In regards to yesterday's post, this comic says it without using words.
(click to enlarge your manhood)
I love the smug, confident expression on the guy in panel #4. And that in panel #5, even the smiling dog knows what's really going on.
Watching COPS on TV with G, they show a very messed up meth-family where the father tried to sell his kid for more meth. The kid was hooked too and had committed some petty crimes whereas the father was drunk and resisting arrest.
The Cops of COPS we’re way pissed because the suspect father ran. They always hate it when suspects run. The entire response squad had physiques between “big hefty” and “big fat” and were completely out of breath after the 1-block drunken chase.
After the episode, G says to me in 100% complete seriousness that we should adopt some meth-children. Or at least do some Big Brother/Big Sister program and take them to the movies, something to get them out of the meth-house.
G has a big heart, but that’s just pure crazy! As much as I’d like to hang out with a 13-year-old boy with a serious drug habit, I think that he might be…perhaps…a bit untrustworthy.
Spiderman 3 may be “this summer’s must-see rollercoaster thrill ride!”* But imagine how much more thrilling it’d be to sit in a darkened theater looking sideways to make sure you don’t get pick pocketed. Or stabbed in the kidney.
I think G misunderstood the whole point of the show. COPS is all about making you feel better about yourself--with the genuine satisfaction that comes watching how messed up other people are--not about making the world a better place.
*Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, who loves everything!!
[A tricked out Hummer H2 with dark windows pulls up to the red light in front of the bus stop]
Woman #1: Oooh look at Mr. Big Hummer over there. My psychology prof says that a truck like that indicates a classic overcompensation mechanism—a.k.a. he’s probably got a tiny penis.
Woman #2: Ha ha! You can’t argue with science. [she makes the “little sign” with her thumb and forefinger]
[The Hummer’s tinted window is lowering]
Woman #1: Oh shit, he saw you!
[Driver turns out to be a frumpy woman in her late-50s]
Woman #2: Uh, well even though that's a woman, she’s probably got a tiny penis anyway.
One of my frequent haunts in Cleveland was the Barking Spider tavern with famous outside picnic tables for sneaky underage pitcher drinkers. But even us sneaky underage drinkers had to go to the inside for the bathroom and I remember the Men’s Room having a nicely detailed, larger than life-size portrait of Captain America on the wall.
The Cap had his famous shield in one hand, but over the years, Sharpie vandals added a rather lovingly-drawn large rubber dildo into his other hand. I’m not familiar with the comic books, so I can’t say whether that was his weapon of choice or just part of an active social life.
In the post-9/11 years, Bathroom Capt. America got political. Sharpie word balloons were added to his mouth. I still remember him saying, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for the Terrorists!”
Someone added below, “How could you, Captain America, how could you?” The author seemed genuinely betrayed.
I wonder if he's still up there?
They’re expanding the highway next to the office. All manner of earthmovers have been buzzing around for the last month. Most of them are the standard Cat yellow. The rest are generic gray. But today, there was a special one: a bulldozer that was entirely lavender--with large pink protective bumpers.
Considering the macho culture of construction workers, it seemed odd, to say the least, that they’d procure equipment that looked like this. Like the Little Engine that Could, I imagine this very special bulldozer has a heartwarming back-story full of obstacles overcome; worthiness proven; and prejudices dispelled.
Construction Worker #1: We need a bulldozer to move this huge pile of gravel. Pronto! Or Christmas is cancelled.
Construction Worker #2: But the only bulldozer available is Renaldo, and he’s….he’s…you know [bends wrist]
Construction Worker #1: Godamnit! We’re not building no goddamned Judy Garland Museum here. If that gravel's not moved, the foreman’s going to fire us all! The entire crew’s gonna be jobless right before goddamneded Christmas. Before it gets cancelled.
[Renaldo starts his ignition and tries his hardest to move the impossible pile of gravel—he keeps trying and trying until he succeeds!]
Construction Worker #1: Well, I’ll be, scrappy little Renaldo really did it!
