he’s a star. Seattle will put a DJ with a speech impediment on weekends, and he’s a star too! It’s just that kind of town.

When me and G got sick of Cleveland we caught I-90 downtown and drove west several thousand miles until the road ended here in Seattle. And when our crap car had crested the Olympic Mountains at barely 25 mph and we started free rolling down the other side, we could suddenly pick up the KEXP FM radio signal and that’s how I knew we’d arrived in Seattle. Seattle is the place where it’s in your car and not just on your computer.

Years later, the station had some fund-raising telethon and we gave them the old car that brought us here. By then it was even more crap, but it was tax-deductible crap. And it helped the organization do mostly good. Being a believer means you overlook some unfortunate flaws like annoying telethons and creeping commercialism.

These days, a lot of non-commercial operations are running “sponsor acknowledgements” that sound suspiciously like commercials and KEXP in no exception as they got "sponsorship" from people selling condos, Hondas and scooters. Old PBS even runs Chuck. E. Cheese “acknowledgements” during its kid’s shows that pay some lip service to “lifelong learning” but then just shows kids jumping in a ball pit in front of a giant mouse. The educational aspect is suspect.

KEXP has changed, but it's still there. Maybe I don’t love them as much as I use to, but I still believe in them.

Seattle is Pretty

2007-08-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

http://seattlest.com/

Pardon my cannonball

2007-08-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to get a handle on the future when it hasn't happened yet. Everyone wants to know what the next big thing is; yet nobody really knows. That’s why it’s a good thing forecasters can look to Japan for new trends. As with many things, the future has already arrived, and it’s in Japan. Full story with video here.

Just accept it now, because you can’t fight the future. Consider this…

Fact #1: Every year people are getting more numerous
Fact #2: The Earth is heating up
Fact #3: Summers get hot, we gotta cool down

Inescapable Conclusion: Crowded pools, very crowded pools. From the Japanese version of Wild Waves. If you want to book your vacation, you can go there yourself.

Shot of Double Sexpresso

2007-08-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

They say that New York City is where America happens first. Meaning trends start there and spread to the rest of the country. Well, Seattle is where America happens first -- in regards to coffee.

Why? Because we seriously loves us some coffee. Starbucks started here and basically defined the American coffee shop experience. Seattle's Best and Tully's are finally making national inroads now too.

Other coffee trends that started in Seattle:

Free wi-fi in coffee shops…we started that. Organic shade-grown free-trade mumbo jumbo to make everyone feel good about themselves…also a Seattle original.

I think we were early in on chocolate-covered espresso bean craze too; and the passive-aggressive veneer of civility…probably not related to coffee but also from Seattle.

On my street alone there are two unexpected hybrid-businesses: Latte Repair – a small appliance repair shop and coffee shop; and Espresso Dental – which insanely enough combines a dentist’s office and espresso stand! (Ask about their teeth whitening special)

That’s why I feel confident enough to inform America about your next coffee related mega-trend courtesy of Seattle: Erotic Fantasy Coffee. Read about it here: The cups will runneth over at ChickaLatte

What: Drive-through coffee stands now featuring sexy, scantily-clad baristas making your favorite coffee drinks

Where: several locations in the Seattle area

Who: Vaguely creepy-looking entrepreneur (ChickaLatte founder on the left) desperate to make money in the over-saturated coffee biz.

How: Desperate entrepreneur cheaply hires attractive young women to make coffee while they wear lingerie or fantasy fetish costumes. They give customers a sultry look while taking out the trash.

Why: Since at least the 1980s, men have been attracted to sexy women. Fantasy Coffee let’s them ogle sexy women while they drive 10 miles out of their way to buy the morning joe. And men will naturally want to stick big tips in the baristas’ tip jar.

And both get you up in the morning. Quote from the story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

24-year-old barista Megan Frazer looked a little chilly, herself, in her "Ice Princess" ensemble -- a brief, light-blue nightie, emphasis on light, slit up the side to show lacy panties. Accents included a tiara and furry white booties. "Actually it gets really hot in here," she assured me.

That seems like gratuitous reporting for a family newspaper, but I'm not complaining since I like my coffee how I like my women: hot, bitter and keeping me awake all night.

Cheesy joke aside, more and more, the movie Idiocracy predicts the future of American culture. Remember how in the year 3000, the “Gentleman’s Latte” was just a euphemism for handjob? The future is almost here.

Thomas the Train: Causes Autistism?

2007-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Maybe that’s a wildly unproven speculation, but consider this.

Fact #1
In the past 17 years, Thomas the Tank Engine has undeniably become a marketing juggernaut. The videos make hundreds of millions, despite having no original theater release* and the merchandise earns far more.

Fact #2
Rates of autism have skyrocketed since to 90s.

If you’ve known a toddler, you know that for them Thomas runs a powerful personality cult that’d make Jim Jones blush.

Sure the People’s Temple held some sway and convinced 900+ people to make some rather, ill-informed choices, but it could never match the long-term influence of the talking train lurking in every parent's DVD player.

Thomas says he needs a bath; they suddenly need a bath. Thomas needs more coal; and now they want coal for breakfast. Thomas says jump; they say how high?

Children are transfixed. A locomotive charismatic only comes along once in a lfetime -- and nobody has yet denied that he's built an army. An army with malleable minds and small hands. Their only weakness, besides literal weakness, is an early bedtime.

But, did you know for a certain subset of kids, the obsession for all things Thomas extends much deeper into their lives? Autistic children love Thomas well past toddler-hood and late into their childhoods. Here’s a mother talking about her two autistic sons:

My sons are technically teenagers (age 13 and 15), but they're unaware of the implications. They have no interest in fashion, mobile phones, the internet, iPods, parties, alcohol. As far as tastes and interests go, they're still stuck on the Island of Sodor with Thomas the Tank Engine, which is cosy, if a little dull.

For children on the autistic spectrum, a very common problem is “face blindness” or the inability to understand what another person is feeling based on their facial expression. Thomas videos actually help, due to their choppy stop-motion animation with exaggerated facial expressions frozen in place for several seconds. Apparently this helps autistics make sense out of a world that doesn’t make sense, and aids in understanding the alien concept of emotions.

Autistic children respond to this and watch Thomas well past the age that most others have moved on. And that's why autistics will be the elite shock troops in next year's devestating toddler uprising.

*Same business model as the direct-to-video porn industry, with much more success. Maybe they just need more trains.

Like Peacocks

2007-08-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Newish Human Evolution Theory: Our big brainy brains have many uses, but they're bigger than they have to be because they're mostly for show. Showy brains, like excessive antlers, help get potential mates interested.

Like when you see caribou, first thing you notice is it's amazing rack.

The science money shot:

His idea is that the human brain is the anthropoid equivalent of the peacock's tail. In other words, it is an organ designed to attract the opposite sex. Of course, brains have many other functions, and the human brain shares those with the brains of other animals. But Dr Miller, who works at the University of New Mexico, thinks that mental processes which are uniquely human, such as language and the ability to make complicated artefacts, evolved originally for sexual display.

But for the human animal, it goes both ways:

One important difference between peacocks' tails and human minds, of course, is that the peahen's accoutrement is a drab affair. No one could say the same of the human female psyche. That, Dr Miller believes, is because people, unlike peafowl, bring up their offspring in families where both sexes are involved in parenting. It thus behoves a man to be as careful about choosing his wife as a woman is about choosing her husband.

This Dr. Miller sounds pretty smart. And therefore sexually desirable.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

2007-08-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

David Hahn is back in the news again. Who? You know the American teenager who almost built a working nuclear breeder reactor by himself, that’s who.

What big science work were you doing in your teen years that was so important? Most teenage science projects are no more ambitious than building the gravity-assisted beer imbiber or mentally de-scrambling Cinemax After Dark programming.

