Rambling Rhodes

Sis-in-Law and South Park

Ryan says: For some reason, now I have that South Park episode with Mr. Garrison trying to get fired for being gay going through my head.

Jody says: isn't it Mrs. Garrison now?

Ryan says: Mrs. Garrison the lesbian who likes to scissor, yes.

Ryan says: Man, they sure have had fun with THAT character.

Jody says: oh fuck...that episode made me laugh so freakin' hard

Jody says: "GOOD SCISSORING"

Ryan says: The part that got me was Mrs. Garrison's fight with bull dyke in the lesbian bar, with the brief attempt at angry scissoring.

Ryan says: That show has had me laughing consistently for over a decade, as hard as that is to believe.

Jody says: and it all started with Mr. Hanky

Ryan says: I actually had the original Jesus Vs. Santa South Park pilot downloaded on my first PC back in 1997.

Jody says: oh..oh...and the one where they were sniffing cat pee/asses...remember that one???

Ryan says: They were "cheesing," thank you very much.

Jody says: oh, come on

Ryan says: Because it was "Fon to Du."

Jody says: LOL

Jody says: is that why you have two cats?

Ryan says: Two BIG MALE cats.

Jody says: i figured as much

Ryan says: Man, that episode was so full of awesome, it almost brings me to tears every time.

Jody says: i know...

Jody says: the shit those guys come up with

Ryan says: The daughter's AWESOME BEWBAGE.

Ryan says: Parker and Stone simply CAN'T be coming up with all that on their own.

Jody says: if they are...i want whatever they're having

Jody says: cuz that stuff's gold

Ryan says: I absolutely loved how they weren't able to show the daughter's boobs, but boobs and nipples were EVERYWHERE.

Ryan says: I read online comments from people who hate/don't get South Park, and I can barely believe what I'm reading.

Ryan says: What it must be like to live in a humor vacuum.

Jody says: well, your brother doesn't like it either cuz he's got your dad's sense of humor but he just doesn't watch it...who cares.

Ryan says: What the hell happened to me?

Jody says: I

Jody says: DON'T

Jody says: KNOW

Ryan says: That kind of humor is about the best thing in the world.

Jody says: i can't remember the details but that episode about Hilary Clinton's vagina...

Jody says: wasn't something living in there?

Ryan says: No. The terrorists snuck a snuke up her snizz.

Jody says: thats right

Ryan says: And some guy tried to crawl up her snizz to defuse the snuke.

Jody says: that's what i was thinking of

Ryan says: And it was a most unpleasant experience for him.

Ryan says: As one would suspect.

A VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM KEITH: Mrs. Garrison is back to being Mr. Garrison. There was an episode a few months ago where Garrison got a lab to grow him a new penis on the back of a rat, which of course got loose and was running all over town.

Naturally, the episode is called "Eek! A Penis!".

I'm all atwitter

With all the twitter about Twitter, I figured I should try Twitter. Not sure how I'll end up using it, if it all. But, dadgumit! I gots to stay up-to-date in the geek realm, dontcha know?

The Audacity of Hope

Hope Chastity fidgeted restlessly in her chair. Home for the summer after her junior year of college, she had grown quickly bored of the familiar lifestyle of her hometown routine. The house and family that had once meant everything to her felt somehow smaller, almost quaint, compared to the wide and wild world she now knew was out there, waiting for her.

Oh, Hope had blossomed handsomely over the short few years since graduating high school. Gone were the braces and Coke bottle glasses that had so defined her and made her the source of endless ridicule and whispered, over-the-shoulder laughter from the schoolmates she had once foolishly considered her friends.

No, Hope had indeed become a woman in recent years, although she was only just now starting to realize and appreciate the fond and salacious glances she was now earning from men, both young and old. It was with a coy acknowledgement that she returned the longing leers of the boys who once thought of her only as an object of feminine potential gone awry. Now, with her feminine potential now realized in nearly all its glory, Hope was becoming bolder, more confident.