Construction Worker #2: Our jobs are saved! We in the construction industry will now reevaluate our deeply unfair hetero-normative assumptions.
[The construction workers, Renaldo, and a heterosexual cement mixer all come together to sing a haunting rendition of Silent Night, which fades into a techno remix of Cher’s “Believe”]
Coming to work this morning, I line up with a dozen other sleepy-eyed commuters to board the bus. An animated young guy, about 20, asks the woman in front for a quarter. He doesn’t look homeless or anything, in fact was dressed kind of trendy, so she gives it to him and he gets in line right behind her.
Cutting in line, but everyone’s too sleepy to care.
Animated young guy drops the quarter into the driver’s fare box and starts dancing to his seat.
“Hey, hey, hey!” the older driver shouts, “Bus fare is $2.50!”
Young man looks genuinely shocked; “What…are you sure? I thought fare was still 25 cents. Did the prices just go up?”
Driver responds, “Son -- it hasn’t been a quarter since before you were born, and before I was born. And I wasn’t born yesterday.”
In New York or Detroit, that’d be the exact moment when driver-foot pushes would-be rider body to the curb -- but this is Seattle, and the driver lets him ride.
Here’s an interesting slideshow on racism in historical advertising. Back in ye olden days, it used to be pretty common for companies slap a crude ethnic caricature on their product packaging to help shift units. Right or wrong*, this resonated with the buying public of past eras and some of their most famous brands would be unspeakable today.
There are a few vestiges left, most notably Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. The slideshow contains some pretty jaw-dropping ads.
*P.S. the answer is wrong
Limbo, for those not in the know is a halfway house between Heaven and Hell. It’s where babies who died before getting baptized go. They’re innocent, so they can’t go to Hell; but they also didn’t have a baptism for acceptance into the church, so they can’t really go to Heaven either. But there’s a solution: Limbo. Limbo is also where righteous people who lived before the time of Christ go: Adam, Eve, Moses, Socartes, Fred Flintsone--there all there—hanging out with millions of fetuses and premature babies.
Limbo solved some awkward dilemmas for the medieval church. Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven, but it looks really bad to say Moses and stillborn babies are roasting in Hell. It was supposed to be a pretty nice place, but not amazing like Heaven was. Probably only had basic cable, but souls confined to Limbo were said to be eternally content but wouldn’t know the over the top bliss of being one with God.
That worked well enough for 800 years or so, but last Friday the Vatican announced that Limbo was abolished. Gone. It’s like getting kicked out of a rent controlled apartment. Purgatory still exists as a Hell-Lite to work off your sins—but nobody wants to move there—souls suffer in torment and there’s no cable service at all.
Slate asks, what happens to all the babies who use to be in Limbo?
Raises some important questions: when celestial real estate gets bulldozed, where do the former tenants go? Are they flapping around homeless in the clouds? I’d imagine as eternal babies (or fetuses) they don’t have too many useful job skills and even less working experience on their resumes. Ex-Limbo dwellers are going to have a hard time getting back on their feet, assuming they had even developed feet.
U.S. troops used 'comfort women' after WWII
In post-war Japan, tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
Funny, I don’t remember Grandpa including this in his war stories.
Kaburagi wrote that occupation GIs paid upfront and were given tickets and condoms. The first RAA brothel, called Komachien -- The Babe Garden -- had 38 women, but due to high demand that was quickly increased to 100. Each woman serviced from 15 to 60 clients a day.
60 clients a day? Assuming a standard 8-hour workday with OSHA approved coffee breaks…that means servicing a serviceman every 8 minutes. Now who’s the real war hero? Most troops only got shot at a few times.
Bad ideas that got patents
I especially like the “Airbag Undershorts” that uses an accelerometer to keep you from bruising your posterior while falling down. The time has come.
Food poisoning is maybe the only way that men can experience something akin to the miraculous pains of childbirth.
On Monday, I got to experience the miracle, and it was so horrible I’d never want another child anywhere to be born, ever, including myself, just to make it stop.