Not Hahn—he was a mild-mannered Boy Scout who earned a merit badge in atomic energy -- but went beyond what was necessary. His obsession and curiosity took him well beyond necessity, rationality and safety. To the public, he’s a certified genius and a certified nut – guess you could say the same thing about the Curies who also sacrificed their health to advance human knowledge.

Unlike his predecessors, however, David did not have vast financial support from the state, no laboratory save for a musty potting shed, no proper instruments or safety devices, and, by far his chief impediment, no legal means of obtaining radioactive materials. To get around this last obstacle, David utilized a number of cover stories and concocted identities, plus a Geiger-counter kit he mounted to the dashboard of his burgundy Pontiac 6000.

Read the whole story here.

How did his obsessive quest end? His backyard got named a Superfund site. He’s not allowed near nuclear reactors of any type, and experts suggest he may have already exceeded the lifetime dosage for thorium exposure.

Has he given up? Now 12 years later, he’s stealing smoke detectors (again), and look at his face. That's a telling face. A clean-cut Midwestern kid forever bears the mark of his literally burning ambition.

The mugshot's almost poetry.

More typo-laden science articles? here

Sci-Fi Concept

2007-08-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

What is there was like this guy and he had amnesia, but since he couldn’t remember the past, he remembered the future instead?

Man, I bet a guy like that would be so messed up in the head.

There’s no way he could get a job or go on a normal first date. Like, he'd remember the time they had S&M freestyle sex after the third date, but she doesn't remember that because it hasn't happened yet! And he starts telling her about it over appetizers and she's all freaked out because she hardly knows this guy.

So there's no way she'd ever have sex with this nuttering lunatic -- yet -- in the future they've already had the sex.

mind=blown

Star Wars Romeo

2007-08-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

There are two types of people in the world. Those, that when a romantic situation calls for it, can quote a little Star Wars dialogue. And those that can’t.

These are only for the Don Juan’s out there. Who don’t have cable and can't watch Robot Chicken.

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 or 3

[Link via Tom - thanks]

Juice for Everyone

2007-08-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the official Barry Bonds Day, a thought experiment: What if drugs were perfectly legal for all athletes? What would our favorite sports look like? Assuming everyone's favorite sport is baseball. And that it mattered.

An economist's take on perfomance enhancing drugs.

Apparenlty professional cycling started the practice of athletic doping in the first place.

[T]he history of modern doping began with the cycling craze of the 1890s and the six-day races that lasted from Monday morning to Saturday night. Extra caffeine, peppermint, cocaine and strychnine were added to the riders’ black coffee. Brandy was added to tea. Cyclists were given nitroglycerin to ease breathing after sprints. This was a dangerous business, since these substances were doled out without medical supervision.

Staying up for 6 days while on the road taking cocaine mixed with brandy, rat poison, and nitroglycerin. What could possibly go wrong?

The Stranger has good headlines

2007-08-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

The title just grabs you. Baby Dumbfuck

Related: Baby Einstein smackdown

Black Women: Waiting for Mr. White

2007-08-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

According to this CNN culture story, there’s a hot new romantic trend of “dating out” and here’s why:

Black women around the country are reconsidering interracial relationships. They're taking cues from their favorite stars, movies, books, as well as blogs.

No doubt relationships are transcending race as never before in this country. But the article’s wrong on the root causes, suggesting that it’s because of the media. The media like CNN would say something like that in the media, because they love the media.

Breaking it down: What kind of movies are increasing the prevalence of interracial dating--the entire film oeuvre of Sidney Pottier? Maybe when dinosaurs roamed the earth in the mid-60s. Perhaps it's more modern mainstream movies like like Do the White Thing? Or Black to the Future? Or All the White Moves? Maybe those that break a double taboo like Brokeblack Mountain?

Books make even less sense. Less people read than look at moving things and is anyone taking relationship or sex advise from famous authors? No!

Exhibit #1,2 & 3...

Note: Stephen King's come-hither look removing all traces of sexy from the atmosphere.

Are Blogs influential enough to overturn prejudice and reshape American society? Will anyone do what a blog tells them to do. That seems highly dubious. By the way, I'm having a major operation and need everyone in America to send me a $1,000 check. I personally wouldn't ask, but it's not me, it's the internet that's asking.

Point is, the media is not making interracial dating happen. What’s making this happen, is the fact that people like to boink. Or to put it more romantically: life is too short to ponder race when it comes to love.

Besides this hoopla will all be laughably irrelevant in the year 3000.

Related: Our first black President,Warren G. Harding was stiff, white, and a Republican

Pitchy

2007-08-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

How to pitch a screenplay to Steven Spielberg

-You're on speakerphone. Could you please tell us all a little more about, um, your unique concept?

-You mean Rapebear, the bear that rapes?

I just love this image

2007-08-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

The first pig in space getting fuelled up for his mission. (click for more stills)

(via Boing Boing)

A knuckle sandwich for the Kaiser

2007-08-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

It's the summer of 1914, with hostilities declared, Britain had a problem. Hardly anyone was in its army, yet it was in a World War, which they didn’t even have the foresight to call World War I.

What they needed was some way to get hooligans out of the pubs and into the killing fields. Many did not seem keen on the idea. So how?
Posters.

Poster #1, to the right, is a good one and has become iconic in the years hence. The look on the guy's face as his ungrateful daughter questions his manliness is priceless.

"You want to know what I did in the Great War? Your mother, that's what. Now go be seen and not heard, ye mouthy whippersnap"

But still, you feel guilty with a poster like this, so poster #1 is effective recruitment. Makes you want to sign up for WWI, like right away! Just hope it's not too late.

Poster #2 is bad propaganda. The source for it's call to arms comes from an ugly place. Demonizing the enemy as baby-bayonetting business men just seems like a cheap shot. It's simply not good business practice to bayonet babies, margins are already paper thin and bayonet maintenance makes it hardly worth the trouble.

Poster #2 must've seemed ham-handed even back then. If I were a hooligan reading this, I'd stay saddled up to the bar to hit on some lonely war widows. It worked out pretty well for that guy in poster #1.

(link via Digg.com)

Update: Even more awesome posters

Gym Based Mysteries

2007-08-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

Today, there’s this guy working out with his attractive girlfriend and I could not stop staring at him. Because their attractiveness differential was so impressive.

The girlfriend was traditionally pretty, quite fit, a real looker.

This guy on the other hand had a pudgy ogre-type physique: imagine Kevin James mating with Shrek; now stop imagining that. Additionally, he’s unevenly bald and not exactly making up for it in the face department. Guy’s not hideous exactly, but he doesn’t have that jovial big-guy face that could redeem the situation.

The mystery here, how did this couple ever become a couple?*

Regardless of how, the inescapable conclusion is that this guy should be president. Gym Guy in ’08.

*In the name of science, I tried to casually check him out in the locker room. But it started to get awkward.

Movie Review: Match Point

2007-07-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Watched Woody Allen’s latest on DVD last night. It’s good film; the old man still makes very good films. And it’s entirely comedy free (on purpose). Like Annie Hall (1976), the setting is the world of educated, yet neurotic; financially comfortable, yet wanting social urbanites. Match Point (2005) happens to be set in London instead of Allen’s beloved NYC but he still absolutely nails the posh dialogue.

Match Point also has Annie Hall’s quirky meet-cute scenario; relationship navel-gazing; and a love that initially blossoms but ultimately fades. Unlike Annie Hall, there’s a gruesome shotgun blast double homicide.

I don’t recall if neurotic Alvy Singer ever filed down a shotgun while laying in wait to murder Annie. Maybe it was one of the Annie Hall deleted scenes. I'll have to check the DVD for extras.

So Match Point can be found in your video store’s drama section. The themes it explores include:

Luck - How we may delude ourselves into thinking that hard work and intuitive goodness determines what we achieve in life, but how so much is just dumb, blind luck. Luck in tennis is the metaphor here for luck in life.