And with good reason. The gawky, uncertain frame of Hope's youth had been replaced by a slender, athletic and graceful body, adorned with the most fabulous set of womanly globes ever granted by the hand of God. Having traded in her glasses for Lasik surgery and her braces having granted her a smile worthy of a Colgate commercial, Hope had transformed into a woman who could turn the heads of men and women alike.

She had yet, however, to experience the intimate love of either.

As she sat amidst the still-packed boxes scattered around her childhood room, Hope found herself looking out over the lawn, still carefully tended, as it had been for the last several years, by Zutroy, the immigrant lad her family had taken in when Hope was still a young girl.

Zutroy, too, had inherited an enviable youthful frame. Years of solid, manual labor had transformed a sickly, anemic child, into a muscular, powerful young man, although he had largely gone unnoticed by the local women who thought of themselves as "above" his station in life.

In her restlessness and boredom, however, Hope had now noticed Zutroy; and Zutroy, although unbeknownst to Hope, had started to notice her years ago, realizing early on the fine woman she would eventually become. . . the woman she was today.

As she watched Zutroy toil in her parents' yard, her eyes transfixed by sinewy muscle and beaded sweat that seemed to ripple and glisten hypnotically in the noonday sun, Hope was gradually overcome by an overwhelming longing, a longing that eventually morphed into an audacious sense of purpose, a primal yearning.

Suddenly, Hope found herself standing, smoothing out the wrinkles in her Capri pants and checking her near flawless profile in the mirror, before skipping lightly out of her bedroom and down the stairs, intent on one purpose and one purpose only.

The only question remained: would Zutroy reward the audacity of Hope. . . ?

Not To Dis Technology Or Anything, But. . .

I really don't understand the whole "electronic eye" component of urinals and regular toilets. I mean, sure, I guess they're nice from a hygiene perspective, but it wasn't as if people were keeling over left and right from diseases picked up due to pulling a toilet handle.

Ringing Sensation

As has been mentioned before in this corner of the InterWebs, I am now a married man. Generally-speaking, I've found married life is pretty much like regular life, with one very glaring annoyance: the wedding ring.

You see, while my wife just couldn't wait to sling a diamond ring upon her finger, about the last distraction I wanted in my life was a piece of jewelry upon my hand. I explained, in great detail, over and over again, why it's not a good idea for me to wear a ring.

Quite simply, any ring, on any of my fingers, is way too much of a temptation for my rampant, self-diagnosed adult ADD. I knew, from prior--short-lived--experience, that rings and I are not an ideal mix. For a brief week back during my college years, I tried wearing a decorative ring because one of my roommates wore one and I thought it looked. . . I don't know. . . cosmopolitan, or something.

Within minutes of putting on that ring, I was taking it off, flipping it like a coin, spinning it on tabletops and, my personal favorite, trying to "walk" it between the knuckles of my right hand, back and forth. As I said, that ring lasted about a week, before I dropped it while doing one of my "tricks" and it rolled into a storm drain. Thankfully, that life lesson about ring wearing only cost me about $100.

I tried to explain all this to my wife but, alas, come my wedding day, I found she had, indeed, purchased a wedding band; and then she had the audacity to look surprised when, five minutes after the ceremony, I was absentmindedly flipping the ring like a coin. Personally, I was a little surprised it took me until the next day to start "walking" the ring between my knuckles, back and forth.

"You'll get used to it," is a common refrain I've heard from countless friends and family members, regarding the wonders of ring wearing, but they never would have said that if they had seen the look on my wife's face the other day when she walked into the porch, only to see me spinning my ring on a tabletop and having it batted back to me by one of our cats.

On the one hand, I think she was happy I was playing with one of the cats, which are household animals I generally try to ignore, but on the other hand I think she was also pretty well horrified to realize she'd married a man who isn't mature enough to even wear a ring responsibly.

If anything, the ring has only become MORE of a distraction over time, especially as I get better and better at "walking" it across my knuckles, which I have to admit is starting to look like a pretty cool trick. I keep imagining myself in Las Vegas at a blackjack table, walking my ring back and forth across my knuckles as I debate whether to "hit" or "stand."

