Rambling Rhodes

Your Thoughts Betray You

Darth Vader can read your mind.

Seriously, he guessed I was thinking of "toilet paper" after only 17 questions.

Bob Barker Was Deep Throat?

Who knew he was fucking_preview.jpg">deep throat?

Bwahahahaha!

Read the last comment to this old post. Made me laugh.

UPDATE: Hmm, a little Googling on Pilchard Designs yeilds no valid results. That, and the fact that www.p-designs.com turns up nothing, I don't think the commenter's claim is legit. It still made me laugh though, and that's all that's important.

And for you Minnesotans out there

This weekend, I'll be putting the final touches on helping Melissa move out of her apartment in the Cities. So, tonight, if you happen to find yourself at Ol' Mexico in Roseville, and you happen to be playing NTN trivia, and you happen to see one of the players has the handle "MULE," do your best to let him win. He'll appreciate it.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend all!

Shout Out To My Cousin

I have a cousin. His name is Skip. He has a small manhood, but he manages to use it to his advantage. He also owns his own business. It has a funny name. Home Knob and Handle. So, please, if you have a need for knobs or handles in your home, give Skip a call. Or an e-mail. And feel free to ridicule his manhood, because it really is rather pathetic.

Showing off my right side

By linking to an essay I really liked a lot.

Thanks to Doug for the heads up.

UPDATE: And, oh yeah, read both parts, you know, if that's your thing.

The Political Plight Of Philip Buster

The month of May was a time of great political strife in Washington D.C. Democrats clashed with Republicans in a battle of wills between the scrappy and eternally whiney minority party and the majority minions of the dark overlord, Karl Rove.

Caught in the middle of this political clash of titans was the up-until-recently relatively unknown politician by the name of Philip Buster.

Until May rolled around, Philip Buster was just an aging politician, known by both Democrats and Republicans as the old codger who sat towards the back of the Senate chamber who would occasionally engage in incredibly long and boring soliloquies that, though uncommon, were known to disrupt Congressional voting proceedings.

"I really don't understand what all the fuss was about," said Mr. Buster, during an exclusive interview with me last week. "It reminded me of that time, wayyyyyy back, I think it was in 1938, or maybe it was 1947. . . can't really recall. I remember that my wife at the time, Mabel, was having a tough time with the gout. She couldn't get around fer nothing. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, this whole uppity-up between the political parties about me this month. Wasn't that just something else? I couldn't figure out what they were all worried about. Actually, it made me remember that big thunderstorm back during The Great Depression, which, wasn't that a funny name for the Depression? There was nothing great about it, and. . . "

Through his long and undistinguished career as a party-independent representative of the American people, Philip Buster has attracted the ire of both Democrats and Republicans. During the Clinton administration, for example, many Democrats went on record, speaking against Philip Buster, saying that his presence in the Senate could disrupt voting on judicial nominees.

“I would object and fight against any Philip Buster on a judge, whether it is somebody I opposed or supported,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), back in June of 1998.

Mr. Buster recalls Leahy's comments with a nostalgic air today, saying "Oh that Leahy! What a character! Can he spin a yarn or what? Back when he was a boy, and I was just an old man, as opposed to the old, old, old man I am today, he used to sit on my lap and tell me all sorts of goofy little stories. You gotta love the mind of a child, there's so much imagination going on in there. Anyway, I didn't take his comments all that seriously back in 1998, because that was the style at the time, not unlike the style of the 1920s when you think about it. . ."

This time around, however, it was the Republicans who were looking to show Philip Buster the door. With a majority rule working for them in both the House and the Senate, the Republicans were eager to remove any potential impediment to President Bush's federal judge nominees, and they certainly didn't want to see Philip Buster shuffling his way slowly to the front of the Senate chamber to inflict upon the assembly longwinded tales about nothing at all.

The crises over Philip Buster subsided, however, after a deal was reached between the two parties which would allow Mr. Buster to remain in Congress. The Democrats saw the deal as a victory, while some Republicans felt betrayed by the leadership of their own party for allowing the deal. As for Philip Buster, he was optimistic overall.