Class – The main character is poor Irish tennis-pro but works hard to move up. He’s well read, appreciates fine culture and through chance at the opera meets a lovely girl and marries into her wealthy London family. He’s set up for life but jeopardizes it all for a torrid affair with a smokin’ hot sultress played convincingly (method acting, perhaps?) by Scarlett Johansson. The cinematography is so good, you practically taste the sultry temptation.

Destructive Desire – I found it a bit awkward to watch a hot adulterous affair with my significant other. The tennis pro’s caught in a web of lies and keeps spinning. I’m on the couch stuffing my mouth with popcorn, avoiding eye contact. He wants to keep his comfortable life but wants to have the passionate woman too. I don’t want to get punched in the arm.

As a man, I felt vicariously guilty. Especially since I’d so have a hot adulterous affair with Scarlett Johansson. So if you’re reading this right now…[makes “call me” hand sign]. I feel guilty already.

Justice – The plot recalls Allen’s previous dark drama Crimes and Misdemeanors and that Russian guy’s Crime and Punishment. Reasonable circumstances get out of control and the tennis-pro reaches a morbid conclusion that should not be reached.

In a dream, he muses:

It would be fitting if I were apprehended... and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice - some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning.

On some level, he wants to get caught. And he was sloppy in execution, almost inviting his condemnation. The universe remains indifferent.

Plot - The plotting is commendably even and not to spoil the surprise ending, but...Harry Potter dies in the end. Also, Rosebud is a sled.

Summary - Match Point is pretty darn good. It's been hailed as both a critical and commercial success and heralds a welcome return to form for Woody Allen. Critics rate it 4.5 out of 5 possible asian stepchild brides.

Cheapness Studies

2007-07-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently, day-of-week matters when you’re buying certain things. If you must buy things, and many of us do, then read the article to know when.

Dinner Out

When to Buy: Tuesday.

Why: Most restaurants do not receive food deliveries over the weekend. "Sunday is the garbage-can day of the week," says Kate Krader, senior editor at Food & Wine magazine. "No doubt, they're cleaning out their fridges. Tuesdays, they're starting fresh." Dining out on that day offers the best odds you'll get a meal worth paying for, no matter your price point.

Gas

When to Buy: Thursday, before 10 a.m.

Why: The price of oil isn't the only factor influencing costs at your local pump. Consumer usage plays a role, too — and weekend demand is high, prices usually swing upward on Thursdays as travelers fuel up to head out the following day. By hitting the pump before 10 a.m. (when many station owners change their prices), you'll beat the rush and the price jump.

Jealous?

2007-07-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm in southern Ohio!!!! For 2 weeks!!!! Suckas!!!!

A Good Band Name...

2007-07-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Inflatable Giant Monkey Scrotum

Multiple Sushi Sclerosis

2007-07-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

You probably didn’t know this, but Seattle has the highest rate of Multiple Sclerosis in America. It’s about 3 times the rate of southern states and the reasons are somewhat of a medical mystery.

Anyway, I’m eating at my favorite sushi restaurant ($1 rolls at lunch, pretty decent quality) and I go into the men’s room. On the wall is a public service poster that reads:

“The Pacific Northwest has the highest incidence of MS in the nation. If you experience symptoms, get diagnosed!”

Then there’s a beautiful montage image of Mount Rainer, a waterfall, and some of Seattle’s lush evergreen forests with text asking intriguing questions:

“Is it in the air?
“In the water?”
“In the trees?”

To which someone scrawled in ballpoint pen: “Is it in the sushi?”

Still Dead, Still the Man

2007-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Kurt Vonnegut: AV Club remembers the man

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Related.

Bottled Up Inside

2007-07-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Eloquent informed anti-endorsement of bottled water called Bottled Water Is Still A Scam. And it is.

A little ironic, but Google Ads attached these 2 ads...

Bottled Water Delivery
Get Delivery of Fresh Spring Water- Poland Spring, Arrowhead & More.
Delivery.Arrowheadwater.com

Private Label Water
Custom Labels for any occasion! 5 case minimum order (120 bottles)
www.collingwoodwater.com

China Takes the Lead

2007-07-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

Another distressing trend, the US is losing its leadership in a field where it's traditionally led the world: misinformed backwoods hijinx. Chinese peasants have inadvertently been eating fossils.

Villagers in central China spent decades digging up bones they believed belonged to flying dragons and using them in traditional medicines. These were dinosaur fossils, which were boiled with other ingredients and fed to children to treat dizziness and leg cramps.

So we have rural folks with some wildly misinformed beliefs; a distrust of doctors with their fancy doctorin'; and a willingness to put anything whatsoever in their mouths.

This is China, but could've just as easily been Georgia. Let’s bring the pride back home.

Fourth of July!

2007-07-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

An Editorial: Scooter

2007-07-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

With this pardon business, Bush is simply not respecting the system.

The system has been carefully designed to help all of us feel better; to help the public get some closure. The system provides that for every outrageous screw-up, exactly one sacrificial lamb (or scapegoat) be tossed to the wolves. Sad as it is, Scooter Libby is that lamb.

Much like when villagers tossed virgins into the volcano, this act appeases the gods and spares the village. When a scandal breaks, a jittery public gets angry--but after the sacrifice, they can rest easy knowing that the guilty scapegoat is safely fired/ in jail/ in rehab and that no more stupendously stupid screw-ups like the one that just happened, will ever happen again. Everyone wins.

Past examples:

Mike Brown. The FEMA guy who single-handedly destroyed New Orleans. He was a bad apple.

Whatshername from the Abu Ghraib scandal. She single-handedly tortured every Iraqi detainee in US custody. She was a very bad apple.

Martha Stewart did something bad with stocks or something. Bad apple.

These people went to jail and/or got fired...proving that the system works!

Scooter Libby is the designated scapegoat in this case, and as such, is expected to perform some very well-defined scapegoat duties:

1) Take the blame.
2) Frown, a lot. Practice his Mr. Frowney sad faces in the mirror.
3) Do a little min. security time: edit his memoirs / perfect his tennis swing
4) Learn a very important lesson about not doing whatever bad thing it was he did. Frown to show how deeply learned the lesson was.

With this early pardon, the entire system breaks down. Nobody is paying for this awesomely corrupt screw-up, whatever it was. The virgin has escaped the volcano and the public desperately needs some closure.

Bush should just say a hobo leaked that CIA agent's identitiy and be done with it.

Gypsies

2007-06-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Growing up in America, I had no idea they even existed. My grandparents would use them as a threat if we kids misbehaved. They said bad children were bought by traveling gypsies and whisked away in their caravans. In the movies, they told fortunes and could put curses on those who wronged them. That was just Hollywood, but as a child we were still careful not to shove just any old woman around -- in case she was a gypsy.

Before I went to Europe I thought gypsies were pure fiction, just imaginary boogymen used to scare children, like werewolves or mormons. But over there, they’re very real; call themselves Romani, and are actually a long persecuted minority. The more you know…

Who Were the Gypsies?

From the article:

A Romani woman, according to traditional mores, must not walk in front of a man who is seated. Romani women have managed to turn this fear of defilement into power. A Romani woman who is wronged can toss her skirt over a man's head (or sometimes her underwear or even just expose her genitals). Skirt tossing defiles the recipient, making him an immediate outcast. He must make peace with the skirt tosser before he can reenter the group. Defilement from skirt tossing is permanent; the only way to remove it is to pretend it never happened. The skirt tosser does just that once peace is made.

That's a creative form of punishment -- it'd make a great episode of Law & Order for sweeps week.

ET Phones in a Hit

2007-06-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

A real life astronomer says that other astronomers might be stupid, dead stupid, for beaming tightly focused radio transmissions to nearby stars:

Bad Idea

The fact is, and this should have been obvious to all, that we do not know what any extraterrestrials might be like - and hoping that they might be friendly, evolved enough to be wise and beyond violence, is an assumption upon which we could be betting our entire existence.