I wonder how many storm drains there are in Vegas. . .

Cute to the 5th Power

Yesterday the. . . *sigh*. . . wife. . . and I went for a walk. Up the street about 10 houses along or so, we encountered a neighbor who was being followed diligently by a baby squirrel. Honest to Zeus, it was the cutest damned thing I've seen in ages.

Apparently, the neighbor couple was having breakfast that morning when this baby squirrel started climbing their sliding door screen, attempting to seek entry. They didn't want to encourage it, but at the same time they didn't want to banish it with a hose, either. So, they put out some breakfast scraps and some water, and that was EXACTLY the formula necessary for winning the heart of a baby squirrel.

Of course, even though the squirrel was bound and determined to maintain close contact with its new human overlords, the human overlords (ourselves included) weren't quite so willing to allow the squirrel to touch us, since we're not all that keen on rabies and such.

So, I used an empty Diet Pepsi bottle to "pet" the squirrel, which apparently delighted the squirrel to no end; it sprawled out on its back and playfully boxed at the bottle almost exactly like a cat.

Mere words cannot convey how ridiculously cute that squirrel really was. I'm going to walk by again tonight and try to get a picture.

By The Way

Not that I've really been paying much attention or anything; and not that I think a VP pick is all that big a deal, but. . .

That text message stunt was REALLY fucking stupid.

Unexpected LOL!

I encountered this image on Fark, of course, and I just kept laughing and laughing and laughing. Damn it, it just totally strums my funny bone.

Mmmm, bone strumming.

Repeat Performance

It's hard to believe, but it's been four years since the sensational duo of Kerri Walsh and Misty May impressed the world by winning Olympic gold by doing something with a ball.

Well, a lot has happened in four years. Kerri Walsh may still be an impossible 6'3" tall, but Misty May apparently went and got married or something, resulting in the far less awesome name "Misty May-Treanor," which saddens us here at this ThunderJournal, but the duo's repeat gold performance in China for. . . well, I guess they did something worthy of a gold medal once again. Let's see some of the hot, er, amazing action.

Here we see Walsh and May-Treanor winning the gold for best girl-on-girl hug. They won style points for tight bikini bottoms and synchronized dual arm embrace.

In this event, Walsh was awarded several points for being able to leap the height of her teammate whilst keeping her knees locked together in a most appropriate, lady-like position. A proper lady reveals nothing.

This position, referred to as the "Double Yowza," signifies oneness with the surrounding sand. Teenage boys also refer to this as "The Sticky Hand Towel."

As you can see, Walsh is a very patriotic woman and. . . HOLY CRAP SHE HAS NICE ABS!

Here, Walsh demonstrates the "Flamingo Stalk," while May-Treanor shows the "Double Hams."

In about the only image I could find of an actual volleyball (it's the blurry sphere in the background and. . . who really cares?), Walsh is shown executing "The Attacking Flamingo," while May-Treanor responds with an "Improved Ham View."

Ooh, they lost several points with this one. As you can see, Walsh maintains a near-perfect knee lock while forming "Dual Fists of Triumph," but May-Treanor let all modesty go right out the window as she combined "Dual Fists of Triumph" with a completely unnecessary "Splayed Baby Maker."

And finally, showing they're both all about maintaining international relations, Walsh and May-Treanor embrace their Chinese opponents, who couldn't resist a wandering ham grab of their own.

Once again, ladies, congratulations on winning gold in whatever it was you won gold in. And thank you, oh so very much, for wearing what you wear and looking like you do.

I need to be alone now. . . with my thoughts.

All That's New is Old Again

David Grenier (a man who agrees with me about as well as a raw habanero agrees with my stomach) had a pretty interesting take on the role of the Internet in politics in general, and John McCain's self-proclaimed online illiteracy, specifically.