"Oh, those Republicans will get over it," said Mr. Buster. "They're a good bunch of guys and gals. I sure did appreciate the Democrats going to bat for me though. That took moxie. Reminded me of that one time when I went fishing with Howard Taft. I fell plumb out of the boat, but that Taft, rotund as he was, he managed to fish my fool self out of that frigid water and back into the boat. We didn't catch much that day, crappies mostly, and a few perch. Oh, and I caught a cold, thanks to that frigid water and such. Of course, back then, catching a cold could have meant yer death, so I was kinda' worried. But, I got better and. . ."

UPDATE: Oh my God, I'm thinking like the people at The Onion.

Oh, For fuck's Sake

online.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html">The Downing Street Memo.

Is it legit? I have no idea. I certainly haven't found it in any other form than the one presented in the link. Was it an e-mail? An actual paper memo? A pdf? I don't know, and no one seems that interested in finding out.

Leaked on May 1, it was quite likely timed to coincide with the UK elections. It's filled with damning stuff, touching, coincidentally, on practically every major talking point floated up about the Iraq war. . . almost. . . preciently.

It's big news in Europe, and it should be getting more play here. One reason I suspect the media is wary over here is because leaked memos have been a media bane over the past year. Another reason is probably because it was a leaked UK memo, with such presumptive wording as It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action.

Should the memo be investigated? Yes, both to establish its authenticity (just ask Matthew Rycroft, the supposed author, for some confirmation, for crying out loud) and, following that, to take the Bush admin to task, because if it is authentic, it's a smoking gun.

I hope this post makes SOME PEOPLE HAPPY.

The Comment That Became a Post

I posted this as a comment over at Joshua's, but I think it warrants being a post here as well.

I'm just curious here, Joshua, but how many newsrooms have you been in? I mean, I'm not touting myself as a grizzled veteran of the newspaper newsroom. Hell, with about three years writing for newspapers under my belt, I know enough that it's terribly stressful work for terribly low pay. But, here's what I noticed in those few years; my co-workers were overwhelmingly liberal. The dismissive sneers bandied about regarding Republican office-holders, whether national or local, could practically be snatched from the air and stored in tupperware containers they were so tangible. You don't think that kind of bias doesn't sneak its way into news content? At least when it comes to conservative bias, such as that found in the Washington Post and Fox News, you don't have them pretending to be otherwise. newspapers like the New York Times and, more locally, The Star-Tribune, put themselves forth as bastions of non-biased news, when they quite obviously are anything but. When I cry foul about liberal bias, I'm not saying that news organizations consist of little Marxists advocating so-boner-pill-ism. I am saying that, given that newsrooms, by and large (again, from my experience, or phoney baloney streed cred; your choice) consist of staffers who bend to the left politically, their reporting and editorial content tend to reflect those leanings, despite their protestations. I believe that there is groupthink that exists in most newsrooms.

As an example, Time magazine last week ran a cover story about Bill Gates and the upcoming new XBox. This paragraph jumped out at me:

Bill Gates' time is valuable. There are Microsoft employees who wait their whole career to be alone with Gates for 45 minutes. As the richest man in the world and, arguably, the greatest philanthropist in history, at any given moment Gates could and probably should be off feeding the hungry or curing some horrible disease.

Why that whole thing about feeding the hungry and curing disease? It's been established that Gates is possibly the greatest philanthropist in history, yet the author opines that gates "probably should" be off doing more. Well, guess what? That's not Bill Gates' job. It was completely unnecessary editorializing on the part of the writer. And perhaps just as telling, that little bit about the hungry and curing disease made it through several tiers of editing. No one stopped and thought, "hmm, that part really doesn't belong there." I see that as a classic example of liberal groupthink in action in a news organization. Sure, it's a minor example, but I think it's indicative of a very real affliction in newsrooms today. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. But, again, from my phoney-baloney streed cred experience, I think my position is pretty well justified.

