New Blog, More Balls!

Really. Lots more balls.

I've been bored with this blog for a while now, obviously. I felt it was time for something new. The winds of change were blowing and I decided to set course for testicle jokes. It's a departure from feminist rants and random cursing, I'll admit. But there'll be something for everyone. Oh- and that something will be in limerick form.

So stop on by! Say hi to my new blog at http://metalballs.blogspot.com

The man from Madras thanks you!

Do I still have a blog?

Apparently I do!

Some of you may have noticed my absence of late. My bad, yo. What can I say? I haven't really had much to talk about. I would rant about the news, but honestly, it's been making me quite happy lately. Let's run it down.
FEMA is getting shit-talked.
Rove and Libby are getting shit-talked.
Delay was *arrested.*
Bush's approval rating is in the shitter.
And his nomination for SCOTUS who, as far as I can tell seems to be a fundie, is getting shit-talked by the *right wing* for god's sake.

Honestly, I can't think of a single rant. I couldn't be happier if I had made the news up myself. I know this makes me an evil partisan so-n-so but you know what? I feel like I've been dunked in a huge tank of liquid happy, then rolled around in sprinkles of joy.

Oh- and to add to that, there's still a slight possibility that hurricane Wilma could come on through. Now, normally that would make me sad, but considering that I have a presentation on Tuesday, that involves me talking about orbital mechanics in front of a doctor from NASA... you know? I'd like some more time to flip through those notes, thanks. So if we could get just a little cat 2 action this way, just enough to cause university closures on Monday and Tuesday, but not so much that I have to pay another renter's insurance deductible, that would be FABULOUS.

I am so unedumacated

Did you know that there's a small island country in the middle east called Cyprus? I didn't! I've spent the past few hours taking quizzes such as this one: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html
and failing miserably.

Miserably, I tell you.

It's appalling. There are entire *countries* that don't exist in my brain. What happens in Cyprus? I don't know! For all I know, unicorns could control parliament and people shit gold bricks.

Oh, but the real shame, my friends, was taking the US quiz. I am truly an embarassment to every geography teacher in this country. Good lord there are a lot of squarish states somewhere 'round the middle.

Not surprisingly, though, I was able to find Djibouti on the first try. Come on. That's a great name for a country. I wouldn't let you down, Djiboutians.

Bow Down Before the Flav

He shall be exalted! All the lands sing his praise! For Flavian got a perfect score on Karaoke Revolution's "Under Pressure."

Behold!
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6298/up2md.jpg

In the wise words of Flavian: "Seriously, fuck that guy that just says 'bee bee do bo dop!' all the time."

Preach it, brother flav. Preach it.

The Holiest of Trinities

I really wish I knew a guy with 3 balls. Then I could nickname him trinity and everyone would just assume it was Matrix-related when really, it's scrotum-related. How hilarious would that be?

The Flav has informed me (hopefully jokingly) that I could give him the nickname Singularity if I wanted to. Ew.

In other news on the Flavian Front, his birthday was last weekend. Happy b-day, Flav!

We got together and had dinner and drinks. I thought I did a good job of holding my liquor. The next morning, Scott informed me that I had been stroking The Flav's foot and talking to it. What's worse, The Flav was drunk enough to make his foot answer back in an english accent.

The foot has been renamed Lord Shropshire, in case you're wondering.

Shout out

Just wanted to give a shout-out to my homies at Lowe's. Whazzaaaa?!? Hardware reprazentin! Appliances in da hizzous!

I used to shop at Lowe's a lot. My husband and I would play a game called the $5 bong. It's pretty self explanatory. You have to make a bong out of stuff for sale in the store and you can only spend $5. It's not that hard until you run into the helpful staff. This requires quick thinking at a time when you're maybe not thinking so quick, and it usually goes about like so:

helpful staff: "So, what size PVC pipe are you looking for?"

me: "Ummmmm... about this size: (makes an "o" with mouth while giggling hysterically)"

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaay... is this for a plumbing project?"

me: "ha ha ha you said 'plumbing.' (giggling, but thinking fast) Um no. It's for... an art project. Or something."

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaaay. What type of art project?"

me: "The kind that requires pipe."

helpful staff: (suspiciously looking at bizarre assortment in cart)"You're making a bong out of this, aren't you?"

me: "No. NO! (drops pipe and runs)

You can see I'm suave. I don't think I've ever made it through a whole $5 bong game without running out of the store. Somehow, that fair-weather friend that I shop for also causes me to believe that a Lowe's employee actually has the power to arrest me. They haven't caught me yet, though!

Exodus! Movement of Jah People!

Okay, maybe not quite what Bob Marley had in mind...

http://www.christianexodus.org/

That's right. There's a Christian organization dedicated to upping the already mindboggling concentration of people with Strom4Life tatoos in the state of South Carolina.

It's as if these people sat around thinking to themselves "What could possibly make Ryan hate South Carolina more than he already does? A-ha! Let's ask a bunch of delusional right wing fundies to move in to the state and threaten to seceed from the union! That worked so well for us last time around."

And that's just what they're trying to do.

Ol' Flavian weighed in on the matter, with his usual supportive enthusiasm:

"Whatever floats your boat, guys. If you're getting South Carolina the hell out of this country, be my guest."

So, not much objection from the local liberals at this point.

You may be asking yourselves why they want to do this, though. Well let me tell you! According to the website:

-Children who pray in public schools are subject to prosecution
-The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
-Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as "hate speech"

In summary, they're doing this because they love making hyperbolic lists.

But truly, I understand. You just can't understand true oppression until you've lived a life of lonely isolation- where people of your kind are merely the vast majority of elected and appointed leaders. Where you can shit on other religions, but you can't quite smear it around as much as you'd like. Where people will occassionaly look at you funny when you make blatantly racist or homophobic statements.

In the inspiring words of Mr. Marley (a man who is certainly rotting in hell):

So we gonna walk - all right! - through de roads of creation.
We the generation
trod through great tribulation.
Exodus!

Welcome to my desk. Now stop being a douchebag.

I was, coincidentally enough, reading an article on xenophobia at my desk when I found myself staring at it. In t-shirt form.

"Welcome to America. Now speak english!" was the friendly request. I really think that in cases like this, there should be a standing exception to general professionalism guidelines. I'd really love to have given him the finger, but I had to settle for passive aggressive methods.

I started with my favorite mode: the stare and roll. I took a long, hard stare at his shirt as if he had a shit stain on it that only I could see. My next move (and this one I have down to an absolute science) is where I pretend like I don't want the subject to see me roll my eyes, when I actually do. Sometimes I'll let out a faint sigh if I think they're not looking.

He proceeded to try to hand me something, which I naturally pretended to not notice, until he finally gave up and set it on my desk, clearly bewildered.

Do you see all the effort I have to go to to snub someone in a work environment? Wouldn't it have been a more efficient use of my time to just flick him off and get on with business?

Somehow, I doubt I'll be able to convince my boss of that, but I think the benefits of a free-to-flick office are clear.

"white guy. fancy that."

I'm too lazy to write anything on this anti-french fry crusader that Bush has nominated to the SCOTUS, so I'll let the following conversation be my in-depth political commentary on the situation. Russia is my pinko-feminist-liberal friend who's currently in Russia, because she kicks that much ass.

Russia: who is it?
Russia: the nominee

Me: some utter douchebag
Me: john roberts jr?

Russia: a man?
Russia: wasn't expecting that.
Russia: white?

Me: yup. white guy

Russia: fancy that

Me: uh huh
Me: and he seems to be anti-roe, anti-labor, anti-affirmative action, etc etc

Russia: yup, i just skimmed an email to that effect
Russia: did harry reid give him as a nominee? is he supposed to be one of those that gets an easy confirmation?

Me: I don't really know. The dems haven't come out all "Rabble Rabble Rabble" yet, but they seem to be cautiously ticked.

Russia: my soul hurts

Me: hahaha I know, right?

Russia: so melodramtic but it's true

Me: I'm in the wacky denial stage right now.
Me: Like "hahaha! he nominated a douchebag! Oh that bush, when will he learn?"

Russia: so, the silver lining: at least the liberals have some credibility. we've been saying since 2000 that an evil person would be nominated and that's what happened.

Me: yup- it's some consolation
Me: the "told you so" factor is big with me.

Russia: nothing like regressing to a five year old to make you feel better.

John Roberts Jr

It's being said that the name John Roberts Jr. has been leaked to NBC as Bush's nominee. Who the deuce is he?!?!

When placemats attack

So someone found my blog while searching for "painless geography placemats." I have NO idea what kind of sadistic geography placemats this lost soul is currently dealing with but there clearly needs to be a better way to attain geographical information while eating potroast, people! If they ended up at my blog in search of help, they're clearly running out of ideas. I fear that time is a factor here. This time it's just a map of the earth. Next time, who know? It could be planetary placemats after your ass. And that just isn't something I'll stand for.

Wankershanks 4SCOTUS!

So... 9pm tonight is the big announcement. Someone, probably Arlen Specter said that he hoped someone with varied life experiences would be the supreme court nominee, not just someone with legal expertise.