One thing about being stuck in front of a computer eight or more hours every day; you spend a lot of time thinking about the evolution of the Internet. I remember thinking, back in 2004, that the Internet of 2008--blogs and other personal online journals, specifically--would be THE vehicle that would steer the election.

But, a funny thing happened over the last four years: blogs and other online journals became considerably less remarkable. Oh, sure, they're still out there, broadcasting into the online ether, but the Web has become ridiculously more diluted nowadays. MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, online forums and comment engines on everything from Amazon.com reviews to practically every news and opinion piece posted by most news organizations, have unintentionally conspired to make online commentary tedious at best, laughable and insane at worst. In other words, the Web has just become a literary garbage pile of comments and general nonsense.

What's more, as media outlets continue to catch on to the emerging world of search engine optimization (SEO), and they realize the importance of appearing in the top 10 or 50 search results of a given keyword or keywords--and they dedicated the money and man hours to attain the best SEO--the pendulum, in my opinion, is swinging back in favor of the mainstream media. Blogs and other online journals, and MySpace and FaceBook posters, for that matter, have neither the time, inclination or resources to dedicate to something as intricate and boring as SEO, so their sites slip farther and farther back in search results.

The point being, the 2008 election cycle isn't being nearly as guided by the marketplace of online ideas as I thought it would be all those four years ago.

UPDATE: I should specify that I think news organizations like MSNBC.com and CNN.com and the like are what I'm referring to when I say "mainstream media."

Newspapers are still pretty much fucked.

Olympic Advice

To: National Media Organizations

From: Me, The World's Foremost ThunderJournalist

Allow me to first preface this by saying I've been guilty in the past of relying on hokey turns of phrase in my writing, and particularly when conjuring headlines (which is one of the more challenging journalistic writing exercises, in my opinion).

Thankfully, with the Olympics in full swing and the Republican and Democratic national conventions looming large on the horizon, we've mercifully been spared another round of "Pain at the Pump" headlines, so that's been nice. I'm not foolish enough to think they'll never return, but a respite is a respite.

However, your coverage of the Olympics has produced a bumper crop of headline groaners, to say nothing of an over-reliance on time worn cliches. For example, when two or more women in an event happen to win gold medals, calling them "Golden Girls" in a headline is, well, pretty retarded, as are similar permutations on the "gold" theme, such as "Golden Moment," "Golden Performance" or "Going for the Gold." I will accept "Michelob Golden Light Draft," but only during commerical breaks.

Which brings me to your latest egregious annoyance:

Okay, we get it. . . the guy's last name is "Bolt," and he's a fast runner but. . . really? REALLY? That didn't strike you as maybe, JUST MAYBE, a bit too much of a low hanging fruit? At some point, I'd expect an editor to look at it and say "Nahhhh, that's a bit too easy. And maybe a little annoying." But, there it is.

*sigh*

Bad Blawger

I know, I know. I've been deficient in my responsibilities as a blogger. Which. . . by the way, who was it who came up the official list of blogger responsibilities? I'm assuming there must be some sort of written documentation that outlines the amount of free-flowing guilt a person must feel for not writing about their most recent banal life recollection/anecdote/bowel movement/IM convo.

I imagine it's kind of like the "The Pirate's Code" as outlined in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy, also known as "Holy Crap, That First Movie Was Awesome, But the Next Two Couldn't Have Sucked Harder if a Worm Hole Married a Black Hole. . . Wait, Wasn't This Already Done by 'The Matrix?'"

Anyway, I was at a family reunion last weekend and didn't get home until late yesterday, so that's why I haven't been posting as per your expectations, whatever they may be.

Consider this post my "Get Out of Guilt Free" card.

Married? Yes, Married! Sheesh!

Just for the record, no, those aren't our children. One is my. . . well, legally I guess I can call her my niece now. The boy is my friend (and best man), Troy's son.

Extra karma points if you know the inspiration for this post title.

Cheap Thrill

After reading this, I feel compelled to say. . .

Tard. Retard. Retarded.

If you're retarded, and you die and come back as a retarded person, you have been reintardated, having undergone the mystical karmic process of reintardation.

