Rambling Rhodes

But, Is It Atkins-Friendly?

Who the hell cares?

Toilet Talk (Again)

Here's a little bit of trivia about myself. You can share this information with anyone you see fit. Or you don't have to. Whatever.

I have this thing about public toilets, such as the loos you'd find at restaurants, or schools, or here at work. If there is still poop in a toilet, I will not use it. I'll walk on by and go to the next one.

It would be a simple matter for me to just flush the toilet and complete my business, but there's something about an unknown someone's poop staring back at me that makes the whole toilet stall seem somehow unclean.

And it doesn't have to be a large amount of poop, either. It can be just a few crumbs that didn't go down; that's enough to make me seek out a different crapper. Even defiant streaks spiraling around the porcelain send me packing. I just can't do it. The thought that my butt is hovering over a spot where, just seconds before, another human being's poop was swimming, just makes me feel dirty.

But, I really have a super dooper problem with the people who have no qualms about leaving an entire turd in a toilet, and then not even bothering to even think about flushing. Are they that lazy? Are they proud, perhaps?

Back in high school, a bunch of my fellow football players decided, after practice one evening, to take turns pooping in the same toilet, and not flush. After the sixth or seventh guy had gone, a truly disgusting and somewhat amazing pile of shit towered its way out of the bowl, to the point that the seventh guy to go had to hover above the seat to prevent contact. A little known fact about toilet plumbing: after seven guys work together to fill a toilet with their own shit, the toilet loses its ability to flush down the monumental shit skyscraper. I was just leaving the locker room when the janitor came down and confronted the unexpected and un-called for clean-up job, and I remember the defeated look on his face ("is this where life has taken me?").

I remember that janitor's resigned look every time I enter a stall and see an entire unflushed turd awaiting me. It seems unfair to me to think that I have to be somehow responsible for disposing of somebody else's defecation. That's not what I went to school for. It's not my job to flush somebody else's shit. I'd have to check to make sure, but I'm almost certain it's not in my contract. So, I don't. It's just the principle of the thing.

Why, yes, yes I did just come back from the bathroom and saw a gi-normous unflushed treat looking up at me. No toilet paper or anything. Just a huge loaf floating there all by itself. I opted to slowly close the door, and move two stalls down.

Strangely, I still have no problem looking at stuff like this, however.

Okay, So Maybe I'm Not That Hairy

It's a funny thing about me. Sometimes, after I read a weird news story, say, about some Chinese guy named Yu Zhenhuan, who is touted as the hairiest man alive, so much so that he had to have surgery to remove hair growing in his ears, well, I just feel compelled to hunt down a picture of the guy.

And, sometimes, I'm pretty well horrified by what I find:

And Jim pointed me to this body shot (via Simon World):

I fear even the wonders of the Mach 3 can't help this man.

Skillz

In addition to my ability to write somewhat journalistic-like material, which accounts for my daily livlihood and ensures monthly house payments, I have the following as-of-yet useless abilities:

-- I can accurately mimic such voices as Kermit the Frog, Jimmy Stewart (both young and Campbell's soup old guy), Apu from the Simpsons (or any random Indian guy, for that matter), Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons and a wide variety of other voices that are, I believe, uniquely mine.

-- I can write limericks, very quickly. I have no idea where this skill developed. I've just always had the ability. I'm willing to bet, if there were video available of my birth, you'd hear me crying in limerick form.

-- I excel at lewd poetry, in general. Ask me to write a serious poem about the trials and tribulations of life, and I wouldn't have a chance. Ask me to write an evocative piece of rhyming poetry about a fresh pile of dog poop on the sidewalk, and I could write volumes.

-- I can be an irritating and loud prick, but you all probably already know that.

One Way Ticket To Heck

Shit but this makes me laugh, and I can't for the life of me figure out why:

I've even come up with a name for the kitty. You wanna hear it? Do you really? Okay. . .

Cat Cobain.

UPDATE: Cats, of course, can always fight back against such injustices.

For Your Consideration. . .

Last week, I submitted a letter to the editor of the Rochester Post-Bulletin regarding the Kerry/Cambodia flap. The following is what transpired:

Thank you for your letter to the editor. However, we do not plan on running
it at this time. You state that Mr. Kerry lied about his military service.
We've been getting many letters like this from anti-Kerry and anti-Bush
people. Much of the material for these letters has come from unreliable Web
sites that are perpetuating inaccurate information. We've decided not to run
them unless the writer provides documentation. To just say something "never
happened" or that someone "lied" without such documentation is unfair.

--
Greg Sellnow
Columnist/Editorial Page Coordinator
Post-Bulletin

I responded:

Thank you for your response, Mr. Sellnow. I respect the P-B's decision not to run my letter. Just out of curiousity, though, what does the Post-Bulletin consider "unreliable" Web sites? I, too, am a journalist, currently working as news editor for several IBM magazines, and I regularly find items on the Web that aid my research on articles. Some Web sites, obviously, are moonbat crazy and I typically ignore them, but there are also a vast number of sites out there that consistently bring stories to light before the established "Media" even get a whiff of them. I've been out of the newspaper game for about five years now, so I'm curious how newspapers newsrooms currently view and utilize the Web.

Ryan Rhodes

Sellnow writes back:

We've been getting more and more letters to the editor from readers containing information that is basically cut and pasted from blogs and personal Web sites. These folks just blindly accept the info. as fact without taking the time to determine if it's accurate. You're right, there's a ton of information out there on the Web that is accurate and reliable. We'd just like letter writers to cite the sources for controversial information so we can check it for accuracy. Obviously, if it's biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and we'll print the letter. But if the source is Jim Smith's daily blog we might be a bit more skeptical. In your case, I'm pretty sure the info. you include in your letter about Kerry not being in Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968 comes from a biography of Kerry by Douglas Brinkley called "Tour of Duty." If you can confirm that and list him as the source we'd be fine with the letter.

Greg Sellnow
Columnist/Editorial Page Coordinator
Post-Bulletin

Emphasis mine (of course). Keep in mind, Sellnow and I remained cordial and respectful, but something about his last response bothered me.

Let's see, they draw the line when it comes to people blindly accepting information as fact without taking the time to determine if it's accurate, but if it's a letter that cites a biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and they'll print the letter? WTF?

-- Much of the material for these letters has come from unreliable Web
sites that are perpetuating inaccurate information

-- Obviously, if it's biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and we'll print the letter.

So, it's okay if it's MoveOn.org bias, but other biased sources (such as blogs) should be backed up with documentation and research for accuracy? That's a pretty screwed up letters policy.