I'm hoping this will be a good sign for me. I was crushed when I lost my bid for pope, so hopefully this will pan out for me. Justice Wankershanks has a *great* ring to it. I'll let you all know as soon as I get the call.

WTF?

O'Conner is retiring? No no no. That's one hell of a typo, Mr. CNN Guy. That's supposed to say "Rehnquist." Really.

Can I get a big "dubbleya tee eff" from my homies? Really. WTF?

The only good thing to come out of this is that my friend Rachel (aka Wyzardess, aka the most awesome girl in the whole world cause she's in Russia right now and simultaneously working with Ohio NARAL on some kick-ass pro-choice stuff) has informed me that it's okay to use Supreme Court justices as verbs, as in: "I'll brb. Me and Aaron are still O'Conner-ing."

I'll probably be O'Conner-ing the rest of the day. That sounds a lot more fun than it is.

recipes 4 life

I clearly should not be allowed around impressionable people. Here's a conversation between myself and my 14 year old cousin (the sexy hero!) Jessica:

Jess: Pro-lifers are really great.
Me: Whaaaaaaa?
Jess: Well, if you cook them just right.

ha! I probably should have said something about it being morally wrong to broil your political opponents in a nice marinade of lemon and garlic. Maybe a little fresh thyme. Fresh ground pepper... little splash of olive oil....

Anyway. It's wrong. But do I say that? No. I laugh. I guess I'm one of those morally bankrupt liberals I keep hearing about. But come on. You would laugh too.

Bad Move...

My boss left the keys to his Aston Martin here at my desk for the weekend. What was he thinking?!? Of course, I'd never actually do anything immoral/illegal with these keys, even though we all know that this is definitely the only opportunity I'll have in my middle class life to drive one of these. But I wouldn't, because I'm just that trustworthy. And because I fear the cold embrace of a jail cell. But mostly, it's my refreshing honesty and high moral standards that prevent me from doing anything exciting.

Still, I keep staring at them obsessively as if they're going to walk out of the office if I don't stare hard enough. It could happen. I open the drawer every five minutes to grope around for them, lest they skip town on my watch. Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm destined to have a moderate income for the rest of my life. If I'm this stressed over holding the keys to a nice car for a few days, I'd probably die a painfully premature death if I did it everyday.

Speaking of nice things, and why I'm not allowed to have any:

We just moved into a new apartment. It's bigger! It's better! It's in the "nice" section of town. As far as I can tell, the "nice" section of town is official douchebag central. We spent two years putting in our time at the crappy apartments in the high crime area with the loud parties and the drunken college dropouts. It was an okay place. The toilet didn't always flush properly and the ceiling leaked once or twice. But the neighbors was good people. The woman next door would offer me a cigarette and tell me about her child support troubles with her ex. The guy upstairs would tell us about his difficulties finding work as a pakistani-american. Joe from downstairs would always smile and wave as he rode his bike to work. And the guy to the right of us, well, he usually littered the porch with beer bongs and played music loud enough to vibrate our kitchen appliances, but he could chug a guiness faster than I could say "go."

But we're in the "nice" place now. It's gated. It's got alarm systems in every apartment and cameras in the parking lot. And what happens the first night there? Someone hits my parked car and leaves no note. I'd like to know how they rationalized that. I keep imagining some monacle-wearing, lexus-driving jackass swerving into my econobox after a night of overpriced mint juleps... probably thinking to himself that a mere thousand dollars worth of damage was hardly worth stopping for.

I did meet one woman who was nice... in a cluelessly priviledged kinda way atleast. As we were looking for a place to park the U-haul, she informed me that it was okay to park it in the handicapped spot directly in front of the door. 'Everyone does it and it's not like there's any handicapped people here anyway.' huh. Is this how the upper middle class makes small talk?

So, with that in mind, the Aston Martin keys stay firmly in the drawer. Maybe rich douchebaggery isn't contagious, but I don't want to take any chances.

Prince William replaces mapquest.com

According to yahoo's front page for news (talk about a slow news day) Prince William just received a Master's degree in geography.

Geography?!?!

Do they really give grad degrees for that? Maybe I'm just out of touch with the ever-changing reality of... the placement of countries, but wouldn't you probably get laid off the second your employer discovered maps? Seems like a fickle job market at best.

Nerds are the new black

Ol' Flavian recently alerted me to this breaking news story:

Nerds make better lovers.

He thinks this means his day has come. "First Christina Aguilera, then the world!" he said.

Of course, his excitement should probably be tempered with the reality that this is the same newspaper that breaks stories about pot-heads prank calling an ex-president and that feels that slang and nicknames are appropriate headline fodder.

Sexy Heroes!

My cousins, Jess and Becca are sexy heroes. I'm not exactly clear on why that is... but that's what they want me to say on my blog. Sexy heroes!

I went to visit them yesterday for the first time in... quite a while, I'll admit. Going to their house is always a learning experience. This time, I learned that while Johnny Depp is in fact hot, some poor, tortured white guy named Gerard is even more so. Gerard is some sort of tragically hip goth rocker from what I can tell. Think Trent Reznor with a snazzier webpage and you're pretty much on track. But he's in pain, mind you. Deep, searing pain that not even a tissue box of c-notes can erase.

I also learned that the sand at Pine Island Park in Spring Hill, Florida smells like rotten eggs. But don't make the same naiive mistake that I did! This does not mean that either of my younger cousins will hesitate to fling it at you. Thankfully, my aunt intervened to save me from the wrath of Jess and Becca.

As we were leaving the park, my uncle noted a bumpersticker on the car next to us. It said "I asked Jesus how much he loved me. He said "this much" then spread his arms and died." To which my uncle replied, "wouldn't you feel really bad if you had been the one to ask *that* question?"

So that was my day with my sacril-arious family! Sexy heroes, one and all!

Once Upon a Wankershanks

So, it seems that Brian (aka Flavian, aka GuyIncognito) has a girlfriend. I'll just let that soak in for a while.

Brian + Girlfriend = whaaaaaa?

For those of you who don't know the Flavinator like I do, the probability of this occurring is somewhat greater than the odds of him saying "Binary is dead to me!", but slightly less than that of him growing a third eyeball.

But I suppose stranger things have happened. To celebrate this momentous occassion, I'd like to regale you all with the greatest love story of all time: How Mr. and Ms Wankershanks met.

It's a rather lame tale. I generally cringe when people ask about it. As a wee lass, I'd always dreamt that I'd meet my future husband doing something exciting, or at the very least, sordid. If it had involved, let's say, a spatula, The Jerry Springer Show and a minimum of 2 rabid monkeys, it would have been acceptable. Throw in a few murderously rampaging gerbils and we're talkin. But it didn't. It involved...

a church camp.

That's right, a church camp. Now I could tell you that it was some crazed, alien-fearing, cultist deathcamp that we had been sold into by our slave-trading parents. But it wasn't. It was a Presbyterian church camp. And if you know anything about Presbyterians, you'll know that they're basically respectably aged hippies: generally pretty mellow folk. The camp was outside of Asheville, NC at a scenic private college called Montreat. Neither Scott nor I were religious folk, but we went because it meant getting away from our respective parents for an entire week. We met one afternoon outside the dining hall. He had his CD case open, revealling an array of Tori Amos CD's. It was sooo *hawt.*

We spent the week skipping church services together, which sounds entirely more rebellious than it was. It turns out that the Presbyterian Camp Overloards didn't really mind if we skipped church. Mostly, we just wandered around the hills and valleys talking about how much we liked math, and how Mad Magazine was really sucking ever since Sergio Aragones ditched. Occassionally, we had the "religion is like, soooo oppressive" discussion because we apparently had no concept of irony.

The week ended and we went back to our respective states- him in Alabama, and me in Florida. We kept in touch over the years, visited each other a lot, and eventually he moved down here. And that's the tale. You can see why I'm disappointed.

I had bigger dreams for Flavian's "how-we-met" tale. But he met his girlfriend through a coworker who made the astonishing connection that they both love the show Arrested Development. According to the Nielson Ratings, they're about the only ones, so I suspect she's just staying with him long enough to procreate... a lot... so she can get another few seasons of the Bluth Family Antics. Love is in the air.

Flavian's Last Ride

If you could choose how you died, what would you pick? Disturbingly enough, here's Flavian's answer:

"... skydive over a city (sans parachute AND clothes). I'd probably take some poison before I hit the ground, just to make it as painless as possible. Plus, it would confuse the fuck out of the medical examiner. (Not to mention everyone who witnessed my fall). It's raining men! Oh dear God, it's raining men! Take cover! OH! And I'd strap a huge boombox onto my back with that playing in loop. Man, I've got this all planned out!"

Don't worry. If he starts mentioning specific cities, I'll give you all a heads up.

A brief conversation overheard at the beach...

Here is a brief conversation that I heard while at Cocoa Beach on Monday. It's short, so please read slowly to savor the utter randomness of it.

Young girl, eyes alight with wonder: Wow- look at all the umbrellas on the beach!

Young boy, eyes alight with mischief: Your mama's an umbrella!

Oh, snap! You know, it's really good to see the non-sensical "your mama" insult being brought back by the youth of today. Some of the sayings from my youth just haven't outstayed their welcome yet, in my humble opinion. Of course, your mama did outstay her welcome. Booyah.