A retarded Yosemite Sam would probably say something along the lines of "What in tardation are you talking about?!"

A retarded person in court should always feel free to play the "Race Tard."

A retarded person trying to buy cigarettes or alcohol should always be tarded by the cashier.

Retarded people travelling overseas should always carry the American Express Tard. In fact, they shouldn't leave home without it.

A horny retarded man should never be ashamed of his tard-on. Additionally, it should be understood that it takes time to develop a tard-on, because they're generally slow. A fully-developed tard-on should always be encouraged, even if it means presenting it with a "Participation" ribbon.

Okay, I'm done.

Dwarf the Groin With Me

Ryan says: “Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped ‘Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’”
Caroline says: WTF

Ryan says: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26197543/

Caroline says: That is an awesome contest. How do we nominate Coleman?

Ryan says: I don't want Coleman winning $250!

Caroline says: Oh, good point.

Ryan says: I also like the "Groin the dwarf" paragraph.

Caroline says: That sounds like it could be a catchy saying. He really groined the dwarf on that one.

Ryan says: I was totally groining the dwarf last night.

Ryan says: Dwarving the groin?

Caroline says: Groin Dwarving is going to be an event in the 2012 Olympics.

Ryan says: I could win GOLD!

Caroline says: Splort!

The Current State of Internet Discourse

The Greatest News Article Ever Written

Every so often, I'll encounter a news item I consider to be about the most excellent thing ever written since the invention of the printing press. Such news items are rare, of course, but when I do discover them, I'm typically dismayed by the utter lack of coverage the item garners from the established media outlets.

Therefore, I've occasionally had to use this ThunderJournal space to shed light on news items that have been deemed unworthy by some of the haughtier media establishments.

For example, this week I'm sure you're more than informed about the ongoing 2008 Olympics, the current Presidential race for the White House, and probably something or other about Paris Hilton, who remains somewhat relevant for reasons that entirely escape me.

Thanks to all those "huge" and "important" news stories you, my most incredibly valued readers, probably didn't hear or read about the Iowa man who attempted (and failed) to neuter his friend's dog using a razor blade. See how quickly that got your attention? And yet most of the mainstream media dismissed this major, ginormous story.

According to an Aug. 11, 2008 Associated Press (AP) report out of Des Moines, A Des Moines man accused of using a razor blade in a botched attempt to neuter a friend's dog has been charged with improper care and treatment of animals.

Now, I'm going to pause (paws?) here for a moment so this part of the story can really sink in. Already in this narrative you have a botched razor blade neutering attempt which, normally, for me, would represent a rich source for all manner of off-color puns and jokes practically guaranteed to illicit groans from most anyone reading this.

However, this news article delivered even more than I could have imagined. Even while I was laughing quietly to myself at the very idea of an amateur razor blade neutering attempt, little did I know the article was poised to actually knock me off my chair, convulsing in glorious, gut-clutching rapture.

Police say Hung Doc Vu was issued a misdemeanor citation on Monday and faces a fine of up to $500.

I'm betting never before, and never again, will you see a news article wherein a Hung Doc botches a razor blade neutering. The odds of it happening again are no doubt astronomical, and yet here we are, in this day and time, reveling in the sheer comedic awsomeness of this moment. It's pretty humbling, when you think about it.

Officials say the 49-year-old Vu told them he had been taught the procedure by his father and grandfather, but he has no veterinary license or training.

Ah, yes, the age-old practice of handing down razor blade neutering knowledge from father to son. It's like fishing, only totally different.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Isn't razor-blade neutering an Olympic event?" The answer is no. You're also thinking, "What happened to the dog?"

Well, I won't leave you. . . hanging. I'll wrap up this ThunderJournal post by telling you the dog ended up just fine, all things considered. However, even I can't end this story better than the actual article itself, which concluded:

The dog's owner took the animal in for emergency treatment. Police say the dog, named Pooper, was treated and released.

