Public Service For Females

I had these on an external drive and they still make me howl with laughter.



And the best one-

Being "Outed" By Google Reminded Me Of A Funny Tale

Andy pointed out this- my being "outed" by Google Ads which reminded me of a fond memory in the spirit of gay cowboy things. More or less.

One of my best friends growing up was Bobby. He was tall like me, but had HUGE feet. Size 17 in high school. I was told by a girl named Margaret, that the feet/dick size thing held true in his case, and that was his rep. Bobby got a lot of bootay. I got a lot of cold showers and had to endure hearing of his accomplishments- but no matter. Friends are friends, even when they are more talented, endowed, whatever.

So Bobby was a bit of a chamelion and could fit in with the jocks, preppies, rednecks, or with me and the potheaded burnout types. There was another fellow we both knew named John, and he was a hippie in the most stereotypical way possible- this guy literally looked like an R. Crumb drawing, and had smoked so much dope that he was permanently affected. Mellow and perpetually losing his train of thought. Fun guy though-



Bobby died young- at the age of 20. Very fucked up scene. I'm not totally convinced there wasn't foul play involved, and I really regretted the timing- I'd recently been a dick to him and felt like an ass- hell, I still do. After Bobbies funeral, many of us who knew him well were commiserating over booze at a local haunt, and I was surprised at how many people were also really close to Bobby that I hardly knew about. I spent so many hours and days with Bobby, I couldn't imagine how he could have found the time to have experiences with anyone else. It was an important thing for me to learn the breadth of a life- the net we cast is much wider than we'd expect.

At any rate, there we sat telling "Bobby Stories", and I think I told one about going to Bobbie's family farm for spring break and smoking dope, shooting fish with bottle rockets, fishing, and learning how to ride a motorcycle. Other folks told other tales, all amusingly in character. John sat there taking this all in, and with him, you never were sure what was registering. A pause in the conversation happened, and John finally spoke up. He said (as though it was in response to something, but totally wasn't) "Yeah, man. Bobby was the only dude I ever kissed on the lips..."

Huh?!!

He had our undivided attention. We insisted on hearing this anecdote and he began telling us about how he (John) was inexplicably at some redneck party, where he knew no one and wasn't really being made to feel welcome. He was loitering against a wall, drinking a beer, and acroos a sizeable room stood Bobby, resplendant in cowboy hat and ginormous custom-made Tony Llama boots. Next to him was a hillbilly girly that was fixated on John and pissed by his presence.



"Who let that fucking hippie in here? Why is he here? He should leave! Gawd! Someone should go kick his ass!" Bobby, who knew John well, and knew that John didn't have a mean sprited or violent bone in his body, was plaing into Hitlerina's rant. "Yeah... Yeah! YEAH!!! I'm gonna go kick that fucking hippie's ass!" He set across the room. The angry girl was beaming with delight- "He's gonna kick that hippie's ass! This is gonna be great!"

Bobby makes a b-line for John, and John didn't notice him until Bobby was almost face to face with him. From across the room the angry girl watched Bobby walk directly up to John, grab him by the ears, and kiss him squarely on the lips. With feeling.

She fainted.

John was more confused than normal. Those of us telling Bobby stories had all been bested.

Humor Test

Schmoopie is german, and strictly speaking, as I have a little bit it my scotch-irish mutt-mix, so are my children. Here's the problem- the germans are not renowned for their sense of humor. At all. Ever. Whereas, I laugh early and laugh often. On purpose. At things. Funny things.

I LOVE- no really- LOVE B. Kliban cartoons (except for all that "Cat" bullshit). The man was a genius, and you Far Side heretics would have nothing without him. It's a damned shame that he died in 1990, but his work hasn't lost a step with time. I was looking at some of his work laughing myself beet red, when Schmoopie decided to investigate. She saw this:



And did not laugh at all. Didn't even smile. Nuttin. I was dumbfounded. How the hell could you NOT laugh at that? Who can't identify with this kind of predicament? I've had several jobs that I didn't like or even understand, and I stuck with them for longer than I can explain. Further testing seemed warranted. I tried something more slapstick:



Nope. I think the smile was patronising. Okay- time to bring out the big guns:



Not a sausage. I was crying with laughter over this one, just having been exposed to it from the testing process, and I was looked upon as an utter mystery by my loving bride. It's like a language barrier sometimes. It reminds me of the story behid this Chas Addams gem:



That was published in a New Yorker many years ago, and the staff of the New Yorker at the time were amazed when they started receiving mail from german subscribers who were attempting to explain how events may have unfolded that begat that scene depicted. Unbelievable. Germans trying to solve a joke.