How I Roll With the Red Phone

Many of us know that bizarre, impractical, and blatantly silly ideas often come from working in large companies. We all know how these come about. Some magical person with a fancy-pants title imagines that some less-magical person with a regular-pants title needs some extra step in their day to perform their job more efficiently. The former, hereafter known as "The Man," usually has his magical head crammed straight through his fancy-pants and into his Butt of Wisdom.

So, there's this phone at my desk. It's a red phone. It's red because it is the "emergency" phone. The idea being that if it ever rings, we drop what we're doing and answer it because, um, it's probably an emergency. I can understand why this might seem like a good idea to The Man. Emergencies are generally considered to be important.

It's sort of been an odd fixture on my desk for the past 3 years. It's never rang. Not once. There have been emergencies, but it turns out that people tend to dial "911" for those. Go figure. So I was only moderately surprised when the tech guy came down to rewire the desk a few weeks ago and asked me why we had a big red phone that wasn't plugged into anything.

Eh?

That's right. Not plugged in. Turns out that the phone is somehow not compatible with our super crazy phone system. That's right. It's *never* been plugged in. It's been nothing more than a shiny red paperweight for over 3 years. Surely, you say, someone would have noticed! Anyone who dialed the magical "emergency" extension, 5555, would have let us know that it goes nowhere! Except that as it turns out, *we* were the only ones who were told what the extension was.

Oh! And to further the drama, I just dialed 5555. It goes to another phone entirely.

Some people find fulfillment in their jobs when they save lives, I find it when discovering useless protocals and making fun of them. Am I bitter that The Man makes so much more than me? Of course not. The sense of intellectual superiority is all the compensation I need.

Flavian does his part for the roundup

Me: oh- just so you know, I didn't net a single penis hit from my penis roundup. :'( It was a total failure
Tha Flav: That's weird, I've been getting to your blog for the past week by searching for '"Mario Batali" penis'
Me: hahaha!
Tha Flav: I mean, I'm searching for it anyway, so why not.

I'm sure you all were dying to know that.

The Saturday Penis Roundup, part 2

Today was supposed to be the grand unveiling of the list of penis-related hits that arose from last week's Penis Roundup. Tragically, it seems like even the best laid plans don't always attract creepy old porn hounds. On the surface, one would assume that any penis post would attract countless hits due to the unsettling number of times that americans search for penis related content. What I didn't account for, however, was the fact that for every single one of those searches, there are probably 820937 websites and a metric butt-load of daily spam emails just waiting to be found before me.

So, the roundup was a complete failure. On the plus side, my average page read time has lept up by an astonishing 3000% since I posted the cock-talk. That's right. 3-0-0-0-%. And what are these people pretending to come here for?

"naked hippies " gay
vegan pot brownies
"crank yankers" turd (always a favorite)
planet porn
armpit of america
and my personal favorite:
costco pleather loveseat

Clearly, I attract a deviant crowd to begin with. They come for the vegan pot brownies, they stay for the penis. And now I will deliver.

Penis-related tip for the day!

Let's say that you've just broken up with a guy. He done you wrong and you want revenge. Wankershanks recommends pretending to spread a vicious rumor. Drop a fake "note to your best friend" where you know he'll find it. Make sure the note casually mentions the unsightly mole on the "family jewels" (note that being vague about the exact location is extremely important). Does he actually have one? Of course not! But he won't be satisfied until he's spent hours constructing an elaborate series of pulleys and mirrors just to make sure. Bonus points if he trims the hedges for a closer look.

For the fans

Someone has found my blog 3 times in the past few minutes by searching for the lyrics to the Fresh Prince of Bel air theme song. Now, I can't please all my fans all the time, but as I am incredibly embarrassed to admit, I happen to know those words by heart. I'm the kind of dedicated blogger who's willing to let a little of her dignity die to please the readers, so here goes:

(this is from memory, so it may be slightly off)
Now this is a story all about how
my life got flipped turned upside down
and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air

In West Philadelphia, born and raised
on the playground is where I spent most of my days
chillin out nights, and relaxin all cool and all
shootin some b-ball outside of the school
when a couple of guys
they were up to no good
started making trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said
"you're moving with your auntie and uncle in bel-air" (insert picture of grandma-like caricature, wagging finger)

I whistled for a cab and when it came near
License plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror
if anything, I should say that this cab was rare
but I thought 'nah, forget it- yo home to bel air!'

I pulled up to a house about 7 or 8
and I yelled to the cabbie "yo homes, smell you later!"
looked at my kingdom, I was finally there
to sit on my throne as the prince of bell-air

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week, folks. Tip your server.

The Saturday Penis Roundup

I've never actually followed through with any of my weekly features. But I have a good feeling about this one. Who doesn't love a good penis roundup?

For this week's penis roundup, we start with a tragic tail of stupidity and science.

Thailand's health ministry warned size-obsessed men on Friday to avoid trying to enlarge their penises with liquid injections, saying it could cause deformities.

The warning followed media reports that male teenagers in central Thailand had rushed to have their penises injected with olive oil or other liquids.

Clearly this is tragic, because that olive oil could have been used to make some killer foccacia, instead of a freakishy deformed penis monster.

Aside from that though, what is the deal with enlarging penises? What advantage does it give you? Really. Even in a best-case-scenario where you aren't lumpy and squirting pesto out from the sides, I just don't see the big penis guy coming out ahead. Let's explore:

Big penis- whether naturally, or through olive oil injections: You can't attract women with it, because if you run around telling people that you have a big penis no one will believe you, and you'll look like a loser. Once you're in a relationship where someone actually witnesses the beast, do you really expect her to run around telling her friends "this guy is huge! you should give it a go too!" No. No that will not happen. And once you've broken up, she'll tell her friends it's microscopically small, regardless of the truth, because we're just that mean.

Small, injection free penis- You won't attract women with it, but the fact that you aren't hunched over and smelling like Mario Batali's kitchen might. Once you're in a relationship, just get your girlfriend a gift certificate to The Honeysuckle Shop and be done with the problem. When you break up, she'll tell her friends it's microscopically small, but they won't necessarily believe her because she said that about creepy olive oil guy too. They found out the truth when they slept with him behind her back.

So the two are about even. Until you take into account that one of them injected oil into his nether regions. That takes him down quite a few pegs, dontcha think? Now guess who wins?

In other penis related findings,

A Michigan court apparently has ended the television career of a talking penis.

A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals declared that the talking penis, nicknamed Dick Smart, telling "purportedly humorous" jokes on a Grand Rapids, Michigan, public access cable television channel constituted indecent exposure.

Those had to have been some pretty bad jokes for Reuters to use the word "purportedly" in front of "humorous" AND to employ the additional insult of putting the phrase in quotes. But really, you can't expect Mr. Smart to be on top of his game when his asian brethren are suffering cruel fates at the hands of their oil-wielding masters.

That's all for today's penis roundup! Join me next Saturday when I make fun of all the penis related hits that are sure to result from this post!

Journey to Georgia

This is a post for my good friend Flavian. He's visiting the grand city of Valdosta, Georgia next week- very much against his will. Apparently, he's being sent there by his employer, which sucks because they're sending him to Valdosta, but rocks because he can say he's going out of town "on business."

I've *always* wanted to say I was going out of town "on business." The closest I've ever gotten was when we ran out of pennies at Winn Dixie and I got sent to the Winn Dixie on the other side of town to borrow a few dollars worth.

But enough about my personal issues. Flavian is not looking forward to his trip because he's going to miss me terribly. Oh, and because it's a trip to Valdosta. But mostly because he'll miss my poise and sophistication. He's never told me this, exactly, but thanks to my matronly empathy and profound understanding of the human soul, I just know.

Plus, I am totally kickass. Who wouldn't want to party with me?

But alas, I can't go. So for Flavian, I have researched the magical city of Valdosta. I hope your trip is as tolerable as it can possibly be in my absence.

What's fun in Valdosta?

First of all, there's some slapdash amusement park called Wild Adventures that has a REAL WOODEN ROLLER COASTER! For those of you who live in 2005, you may remember wood as being the thing that was used to make roller coasters before they realized how crappy it was. But it's nostalgic! Or something! So, uh, go have fun, kiddo!

If you're more interested in seeing trees before they were prematurely slaughtered and sliced into a grotesque display of consumerism* then you can visit the second largest swamp in Georgia at the Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area! Their motto: "Who doesn't want to walk through a Georgia swamp in June?" Just try not to enjoy it too much, Flavian. You are there "on business" remember!

And last, but certainly not least- the Annual Downtown Celebration will be happening during your stay! Aren't you lucky? This is apparently held in honor of some dude named Mack and will be held, conveniently enough, at a place called "Mack's Park." What better time to fulfill your yearly quota of Mack-related activities? You can paint on a Community Canvas in honor of Mack's birthday! You can view the new Mack Mural! You can even enjoy a 3-D Mack-attack with a sculpture appropriately entitled "Where is Mack Now That We Need Him?"

It's a timeless question. And with nothing better to do, I have no doubt that the good people of Valdosta will find an answer soon.