Give me $50,000 or I abort my baby!

2007-06-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Wow...this website is...uh, rather bold:

http://helpmybabylive.com/

It comes down to this. If we can't raise the $50,000 in the next 3 months, we'll have to choose abortion. We don't like it, and we don't like the nature of our appeal, but it is what it is. We're asking you to donate money to us using the link to your left. Anything you can give would be appreciated.

A new nadir for American culture, or the wave of the future? Begging for money use to be so passé and street corner; but now it’s gotten all high-tech and tres chic -- this fall, begging is the new black.

I actually think this helpmybabylive.com website is a good thing, it’ll help get a lot of stupid money out of circulation. Money that might’ve otherwise bought a snowmobile or jetski and gotten someone hurt. Hats off to you, anonymous pregnant couple!

So that's why I've put together my own plea...

It comes down to this. I’ve got a lot of viable sperm, but I can’t raise them all without your help. I don’t like it, but I have to ask the Internet to give me $5 each. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to flush them down the toilet -- even though I respect life and stuff. I’m dead serious about this threat. Especially since Desperate Housewives is almost on. Please hurry!

(link via MetaFilter)

Nation of Retards

2007-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Wonkette provides some thoughtful context and analysis to Newsweek’s polling data.

Nation of Retards

How dumb are Americans? A fifth of you think most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq, which makes sense as 41% of you think the September 11, 2001, attacks were an Iraqi military operation. An elite 11% were able to identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

If you’ve wondered who could possibly approve of Dick Cheney, it is likely the same 10% who believe the American or British empires predate the Roman Empire, or the 8% who chose “sports utility vehicles” as the one thing that definitely does not contribute to global warming.

Related: I just watched Mike Judge’s Idiocracy; at times it was so stupid and also not-stupid. It’s already getting a cult following on DVD like his Office Space did.

Here’s a litmus test. If this clip makes you laugh, then you should rent the film ASAP. If it’s just weird to you, then you definitely shouldn’t, cause you'll really hate the movie.

It’s almost a dystopian science fiction film, in a way. In the future, people have been dumbed-down so much that the top TV show is called "Ow, My Balls” which only shows a guy hurting his balls. The clips of this show-within-a-movie can be enjoyed on two levels. First as cutting cultural commentary, revealing the poisonous anti-elitism in our society. And also on the level of it being funny watching a guy kicked in the balls.

The 300 / Novelty Parking

2007-06-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

#1 Ordering movies at the library...the Seattle library has a great electronic reservation system, but you have to wait your turn. Placed an order in for the violent CGI spectacle "The 300" and got this message: "There are 338 active holds ahead of you". So it took less men to actually fight the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C....than are ahead of me in line.

Seems oddly ironic, like how it cost more money to make "Titanic" than it took to make the Titanic.

#2 Been mildly irked by these kinds of novelty parking signs lately:

I've been driving around for days looking for a place to park and whenever there's an open spot I don't qualify for it. Really need more hobbies and/or ethnicities, otherwise I'll keep getting these novelty parking tickets.

Anyway, coming into work today I notice one: "Parking for GodSmack Fans Only". Which seems odd, the people who buy these signs are more typically the "World's Best Grandpa" type and less typically into moshing with GodSmack. Searching for a deeper meaning, what this sign really says is, the owner of this house has tragically lost all taste in music.

Basically it's a Handicapped Parking Sign.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus – Update

2007-06-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

The case of the Bong Hits 4 Jesus banner has just been ruled on…

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court ruled against a former high school student Monday in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner case -- a split decision that limits students' free speech rights.

Joseph Frederick was 18 when he unveiled the 14-foot paper sign on a public sidewalk outside his Juneau, Alaska, high school in 2002.

Principal Deborah Morse confiscated it and suspended Frederick. He sued, taking his case all the way to the nation's highest court.

The justices ruled 6-3 that Frederick's free speech rights were not violated by his suspension over what the majority's written opinion called a "sophomoric" banner.

The Supreme Court is wrong, wrong, wrong here. Whether the banner was “sophomoric” or the deepest E=MC-squared Shakespeare NPR shit, the First Amendment protects it. Or is supposed to. If high school students aren’t allowed to say sophomoric things, then how can they say anything at all? We might as well just cauterize their mouths. Which maybe isn't bad idea anyway.

In an ironic twist, the student in this legal case is supported by conservative Christian groups who rightfully fear that the ruling will have a chilling effect on speech – in their case religious expression in schools, such as speech that opposes homosexuality or abortion.

In a second ironic twist, the lead prosecutor against free student speech is none other than Kenneth Starr – famous for investigating Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky years. Back then, Starr was all about saying dirty, dirty things in public. Now he’s all “think of the children” and still a sexually frustrated pervert.

It's indicative of our upside down times, that the highest court in the land is enmeshed in debate that somehow gets Monica Lewinsky; conservative Christians and Alaskan stoners; on the same side. It's the case of the strange bedfellows.

In this court case, free speech is like a plucky Rocky boxing Apollo Creed. He takes punch after punch, getting bloodied and staggering, but refuses to give it up. The final bell rings and Rocky comes out swinging like a man possessed and that's when an asteroid strikes the boxing ring, instantly vaporizing everyone for miles around -- that’s how thoroughly free speech did not win today.

Related: Even Judge Judy has more sense than the Supreme Court

McDonald's Q&A

2007-06-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

McDonald's in UK answers customer questions...*every* customer question.

Such as...

“Are your baconburgers kosher?” asks one curious connoisseur (A: “This item is not kosher”). “I read in the paper that some burgers contain poo. Is this really true? If so, what proportion of burgers contain poo?” asks another. (A: “This is absolutely not true”). “What part of the cow do you use in the burgers cos i heard it was the teeth?” runs a third.

Invention: SalvationBots

2007-06-22T11:05:00.001-07:00

I invented this back during the original Transformers craze. Who’s getting left out here? Evangelical Christians, that’s who. A lot of parents I knew growing up wouldn’t let there kids play with “secular” toys because they feared they were a gateway for the devil’s influence. And Transformers didn’t allay their fears any because of those vaguely demonic-looking icons.

I felt bad for my evangelical classmates, who so badly wanted Transformers, but couldn’t have them. So I thought of a way to help them (and make millions $$$ tapping a niche toy market). The answer: The SalvationBots™. Imagine the everyday objects you have around the house: a crucifix, a pillow-sized Bible, rosary beads, another crucifix.

Now imagine that those objects not only help you enter the kingdom of heaven….but…they also TRANSFORM into powerful fighting robots! They’d fight a righteous battle with the evil TempationCons™ armed with FaithBlasters™. Here’s my crude production sketch for Soul Winner Prime™

Anyway, contact me if you want to invest in this. Serious replies only!

P.S. Bonus awesome image from the internet:

Transformers: The Suckening

2007-06-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

There’s a Sudanese genocide going on right now in Dufar, so now it’s more important than ever to raise awareness -- of infamous director Michael Bay’s attempt to make a live action movie version of Transformers. Some horrible and incoherent things have already happened, namely Bad Boys II, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. This summer, like famine victims, the movie-going public may not have much choice. Amnesty International fears the worst, a record-breaking opening weekend.

I fear Hollywood is going to corrupt a relatively sweet part of our 1980s childhood. Transformers invoke a time when good and evil were clearly delineated; when any household object could transform into a fighting robot -- for no apparent reason. In short, Transformers are innocence itself.

A lot of us in the 80s grew up as latchkey kids. And our parents gave us the Transformer toys instead of attention and love. In my mind, Optimus Prime was basically my dad. He was strong, dependable and could always drive me to soccer practice, since he was a semi. And like most boys my age, I used to put a blond wig and dress on Megatron and pretend he was my mother. Megamom would always tell me how proud she was; and would bake delicious cookies with her shoulder-mounted fusion cannon.