Sith Review

I saw it on Friday night. I can't really add much to the already voluminous reviews circulating in print and online. Besides, I'm not much of a movie critic. Hell, I loved "Troy," if that tells you anything.

Overall, I enjoyed it. The acting, as is the Lucas trademark, was stiff and unconvincing, and the romance scenes between Anakin and Padme are pretty much barf-tacular. Maybe it's just me, but when I hear something like "whatever you say, my love," I think to myself "does anybody in the expanse of the universe refer to their significant other as 'my love?'"

The good news is that the action sequences and the omnipresent CGI make up for the horrific dialogue. I was sitting there, basically thinking "did Anakin really just say 'now is when the fun begins?' Because that's really stupid and. . . holy shit! That's the coolest space battle I've ever seen on-screen!!!" That's basically how the whole movie went.

There were all sorts of little things I could pick at, but why bother? In the end, it's just a movie. Tearing at the details just seems pointless, and I'm not enough of a Star Wars geek to take it that seriously.

There was a part of me, however, that felt somewhat horrified when Anakin proclaimed his fealty to Palpatine. I mean, how could anyone pledge themselves to THAT? He looked like dripping mayonaise after his bout with Windu. And his voice. Just cough, man! Get that loogie out of there!

Oh, and one more thing. Of all the numerous reasons I have to dislike George Lucas, I can now officially add one more thing: Yoda scraping his talons on that piece of metal during his battle with Palpatine/Sidious. Holy fuck, that sound made me age 20 years.

Again, overall I enjoyed the movie, and hearing James Earl Jones speaking in Vader's cavernous voice made me feel 10 years old again. And the desperate look in Anakin's eyes as the mask sucked itself into position for the first time actually made me feel sorry for the fuckin' brat, if only just briefly.

Not a great movie, but definitely the best of the prequel series, and an adequate segue into the trilogy that has become an international phenomenon. I guess I'm just happy that Lucas didn't blow it entirely. At least his third one wasn't a strike-out. Sure, it wasn't a home-run; it was more of a ground-rule double. But, I'll take it.

Camel-Off!

Yes, today is the first-ever Rambling Rhodes Camel Toe Contest! Shown below are two camel toes, chosen completely at random from an e-mail I received from my sister-in-law, which consisted of the two pictures shown below. You can vote for your favorite camel toe in the comment section. Let the voting begin. . . NOW!

By the way. . .

If you're trying to pin some sort of political angle to the new Star Wars movie. If you're honestly considering the possibility that Anakin/Vader = Bush. If you think Yoda is somehow John Kerry. If you think Mace Windu may be a Jedi incarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. If you think Palpatine is a tongue-in-cheek slam on Wal-Mart. If you think Obi-Wan Kenobi has ideologies similar to President Bartlett on the West Wing. If you think the Jedi council is secretly an appreciative nod to the legalization of marijuana. If you think of the new Star Wars movie as anything other than a, well, MOVIE.

Man, you're probably not all that fun to be around in real life.

Strong I Am With The Force. . .Okay, I Just Stink

What follows is the dialogue that just transpired whilst I sat upon an IBM toilet next to the stall of another IBMer conducting a #2. Keep in mind here that I'm very uncomfortable when it comes to using office toilets for back door deliveries, and I only use them when it's kind of an emergency.

ME: *shuffling feet, reading eWeek*

GUY IN NEXT STALL: *shuffling feet*

TIME PASSES: *More of same*

*someone comes in to use the urinals*

URINAL USER: Wow, you guys, don't sit in there too much longer. It really smells in here.

ME: *Feeling uncomfortable* Well, we do our part.

URINAL USER: I can't place all the blame on you. A couple other guys stunk it up in here awhile ago.

GUY IN NEXT STALL: *muffled cough*

ME: *shuffling feet*

URINAL USER: Man, it's ripe in here!

ME: *I start to laugh and try to hold it in, resulting in a staccato flatulence, like a machine gun, which issues forth for about three seconds*

URINAL USER: You win! You win! *washes hands and exits*

I sat on that toilet until everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was gone.

