August 2007 Archives

One day, when I was a gawky fumbling young man of 15, I was riding in the backseat of a car with my good friend Jeff and other of his friends. Sadly I don't remember who it was, so I shall name him Leo...because I can dammit!

Leo's mom and dad picked us up at HersheyPark after a long day of burping, farting, rollercoasters, and staring at girls. I was physically tired, but I was mental electric, and "Walk on the Wild Side" came on the radio. Leo's dad turned the song up a little bit and looked at his wife sideways for a second. There was something between them and this song. I looked over at my friends. Jeff and Leo were talking, so I sat in silence, and listened to the song. And I heard it. The line: "She never lost her head, even when she was giving head".

Explicit visions danced in my head. My body suddenly ached. Was I the only one who heard that? When did that line sneak into the song? Was it always there?

My hand involuntarily whipped out and smacked Jeff across the chest, but he didn't pay any attention to me. He kept talking to Leo. I looked forward for a second and saw Leo's mom in the vanity mirror of her sun visor. She was suddenly prettier, and for a second, she and I looked at each other. A subtle smile darted across her face and vanished.

She knew I'd heard the line, and that I'd understood it. More importantly, she let me know she'd heard the line, and that she understood it. REALLY UNDERSTOOD IT And she wasn't freaked out by the notion. In my head she was going to go home that night and do it to her husband. Husbands and wives did that!

And as if to confirm it, she reached over and grabbed her husband's hand.

I don't remember the rest of the car ride home. Instead I basked in the glow of my new knowledge.

My step-dad got his hands on some old camping magazines, and flipping through them we found the following ad:

I don't know about you, but I'm interested in the Midget and the Duchess. I'd like to know how that one worked out.

Heather and I were watching an ABC news piece about the growing number of Jackass imitators that are posting clips of themselves getting hurt while trying bigger and dumber stunts. Albert Nerenberg, director of the movie 'Stupidity' about such phenomenon said it's going to get more and more dangerous and people are going to die doing these stunts.

I'm not really unhappy about this, because the way I figure it means my daughter's a lot less likely to marry one of these knucklehead's children. They're excusing themselves from the gene pool, and nothing could make me happier.

A thought occurred to me:

It can never be 'Opposites Day'. The minute you say "It's 'Opposites Day'!", it's not, but if you say "It's not 'Opposites Day'" then, clearly it's not.

Explain that to your children and blow their minds.

Sorry for the absence after my post about why I don't do drugs. I was trying to figure out how to upgrade to MT 4.0.

It was a disaster, and I finally had to just erase everything and reinstall. Luckily I'd saved all my old posts and backed up my DB for this occasion.

So I'm back bitches!

On that note, I'd like to ask you:
Don't you think they should have ice cream turds? Little chocolate turds, coffee turds, maybe hazelnut turds, and...ooo pistachio turds, for those days you drank too much grape juice. They could stick in some candy corn, other bits of candy "interest".

I foresee a burgeoning industry of poo-styled ice cream ahead.

I've never done drugs. I've never smoked a spliff, snorted a line, chased a dragon, huffed, whatever. It's not something I'm boastful about, it's all about personal choices. I believe that people should have the ability to bend and spindle their own consciousness as they see fit. I just didn't see the need.

I would get into debates about this in college. My friends who did drugs would say "Man when you do drugs you think about all sorts of crazy things like 'What if this was all a big lake?'" (actual quote). My response was always "Because I don't need drugs to think up things like that. They just occur to me naturally."

Case in point, the other day on CNN they were discussing knock-off purses, and John Roberts and Kiran Chetry were picking up the different styles, looking at the purses, stroking them, sniffing them, and a thought ran through my head:

"A purse is a giant fashion vagina".

A purse is a vagina women carry around with them to put their stuff in.

Yes, I really did think that.

And then...then..my mind started coming up with tangents for that thought:

• That would explain why men don't like holding purses. They don't want to be seen holding a fashion vagina


• Watch out! These vaginas DO have teeth.


• What does this say about women that have more than one purse? That they wish to have many vaginas? That they wish to spruce theirs up?


• What about the women who don't carry purses?


• Does that mean a wallet is a money cock and that's why men seek to make them as thick as possible? Isn't everything on a man a cock? His tie points at his cock, his jacket sweeps open at the waist like curtains at the theatre.


• When did I turn into Dr. Freud?

And on and on.

See, that's why I don't take drugs. My brain's on a freaky-deaky acid trip ALL the time.

Dear China,
Thanks for all of the swell products you've made through the last few years on the cheap. I don't want you to think we don't appreciate all you've done, but this year, we're going to have to stop buying anything Chinese-made.