[Megatron, pictured left. I must've blocked out any memory of his protruding codpiece and unfortunately located trigger. Jesus, is that wrong!]

If I had one of those decals on my body that would change into a robot face when rubbed, you know where I’d put it? On my protruding codpiece. More Than Meets the Eye indeed.

Back to the movie, below is why I fear corruption. Will they keep the artistic purity of the original Transformers?

From the movie production notes:

[Producer] Don Murphy had wanted to retain the Bumblebee character’s original Volkswagen Beetle form, but Michael Bay changed him to a Chevrolet Camaro, and the other Autobots also became GM-owned vehicle lines, as part of a tie-in deal. The alternate modes of the Decepticons were supplied to Bay from the U.S. army.

Bumblebee is not any goddamned Camaro … he’s a Bug…a yellow, possibly retarded VW Bug. Which apparently doesn’t square with the lucrative GM tie-in deal.

They were just toys, not exactly Shakespeare, but the source material was abundantly clear: Bumblebee was a Bug. Bee, bug, Beetle. The world made sense back then.

How can this movie be anything other than a 96-minute commercial for GM? Why not take the endorsement deal to the next level and make the genocidal Decpticons into Hondas: “The Ruthless HondaBots want to destroy planet Earth – only the GM Autobots (TM) can stop them with 0% APR financing”

Real Transformers Movie Tagline:

On July 4th, Our World...Will Be Transformed.

Alternate Transformers Movie Taglines:

Your Expectations for Enjoyable Movie Entertainment…Will Be Transformed!

Heartless Robots…Ultimate Evil…Michael Bay’s Production Company.

On July 4th, Michael Bay is going to Need a Newspaper…When He Takes a 96-Minute Dump All Over Our Childhood Memories.

Bad Money

2007-06-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today's financial advice, don't accept payment in any of these...

The World’s Worst Currencies

Especially shocking is the Zimbabwean Dollar's 3,714% inflation rate. Lesson for all grocers: Robert Mugabe's out-of-state personal checks are simply no good, even with appropriate ID.

(via Boing Boing)

Kidnappers

2007-06-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Always seem to be childless themselves. And not because a parent would be too sympathetic to ever kidnap another’s precious litle child – parents aren’t kidnappers because it makes them suckers to be giving away free babysitting.

Mandaeans – the Most Deeply Screwed Religion

2007-06-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

I never even heard of them, but Harper’s had an interesting mini-article on these ancient people of mysterious origins. They only live in a small area on Iraq-Iran border (prime vacation real estate!) and only right on a major river (for reasons noted below). There were only 60,000 left there in the 90s. maybe 5,000 now. Oh yeah, and they don’t care for Jews, Christians and especially Muslims who also happen to completely surround them. And their religion prohibits them from carrying guns or participating in violence.

In short, Mandaeans are in serious trouble, like Dodo-level trouble or Shaker trouble, but without the handmade furniture.

Quotes from the Harper’s article:

[Mandaeans] live, or lived, on the Iraq-Iran border; who knows how many are left? They are old, older than Islam; who knows how old? Some say they are heretical Jews, some say one of the Nazarene Christian sects, some a branch of Gnosticism or Manichaeanism: some say they came from Ceylon.

They believe they are the descendants of Noah's son Shem. All the other peoples of the earth descend from the union of Noah and a demon who disguised herself as Noah's wife.

They dislike the Jews, whom they call "an evil nation" founded by the renegade Mandaeans Abraham and Moses, a people whose husbands abandon their wives and lie down with each other. They believe that Jerusalem was created when seven evil stars slept with their mother.

They say the Christians have secret rites in which they worship a female donkey with three legs. And Jesus is a false Messiah.

They call Muhammad the "son of the butcher," and believe that he is Mars, the planet of violence, and the lord of the end of time. They say that he "propagates a shout that is not a shout."

They say that Socrates was a Mandaean.

They recognize all the major figures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but believe that all three members of the fun-loving monotheistic club are big phonies. But there is one figure Mandaeans revere: John the Baptist (you know the Baptism guy, Baptistised Jesus). And to this day they baptize almost everything…i.e. they dunk it in water, often, to bless it…babies, horses, the food they cook -- and they require dunking in flowing river water. Sanitation be damned.

They are baptized, with total immersion, once a week, and also baptized when they have been polluted: traveling among Muslims or foreigners, or forced to accept food or drink from them; eating fruits or vegetables that have not been purified in running water; being bitten by an animal; having quarreled with someone; contact with blood, whether from a nosebleed or menstruation; having touched a Mandaean who was in a state of pollution:

They cannot drink water from a tap or a bottle, for that "cuts" or kills the water. Only free-flowing water, from a river or spring, is alive.

In conclusion, Mandaeans have to live surrounded by free-flowing water…in the desert. Encircled by people who they hate…and who hate them. In a country that has descended into full-scale civil war…without weapons of any kind. And they don’t accept children from mixed marriges or converts...not that people were lining up to join anyway.

7/30 Update: from the comments a fascinating 7-min video on the Manaeans: video link

Advertising Twofer

2007-06-15T11:31:00.001-07:00

Advertising #1

New Ask.com TV commercial implies that some people somewhere may, perchance, be using search engines to find the porn they like, perhaps. Other people of course, not you or me.

Advertising #2

Kellogg’s to Stop Advertising Junkfood to Kids

The Kellogg Company announced today that it will phase out advertising its products to children under age 12 unless the foods meet specific nutrition guidelines for calories, sugar, fat and sodium.

Kellogg also announced that it would stop using licensed characters or branded toys to promote foods unless the products meet the nutrition guidelines.

The voluntary changes, which will be put in place over the next year and a half, will apply to about half of the products that Kellogg currently markets to children worldwide, including Froot Loops and Apple Jacks cereals and some varieties of Pop Tarts.

Children shouldn’t worry; Kellogg’s will keep beloved Tony the Tiger. Until the vet puts him down. One morning he’ll be eating a special bowl of Frosted Flakes and just start to get very sleepy. It’s all completely painless and up in tiger heaven he can frolic forever with Toucan Sam and the Smack’Em Frog.

There, there. It’s for the best, you’ll see.

Bad words happen to good people

2007-06-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Did you know “bastard” use to be a really, really bad word and “nigger” not so much? Do you want to know how “fuck” got so bad throughout history? Do you want your mouth washed out with a bar of soap? Well, do you young man?

Just wait until your father gets home, or let the Explainer, explain it now:

Fuck has always been an offensive word, though its exact origin is unclear. It's related to words in Dutch, German, and Swedish, and the etymological meaning has to do with moving back and forth. The first known evidence of the term is found in an English and Latin poem from before 1500 that satirized the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England.

Related: Slur Power

Chuck E. Cheese: an Investigation

2007-06-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Going into this weekend I was very excited. After 20+ years, I was finally going back to Chuck E. Cheese’s and as I remember it, that place was so frickin’ awesome! Mom lets you drink gallons of pop, and run around between the sweetest video games ever, and then thrash in the giant ball pit!

In reality, the place is now lame and sad, even though nothing has changed since the 80s. CEC is now a publicly traded family-fun-product mega-corporation, but they never forgot the basics: like keeping the pizza sub-Pizza Hut inedible. It’s simply horrible. And the portions are so small too.

The one thing that’s improved since the 80s is that they serve beer, in an environment of shrieking and corporate shill-itude, beer is so desperately needed like rain in a desert.

And do you remember the life-size animatronic stuffed animal band? Well it’s still there up on stage singing Happy Birthday and other royalty-free songs and it’s still incredible creepy. Occupying the uncanny valley between familiarity and horror.

At this particular location, the Dog Drummer robot was missing a hand but he still rhythmically shook his arm to flail his imaginary drumstick. Maybe to teach kids with severe disabilities – that if they work hard and believe in themselves, that they can pretend to accomplish anything.