Welcome to my world...

Mercy Killing Long Overdue

Can we just kill off Amtrak yet? What a ridiculous state of affairs. The freight railroads orchestrated a self-serving deal to rid themselves of passenger service (the least profitable part) and saddled us with Amtrak. It's overpriced and excepting the east coast, doesn't conveniently go anywhere. We subsidise this idiocy with tax dollars and yet look at the price of a sleeper cabin (the only way to travel by rail). Preposterous.

The time is overdue to mercy kill this cash grab. Let the freight carriers get back to work and while we're on the subject how about a damned bullet train? The French are frequently ridiculed for one reason or another by Americans with no understanding of history, but they just had a train go 358Mph. We have Amtrak. I think it's time we all had a piping hot cup of shut the hell up.

Having Been Tagged..

Disclaimer: This is a mememememe thing that Judith set upon me, and it may be inordinately skewed by my mood.

What’s a great late night song?
When the Music's Over - The Doors

Name 5 wistful/bittersweet songs:
IWhat? Like Bittersweet Symphony? I don't really know too many that get me down. Clapton's Tears in Heaven messes me up, and I can't listen to it. The Red Army Blues by The Waterboys is pretty much a downer.

The 4 Best Songs Ever Written:
Something - The Beatles/George Harrison
Naked in the Jungle - Van Morrison (although, really- ANY Van Morrison ought to make this list)
American Pie - Don McLean
Take 5 - Dave Brubeck
Honorable Mention- Superstition - Stevie Wonder

3 Current Favorite Songs:
Bop Gun - Parliament/George Clinton/Ice Cube
Peaches - The Stranglers
Rigoletto: "La Donna È Mobile (by Pavaratti and L.S.O.)

A Classic Drinking Music album:
Best of the Doobie Brothers

A Song You Want To (or did) Play At Your Wedding:
Down to the Moon - Andreas Vollenweider

4 Good Angry Songs:
You Oughtta Know - Alanis Morrisette
Bulls On Parade - Rage Against the Machine
Fight the Power - Public Enemy
Only A Pawn In Their Game - Bob Dylan

One of Your Favorite Lyrics:
The Torture Never Stops - Frank Zappa

Slime 'n rot, rats 'n snot 'n vomit on the floor
Fifty ugly soldiers, man, holdin' spears by the iron door
Knives 'n spikes 'n guns 'n the likes of every tool of pain
An' a sinister midget with a bucket an' a mop where the blood goes down the drain;

3 Cover Songs Arguably Better Than the Original:
Satisfaction - Devo
Head Like a Hole - Devo
Waiting In Vein - Anne Lennox

Ironic Song to Brutally Murder Someone to in a movie:
Killing Me Softly - The Fugees

Good Album to Clean The House To:
Deep Forest - Deep Forest

Good Dining Music:
Strange Kind of Love - Love and Money

A Good Album To Put You In the Mood (that is NOT Sade, Marvin Gaye or Barry White):
Al Green - Best

Good Album To Sleep To:
Dan Hartman - New Green Clear Blue (serious cure for insomnia)

2 Songs That are Too Damn Sad:
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
Tears in Heaven - Clapton

Great Love Song:
L.G.B.N.A.F. - Ice T

Song To An Ex That Isn’t Meanspirited:
No idea- You're So Vein by Carly Simon?

Song To An Ex That Is Kinda Meanspirited:
You Oughtta Know- Alanis Morisette

Song to lose your Mind to:
Anything by Ween

4 Songs That Make You Feel Amped and Inspired: (for me, amped doesn't usually approach inspired)
Wake Up - Rage Against The Machine
Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden
Slam - Onyx
I Love it Loud - Phunk Junkeez

3 songs that are guilty pleasures
Me Plus One - Annie
Take On Me - A-Ha
My Sharona - The Knack

Criminally Underrated Band That Didn’t Get Attention and Then Broke Up:
Love and Money

Best Screw You I Am a Teenager in Pain Song:
Creep - Radiohead

Feel No Shame, Great Current Pop Songs:
Hips Don't Lie - Shakira (oh MAN, I'd give her 30 seconds she'd never forget...)