_____________________________________________
*Did that annoy the shit out of you, Flav? Cause that's kinda what I was going for.

So, I'm back

It looks like the beachside shanty town isn't really my bag after all. It turns out that quitting my job and living off the fat-of-the-land is a little too... what's the word... "poor" for my tastes. After all, I'm used to making the big bucks as a low-level employee at a technical college. Plus, there's not much fat to live off of when the only thing around you is sand, saltwater and drunk teenagers. Unless someone tells me how to grow soybeans in 90 proof puke, I think I'll stay put.

I did have a fantastic time at the beach, though. I did everything on the list in my last post and more. So when my friends Brian and Greg suggested that we have a "Tuesday Spectacular" (that name is all my idea... if I could find the ASCII code for it, I'd totally do the copyright logo next to it.) that concluded with a day of surfing in the shimmering waters of Cocoa beach on wednesday, I was all for it. Such is my rediscovered love of all things beachy.

And what is a Tuesday Spectacular? Well, first I have to explain it's humble origins: the "Tuesday Night Rum Night." This was a tradition back in the day where we all got together on Tuesdays and drank a lot of rum. The name, therefore, is kinda self explanatory. The only issue is the obvious reuse of the word "night." Why not just "Tuesday Rum Night," you ask? Or, for brevity's sake, "Rum Tuesdays?" Well, because I was always drunk while pondering this, and the name just stuck, okay?

Now, clearly a Tuesday Spectacular is much bigger and better than just any old Tuesday Night Rum Night. This particular Tuesday Spectacular started out with me, Mr. Wankershanks and assorted friends smoking [substance deleted]* at Brian's place. Then we devoured some cheesecake, a canister of Pringles, a lot of candy bars and other assorted snacky foods while watching kung fu movies. This is clearly the way to go about watching kung fu movies. The realization that I've been doing it all wrong for 23 years is sobering... Or perhaps that's the wrong word to use here.

Anyway. It was then a short jaunt over to our place where leftover liquid Cinco De Mayo party favors (aka margueritas) awaited. The plan was to have a few drinks, do a little karaoke, and fall asleep in time for an early morning trek to Cocoa Beach. It turns out that smoking [substance deleted], drinking tequila and watching Wonder Showzen until 5 am does not lend itself to early morning beach trips. I think I've learned this lesson before, but I must have been too hungover to remember.

So we have another Tuesday Spectacular planned for this tuesday. Will we make it to the beach? Will we learn from our mistakes, or are we doomed to repeat them? Will Flavian and Mr. Wankershanks torture us with another suicide-inducing rendition of "Under Pressure" or will we eat their insides before they can grab the microphones?

I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats. Tune in next week to find out! Or don't. I'll probably forget about this by then.

______________________________________________________
* [substance deleted] for several reasons:
a.) I don't want to be personally responsible for making the baby jesus cry
b.) Impressionable youngsters, pure of mind and soul (such as Flavian), regularly read this blog.
c.) I'd probably have a third reason if I wasn't a bad person who thinks that [substance deleted] isn't really that big of a deal. So just pretend there's some great moral-type stuff here.

go away.

I'm on vacation this week. I'm at the beach and I don't plan to do anything that isn't in the following list:
1. lazing around on the beach
2. eating
3. watching Arrested Development reruns

As you can no doubt see, "blogging" isn't on the list. So you all can just bugger off until Saturday, when I might be back. Unless I decide to give the finger to the "rat race" and move into a beachside shanty town. It's looking like a real possibility.

Flavian Fridays

I'm starting a new regular feature on this blog called "Flavian Fridays." This will feature raw, unedited, unfiltered and yes, sometimes XXX rated conversations with Flavian. Flavian, for those of you not in the wankershanks know, is either played by Brian (Guy Incognito) or Ryan (RCWanker). Sometimes, I can't really tell them apart, so I figure the rest of you shouldn't be able to either.

Naturally, when I say "regular feature" I mean I'll post this stuff sporadically, if at all. It's very possible that I'll forget all about this tomorrow.

Without further delay, I give you tonight's installment of "Flavian Fridays!"

Me: dude. costco has *everything!*

Me: s/h included, my friend! You won't have to go broke grieving with wholesale prices!
Tha Flav: Sweet!
Me: I know, right?
Tha Flav: Can you ship a corpse in it?
Me: ha!
Me: who the hell says "well, mom died. Time to break out the ol' discount warehouse membership card."
Tha Flav: I would
Me:

Q: Can you order a casket for preplanning purposes?

Yes, as long as the casket is being shipped to a member's home or storage facility of choice.

Me: sweet.
Me:

We have selected the most popular styles and colors, with the highest quality linings.
THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC OR OTHER EVIDENCE THAT ANY CASKET WITH A SEALING DEVICE WILL PRESERVE HUMAN REMAINS

Me: ew.
Tha Flav: You know, sealing devices actually do the exact opposite.
Tha Flav: None of the gasses from your decomposing body can escape, so your body (and the coffin) eventually explode.
Me: oh, that is so sweet. Seal me up tight, baby!
Me: I rememeber when I was really young and my hampster died. I didn't want ants to get to it. So I made my mom secure it in TWO carboard boxes instead of just one. I hope costco is just as cautious.
Me:

Caskets cannot be returned to Costco warehouses.

Me: (particularly with dead people inside.)
Tha Flav: I'd do it
Me: I know you would.
Tha Flav: Pack the body up, "Oh, hey, I changed my mind."
Tha Flav: Easy corpse disposal.
Tha Flav: They should make a Netflix-esq service. You buy a coffin, they send it to you, you put the body in and put it right back in the mail! No postage necessary!
Me: hahaha. and this is why rules were created, brian.
Tha Flav: It's a goldmine, Candice!
Me: except instead of gold...... corpses.
Tha Flav: A corpsemine!
Me: what part of this is a good idea again?
Tha Flav: Volume. You make the profit up with volume.
Tha Flav: Look, I have a really simple four-step plan here:
Tha Flav: 1. Buy coffins on the cheap
Tha Flav: 2. Mail them out to people
Tha Flav: 3. ...
Tha Flav: 4. Profit
Me: with a rock-solid plan like that, how can we fail?
Tha Flav: Exactly
Me:

Enter the following information for the "Shipping Address" at checkout:
First and last name: name of the deceased

Me: how exactly does the corpse order it themselves?
Tha Flav: They have highspeed internet in most graveyards for a nominal fee
Me: hahaha- this is great:
Me:

For the "Billing Address," enter the following information at checkout about the person or organization that is paying for the casket:

First and last name: name of bill-to customer

Me: I like how they call them the "bill-to" person instead of the "hasn't bought the farm" person
Tha Flav: You're so insensitive, Candice
Me: you're the one trying to bank on this. I'm just trying to deal with an uncomfortable life phase in the only way I know how.
Me: plus, I'm insensitive.
Tha Flav: Right

A night out with Flavian...

So, Flavian and I have few things in common. Very few things. He sleeps with a blanket that says "binary" in binary. I do not. He wears shirts that have some freaky waterproof teflon-style coating on them. I do not. He drives a clown car cleverly marketed as an urban hipster-mobile. I do not.

But we do have one thing in common that brings us together over and over again: the burning desire to act like pretentious, accent pillow-owning flakes. And to be believed in that role, if only for a short time.

You see, he's been feverishly redecorating his apartment. We're talking fresh paint in warm, soothing colors. We're talking sake sets that will never see any sake. We're talking placemats that will probably never see an actual plate on them unless the chinese take-out people start getting mighty fancy. And tea kettles, people. TWO of them.

So you can see what it is I'm dealing with here. Now I would expell my secret yuppie longings safely in the secrecy of my own apartment, where no one but my closest friends (and those who read their blogs) would ever know about it, too. Except I'm kinda messy. A little bit. Just a hint. And if I *did* buy a sake set, I'd be trying to figure out how to eat cereal from it before the week's end so that I could avoid washing a bowl.

What's a girl to do? Well, I get my yuppie needs out at restaurants. You know the people who frantically scan the wine list for something they can both pronounce and afford (without it being the cheapest wine on the menu, oh heavens!) because they'd rather die than have a less-than-minimum-wage waiter hear them pronounce "sangiovese" wrong? Yeah. that's me.

So I got my moderately priced glass of pinot noir and settled in for a nice evening. Until the waiter came back and smeared his wine-god knowledge all over my pride.

"The cranberry from the wine really goes nicely with the shrimp, doesn't it?"

Goddamn it! I didn't know that there would be a wine pairing test too! I wasn't ready yet! I need at least 4 more episodes of Simply Wine with Andrea Immer on the Fine Living Channel before I can face this!

But face it I did, with the less than acceptable "huuhhh? ohhhhhh yah. yummy."

Meanwhile, Flavian's asking "What did he say has cranberries in it? I didn't get any cranberries in my shrimp!"

Damnit, Flavian. The waiter heard you and you blew our cover. Okay, my 'yummy' comment didn't help. I couldn't go down like that. The only thing worse than being seen as a yuppie was being seen as the person who wanted to be seen as a yuppie. Those people are the lowest life forms of all. They're somewhere below 40 year olds who still eat the paste and people who wear fanny packs in a way that isn't ironically hip.