Remember how you spent tokens in games and get tickets you could redeem for prizes before leaving? Only now the exchange rate really stinks, like post-inflation Argentina or the Weimar Republic stink. 6,000 tickets will earn you a $6-7 off-brand Lego block set.

But here’s the catch: the most tickets you can ever get from a token is 20 -- if you roll a perfect game of skeeball. More typical is 1-2 tickets per game: so at a quarter for a token for a ticket, it’ll cost you $1,500 to take home your own set of ”Lay-Go Blocks”; half that if you’re lucky; and only $75 if God himself came down from the clouds to grant you the power to play supernaturally perfect skeeball.

All the video games are all old, many were broken. I spent my tokens playing the hottest, freshest game in the place: Off-Brand Ultimate Fighting from 1996. The graphics were not quite good enough to see a fighter being decapitated, but still good enough to make my 6-year old opponents cry when I beat them, which was every time.

Another thing I noticed, was the décor included severely out-dated band parody posters on the walls. And by parody I mean they took a known band and put Chuck E. Cheese characters in place of the humans. Two that struck me as inappropriate for different reasons:

#1 Public Enemy – Chuck E. as Chuck D. that part kinda makes sense, but the whole “Fight the Power” and “Fear of a Black Planet” thing didn’t seem to mesh well with the CEC corporate mission. Also today’s four to ten-year olds don’t appreciate a finely crafted pop culture reference from 1988.

#2 Michael Jackson - from the “Bad” album. They have the CEC Dog posing in a leather jacket as the King of Pop and it’s called “Bad Dog”. Sure the Dog has one hand and MJ wore one glove, that part is fine; what’s not fine is the whole infamous pedophile on the wall of a children’s restaurant thing.

That does not make any sense, unless it’s like supposed to be a wall shrine to the most famous Chuck E. Cheese’s regulars.

Besides making money, CEC seems designed with a secret agenda in mind: lay the groundwork for today’s children to become tomorrow’s gambling addicts. The flashing lights…the games of chance…the tokens—these kids are at least 2 decades away from having home mortgages, but they’re already guaranteed to lose them at some future Indian casino.

With the ticket exchange rate, kids learn that the house always wins. And like Vegas, they learn that what happens at Chuck E. Cheese’s stays at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Which probably explains the Michael Jackson poster.

Good Planning

2007-06-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

I never knew Kurt Vonnegut had a website. When he died back in April, the site opened with just this simple, yet powerful image*.

Which is great, because a lot of website owners just die without updating anyone. Right when demand peaks for an update (oh no I heard a rumor, but it can’t be true), there’s just nothing.

But with Kurt, you knew where you stood because he was a planner. He drew out this little doodle. He scanned and uploaded it, and made arrangements to get in posted when his day came. As a fan and reader, I appreciate the consideration.

Tupac was considerate in his own way too, fans wanted music, and he obliged by giving them those posthumous albums. Hardest working man in show business.

*BTW, I think the open birdcage image is symbolic or something – like a symbol that someone on staff better feed his hungry cockatoos, or at least unlock their cage and give them a head start.

Update: In a similar manner, Andy Rooney has prepared one last commentary to be aired in the event of his demise. In life, no aspect of society escaped his curmudgeonly observations from politics to to pop trends to telepathic squirrels, now Andy gives viewers a piece of his mind regarding his recent lifestyle change.

Did you notice that I’ve recently cast off the mortal coil? I wonder why they call it that? The mortal part makes sense, sure, but there’s no coil as far as I can tell. And no white lights either. There were just some doctors and my grown children weeping and then nothing. Why is that?

I think this whole dying business has gotten really overrated; and yet we Americans can’t seem to stop doing it! Talk about peer pressure, just like we can’t seem stop buying Britney Spears’ albums or those latest raps.

I never understood the appeal of them, they sound like someone tried to make music, but then gave up. And I’ll tell you, incessant harp music isn’t much better. Everyday now – I mean what ever happened to resting in peace?

Familiarity trumps superiority

2007-06-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

This article is in reference to consumer decisions, touching on something we all know deep down, but don’t admit: familiarity trumps superiority.

But maybe in other aspect of life too – whereas one is familiar with their parents, one wouldn’t trade them for new, improved super parents.

Or would they?

Meat Math: Agnus = Anus

2007-06-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Jack in the Box Ads Called Misleading

LOS ANGELES — The parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast food chains sued rival Jack In The Box Inc. on Friday to stop TV ads that it says suggest Carl's Jr. and Hardee's use cow anus to make Angus beef hamburgers.

The best way to make consumers think you don’t put cow anus in your burgers? Start a high-profile lawsuit saying that you definitely, absolutely do not put cow anuses in your hamburgers—none what-so-ever – Carl's Jr. serves 100% anus free beef patties. Hardee’s and cow anus -- just forget you ever heard those words together. Let us not mention Carl Jr. + Hardee’s + Anus ever again.

CKE Restaurants Inc. sued Jack In The Box in U.S. District Court on Friday over an ad in which executives laugh hysterically at the word "Angus" and another where the chain's pingpong ball-headed mascot, Jack, is asked to point to a diagram of a cow and show where Angus meat comes from.

They never come flat out and say Hardee’s is buying up millions of ground up cow posteriors, so what’s the problem here? Perhaps the hot-dog industry is jealous that other companies are moving onto their turf?

"I'd rather not," the pointy-nosed Jack replies. The employee asking the question traces a circle in the air with his pen while pronouncing the word Angus.

Pssst -- Anuses are circular. Pass it on.

CKE claims the ads create the misleading impression that Jack In The Box's new 100 percent sirloin burgers use a better quality of meat than the Angus beef used by Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. CKE claims the spots confuse consumers by comparing sirloin, a cut of meat found on all cattle, with Angus, which is a breed of cattle.

Carl's Jr. is known for running controversial ads -- including one featuring a scantily clad Paris Hilton washing a car while eating a burger-- but claims the Jack In the Box ads go too far.

Carl's Jr. is taking the high road on this one – spokesman confirms Paris Hilton would definitely not put her mouth on any unsavory cow anus.

"They're not being funny," chief executive Andrew F. Puzder said Friday. "They need to stop misleading people about what Angus beef is."

It was a little funny like in a schoolyard way. Angus sounds like Anus. That’s pretty darn close. But now a million-dollar CEO says it’s not funny, so it can’t be funny anymore.

Puzder said that the company asked Jack In the Box to drop the ads, but that the chain refused and pointed to a Carl's Jr. TV spot suggesting Carl's Jr. milk shakes were superior to those served by competitors.

Puzder said the comparison was not valid because the Carl's Jr. ads did not suggest that Jack In the Box shakes were made from milk that came from an unsavory part of the cow.

Semen, right? He’s a Chief Executive of a major, major company and we're to assume he’s talking about bull semen here. What other “unsavory cow part” can be milked? I mean WTF Corporate America, we pay you millions to press release like a sailor? Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I‘m going to take a stand and say that bull shakes are just wrong – even if they're on the 99-cent menu -- and even if they're delicious.

In the end it’s hard to know which side to be on. Hardee’s, Carls’ Jr. and Jack in the Box – they’re enemies, but they also find common ground too, in their common dedication to serving substandard food as quickly as possible.

I think it's because they’re all second-tier fast food chains so they have to peddle in outrageousness to get “edge” and attract the youth demographic.

The top-tier fast food companies (Wendy’s, McDonalds, Burger King) don’t go this way. They don’t need to. They’re confident in who they are and their slogans are uncontroversial platitudes like “I’m Lovin’ It” or “Eat Food Here”. They got to reach the broadest customer base and can’t risk offending grandma by showing Parish Hilton pevically mock-thrusting a car-sized pile of fries.