Album No One Would Expect You To Love:
I have no idea- what do people expect of me?

Hip-Hop Song You Know All the Lyrics Too:
Plently- PE, Ice T, Kool Moe Dee, Beastie Boys, KRS-One, Erc B. & Rakim....

Random Album You Loved In High School But Are Afraid To Admit It:
I was a classic rock pothead in High School. Name any classic rock...

Album You May Have Listened To More In High School than Any Other Album:
Dark Side of the Moon OR The Wall - Pink Floyd

If You Could Enter A Wrestling Ring to a Song It Would Be:
Happy Boy - The Beat Farmers.

Album To Clear A Room With:
Something Country....

Funny Deal

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Bishop Lord Stucco the Elegant of Porton Down Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

So, that's surprisingly insightful- I'd be a vulgar corrupt vicar without provocation.

So Sayeth The Lord, Beeyatch

Hard to tell who is more remarkable- the "Reverend" here, or the cameraperson. He's not cutting my hair. Be warned my bretheren- the Holy Word is not suitable for work/children/etc.

Did NASA Nuke Jupiter?

I love this article. I love how we fumble around the cosmos with such lofty idealism.

Yes, this is just a quickie of a post- I've been as busy as a one legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen lake lately.

Nope

Just a quick geek note- I went to the local Apple store over the weekend and saw the "Apple TV" in action. Pass. This is one of those "close but no cigar" kinds of deals that may be done properly in future revisions, but here's my core beef- no high defininition. Those of you who know me in "real life" know I've been beating this drum for a while, but damnit, Apple said 2006 was to be the "year of HD". Bullshit. The video on an HD screen looks like shit when the source is standard def. I saw The Incredibles at the Apple Store and it was painful how badly the image quality looked on the 30ish inch LCD screen.

I have had an HD telly for almost three years now, and apart from it not having an HDMI interface (DVI for me), it's still of contemporary spec's. We enjoyed the VOOM HD cable service while it lasted, and Dish and DirecTV still have not gotten back to that level of quality and variety. The point is this- Apple is the nearest thing to a corporate champion of HD, and they blew this opportunity.

Here's what I'm waiting for:

#1) The iTunes Store needs to sell movies in HD (yes, I know the bandwidth costs will be big), and you should be able to burn HD DVD's from the downloads (even if in a proprietary format) for archival purposes.

#2) The Apple TV needs to stream HD. And from iTunes as well as QuickTime.

#3) Add a BlueRay or HDDVD drive to the thing with an HDMI pass-through- hell, why shouldn't I be able to consolidate some things? Apple likes to build computers with a minimum of cables and crap, so why are they encouraging a cabling nightmare with this thing?

#4) Make it run cooler. I want to put this in an enclosed space. Radical, huh? Look at the following thermal image from DigitalTrends.com



So, the bottom line is this- we're not "there yet". Hold out for an "Apple TV HD" or rev. B or whatever the hell they want to call it.

Caveat Emptor.

Blame Hammer

Okay, so I'll begin by saying names have been changed to protect me. The year would have been 1983 or so, and I a misanthropic 15 year old, who had not been making any headway in the pursuit of compromising young girlies in my area (*as an aside, may I say that hearing of all of these hot teachers putting out for young male students delivers me mixed feelings- including jealousy). In an effort to kill time until the views of local girls would be more accomodating, my pals and I would get up to whatever other sensory overloading things we could dream up and afford. This is story of one such day.

The cast of characters (that I can remember): PG: local cury haired pot smoker friend that either had smoked his way to an attention disorder, or may have had hearing problems. He never really responded swiftly to audio clues, ques, or commands. R: The only black guy that chose to hang out with us (as opposed to the many others that lived in my neighborhood, and sort of dealt with us as scenery or sort of knew us, but kept us at arms length personally). R was really mellow, no doubt in some measure to the amount of dope he smoked with us. I think PW. and C. were also in this caper- they were brothers who loom large in several of my hijinks.