Comment Query

So, I'm just a bit curious here, but I'm wondering what everyone thinks about the phenomenon of newspapers and other media outlets enabling online comments on their news and opinion content.

On the one hand, I kind of like it. At least it exposes the world to differing thoughts and opinions that would normally get shredded during the typical editorial vetting processes.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people out there who just post differing thoughts and opinions. . . because they can, not because they actually believe what they're writing; or at least that's the way I'm observing things.

Some people just like to be dicks, while others are contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian.

This has been the case for online commenters in general for the better part of the last decade, but now that they have free reign in the general media, it's somewhat tough to see the value.

Whatever, I guess. It's just weird to see news articles about John Edwards getting some tail on the side devolve into comment threads about Iraqi yellowcake intelligence and 9/11 conpiracies.

Olympics?

Has there ever been an Olympics I couldn't care less about?

*thinking. . . thinking*

No, no I don't think there has been.

Marriage Maladies

For those of you who may not already know, I'm getting married tomorrow. And, now that you know I'm getting married tomorrow, you also now know that I've been living with a psychotic and obsessive-compulsive female now for the last month or so.

It's long been understood that women go slightly out of their minds when it comes to their own weddings, but it's difficult to appreciate the truth behind that statement until you've witnessed about the 50th straight mental meltdown about a mundane wedding detail that matters to absolutely no one except the bride-to-be.

For example, I came home from work one day this week, and after about 15 minutes or so, I became aware that I heard the voice of my significant other coming from somewhere in the backyard. When I followed her voice, I eventually found her squatting in the grass, holding a can of pink spray paint, busily coating several small, heart-shaped boxes. When I asked her what she was doing, she responded simply, with an awkward smile: "making things." In any other context, that would have been grounds for calling the fellows in the white coats, but I just chalked it up to wedding insanity and went inside to watch TV.

As it turns out, those small, heart-shaped boxes have become somewhat of an obsession for my wife-to-be. After painting them pink, she set about meticulously adorning the boxes with the names of each of the wedding guests. All of this strikes me as an amazing waste of time and effort for something that's more-than-likely going to be either thrown away or tossed into a junk drawer and forgotten. From my male perspective, a far better approach would be to use a sharpie marker and write on $1 bills. At least then you pretty much know your guests will at least SPEND your hard "work."

But, it wasn't until last night that I realized the true depth of bride-to-be insanity. As background information here, I feel I should note that the bride-to-be is a redhead, which means she has, almost by definition, a pretty fair complexion. Therefore, I found it a little bit odd when I walked by her office last night, and she asked, with her back towards me, whether she looked tan. Almost by default, I responded "of course not." To which she responded "I don't?" And it was at that point in the conversation that I knew something was amiss.

It turns out, the bride-to-be had undergone an application of some sort of tanning chemical earlier in the day, a substance I recognized only from my college days as something some males slathered themselves in on Friday nights so they could look like pumpkins in an attempt to attract the opposite sex at local watering holes. Apparently, the tanning chemical has evolved and become a popular fixture in a lot of salons nowadays.

To say my bride-to-be looked unusual would be a fairly large understatement. She had taken on the hue of a Thanksgiving turkey in its sixth hour in the oven, her skin golden brown and her teeth looking unnaturally white against the dark background (not that turkeys have teeth, mind you). She didn't look so much tan as she did "almost done."

After about ten minutes or so of me reacting more with laughter than supportive enthusiasm, the bride-to-be started to seriously doubt her sudden tanning initiative, and she jumped in the shower in an attempt to halt any further descent into self-bronzing.

Of course, after getting out of the shower, she started to worry that she'd washed off the chemical too early, and so began another round of obsessive worrying.

Remind me again why I'm marrying her?

Not the Office

I'm in downtown Rochester right now, waiting for a meeting to begin. I'm in the waiting area on the 19th floor of the Gonda building, which means nothing to you if you're not from Rochester. Basically, if you're going through Rochester, the Gonda building is the huge, obvious white building with the wavy glass facade.