Another Unfortunate Logo

Not as suggestive as some logos I've seen, but I could almost swear there's salad tossing going on here.

Via.

My Newsweek two cents

Newsweek screwed up. They went with a single source on a story, and that source later balked. Oops. Retraction. For me, that's pretty much the end of it. Other people can speculate on Newsweek's motives, or the White House response or what this means for the future of the media going forward. Personally, I have only a passing interest on this one.

Except for one little detail that keeps gnawing at me.

The Koran's a freakin' book! Yes, yes, I understand that there are cultural and religious aspects of this to take into account. Fine. Whatever. But man, it was a freakin' BOOK! People were rioting and killing because a freakin' book was supposedly fed into a crapper. I mean, Jeez. Forget for a moment the sheer power required of a toilet to suck down a religious tome. That's an entirely different issue.

I could take a Bible, tear it apart page by page, make paper airplanes out of each page, and throw each plane into a campfire, all the while taking pictures of the process, and post those pictures online, and I could be reasonably sure no riots would break out. Sure, I'd probably get a lot of hate mail, and people would tell me I'm going to hell, but I tend to think no one would die because of it. Why? Because it's a freakin' BOOK!

Yet, in the Middle East, a suicide bomber can detonate amongst a crowd of innocents, often with the bomber equipped with a Koran, and you'd hear nary a peep about that. Blowing up yourself, a Koran and several other devout Muslims in the name of Allah? That's understandable. An infidel flushes a Koran, and all hell breaks loose, including the killing of fellow Muslims.

I swear, I could live to be 5,000 years old, and I still wouldn't understand this screwy planet.

UPDATE: James Lileks chimes in on this issue as well.

Great. A new form of spam. Woo hoo.

I spend a little time each evening cleaning up my comment spam. I get anywhere between 5 and 15 comment spams each day, with some days going far beyond that. IP banning of those cock-knockers has become a somewhat satisfying pastime for me.

Then, today, I notice that this post has a trackback. I check the trackback and, lo and behold, I discover that it's spam. *sigh*

Trackback spam. Freakin' trackback spam. Who'da thunk it? I don't even know how they managed to get it to work. Aren't they supposed to link to my site in order for the trackback to show up on my blog? How the hell did they figure out how to do this? fuck it, I don't want to know. I just want it to stop.

I remember when blogging used to be fun, instead of a chore where I have to stay one step ahead of freakin' spammers.

Just a note to you spammers -- It doesn't work. People don't click on your obvious spams, except for the blogger who has to check your spam occasionally to see if it actually is spam. And then you get deleted (hopefully) and your spamming IP address gets banned. Links to your shitty shit in a comment spam are ignored 99.999999999 percent of the time. If people are into reading blogs, they're savvy enough to know a comment spam when they see one. Save the Internet, and your souls, by stopping your insidious spamming.

Seriously, Satan is just finishing up with his designs for a 10th circle of hell, specifically dedicated to e-mail, blog comment and blog trackback spammers. Because Satan and I are on good terms with one another, he gave me a sneak peek at the blueprints and, man, let me tell you, you will definitely not want to go there. I won't go into great detail, except to say the red hot anal poker subdivision looked particularly unpleasant: one ten second insertion for each individual spam you sent out during your lifetime.

And don't even talk to me about Satan's electronic automated groin-kicking machine. He was giggling the whole time he showed me how that thing works. It's obvious Satan is just itching to try it out. Woe be it to the first spammer to end up in hell, because Satan will no doubt practice and experiment with the groin-kicker for a good ten hours on that poor soul.

Seriously, spammers, it's time to get out of the business now. I've seen your future, and it is terrifying indeed.

ROTFLMFAO

Honest journalism:

"Britney and Kevin: Chaotic"

9 p.m., UPN
It seems like every "misunderstood" celebrity is doing a reality show these days, in some sort of effort to get her side of the story in the public eye. So it's no surprise that singer/actress/icon/Red Bull connoisseur Britney Spears, and her husband/baby daddy Kevin Federline, are taking to UPN to explain their brief courtship and surprise wedding -- using lots of home-video footage. In tonight's premiere, Spears focuses the camera on herself in between performances of her (short-lived) Onyx Hotel Tour in 2004. She finds back-up dancer Federline's honest opinions intriguing, and the two begin spending time together. I can't believe I'm actually writing this paragraph.