You can see that the stakes had been raised. It was time to break out all the stops. It was time to pretend to like overpriced desserts. This is an area where I really shine as a yuppie.

We ordered Creme Brulee and Cognac. Okay, *I* mostly ordered the creme brulee. And I'm pretty certain that I also ordered the cognac. I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It turns out that they both taste like shit and I spent dessert trying to chase one bad taste away with the other bad taste in a cruel downward spiral of alcohol and fluffy egg-product.

It was a lesson well learned. Some of us (me) just don't belong in the world of "sophisticated" people. Some of us (again, me) can't handle the pressure of the high stakes rat-race that exists in the world of slightly-above-family-style restaurants. Frankly, some of us shouldn't really be allowed to leave the house. But I escape on ocassion anyway. Next time I plan to escape to someplace a little more down to earth.

Especially since it'll be my turn to buy.

You know you're too tired to be vertical when...

You accidentally walk into the men's bathroom at school.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there.

I should continue with "you accidentally walk into the men's bathroom at school... and your first thought isn't 'AHHHH! Wrong bathroom!' it's "huh. urinals. That seems like an ineffective way to use the space in a women's bathro... AHHH! Wrong bathroom!"

If I was like, a firefighter, instead of just a confused bathroom user, that extra 10 seconds could have cost little Billy his life.

With friends like these...

I know it's hard to believe, but it turns out that not *everyone* is a fan of this blog. In fact, I got a rather nasty IM earlier today from someone calling it a "crazy feminist blog." Now, hate-mail is nothing new. It happens when you're as widely read as I am. But this hate-mail was unique in that it came from one of this blog's contributing authors.

Thanks, Flavian/Brian/Guy Incognito. You're a flaming jackass.

So, I think I might just have to change the focus of my blog. It seems I'm turning off the readers (all 2 of em) with my rants on abortion and birth control. But that's cool. I roll with the punches. I've noticed that my blog gets the highest read-times when I post about Brian himself. Or Ryan. Admittedly, this is most likely because they have nothing better to do than sit around, eagerly awaiting my next post to see if they're key players in it. But still, I give the people what they want.

So from now on, expect more "Adventures With Flavian" and less republican-related cursing. I've cursed so much the past 4 years, that the term "fucking goddamn bullshit son-of-a-bob-dole" just doesn't even have the same punch that it used to anyway.

It's a new era for Wankershanks. All of that energy I've wasted on republican-hating will now be directed toward flavian-hating. And scatalogical humor too. I mean, come on.

Can Porn Save the Planet?

Oh boy- Andrea Dworkin is going to be rolling over in her grave and flicking me off today.

I was over at wonkette!when I saw a link to an article about two earnest environmentalists who were trying to make a difference in the world.

What happens when some naked hippies get ahold of a camera? Apparently, it's called Eco Porn!


Normally, this kind of thing annoys me, but really- how can you be anything but fascinated with someone who thinks carrots are an appropriate replacement for "adult toys?" While I was personally too scared to visit the actual site (this suggestive leek picture had me wishing I had gouged my eyes out 5 minutes ago), I did enjoy the article immensly.

Apparently, they have so far collected about $100,000 for environmental causes. There have been a few snafoos along the way... But when they were charged with staging a public sex show, did it stop them in their righteous crusade, or did they simply drop trou in the courtroom before leaving the country? I'll bet you'll never guess the answer to that one.

So you're thinking to yourself, "self, I want to help out these crusaders for hot man-on-vegetable-on-woman-on-treestump action. But I have no money to donate. If only there was something I could do."

Oh but there is. In the true spirit of grassroots activism, they also accept donations of your time- specifically, your time on video as you get down with a couple leather-clad germans in the produce section of your local Whole Foods. Apparently, this is surprisingly easy to translate into money, which is then used for one kick-ass arbor day party. Or something.

So for all you naysayers, chew on this tidbit for a while: "we wouldn't have nature without sex." Ummmm, just wait til you've eaten a lot of vegan pot brownies first.

Rest In Peace, Andrea Dworkin

I've been trying for days to think of what to post about the death of Andrea Dworkin. Clearly, I've thought about it for too long, because good ol' Flea at One Good Thing
(scroll to 4/12) has already posted everything that was in my head.

Well, almost everything.

I started rereading my favorite Dworkin speech. "I Want a 24-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape" was delivered in 1983 to a group of 500 pro-feminist men. To end this speech, she says:

... I want one day of respite, one day off, one day in which no new bodies are piled up, one day in which no new agony is added to the old, and I am asking you to give it to me. And how could I ask you for less--it is so little. And how could you offer me less: it is so little. Even in wars, there are days of truce. Go and organize a truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape.

I dare you to try it. I demand that you try it. I don't mind begging you to try it. What else could you possibly be here to do? What else could this movement possibly mean? What else could matter so much?

And on that day, that day of truce, that day when not one woman is raped, we will begin the real practice of equality, because we can't begin it before that day. Before that day it means nothing because it is nothing: it is not real; it is not true. But on that day it becomes real. And then, instead of rape we will for the first time in our lives--both men and women--begin to experience freedom. If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong. You cannot change what you say you want to change. For myself, I want to experience just one day of real freedom before I die. I leave you here to do that for me and for the women whom you say you love.

I think I love this speech so much because this is a woman who is constantly and unfairly drug around as the ultimate stereotype of the feminist man-hater and yet her optimism is so obvious... A single day where no one is raped. She makes it sound so attainable. I'm sorry she never got to see it happen.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.

"Rooter" features such mind-bending gems as: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."

After some of the classes I've taken, I'd have fallen for it too.

He's a "Sometimes Cookie" monster now

Sesame Street's beloved Cookie Monster is officially on the wagon.on the wagon. http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/07/tv.cookie.lessmonster.ap/index.html

That's right, folks. According to a an urgent CNN report, the cookie monster is

... now advocating eating healthy. There's even a new song -- "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food," where Cookie Monster learns there are "anytime" foods and "sometimes" foods.

It's a sad day for pastries and deserts everywhere when their biggest supporter has become a health-obsessed turncoat.

Success!

How do you measure success? For me, it's when your blog is listed as the FIRST TWO LINKS for a google search on "scawwy jesus."

Oh yeah. Ohhhhhh yeaaaaah.

my url! my website! my choice!

ohhhh, prolifers. You slay me.

A new website: www.prochoice.com, alleges to "empower women to make informed choices!"

And how do they do that? With the vibrating fetus graphic! Wave to the camera, little fetus!

Oh, but it's not all movin-pictures. It's also a much-needed source for women who are faced with the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy. There are so many questions to be answered. It's high time that we had unbiased answers to questions like:

Q: "How much does an abortion cost?"
A: "The ultimate price, your baby's life, your self esteem and maybe your life."

Q: "Abortion... When is it safe?"
A: "No medical procedure is 100% safe so the answer is never Completely, and less safe than many procedures. To be 100% safe don't have one."

Q: "Did you have a monkey type that last answer?"
A: "Shut up, heathen."

Q: "What about RU-486?"
A: "this drug was approved for use buy women based on it's profit potential for the abortion industry and political pressure from their cult like followers."

Q: "<--- cult-like follower"
A: "[insert garbled sentence here]"

Q: "What is RU-486?"
A: "Think of a pill that you take and that's all there is to it. If you believe that I'm sure you would like to buy some swamp land in Florida too."

Q: "You got beef with my stomping grounds?

From there, the conversation pretty much degenerated into 'yer-mama' cracks. But really, check out the site. And compare it to those abortion-industry cultists over at, say, www.plannedparenthood.org. It looks like they even had the nerve to use some of their baby-killin' profits on a spell checker. Just rub it in our faces, sinners.

Votes for Women!

I've given up on ever being president. I just don't think that we'll see a woman president in my life time. There are more realistic goals and power grabs for me to aspire to.

That's why I'm running for "pope."

Being that I'm not catholic, I have no idea who decides this. That's why I'm just putting it out here, for word to spread through the wonder of the internet. So if someone could let god or... I dunno, the 'pope squad' know that I'm in the running, I'd totally appreciate it.

Candice for Pope in '05!

Mad props to the Gov of Illinois

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved an emergency rule Friday requiring pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions quickly after a Chicago pharmacist refused to fill an order because of moral opposition to the drug.

My favorite part:

"No delays. No hassles. No lectures."

and the Planned Parenthood rep naturally had some quality input:

"When medical professionals write prescriptions for their patients, they are acting in their patients' best interests," Trombley said. "A pharmacist's personal views cannot intrude on the relationship between a woman and her doctor."

THIS is what I'm talkin' about, people!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/01/birth.control.governor.ap/index.html

Should this really have to be such a big deal these days? Telling a pharmacist to fill a prescription should not require it's own emergency bill. I mean really.

4parents.gov

So the government has a new website called 4parents.gov. It's about the sex. Specifically the teens having the sex. Hilarious? You bet.