One of the things I'm slowly starting to grasp is that, even though I have an actual office, with my name on it, I'm basically allowed to work anywhere my laptop can pick up a Mayo WiFi signal, which, from what I can gather, is a sizable footprint of the city. Then again, judging by my current bird's eye view of Rochester, this city isn't really that large. I suppose once you've looked down over Tokyo from the observation deck of Tokyo tower, a lot of cities look pretty small by comparison.

So anyway, yeah, this remote office idea. Obviously, I like it a lot, but I just can't shake the feeling that's it's just somehow. . . wrong. I suppose nearly a decade of toiling in jobs where I've been tethered to an office for eight straight hours a day has probably had some sort of psychological effect. Not unlike prison, he says, knowing it's not at all like prison. The idea that wherever the laptop goes, so goes my office is one of the really great aspects of this new job, so long as my laptop doesn't go sailing through the window and down 19 stories to the concrete below.

That would be most unfortunate.

Global Alarming At All Time High

More People Than Ever Concerned About Nonsensical Shit, Report Finds

Aug. 4, 2008, NEW YORK (Rhodes Media Services)--According to a recent report released by the non-profit, bi-partisan, unincorporated, union-employed, unaffiliated think tank "The Center for Independent Thinking," the world today is tearing itself apart thanks to the phenomenon of "Global Alarming."

Whether they're concerned about the plight of polar bears, drilling for oil in Alaska's wildlife refuge, or any number of naturally-occurring meteorological events, people today are filling their minds with more and more alarmist bullshit than at any other time in history, the report finds.

"It seems we've reached a conclusive consensus on Global Alarming," said Bradley Richardson, senior spokesman for The Center for Independent Thinking. "People are just generally freaked out about everything. With each day's rising of the sun, more and more people are finding incredibly mundane shit to worry about. Just a couple of hours ago, I was speaking to a mother of four children--one of which was horribly sick with the flu--and all the mother could talk about was how migrating caribou herds might have to walk around oil drilling sites in Alaska. It was kind of amazing, in a pathetic sort of way. I even asked her to locate Alaska on a map, and she pointed to Greenland. Fucking incredible."

According to the report, titled "You Simply Won't Believe the Kind of Shit People are Worried About Nowadays," the worldwide media is primarily to blame for the phenomenon of Global Alarming, since the media is largely driven by a fatalistic agenda wherein fantastic and defeatist narratives dominate the headlines, feeding into public dread and often creating new, typically "grim," narratives based on incomplete research and wildly inaccurate conjecture.

"A major component to Global Alarming seems to be the fact that the reporters and talking heads of most of the world's largest media organizations are more interested in themselves than the stories they're reporting on," explained Richardson. "So, you have all these self-absorbed people who typically look good on camera and those who can write decent articles, but who can't think critically for shit, and these are the people shaping public discourse. It's pretty fucked up, when you think about it."

Jonathan Feldman, 38, devoted husband and father of three children, has worked in a local factory for 15 years, in addition to a part-time bartending job. He was one of the respondents cited in the report. Although two of his children are currently suffering chicken pox, and his wife is on dialysis, he says he's more concerned about California wildfires and tropical storms off the Gulf coast.

"Something's gotta be done about all this shit," said Feldman. "Offshore drilling is going to kill all the whales, and Iraqistan is turning into a civil war between the Shiites and the Hindus. The polar bears are running out of igloos and the Japanese Olympics are showing just how fascist that part of the world truly is. I don't see how mankind will possible survive beyond the next decade. It's sad, really."

There are two sides to the world. . .

Having witnessed the rapid evolution of the Internet over the past decade, and having been on the giving and receiving end of Web based trolling, I can't decide whether this article is more disturbing or humorous.

On the one hand, making prank calls to the family of a kid who committed suicide is pretty horrible.

On the other hand, poking somebody in the digital ribs to get a rise out of their uber-serious stupidity--preferably in limerick form--is one of my premier online pastimes.

I'm so torn.

One week from today. . .

The 2008 Olympics will begin.

And I'll be married.