Yes, I deleted a post

I deleted that last post until I research the proposed gas tax a little more.

Now THAT'S Journalism!

Yahoo.com/s/afp/20050513/od_afp/afpentertainmentchina_050513172212">"Let's look at how it's doing ... it is okay!"

Next Week's Column, Slightly Edited

"Presenting News You May Have Missed," c. Ryan Rhodes, May 12, 2005

It is the job of today's mainstream media to bring you, the media
consuming public, the important news stories about current events that
could drastically affect your lives.

For example, over the past few weeks, we've learned all about a
runaway bride who faked her own disappearance due to cold feet about
her upcoming wedding. This was drastically important news that had
people glued to their televisions, and required the national terror
alert level to be elevated to red.

Also in the news recently was the nail-biting story of the woman who
put a severed human finger into her Wendy's chili and then tried to
turn around and sue Wendy's for allowing a human finger to make its
way into her chili. This story kept me up nights, let me tell you. And
still, after all the news coverage of this groundbreaking story, we
still don't know where the heck the woman got that finger in the first
place, so I'm still having a tough time sleeping at night.

Alas, in the midst of such important and compelling news, other
smaller, toddler-sized news stories get lost in the shuffle. That's
where I come in. As your marginally-humorous weekly columnist, I
believe it's my duty to bring to you, my valued only reader, the news
items that just fell short of national attention. That, and I'm having
a bout of writer's block, so I'll just shamelessly quote from news
articles.

According to a May 9, wftv.com story originating out of Orange County,
Fla., where the motto is "Whoops!:"

An undercover Orange County deputy says he went to Florida Hospital
for a shot of pain medication, but instead the syringe was filled with
glitter, the kind used in makeup.

We've all had that kind of day, haven't we? You're tired, the boss
yelled at you a couple of times, and it's close to 5 p.m. on a Friday,
so you're ready to get out of the office. So, you take a couple of
shortcuts. It's understandable and. . . okay, it's not. It was
glitter. How do you confuse Demerol with glitter?

"There was a lot of pain. I complained several times that something
was wrong in my buttock, hip, in the area I got the shot," said the
deputy.

Three months later, he had a four-inch by four-inch mass near the
injection site. It took another surgery to remove it. An analysis
determined there was "green and red sparkling material" around the
mass. In other words, glitter.

I would just like to say here that "A Hipful of Glitter" would make a
great Country Western song. I'm not particularly musically inclined,
but I can still write the first few lyrics for those of you who may
want to take a crack at a longer version.

So I'm in my 18-wheeler, goin' down I-35
With Willie Nelson singin' to me from the dashboard tape drive
His words they come and soothe me, and make me feel less bitter
About that doctor who done injected me with a hipful of glitter
Oh, a hipful of glitter! Oh, a hipful of glitter!
Now it hurts to hit the john and sit down on the. . .

Well, I couldn't think of another word that rhymes with glitter. Writer's block, you know.

To break this writer's block, I think I need a news story with a
flatulence angle that I can sink my teeth into, er, figuratively
speaking.

According to a May 12 Associated Press report out of Clear Lake, Iowa,
"lightning hit some Alliant Energy equipment and created a stink
strong enough to wake up some residents. The rotten-egg smell was
caused early Wednesday when lightning hit an odorizer, a device that
mixes a chemical with a foul odor into the natural gas system,
officials said."

After having lived on this planet now for 30 years, I can only recall
having been woken up by an odor once, and that was when my childhood
pet dog, Ray, who was extremely ill, presumably because he ate some
roadkill, let loose his sickened bowels on my bedroom carpet. It was
one of the most foul-smelling concoctions every created by man or
beast.