They offer helpful tips for parents who are trying to discuss the possible consequences of sex with their teenage children. "But how would a parent bring up such a conversation?" you ask yourself. Fear not! The feds have provided this little gem for you to break the ice:

Some guys go out for a good time over the weekend, and end up with thousands of dollars taken out of their paychecks for the next 18 years. Do you know how that could happen?

Now THAT is a good way to start a productive dialog with your child if I've ever heard one. For my money though, the following is the way to go. See if you can spot the entirely-unsubliminal message here. (hint- it has nothing to do with sex!)

I was at the store yesterday and ran into Kendrick, Mrs. Jakes' son. He joined the military after high school. What do you think you want to do when you graduate from high school?

Far be it from me to suggest that this administration might use an "informational" website to up their military ranks but... that's pretty much what I'm suggesting.

The glossary is fun for all as well. I thought they were actually going to do okay with the abortion thing for a second:

An abortion is a way of ending a pregnancy before a live birth occurs by removing the fetus or unborn baby from the uterus.

They just couldn't leave the 'unborn baby' schtick out. Still, I'm impressed that terms like "baby killer," "child-hating feminist" and "bomb an abortion clinic- for fun and profit!" were left out. That shows a lot of restraint.

I looked everywhere for mention of "the gay" and found only one small section... which referred to homosexuality as an "alternative lifestyle" and then encourages parents to send their kids to a shrink that "shares [their] values." Other than that, the gays don't seem to exist. I suppose they were all in therapy when this website was created.

Denied.

Ugh... I just finished watching the movie Garden State. It's almost as bad as Lost In Translation, but at least this time I wasn't deluded into thinking that ghostbusting might occur.

"Deep" romantic comedies make me want to gouge my eyes out. I can't stop watching them because I keep thinking that they have to get better. That's why I need to just gouge my eyes out, you see? I don't want to have to actively decide to turn it off. Because what if it does get better?

It never does.

And what's with the whole 'quirky girl saves the too-serious dude and convinces him to open up' plots? They suck. They've always sucked. From Along Came Polly to Lost In Translation to this crapalicious flick.

And honestly, eye candy for the straight girls. Please people. Work with me on this one. Look, I'm not saying that Zach Braff is an outright eyesore or anything, but between him and his grave-digging friends, I wasn't exactly stunned, visually speaking. Between the "barely-legal" waifs in their skivvies by the pool and the topless prostitute in the hotel, you'd think they could squeeze in *one hot guy* without his shirt. Or something.

Denied.

Lazy day

I don't feel like actually blogging today. But I haven't in a while, so I need to post something. Here are the most recent google searches that people have used to find my blog, that I felt worthy of posting here. Enjoy.

"gossip hilary duff condom" was my personal favorite. My website is proudly located after a list of "nude celebrity pics" and before a list of "HIV positive celebrities revealed!" Fantastic.

I'm on page one of the google search for "progress energy assholes." Seems the good will bestowed upon the electric company during the hurricane days has subsided. Watch your backs, electricians.

I'm still on page one for "brytec roofing" so apparently, that's still a popular search. And yes, they're still assholes in my book.

Finally, I've been found yet again by the upscale fans of Crank Yankers. This time, the term used was "CRANK YANKERS THERES A TURD IN MY CAR." Lay into those caps, buddy. Sadly, I seem to have fallen from page 1 on google. I think I'll cry myself to sleep tonight.

Homer would eat this up. Literally.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A symbol of Christianity that sits atop church steeples, dangles from necks and hangs on walls is now ending up in the mouths of the faithful, over the objections of some religious officials.

A mass-produced chocolate cross is being sold this Easter by Russell Stover Candies Inc. in about 5,000 stores nationwide, which experts say is apparently a first for a major American company.

The only word that comes to mind is the great Homer Simpson utterance: mmmmm... sacrilicious.

But my favorite quote by far from this fantastic article has to be this gem from Roman Catholic diocese guy, Joeseph McAleer:

"The cross should be venerated, not eaten, nor tossed casually in an Easter basket beside the jelly beans and marshmallow Peeps," he said. "It's insulting."

Insulting indeed. Peeps have worked long and hard for their place in the easter basket hierarchy. This jesus-come-lately needs to put in its hours just like any other candy. Sheesh.

pro-life? thanks again, jackasses.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/217156_janedoe23.html

"I could not imagine going through five more months of pregnancy, knowing that the baby will never survive or have any kind of life whatsoever," the woman, then 19, told a federal judge in August 2002...

She won her case and had the abortion. But more than two years later, the federal government continues to fight her, trying to get the woman and her sailor husband to pay back the $3,000 the procedure cost and trying to cast in stone a ban on government-funded abortions...

Anencephaly is a neural tube defect that causes a fetus to develop without a forebrain, cerebellum or cranium and which is 100 percent fatal to the fetus...

You too can own a li'l slice of Satan!

We've all heard the stories about Jesus appearing in a waffle, or a bunion that is the spitting image of the Virgin Mary.

Really, it's about time that Satan made a cameo. And make one he did! With the same flourish of style and hint of irony that we've come to expect from the prince of darkness, he appeared to a pet shop owner in the form of a turtle... named Lucky.


Apparently, the evidence is piling up that this turtle is, in fact, the merciless ruler of hell. Consider the following:

-Lucky was the only animal to survive a fire at Dora's A-Dora-ble Pet Shop
-The cause of the fire remains a mystery
-The fire raged for hours, much longer than a non-satanic turtle could hold its breath
-Oh yeah, and there's a creepy outline of a horned goat-thing on his back

Demonic turtle 4, harmless amphibian 0.

The only evidence that has come forward so far to suggest Lucky's innocence is the fact that "there was no change in [Lucky's] behavior" after the fire. Oh, and the fact that he's a turtle.

And hey, if that's enough to help you sleep at night, go right ahead and buy into the deceit, my friend. But if you want the whole truth behind this turtle's rise to power, ebay has your back.

Furniture Shopping with Flavian

So my buddy Flavian and I went furniture shopping today. Flavian needed a couch. I needed a new dining room table since a rogue cadre of lesbians stole mine the day before.

(note: by "stole" I mean I begged them to take it away because it was a ferociously ugly table. And by "rogue cadre," I mean "two of my friends." And by lesbians, I mean, well, I actually do mean lesbians. Don't ask me why I even included that detail, although I suspect it has something to with the fact that 'rogue cadre of lesbians' sounds really damned cool.)

Anyway, so off we went to the Rooms-to-Go outlet. We browsed and browsed. Every now and then I would jokingly point to one of the "ugly" couches and say "boy that one would look great in your place" with a sarcastic grin. He'd walk over to the couch slowly, make a serious lap around it, then cock his head slightly and look at me like a lost puppy. It took me a while to get it. Finally, when we approached the pleather, seafoam-green loveseat of doom, I knew something was up.

"Man, check out that seafoam green! What a steal!" I hooted.

"Um, is it a *nice* seafoam green?" he asked.

Something was up. Really up. That's when he pointed to a pitch-black couch and said "That purple one looks nice."

One of us was clearly color blind. How would we ever find out which one it was? A series of expensive, time-consuming tests would have to be conducted on the spot. There was simply no other way to resolve the matter.

"Oh, you know I'm color blind, right?" he asked.

Fair enough. I tried to be a true friend (the kind that screws over their buds whenever it's funny) and steer him back towards the seafoam green loveseat.

"Hey! Check out that loveseat!" I said, pointing once again to the seafoam sofa.

"Nope. That's the seafoam one. I remember the location." he said confidently.

We made a few laps of the store while I tried to disorient him. But he was too quick for me. Apparently he's colorblind, not stupid. Finally, we left without a couch or a dining room table. I missed a perfectly good opportunity to screw over a friend, and he missed... well, nothing. Actually, he dodged a damned ugly couch and is wiser for the wear.

St. Patties day sale at the Abandoned Kids Store!!!

I thought about calling this thread something like the "Fox News Jackass of the Month," and making it a regular feature. Then I realized that it would be too hard to properly honor all the jackasses at Fox by limiting myself to 12 times per year. I could do a weekly one, but even that might not do justice. Daily? Hourly? Perhaps I should just keep a more analog, if you will, live-blog tally so that I don't miss a single second of jackassery?

I'll keep thinking about it. But for now, the Fox News Jackass of Right Now is none other than John Gibson!

What did he say to receive such a high honor? Oh, what didn't he say?
In his latest article titled "The Basic Idea of Marriage is to Raise Kids" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150672,00.html) he claims that

Gays can't have kids — other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two, or borrowing sperm from someone with more sperm than brains — so by definition they're out of the marriage game.

Abandoned kids store. Wow. That's a little um, offensive. Oh- wait! My mistake. This is a conservative talking. They aren't offensive, they're "folksy!" Or "straight-talkin!" They're "politically incorrect" because they don't bow down to shrieking special interest groups like black people and women and uhhhh... children without parents.

Jay-zus.

But of course, that's not even the half of it- what's this nonsense about biological children being required for a legal marriage? I don't remember that being on my marriage certificate. I'm sure that all the infertile couples of the world will appreciate knowing that their marriages are invalid in the eyes of 'compassionate' conservatives everywhere.

He sorta tries to answer the infertile couple question by stopping off at the old people store... but fails miserably. Continuing from "... by definition, they're out of the marriage game..."