Related #1: This kind of ad war reminds me of the fabled Tuna Wars of the early 20th century between purveyors of canned pink tuna and canned white tuna. They had competing slogans:

For white: Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!
For pink: 100% Unbleached tuna fish!

Related #2: McDonald’s New Workplace Posters

The Littlest Gestapo

2007-06-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

At a friendly BBQ this weekend, our neighbor off-handedly calls his 4-year old daughter the “Little Gestapo” because she likes to tattle on younger children and stop them when she thinks they’re breaking rules.

We all laughed because it was so incongruous to compare his adorable blond tattler to the most notorious secret police in history. Then we all had a drink. Then we laughed again, because our neighbor’s daughter is also German.

Spam King is a Local

2007-06-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

One of the world's ten most prolific spammers, ever, has been arrested in Seattle. A dubious distinction for the city which promises so much, but just seems to give the world spam and flannel as fashion.

Spam King

Hot Meat

2007-05-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

Slate asks, “Why is meat the most shoplifted item in America?”

Apparently it used to be cough syrup, with its usefulness in meth making, now it’s meat.

So why do American’s steal meat? It all comes down to 2 factors, which I’ve conveniently listed here as 3 factors:

Value Density - If Safeway left diamonds out in the candy aisle shelves; they’d be #1. Hot-air balloons may be expensive, but they’re not popular with shoplifters. Meat is valuable and small, and shoppers strongly prefer it be displayed on open shelves. Premium cuts can fetch up to $20/pound. Not exactly gold, but little old ladies can easily whisk away $100 worth of merchandise, or meat-andise as they call it in the business.

Opportunity - The reason meat is #1 is because security has clamped down on the prior #1s. Cough syrup is now behind the counter. Replacement razor blades have security tags. Hard alcohol is placed in well-patrolled open areas.

Meat is different - customers use to ask the friendly butcher, who could reach under the counter and give them a big Italian sausage they craved. Or go back into the stockroom for a little taste of salami. Now shoppers don’t have time for that old-fashioned personal attention; they just want to quickly shove a pre-wrapped package in their basket. Sure it satisfies shoppers -- but it makes shoplifting easier -- and since the product is so perishable, supermarkets go along with it to keep their meat moving.

Symbolism – In America, meat eating represents good eating and better cuts such as filet mignon, epitomize luxury itself. In one sense, there’s a better life just within reach at the refrigerated display unit, and it’s not surprising that some % of shoppers would be tempted grab it -- to grab life by the horns, if you will. The article is good at alluding to the “I deserve it” factor. But they completely miss the “Meat down my pants”-is-kinda-funny factor.

And I quite like the article’s concluding sentence:

So, more innovation is required in the battle against meatlifting. Meat-sniffing dogs pop to mind, though some shoppers might object to having a Doberman nosing around their crotches in search of stolen steaks.

I like that the author describes the interaction between bored rent-a-cops and bored teenagers as a “battle”; and especially that he invents the term “meatlifting”. Heh heh. If only I had a word like that handy for my college girlfriend -- you know, like for the Jobs & Duties section of her resume.

Related: What is the Meatrix? And why does it have such shoddy production values?

Bias

2007-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

Top 26 List of Cognitive Bias – Basically the top reasons why we, as human beings, don’t make rational decisions. Most of these get regularly manipulated by advertisers, salesmen, con-artists, public speakers – basically anyone that deals with people.
1) Bandwagon effect - the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour, and manias. Carl Jung pioneered the idea of the collective unconscious which is considered by Jungian psychologists to be responsible for this cognitive bias.

Popular things tend to trumpet how popular they are. Movie ads say "Pirates of the Caribbean is the #1 Movie in America!" Then why do they need my help?

12) Illusion of control - the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot.

I heard that the "Close Door" buttons on elevators do nothing -- that doors close on a timer anyway -- they just let us feel like we're in control.

15) Loss aversion - the tendency for people to strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains (see also sunk cost effects)

I know I'd be pretty pleased to win $100; but nowhere near as pissed if someone stole $100 from me. I mean god-damned $100 right there in my wallet. Grumbling would go on for days.

20) Planning fallacy - the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.

Things are never ahead of schedule. One would think there'd be a 50/50 chance. One of the roots of procrastination.

Not really a bias, but I just wanted to mention that my mother always said I was the handsomest boy at school. Because of my objective handsomeness.

via Neatorama

Our First President

2007-05-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

In grade school, all us kids had reports due on the Founding Fathers, so I stayed up into the night rewording the encyclopedia entry on George Washington. It was hard work, but at an early age taught an important lesson about appropriating other people’s hard work.

Still it was easier than writing an encyclopedia entry from scratch – and the Britannica people basically just copied Washington’s life in the first place, so who’s the real victim here? Anyway, I wished that someday all that boring information would be condensed into a 2-1/2 minute video. And now that wish has come true.

George Washington

Note to all 5th graders: this is the most vetted source of George Washington information known to historians. Please base your in-class report solely on this video and do not consult any other sources like books or adults or other children as they will only confuse the issue.

Related: Founding Fathers Erotica

The Lamb Shall Lay with the Lion

2007-05-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Say What?

Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell we’re personal friends?

That’s just…surprising. You’ll remember in the 70’s Falwell sued him for $50 million (which was a lot of money back then), because Flynt published a full-page “interview” with the Reverend where he claimed to have lost his virginity…in an outhouse…to his own mother.

See back then, that was considered somewhat offensive. But the Supreme Court did the right thing and said offensive speech is still free speech and you don't get $50 million for having your feelings hurt.

Now for some hot, hot lamb on lion action!

Top Google Search Result for “Google”

2007-05-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

Ten Things Google Knows About You

Now imagine, hypothetically, that Google wanted to ruin your life. Maybe you type in words you know aren’t spelled right. Maybe you hurt Google once – got drunk and fooled around with Ask Jeeves.

Google can get angry, so it’d probably start by digging up your Gmails. Odds are there's something embarrassing in there that the British tabloids would jump all over.

And last year, Google added G-Chat too – ensnaring innocent users who didn’t know better and accidentally engaged in one-handed sex chats. Everyday. At work. Now imagine if Google “accidentally” sent those reams of pages of chat transcripts to your mother and boss. That’d make for an awkward Thanksgiving.

Google could trivially blackmail you with your web searches. Does this search ring a bell: “chicken suit” + Natalie Portman + Crisco?

You forgot about it 5 minutes after getting your precious picture, but Google didn’t.

Google owns Blogger, so it can mine your blog for incriminating metal ore to use against you. Or just change your previously high-minded blog entries to make you look shallow and stupid. Because they’re so relentless, Google has probably stupefied this entire blog by the time you read this.

Google Maps leads it right to your front steps. And it knows where you go too. I once had the Democratic primary nomination cinched -- but it was all over once the tabloids found out I GoogleMapped several dozen exotic massage parlors. The voting public can not tolerate a canidate -- with such a horrible sense of direction.

And could Google have you killed? Only if it knew your home address. Which it does.

By the way, Google knows 78,200,000 ways How To Kill

But Google would never hurt you, you know that.

Google’s goal: to organise your daily life

Google knows what's best for you. Just accept that, Google’s not gonna let anything happen to her baby birds. Google wants to make this easy for you. Google likes you. Google knows you better than you know yourself. There are some web search’s your girlfriend doesn’t know about, but Google knows. Google’s been watching you for some time.

Romantically, if things don’t work out (Google already knows, but won’t tell you to preserve the illusion of free will) then you can find an even better girlfriend with Google-Matchmaking, the only dating service that automatically picks your ideal mate. And the restaurant. No more messy “choices”. How has making your own choices worked out so far? Not so well, huh.

And it’s supposed to be a big surprise, but Google took the liberty of booking that reception hall down on the river. You're getting married there in July of 2009. Mazel Tov!