Problems started early this year when we fed the family dog the food tainted with melamine. He died. My son was devastated most of all. So we broke down and bought him some new Thomas the Tank Engine toys to ease his heartache. Oops! He's in the hospital with serious lead poisoning. We're hoping he makes it.

Of course, he's in better spirits (when he's awake and lucid and not vomiting) because his sister's right next to him with intestinal problems from the magnets that broke off her Barbie dolls that she swallowed. The doctors mentioned that they might be able to put in a partially artificial intenstine from, where else?, China! We're dubious.

Especially since last week, on his way to the hospital to visit his grandchildren my father-in-laws truck wrecked because the tires on it were made in China and the tread separated.

Anyway, that really was the last straw. We've decided that if our kids make it through okay and live to see another day, we'll give them good safe toys like air rifles.

Factor in the collapse of that bridge under construction and the fire at the tallest building in Shanghai, and we're pretty clear we can't trust a damn thing you make anymore.

All of that considered, best of luck to you and yours.

I think it's simply stunning...in a one-two punch for faux morality, the Australian government, working with Christian groups is seeking to spend $189 million on efforts to block pornography, including filtering all traffic, and also to begin jailing people who possess more than five pornographic movies.

More details are here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070814-australia-to-spend-189-million-on-anti-porn-initiative.html

The justification for all of this activity is that "Children Are Sacred", which is the same shitty excuse given here in the US when they want to start clamping down on free speech. "WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?????"

Yes, those of use who are rational have thought about the children, and we've realized that it's not our job to raise your kids, it's your job. Just like it's my job to raise my own children. We encourage you to stop protesting at abortion clinics and gay clubs, to stop trying to convert gay people to straight, to stop bombing people you don't agree with (or supporting the terrorists out there who bomb in your name), and go the hell home and leave us to our lives.

Also, we, the rational and informed, know that by now, filtering doesn't work. Even the DOJ has gotten around to unsticking its head from its ass and saying "FILTERING DOESN'T WORK". Hey look, here's an article from 10 years ago that talks about why filtering doesn't work.

In a world where there are real dangers, and real problems, that a government could spend money on, if it really wanted to, this expenditure of $189 million is wasteful folly writ large.

Even more troubling, it points to a continued encroachment of the government into its citizen's lives. It shows a deep willingness on the part of the Australian government to police the private lives of people who aren't hurting anyone (except maybe themselves - mind the chafing).

Yes yes, I hear your common refrain of "It can't happen here". Ah, but it is, slowly. The government is right now proclaiming under the banner of "Protecting Our Children" touts its increase in fighting obscenity.

The government is seeking to increase its fight on obscenity, whatever that might be. How long until the American Conservative Christian movement takes note of the efforts of their brethren in Australia and seek the same here?

Rudy Giuliani, expounding in 1994 on his vision of freedom and the role of government:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. [emphasis mine]

I'm sorry, how's that go again? Freedom is about authority and about the "willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do".

Am I the only one that heard both George Orwell AND Thomas Jefferson spin in their graves?

Since when is our only use of freedom, the only purpose of freedom, to be to hand it to the government to do what they want with our lives?

And this man wants to be president? This man wants to be the one who'll stand at the Capital Building and swear to uphold and protect the Constitution? This man who'd tell us we should hand over our liberties to the government so they can tell us what to do?

No way in hell...

[Update] - The Rocky Mountain Chronicle has a great breakdown on Rudy as mayor here. Reason Magazine's also been tracking Rudy and his fascist tendencies. Pick through a whole pile of highlights via Google here.

Here are three scenes from my house for you to enjoy:

1. My daughter and wife were talking:

W: "Where are your manners?"
D: "I don't know"
W: "You'd better find them...quick!"
D: "I found them! They're in my mouth, but they won't come out. They're stuck."

2. My son was in the bathtub laying on his belly singing to himself:

S: "I'm putting my weiner on the bottom of the bathtub!!!!!" and he pauses for a second and looks at me "Daddy, I wish I had a giant weiner I could put on the bottom of everything."

3. The next day my son's getting dressed and starts singing:

"Scooby scooby doo, where are you? We have some work to do with weiners! Scooby scooby doo...where's your weiner? We have some work to do with weiners!"

Yeah, I don't know where they come up with this stuff either.

I was getting off of the Amtrak train this morning at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and saw this printed on the inside of the conductor's box:

I don't know if it was the early hour or the fact that I'm near the end of "American Gods" but the message seemed to impart some additional doom that it normally wouldn't have.