In theory, so would couples who get married in their eighties. Chances are good that no kids come out of that holy union. But it is at least theoretically possible. Not so with gays.

It's good to know that theoretically, marriages between 80 year olds would also be invalid except that they can theoretically have children. I'm not a betting woman, myself, but considering that the oldest woman to not-so-theoretically have ever given birth was 14 years shy of 80, and required 9 years of hormone therapy to do it, I'd say that I'll put my money on the big ol' homo's reaching that finish line first.
http://www.nbc5.com/irresistible/4106894/detail.html

But, he ends on a conciliatory note by saying that he's not mean, he's okay with the gays having the rights, so long as they don't call it "marriage." Yeah, well, I'll toss some rights your way too, buddy. So long as you stop calling adoption agencies "abandoned kids stores." So far, you've only got the right to be labelled the Fox News Jackass of Right Now.

Rock bottom

I am sitting here at my desk, at 5:06am eastern time, mowing down a bag of stale valentine's hearts. You know, the Necco wafer ones? I think I've hit a new low in my life. I'm actually reading them.

Some of them make sense for valentine's day: Miss you, only you, it's love, etc.

Some of them don't make sense, but can be forgiven as they're clearly misguided attempts to keep up with the times: Fax me, page me, go girl, etc.

Some of them are in a catagory all their own. I'm staring at a little green candy that says, and I kid you not on this one, "Book Club." Next to it, is a purple heart that says "let's read." I can only imagine that this is some literacy campaign gone horribly awry.

There's also one that says "let it be." Clearly, there's a major quality control issue at the Necco wafer plant. Somehow, a rogue candy writer, who seems to be a demented cross between Laura Bush and a tree-hugging hippy, has been allowed to roam free amongst the little hearts of love.

I don't know what this world has come to... but worry not, fair readers! I intend to end this here and now. And then brush my teeth.

I wouldn't be here today without my fans...

This blog is for you, my readers, to thank you for bestowing a great honor upon me. I am officially on the first yahoo search page for "turd in car transcript crank yankers." This is not an award that I take lightly. I would post more, but I'm a little misty-eyed.

blech.

Live in Kansas at your own risk.

So... there's a possibility for a crime to have been committed. There isn't a shred of proof that one did, and there's not a single suspect. And this douchebag wants the medical histories of women and girls released to him. Based on that. Wow.

I'd like for all proctologists to release their records, too. Clearly, something might have crawled up someone's ass and died... was there foul play involved? I'll never know without this extremely private, yet randomly seized, information.

Have I mentioned that republicans *really* tick me off? Oh, cause they do. Are they still claiming to be interested in keeping the guvammint out of our lives? Is anyone still buying it?

Okay, here's the thing

I know everyone loves the movie Lost in Translation. I know that I'm supposed to be one of the sensitive intellectuals who can enjoy a complete lack of plot and explosionage.

But here's the thing: I see Bill Murray's name on a movie? I expect Ghostbuster quality. Bare minimum. I don't think that's too much to ask for. Would it have *killed* them to throw in a creepy, dead librarian or two?

I don't think it would have.

Fun with Pro-Lifers

Pro-lifers take themselves entirely too seriously. This can provide an insane amount of entertainment for the rest of us normal folk. I found this secret out one day when I went with my friend to an abortion clinic. She was actually just there to pick up her birth control, as the abortion clinic sells it more cheaply than a regular pharmacy, but the protestors outside didn't know that. As we were walking in the door, the protestors geared up:

"THEY'RE KILLING BAAAAABIES IN THERE!" A woman screamed passionately at us.

"Oh shit!" I said. "I thought they were giving away puppies!"

We pretended to turn around, but couldn't stop laughing long enough to pull it off.

The realization that pro-lifers have *no* sense of humor when it comes to the whole "baby-killing" thing has really helped me keep my sanity through protests. I used to just flick them off and do the whole "my body, my choice!" chant. Which is nice, don't get me wrong. There's nothing like a good chant. And flicking them off does provide a certain "warm fuzzy" that few things can replace. But there is a much deeper satisfaction that comes with really having a hearty laugh instead.

I remember at the March for Women's Lives up in DC, there was a proud pro-lifer along the march route. He held up a sign with some nonsense about abortion being a modern holocaust. Unlike the more polite protestors, he was standing in the march route, where we had to bump around him as we passed. This would have been annoying, had it not provided a GREAT opportunity to sticker his back without his knowledge. By the end of the march, he had more "Pro-choice is pro-woman!" and "Every child a wanted child!" stickers on him than Susan Sarandon and Ani Difranco combined. I wish I could have been there when he found our gifts of love.

Speaking of protests, My good friend Brian (aka guyincognito) and I were tossing around an idea when we were in DC this past January. We were at the American History Museum and noticed a guy in the mall holding a sign. The sign said: "Sin is evil." Now, it just looked lonely. I mean, marching for something that has no real opponent is kinda sad. We really wanted to stand next to him, holding a sign that said "Yay sin!" I might have even pretended to let him convert me. "You mean... sin is *evil?* But... this ruins my whole idea of good and, um, you know... evil. What have I been doing with my life?!?"

Unfortunately, we had nothing with which to construct some signage. Brian, always one for a "get rich quick... off sucker political activists" scheme decided that it would be a great idea to make a compactable, eraseable protest sign. A must have for the liberal-on-the-go. Think about the potential. You could protest ANYTHING, ANYWHERE with no warning at all. Don't like the service at your local falafel joint? Break out the sign! Vending machine eat your dollar? Break out the sign! Tired of people protesting stuff? Hey- you've got a sign for that, buddy!

You'd better pre-order now. These puppies are going to fly off the shelves.

DARE to keep Jon on drugs...

More adventures with Jon Thomas Lore...

Outside the bank today, there were some people soliciting donations for a well known group called DARE, which strives to keep kids off drugs.

For some bizarre reason, I decided to tell Jon Thomas about it.

Jon's response?

"I woulda given her some change and just said 'yeah. I hate it when I go to my dealer and he's says he's all out cause some teenagers bought it all. High school kids just ruin it for everyone. A real addict needs that shit."

aaaaaand end quote. So, there you go. DARE to keep Jon on drugs. It may be a side effect that the good people at DARE never intended... but atleast they're helping someone.

It's not as bad as it seems

Dems everywhere, don't cry. It's not as bad as it seems.

I know several friends who were near suicidal when this gallup poll was released: http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=14974

Okay, okay. So people named Reagan as the greatest president. I'll say it if no one else will. It's cause he just died. Nothing raises popularity like death. You have to wait at least 5 years after a president's death before obtaining any sort of long-term idea of popularity. So don't go and off yourself because of this... unless you want to raise your own popularity, of course.* And other than Reagan, who was on the top 5? Clinton, FDR, Kennedy and Lincoln. All of whom can reasonably be considered progressives. (normally, I would insert a Clinton/DLC disclaimer for all you truebelievers but yannow what? After 4 years of Bush, the grass is lookin' greener, my friends. It's lookin' greener.)

And yes. Lincoln wasn't technically a dem. But comeon. He *so* would be today and you know it. And FDR? Shiiiiiit. There are *still* diehard, ornery, octogenarian conservatives who will refer to him only as "that man."** That makes him a-ok in my book.

So basically, this just tells us what we already knew. Progressive politics are fantastic in hindsight, but they're big-n-scawwy in the present light. So, while it may be nearly impossible to actually *get* elected, the people will love you forever once you're gone. Thanks, America.

*disclaimer 1: To all you teens- no, I don't condone suicide for popularity's sake. Just do what the rest of us malcontents did: write bad poetry about how tragic your life is and invest a small fortune in thick, black eyeliner. It's much less permanent and you get the same angst-ridden result.

**quoth my friend, Metal Prophet, who has apparently met some of those ornery octogenarian conservatives.

Random conversation in the lobby-

There's nothing better than hearing *part* of a conversation... the part that's completely weird if taken out-of-context. This was part of a conversation that was too good to keep to myself. The roles are played by my boss, A and my co-worker, T.

A- That's the guy with the tatoo of jesus, right?

T- He does not have a tatoo of jesus!

A- The hell he doesn't! Right on his leg!

T- No! That guy is supposed to be jesus?

A- Do you know of anyone else who wears a crown of thorns?

T- uhhh...

A- Look at Bikinikiller. You know she's thinking "get your religion out of my lobby."

Heh. Actually, I was thinking that I am *so* lucky to work at a place where heresy happens daily. Thank you, jesus.

The one that got away...

For some time now, I've had a severe armadillo-phobia. Some would call it an "irrational fear." They lay on that "it's more scared of you than you are of it" line- like anyone actually buys that. That's what the armadillos want you to think.

So as I pulled up to our apartment after work tonight it was unsettling to discover an armadillo between my car and my apartment. Perhaps I should explain the root of my fear, so you can understand where I'm coming from.

It was a balmy summer night at a woodsy little camp called Cedarkirk. We were playing a massive game of Capture the Flag that encompassed acres upon acres of wilderness. Armed with only a flashlight, I set out to complete the mission. For those readers not familiar with Capture the Flag, the mission, not surprisingly, is to Capture a Flag. Anyway, I was in a low crouch with my face to the ground. My eyes were focused on the flag I so dearly sought. I could taste victory.