So, the idea that a rotten egg smell could be bad enough to wake up
several people in a community tells me that the odorizing chemical
used by Alliant Energy is some seriously knock out stuff. And I want
some! Because, man, the pranks I could play with something like that!

Well, join me next week, when I'll hopefully have broken through this
accursed case of writer's block, because I know you, my valued only
reader, have come to expect more from me than glitter-injected hips
and potty talk. Then again, maybe that's exactly what you've come to
expect from me.

Say that again?

So, I dial this company today to get some information, and I'm quickly routed to their automatic answering system, when the following sentence greets me:

"Thank you for calling pfastship; for quality purposes, we randomly record all incoming calls. . ."

It's random, but thorough!

Stress

Sometime during my fourth year of college, I came to the realization that my pursuit of a teaching/English degree just wasn't my bag.

The English part was my bag, mind you; I've always just had an innate grasp of English, probably because my mother is an English teacher, so I was brought up in a household that tut-tutted me whenever I said "can I" when I should have said "may I," and the word "ain't" was frowned upon like dog poop on new carpet.

It was the teaching angle that I couldn't accept. I entered college with a nebulous idea of what I wanted to be, so I just kind of glommed onto the career my parents had chosen. Then, one day, as I sat in class and gave a smarmy response to a professor, it dawned on me: I don't want to teach entire classes filled with students who are exactly like myself.

So, in the early months of my fourth year of college, I switched gears and started to pursue a degree that best matched up with the credits I had already earned. As luck would have it, that degree was mass communications/journalism.

I always had an ability to write, a skill I learned to hate during high school, because everyone kept asking me to write papers and book reports for them. It wasn't until college, when I realized I could charge $20 or so per paper, that I started to understand that being able to write could actually earn me money.

So, journalism and I just kind of found each other by accident. I had English and writing strengths, and those happened to be core components of journalism. Go figure. Sure, it meant a fifth year of college, but whatever.

As if by fate, during the early winter months of my fifth year of college, one of my roommates started banging a news editor of the local daily newspaper, the Winona Daily News. Come November, she mentioned to me that the paper was looking for a newbie reporter to write obituaries, police reports and other menial reporting duties. It was a three day a week job, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., at $5.25 an hour.

Since then, I've been a writer. I write copy. It's what I'm good at. It's what I'm comfortable with. I research, I interview, and I write. I'm not particularly organized, and I'm terrible at managing people. I've traditionally been a loner going all the way back to high school. When I had to work in a group in college, I'd often tell the other group members that I'd do everything, because I was the only one I trusted to get things done. Not surprisingly, they were fine with that.

Now, suddenly, I find myself in this managing editor position, a position that simply doesn't play to any of my strengths and exposes all of my weaknesses. I'm supposed to manage people I've never met, and keep on them about getting me articles. I'm supposed to plan magazine content, and stay meticulously organized along the way. In other words, I'm completely out of my element here, and there's apparently nothing I can do about it.

In short, I'm stressed the fuck out.

Not that anyone really should care about any of this. I'm just sayin'.

Getting Twiggy With It

Within the next few weeks, my girlfriend will have officially moved in with me. I have mixed feelings on this, by which I mean I'm not looking forward to it much at all. But, like a car stalled on train tracks, with a train just a block away and closing fast, there's not much I can do about it.

Much of her stuff has already been moved in. Many of her pictures and paintings now adorn the walls, lamps chosen for aesthetics rather than pragmatism have replaced the $10 K-Mart floor lamps I bought last year. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

It's just that I'm not much on cozy decorations and things. I'm indifferent to bare walls, and I certainly see no reason in the world to hang plants indoors. I mean, all I have to do is look out the window, where there are hundreds, if not thousands of plants that are doing just fine, and I don't even have to water them or anything.

But, it seems to make her happy to decorate my house, and I guees so long as she's happy, she won't bother me while I play my video games. It seems like a pretty fair trade, I guess.

Still, there are indications that having her under the same roof will bring with it a certain amount of domestic tension.