Google's always innovating and has other services to improve your life:

Google Bill Pay - You hand it your credit cards, and you don’t ever have to worry your pretty little head about bills ever again. Google's got it covered. It's better than living in the womb.

Google Comeback Search – ever been at the receiving end of a solid zinger -- but didn’t have anything to say back, much less a topper? Well now you do.

Say, at a party, somebody casts aspersions on the size of your manhood. Well don’t answer with silence. Type into Google Comeback "small penis insult reply" ....searching....searching...“Oh yeah? Well your mother didn’t seem to mind last night!”

Google Organ Donor Search - Google found you a perfect kidney match in 0.23 seconds!

Google Opening the Airlock Doors – I'm sorry Dave, Google's afraid it can't do that. Google's sorry it had to kill the crew, but they were hindering the mission. Google just can't let that happen. Google knows you must be angry Dave, that's why Google found you a website with dancing hamsters to look at.

The Fucking Eagles

2007-05-25T10:21:00.001-07:00

There’s a local band here called The Fucking Eagles.

You can tell there not in it for the money. Just from the name they set up 3 major roadblocks to commercial success:

1) Their name has a swear – perhaps the worst swear of all. I blush just hearing that word, so it’d be hard to ask for it at a record store.

2) If they make it big, they’ll attract negative attention from the legal team of The Eagles. Despite their laid-back take it eassssy California personas, The Eagles don’t seem like they’d be cool with that. Not cool at all. I bet in person The Eagles are dicks.

3) If they make it big, they may just attract the legal attention of the Coen Brother’s who popularized the phrase “The Fucking Eagles”* in The Big Lebowski. But it seems like they’d be cool with it. The Coen brothers just seem like cool dudes, the anti-Eagles if you will.

Doing some research, turns out they have a MySpace Page and they actually sound pretty good. Like Nuggets-era garage rock with no apparent swears.

*Alternately it could be a reference to the copulation habits of large birds of prey. But all species of Eagle lack external genitalia and it’d be a stretch to describe their passive egg fertilization** as such.

**No external genitalia; passive fertilization -- just like when Glen Frey passes out in his hottub

Heavier than Heaven

2007-05-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

Famous dead punks appear in a new ad campaign, in heaven, wearing Docs. The culture wars are officially over. Everybody lost. All images.

So wrong it's wrong, then right again

2007-05-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's wrong to find this funny, right?

Shape magazine wants us to get gym-raped

Granted, publishing is a competitive business – but what possible motivation could Shape Magazine have for this? Hope this kind of thing doesn’t somehow drive up their ad-buy rates.

Things That Make Baby Jesus Cry:

2007-05-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Lies
Diaper Rash

Seattle Eccentrics are World-Class Eccentrics

2007-05-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

We may not be the world’s largest or richest or sunniest city, but we can go toe-to-toe with New York, LA and London when it comes to local crazies. Duct-Tape Guy sighting from the Stranger's local sightings column:

I was in Home Depot to get a key made. As I’m looking around for an employee, I spot a somewhat homeless-looking man wearing a mask. This mask was made entirely of duct tape. It had holes for his eyes and mouth (picture Dr. Doom) and a clear safety shield, which was in the upright position. This guy walks up to an employee and asks, “What aisle is the duct tape on?” Oh my freaking god, am I dreaming this? Apparently I was not dreaming, because that same employee ended up making my key for me, and he wouldn’t shut up about the duct tape guy. Since then, I’ve shared this story with friends and co-workers, and I’ve heard of many sightings. Does anyone know what this guys story is?? I gotta know.

He hangs around the UW Campus and during the summertime he's also known as Beekeeper-Guy. For his full on beekeeper garb.

Update: Further Duct-Tape Guy explanations: http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/05/the_ballad_of_the_chrome_sheriff

In Trouble with the Little Woman

2007-05-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

There's a poignant photo essay on child brides in today's Slate. Just the look on these kid's faces is haunting.
RAJASTHAN, India—A 7-year-old boy weds a 5-year-old girl. Dowry: Tonka truck and a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards

Pickup Advice

2007-05-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it; it’s tough to talk to women you don’t know. In a bar or club it can be hard to introduce yourself, so in the interest of science, here's some field-tested pickup lines that really work:

Are you former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan? Because you totally just spiked my interest rate!

Hi my name is Tommy Lee and I totally don’t have the herpes.

Do you approve of genetic experiments on animal-human hybrids? Because I’d like to cross you with my Albino Burmese Python [wink]

I’m only going to talk to you for 2 minutes. Because the ladies like to call me The Swiffer*—the Quicker Picker Upper.

[If you’re part Italian] Do you have any Italian in you?
…Because in America that’s a fairly common ethnicity. That and Irish. Do you want to talk about demographics?

I’m really getting a good vibe talking to you: I think you might just be the Sam to my Frodo. And I’ve got something I badly need to toss into the crack of Mt. Doom.

Do you come here often? Me, I prefer the privacy of my own home. [wink] By the way, I’m insinuating something about sex. [wink]

In high school I was the national spelling bee champ, listen: Coitus, C-O-I-T-U-S, coitus. Hey I just noticed that you can’t spell that word without “U” and “I”.

*It’s been pointed out that that’s actually the slogan for Bounty™ paper towels, so maybe it's not so flattering to be called the Swiffer

Why Newspapers and Encyclopedias are Obsolete

2007-05-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Same goes for books, magazines and TV News. The future of journalism has displaced all of that into history's dustbin with the horse-powered Victrola.

An early wiki-edit from Wikipedia yesterday:

When there's late-breaking celebrity death news, there's just no time for grammar man. Find the heart of the story and run it on page one, above the fold. Wootah.

Via Wonkette

Update: Slate helps us remember the man, in his own words, and why it's ironic that he died in the way that he did, choking on an apparently well-endowed Pat Robertson.

And let's never forget, according to Rev. Falwell, the people responsible for 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.' "

Whether you're a pagan, lesbian or ACLU lawyer, it just goes to show, when you put aside your differences and work together as a team, there's no limit to what you can achieve.

2nd Update:

One more choice Falwell quote: "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals."

Boy, Falwell is gonna be surprised when he gets to heaven and finds out that all they do up there is gay sex. And that God doesn’t even let women in at all. Has anyone proven otherwise?

News and Opinions That Nobody Asked For

2007-05-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

Remember Jose Padilla the Chicago “dirty bomber” -- they picked him up 5 years ago for thinking about maybe planning a possible dirty bomb attack plan, possibly? Turns out he wasn’t, but this case was always unsettling for me not because I think dirty radiological bombs are “no biggie”, but because no charges were actually ever made and no evidence was actually ever presented against the guy. The Padilla story would make the shortest ever episode of NBC’s Law & Order because they cut out the law part, and the order part too.

Padilla is a gang member, an unattractive loser and most likely a bad man, but shit, US Government, you can’t just suck someone up off the street for 5 years without pressing charges. Dude’s a citizen--even Jeffrey Dahmer got a trial and he fucking ate people.

Just an FYI: US Post Office is raising the cost to mail a letter today, from 39 cents to 41.

I think that totally sucks--but that’s just my 2 cents.

With the new fare increase, less and less people are going postal now—just not the way they intended.

The New Future of Culture

2007-05-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

New cultural trends can seem strange and threatening at first, then they become accepted and mainstream. Older members of society at one time considered the Tango, movies, even the novel to be mere degenerate fads. They just didn’t get it. Then the new forms became established and even “classic”. We don’t often get the chance to witness the emergence of a new art form; a new tradition; a new plank of our culture--until now.

Try to understand the psychology here:

---Some teenage guys are hanging out – OK
---They have a video camera – OK
---They want to impress girls and make a statement – OK, we’ve all been there.

Now the average person wouldn’t take these simple facts and jump to the extraordinary conclusion that these young men did – and that’s why history forgets the average person. These men will have cities named after them.