Then out of nowhere, a giant, man-eating armadillo popped up in front of me, his murderous eyes glinting in the moonlight. He bared his bloody, armadillo fangs and gave a look that can only be described as "Your ass is mine, Wankershanks."

I screeched and ran. To my horror, the armadillo chased after me. With astounding speed and agility, he lept and scuttled at my heels. I may have had 50 times his body mass, but he had a will that would not fail. You'd think I'd insulted his mama the way he was running after me. That mofo was determined to mow. me. down.

Suffice it to say, I am still alive. I was not "another statistic." I was not "another notch in his belt" although he certainly tried. I don't how long the blood sport lasted... only that there was a bright light beckoning to me from above and I ran for it. Even death would be an improvement over such terror. Luckily, I didn't need to die, as the bright light scared the crap out of the armadillo. Oh yeah, and it was the lights around the pool. Not God. FYI.

But you can see that I've been scarred. Who wouldn't be? So when I saw that armadillo outside of my apartment tonight I wondered, "who had he been talking to?" Was I the one that got away? Was there a bounty on my head in the seedy armadillo underground?

I hurried inside without incident, but who knows what they have planned for morning? If I'm taken down by a snarling mob of oversized rat-dogs, I beg you good readers: Avenge my death.

Engineering symposium? Cheeze-It!

For some weird reason, this email from the engineering department at my university completely cracked me up. I just had to share it with someone. Aren't you lucky?

"Thermo-Mechanical Effects in Multi-Component Micro-Systems in
Electronic Applications"

DAY: 28 January 2005, Friday
TIME: 2:00 pm
PLACE: Engr I Bldg, Room 224

Snacks will be provided. Please see attached abstract details.

I think it was the "snacks will be provided" that set me off. You think a juice box and some ritz crackers are enough to bribe me into attending that?!?

Nice try, you sneaky engineers, you. I believe I'll be getting my nosh on elsewhere.

The day my opinion got flushed

We all make mistakes. Some are apparently less forgiveable than others... say, killing someone. That's usually a biggie. Among my friends, subjecting them to the wrong indie flick is capital punishment worthy. I learned this after picking out a saucy little movie called Urinal.

Now, I still maintain that there was no way I could have predicted the unparalleled badness of this movie. From the summary on www.imdb.com:

A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists to investigate a police response to the dilema of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.

I mean, what more could any movie renter want? It's got it all: Dead artists, unethical police, an inside look at toilets, and of course, a "mystery man" bringing it all together. Who wouldn't want to see Frida Kahlo and Langston Hughes play gay avengers against the homophobic fascists on the Canadian police force?

Okay. Apparently it IS possible for a winning combination like that to go awry. Somewhere between the bad lighting and the bad acting, I finally admitted that I had chosen a very terrible movie. I even apologized. Me. Apologized.

But it was too late. My movie renting priviledges have been revoked. Forever. And I'm not even allowed to go *near* Stardust, the local haven for indie flick rentals.

Hindsight is 20/20 my friend, but don't tell me you wouldn't have fallen for that plot line too. You know you would have.

fantastic.

Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I would just like to point out how forward thinking this mid-december post of mine was:

Here in modern day civilization, we've moved on to... oh, let's say, the Spongebob movie. And, you know, how it relates to... stuff.

And so we have. Stupid gay sponges.


Fantastic.

On the road again...

So, my good friend Flavian (aka Brian, aka what-ever-the-hell-his-name-is-on-here-cause-I'm-too-lazy-to-look) and I went to Washington, DC. Again. This time, Ryan was absent, although there in spirit, I'm sure. Overall, it was a good trip. But, as always, mistakes were made. In the interest of serving the public (which is clearly my goal with this blog) I'd like to share a few of those mistakes with you, so that others can learn without suffering as I did.

1. The good people at the Mini-Cooper factory aren't kidding with that name. Those cars are NOT "road-trip friendly" in my book. I felt like I was riding around in a slightly more stylin' version of a clown car. But ya gotta love that gas mileage.

2. Don't eat falafel and leftover curry when you're going to be in a confined space for long periods of time. Look, I'm not pointing fingers here or anything, but I am saying that I don't remember passing a paper mill on the way up. The way down, however, was a different story.

3. If you are planning on attending a specific function, say the inauguration, plan to be on TIME for that function. An example of what not to do would be, say, leaving Orlando at 9am with an ETA of 12pm in DC. Somehow, this just doesn't work. See below for further explanation.

4. Bring maps. Oh, and I should specify further: Bring maps of the areas you'll be driving through and visiting. For example, if you are going to DC, you might want to include a map of DC, as well as the states between you and DC. This helps you figure out not only where you're going, but when you might arrive there. I suppose this should be obvious...

and finally,

5. Don't stop in South Carolina. We'll just leave it at that.

miscarry me far far away from virginia

Absolute fucking insanity apparently has a new name:HB1677.
As well as a new master: Sen. John Cosgrove (R- surprise!) of Virginia.

I'd like to be funny about this, but really, it's not funny. It's monstrous. It's frightening. And it's some of the most twisted and downright mean legislation that pro-lifers have come up with in recent memory. Not for lack of trying, of course.

According to the bill's summary, HB1677

Provides that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman's responsibility to report the death to the proper law-enforcement agency within 12 hours of the delivery. Violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Just to clarify, for anyone not fully horrified, this means that any woman who has a natural miscarriage at any stage of pregnancy must report it within 12 hours. A class 1 misdemeanor, by the way, is the same catagory Virginia affords to stalkers, statutory rapists, and the good people who make bomb threats. Is there any other instance in the United States where failing to report a completely natural body function is considered a crime? I'm reminded of the episode of Crank Yankers where the unsuspecting man is jokingly fined for environmental damage due to his overzealous bowel movements. Unfortunately, this time it isn't foul-mouthed puppets on a cable show. It's a senator.

The logistics, of course, are mindboggling. Even conservative estimates say that around 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriages. Most likely that number is much higher when you consider very early miscarriages from women who had no idea they were even pregnant. Not that this bill differentiates. And what about those women who didn't know they were pregnant? Criminals, all of them! And speaking of criminals, how will the fuzz deal with this? The impossibility of enforcement would make even the war on drugs look like a smashing success. The only way they can possibly keep track is if women are crazy enough to get prenatal care. We certainly wouldn't want to be encouraging that!

But more importantly, how the fuck is this guy going to tell thousands of women, only hours after they've miscarried, to shelve their pain while they fill out some forms?

I'm sick of these pro-child, pro-family, pro-asshole republicans living up to every stereotype I have of them. Someone prove me wrong already. Please. It's not that hard. My standards for republicans are appallingly low these days.

Jon Stewart- please procreate.

Tucker Carlson, as well as the CNN show Crossfire which made him and his bowties famous, has officially been sacked.

Everyone who is anyone immediately asked themselves: "Did Jon Stewart have anything to do with this? Please god tell me that Jon Stewart had something to do with this."

Oh, and he did!

For everyone who isn't anyone, Jon Stewart is the beloved host of the "fake news" Comedy Central creation, The Daily Show. Contrary to the description, he reports news that really isn't fake at all (although the audience usually wishes it were) with humorous commentary in between. Very humorous commentary.

But he's more than just funny (and insanely attractive.) He's the voice of a generation (even though he doesn't technically belong to that generation.) This was never more evident than in his now infamous Crossfire appearance when he called Tucker Carlson a dick. Right there. On CNN. A dick!

We'd all been thinking it for years, but even in my wildest fantasies I could not imagine it actually taking place.

That would have been enough for me to die happy. But he didn't just call him a dick. He called him a dick amongst a laundry list of other much-needed criticisms. But a summary by me would do no justice to Mr. Stewart's complaints. So here are a few of my favorite quotes from that episode, taken from CNN's transcript:

"I think, oftentimes, the person that knows they can't win is allowed to speak the most freely, because, otherwise, shows with titles, such as CROSSFIRE Or "HARDBALL" or "I'm Going to Kick Your Ass" will jump on it. In many ways, it's funny. And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad. And I wanted to -- I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't -- it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America. See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks. I'm here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they're hurting us."

I mean, damn. All this from the guy who's show comes on after a half-hour program of puppets making prank calls. Which Stewart proudly admits.

Anyway- what was I talking about? Oh yeah. So today, CNN announced the end of Crossfire, and of Tucker Carlson (at least on their network.) And in explaining his reasons for doing so, the chief executive of CNN stated:

"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp... " And what's more, the Associated Press reports that "He said all of the cable networks, including CNN, have overdosed on programming devoted to arguing over issues. Klein said he wants more substantive programming that is still compelling."

This is huge for fans of Jon Stewart. But it's also huge for fans of intelligent discourse. Will Klein live up to his stated ideal? Or will we be seeing yet another incarnation of "I'm going to kick your ass" in the spring lineup?

I don't know. But it seems that Jon Stewart was correct when he charged on that ill-fated Crossfire episode that "the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity."

I just can't believe they admitted it.