The scene:



Right where the green arrow points is the core to the whole story. This is a significant intersection of streets in a town where I lived, and dead in the middle of the intersection, by the tip of the green arrow, is a manhole. Now- as a moment of background- in the midwest there are things called storm sewers. These are basically intended for heavy rainfall runoff, and are concrete tubes of nearly six feet diameter. In this place, these storm sewers ran under the two big streets that the arrow identifies, and they are dry most of the time (although sludge and garbage are not uncommon in places). So, there is a four way intersection at street level, and a four way intersection in concrete tubing underneath. In the exact center of this all, there is a ladder of metal rungs in concrete and a manhole that is smack in the middle. With me so far? Good.

At the very bottom of this image, is a railroad track (where I nearly got killed repeatedly) and a ravine that allowed convenient access to said storm sewers. This is where we began. I was a model rocket junkie (clue #1 as to why I wasn't getting laid) and would "retire" old and unwanted rockets with as much "wow" value as I could. One day, I decided I wanted to "retire" a rocket from a missile silo (hey- Cold War era, what can I tell you?), and I think PW was the one who mentioned the venue. Off I trudged with my friends to the ravine, and rocketry gear in tow. We entered the storm sewer at the tracks and slouchingly walked to the arrow point, where I dutifully setup my launch pad and readied the rocket, igniter and so on. The last thing we thought to do was to was to remove the manhole cover. I say the last thing we thought to do, because we weren't really thinking about much, other than the rush of doing something dumb and fiery.



C was I think the one that climbed up the rebar "ladder" to the cover and muscled it over with his shoulder. This was dangerous and remarkable in it's own right, as cars were driving by within inches of that spot in all directions, but he managed it without injury. Oblivious to the world topside, "3, 2, 1, BLASTOFF!"- I launched.



What happened above us was at least as far as we were concerned, unexpected. The rocket went straight up as intended and must have looked really cool from the street level (cool by our tastes anyhow). The first unexpected thing was that a jogging man, wearing those really blousy nylon running shorts that were popular at the time, was running diagonally across the intersection(!), and apparenly wasn't paying attention to things like open goddamned holes in the street, and came within inches of having a 300 Mph hunk of cardboard and plastic go up his shorts. The burnout of the rocket went straight up past his body and was nearly a gunpower driven polyp ream. I don't think it burned him, but he was in full on freak out mode as a result of the experience.

The other immediate problem was the smoke. There is no breeze in a storm sewer, and the smoke from launch lingered and was thick enough to disorient us. Well, some of us anyway. As with any good subversive, I was at least sure of my escape route, and a debate ensued. PG, PW, and R were opposed to C and I about which way to go back. I mean really- concrete tunnels look all the same, and we had no landmarks or trails of bread crumbs. So C and I took off to the south and our point of entry, and the others went west, and I'm told had to hoof it for a couple of miles to get out.

Upon existing, I couldn't resisit the urge to see the mayhem topside, so I walked along the sidwalk to the arrow point after stashing my gear at the ravine in some scrub brush. C, having had more experience I think in these matters- went home. By the time I had gotten to the "scene of the crime", there were two cops there on the scene. One was taking a statement from a clearly distressed jogger in effeminate shorts, and the other- a cop shaped like a Bartlett Pear, was bent over with his 4 foot long cop flashlight/knightstick shouting into the still smoking manhole opening. I could hear him using his best cop psychology from well away by the second set of tennis courts- "Come on out now- we've got you- there is no where for you to go- make it easy on yourselves, blah blah blah". I was trying as hard as I could not to be seen laughing, but it was tough to contain. I mean, how often does a youngster get to see a cop frustrated in broad daylight shining a flashlight in a smoking hole in the middle of the road in the heart of town? I don't know if the cop arrived above sewer when PG, PW and R were still within earshot, or if he was making asumptions. For sure, beyond smoke, nothing was left behind, and all participants had moved on somewhere.

The cop eventually gave up the sugar coating and starting shouting "saltier" terms into the smoking hole, and I took that as my time to leave. The following Monday at school, I heard about the underground "Iditerod" my mates had to endure, and while I was sympathetic, my sense of direction was trusted more in future escapades.