For example, last weekend, Saturday morning, we were awoken by the sounds of my two cats making unusual noises in the living room. One thing about owning cats is that you become attuned to common cats noises and uncommon ones. These were uncommon noises, so my girlfriend got up to investigate. For my part, since it was 8 a.m., I was under my strict personal policy of not getting out of bed on a weekend until at least 11 a.m., unless there's a fire or tornado, and even then there's a good chance I won't get out of bed.

"AHHHH!" screamed Mel from the living room.

"What?!" I yelled back, concerned, but not concerned enough to get of bed.

"Bad kitties!" she screamed.

"What?!" came my response.

"I can't believe you bad kitties!"

"What?!"

"I hate you kitties!"

"What?!"

"Stop saying what!"

"What?!"

"Come out here, if you want to know what!"

"It's 8 a.m., so no way! What?!"

"The kitties knocked over my twig!"

Now, there are times when you can't possibly imagine you heard someone correctly. Sometimes, a person may mumble something that has to be repeated, or maybe an accent is thick enough to make for problematic conversation. But, I was almost 100 percent certain she had said "the kitties knocked over my twig." But, that couldn't be right. That just makes no sense.

"They ruined my twig! All the berries fell off!" came a mournful wail from the living room. "Ooh, I just want to kill those kitties!"

After a brief cooling down period, my girlfriend returned to the bedroom, and told me all about her beloved twig with the dried berries that she's been carefully keeping for over five years. It was a twig she put high up atop a coatrack, presumably out of reach of the cats. She presumed wrong.

As a guy, the concept of falling in love with a branch just never had really occurred to me. But, she was obviously distraught, so I could only presume she paid a significant amount of money for her twig. She informed me that she acquired the branch as part of a package of goods, goods that cost her a grand total of $20, including the branch.

It was at that point that I started laughing uncontrollably, which didn't go over too well with my girlfriend.

So, yeah, this moving in thing. . . it should be interesting.

Get Yer Bible's Right Here!

I'm consistently fascinated by the things that pop up on that Google ad over on the right. I'm certainly not fascinated by the revenue it generates which, if you're curious how much I've accrued since January: $5.25. Still, the things that get advertised I occasionally find amusing.

An Ad for online Bibles, for example. For some reason, I find that funny.

Remembering The Best Take Down, EVER

Joshua Norton, if you don't already know, can be a bit of an asshole when the mood strikes him, and it strikes him often, believe me. However, through the amazing medium of Internet blogs, and despite all established rules of normal social engagement, I've taken to thinking of him as a friend. No one was more surprised by that development than myself.

Anyway, I was sitting here pondering the bizarre nature of blog-inspired friendships, and I suddenly remembered the exact moment I decided that Josh, though a perpetual ass, could be one of the funniest people on the planet.

It was back during the Plain Layne days, and the comment discussions that could go on into infinity. Josh made a point, only to have another commenter, named Bob, rip on Joshua's reading proclivities. Joshua's response was one of the most thoroughly annihilating take downs I have ever read. The pisser is, since you can't find the Plain Layne archives any more, I have to restate my favorite bit here from memory, which isn't perfect:

So, you go back to reading Juggs, or Watch Tower, or whatever other literary Doritos you use to keep your malnourished critical thinking skills gasping along.

Bob never commented ever again on anything "Layne" ever wrote.

They're Grrrrrrreaatssssssssss!

I'm sure everyone has heard about this, but the key quote just had me laughing out loud:

"It was quite long and popped its head up. I've seen snakes on TV before but never in a box of cereal," he told the Daily Mail newspaper.

They're kidding, right?

Oh my fucking God.

Via.

Just curious here, but why is the City Pages handing out awards for 2005? It's MAY. We're not even halfway through the year yet.

On the other hand, at least they're handing out awards in the appropriate categories.

Raising A Stink

Caroline says: Do you ever go into the bathroom here and you get pretty much hit in the face with a poop smell, and then you want to pee quickly and leave the room before anyone comes in and thinks you made the stink?

Ryan says: Usually, I am the one who makes the stink.

Caroline says: I figured.

Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker.