Four Months in Pictures

I haven’t posted any pics of my house or family lately, mostly because, well, I lost the little cable thingy that connects the camera to my computer. I still haven’t found it, but I bought a card reader from Best Buy, so now I can finally post some pics. I’ve got quite a backlog, so I thought I’d do a quick photo pictorial, catching you up on what’s been going on over the past few months.

We went to Seaworld for Christmas. That’s a story in itself, but for now I’ll just post this pic that demonstrates once again that I have the most beautiful children on the planet. I know, you think your kids are cute, but my kids are like BAM! PYCHOW! They’re all up in your grill with their cuteness.



We also went up into the mountains to play in the snow. This is what Mrs. Diesel and I look like a few minutes before I’m going to slam into her on a sled at thirty miles an hour and she doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.



These photos prove nothing except that I’m the BEST UNCLE EVER.





One time we went to the beach. I always get pensive at the beach. Here I’m thinking, “God must have a HUGE salt shaker.”



Here’s Mrs. Diesel looking sultry at the beach. Here she’s thinking, “I can’t believe you used that picture. I look so ugly in that picture.”



One time I took a bunch of meth and stayed up all night building the Sydney Opera House out of Legos™.



And Mount Rushmore.



And this walrus. I only had enough Legos™ for one tusk.



Our house progressed, largely due to the fact that rather than trying to help with the construction over the past few months, I stuck to my strengths: writing insanely large checks.









And that’s all I have for now.



See you on Friday for the caption contest.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Finally, a Post You Can Sink Your Teeth Into!

One can learn a lot of interesting things working at Google.

I was surprised to learn, for example, how easy it is to be turned into a werewolf.

I am not at liberty to disclose the exact nature of the project I’m working on, but I don’t think that I’m spilling any state secrets by revealing to you that it’s related to lycanthropy. You might have guessed as much, yes?

During the course of this project I’ve done a fair amount of research on werewolves. Most of the information I’ve come across is fairly banal: the werewolf’s vulnerability to silver, his aversion to bright light, his susceptibility to wolfsbane due to that plant’s origin as a weed that sprouted from a puddle of drool of the the demon dog Cerberus, etc.

Now I know I've been a little out of touch lately, but I think I still know my readership well enough to place all of you into one of two classes: (1) Those of you who are interested in becoming a werewolf, and (2) Those of you who are interested in avoiding becoming a werewolf.

To those ends, I have put together a brief, categorized list of Ways of Becoming (or Avoiding Becoming) a Werewolf. Those of you who are completely indifferent to the prospect of becoming a werewolf may skip this section.

Category 1: Congratulations / Condolences! You’re Already a Werewolf!
Lycanthropy is often an accident of birth. As such, there is a chance that you are already a werewolf. You are most likely a werewolf if:

1. You are the seventh-born son. (France, Portugal and Brazil only. Sorry, Argentina!) Sadly, lycanthropy is still a male-dominated profession, although in Brazil the seventh daughter has the opportunity to become a mule with fire in place of its head, known as “Mula-sem-cabeça" (Headless Mule). I swear I am not making this up.

2. You are the child of two warewolf parents. It’s not clear what happens if only one of your parents is a warewolf, but I bet it would make a good sitcom.

3. You were born on December 24 (Russia only). The upside to being a Christmas Eve baby in Russia is that people actually remember your birthday. The downside is that they celebrate it by chasing you through the village with torches.

Category 2: Curses and Enchantments
Many people become werewolves through some sort of magic. Usually an enchanted salve, potion or special beer is involved. Most experts agree that it was some combination of these elements that turned Billy Bob Thornton into a werewolf.



Wikipedia quotes one medieval authority who argued in a book he wrote that werewolves were actually sorcerers who voluntarily transformed themselves into wolves. The book’s diabolical nature is evident when one copies and pastes a passage into Microsoft Word, causing it to light up like a Christmas Tree of spelling and grammar errors:

The werewolves are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures.

I can’t quite parse that last sentence, but I think it’s safe to say that those certayne sorcerers were mostly worrying about whether they look silly wearing an "inchaunted girdle."

Category 3: Lycanthropy for the Rest of Us
“But wait,” you say. “I wasn’t born a werewolf and I hardly know any sorcerers. Does that mean I’m safe?” Or alternately, “But wait, I wasn’t born a werewolf and I don’t know any sorcerers who are worth a damn. Does that mean I have no hope of ever becoming a werewolf?” The answer to both of those questions is an unqualified no. After all, if you wanted qualified advice, you wouldn’t be here, would you?

The fact is that there are still several ways in which you could accidentally or intentionally become a werewolf. For example, let’s suppose that you were walking through the woods one night, and you became extremely thirsty. You kneel down, as any normal person would, and drink some water from a shallow impression in the ground. Then you go home, thinking that you are still not a werewolf.

Wrong! You are a werewolf! That impression in the ground was actually the footprint of a wolf, and drinking water from it has transformed you into a werewolf. I know, right? That will make you think twice before drinking water from a puddle that strange animals have been tramping through.

Even if you want to become a werewolf, you should still be careful. I mean, imagine if that puddle wasn’t water. Now not only are you not a werewolf, but you’re still really thirsty, because wolf urine is not nearly as refreshing as you might think.

The point is that it behooves you to take proper precautions, whether your goal is to become a werewolf or to avoid becoming a werewolf. Above all, avoid taking the ‘easy route’ to becoming a werewolf.

According to Wikipedia, you can become a werewolf through “the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin.”

I know, it sounds great: Just put on your wolf-belt and you’re a werewolf. Take it off, and you’re human again. Win-win, right?

Wrong. How do you think the other werewolves, who became accursed creatures of the night by virtue of dark sorcery or some freak accident of birth are going to react when they find out that you’re a skin-wearer? Hardcore lycanthropes don’t take kindly to the “weekend werewolf” sort. You’ll be lucky if they don’t rip off your wolf-belt and leave you naked in the woods, with werewolf gang signs written on your chest in blood. They will probably give you a wolf-belt wedgie, too.


I hope this post was useful to you, whether you are interested in becoming a werewolf, or intent on remaining a non-werewolf. Lycanthropy is a personal matter, and we should be respectful of one another's lifestyle choices.

Watch for my next post, in which I will explain the best way to torture and kill werewolves for amusement.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: A Slurry of Monsters | All Hail Goat-Head Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Congrats, Joel!

Crummy Joel took top honors this week. I think this is his third win, which ties him with Brad for most wins. Joel already has my book because he's a smart guy who know quality humor writing when he sees it, but maybe I'll send him another t-shirt. What? You didn't know there were Mattress Police t-shirts? I guess I should add that link back to my template.



Here's your award, Joel.



McCafferty Himself took second with:

Diesel is crushed that Travolta avoids making eye contact the morning after their special night together.

And newcomer EZ came in third:

Double forehead and bad hair? With a package like that, she won't even notice!!

Thanks for playing, everybody.

I should have some time this weekend to fix all the crap that's been breaking around here and Humor-Blogs.com. And maybe, just maybe, even write an actual post or two.

Have a great weekend.

Another lame post

Sorry for being so lame this week. Between hackers, work and killing gophers, I haven't had much time to blog. I promise to do better next week.

In the mean time, make sure you vote in the caption contest. Remember, the winner gets a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police.

Check back tomorrow for the winners.

Diesel out.

Vote!

Ok, folks, here are the finalists. I just got home and I'm pretty freaking exhausted, so hopefully I don't wake up tomorrow morning and realize I picked 10 lame-ass captions.

Although if the other choice is not waking up, then I guess I'd go with the first option.

Did I mention I'm really tired?


Saint Schizophrenia said...

Diesel finds out exactly how seriously Scientologists take their zero-tolerance stance on anti-depressants.


Jay said...

"Hey guys! Heading to the Bob Marley concert?"


stushie said...

Twenty five years later, Travolta's Saturday Night Fever had mutated into an interplanetary epidemic.


CrummyJoel said...

Diesel would later realize that this was the least weird part of the Scientology recruitment tour.


Brad said...

"Tom! Kirstie! We got another one!"


Pablo said...

The aliens from the planet Lasiks made all who wear glasses into second class citizens. Diesel just liked the attention.


McCafferty Himself said...

Diesel is crushed that Travolta avoids making eye contact the morning after their special night together.


Mark Jabo said...

Diesel: I'm just saying...these hairstyles aren't going to help Scientology shed its image as a bat-sh*t crazy cult.


EZ said...

Double forehead and bad hair? With a package like that, she won't even notice!!


Bunk said...

"C'mon! Sing with me! 'OOgachaca! OOga OOga OOga OOgachaca!' C'mon guys, you know the words..."

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

...and we're back

Well, looks like things are working again. Never did get around to posting anything today. Things have been crazy.

Since we had some technical difficulties, I'll give you until noon Pacific time tomorrow (Tuesday) to get your captions in. I'll post the poll some time after that.

Diesel out.

Grrr...

Sorry, folks. I thought I had fixed the problem, but the malicious frame code is still coming up. I had to take down the Humor-Blogs.com site and disable comments on this site.

The problem isn't actually with my sites; it's with the servers my sites are hosted on. Evidently my hosting company forgot to install a few patches. They aren't telling me much, except that "this is a major issue that is a top priority" for them. Super.

You can read more about the iFrame attack here.

Rest assure that all the Humor-Blogs.com data is still there; nothing has been deleted. I've only taken the site down as a safeguard against infecting anybody with a virus. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

If you have a caption for the caption contest, feel free to email it to me at diesel -at- mattresspolice.com.

Caption Contest: Battlefield Earth

Ok, I think I've gotten a handle on my recent technical difficulties. Apparently the Humor-Blogs.com site and this one were both hacked. The hacker put a bit of code in a hidden frame on the site that would make a call to another website, prompting you to download some sort of executable file, which was probably a virus.

I have removed the malicious code on both sites and alerted my hosting company who, 5+ hours after my initial email this morning, still have not responded. Good show, guys!

I will be posting a more detailed message on Humor-Blogs.com later today.

So, with that out of the way, we can get on to the caption contest for this week. Since I've already done Iron Man and Batman Begins, I was a little short on material this week. Once again, I had to go back to one of the classics. This time I picked Battlefield Earth, the 2000 sci-fi epic starring John Travolta and Forrest Whitaker. That's me with them in the pic.



You know how this works. Submit your captions in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites and I'll post the top 10 in a poll on Tuesday. The winner will be announced next Friday. As always, the winner will receive the coveted In Your Face Award, as well as a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary.

Have fun, and good luck!

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Technical Difficulties

I'm having some issues this morning.

First, if you're using Internet Explorer, you may get a prompt on this site or on Humor-Blogs.com asking you if you want to install some Remote Data Services Data Control plug-in. Do NOT say yes. I don't know what that is or why it's trying to install itself. I'm looking into it and will give you more information when I can.

Second, if you're using Firefox, you may notice that the background turns black partway down the page, making it difficult to read the black text. Not sure why this is happening either, or if it's related to the other issue. It looks fine when I preview the template in Blogger, but when I publish it, it goes all funky.

I hope to be back in a few hours with an update. I've got a caption contest pic ready to go as soon as I get all this crap worked out.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Stapling your tongue to a sheet of plywood

38? But You Seem So Immature!

In two weeks I’ll be thirty-eight years old.

I like this age. You know what’s great about being almost thirty-eight? People stop expecting you to grow up. And you can stop pretending that you’re going to some day.

When you’re thirty-eight and you interrupt a meeting at work with a five minute puppet show starring a Cat5 cable and a laptop power cable, people don’t shake their heads and mutter something to each other about how immature you are. They still think you’re immature, but they accept it. They look at your receding hairline and salt-and-pepper beard and realize that this isn’t the first impromptu puppet show you’ve put on starring office equipment – and it most likely won’t be the last. They assume you know how inappropriate you’re being, and that bringing it to your attention isn’t going to change anything. In fact, now that I think about it, being in your late thirties is a lot like being retarded.

In a sense, I’ve been waiting to be thirty-eight all my life. I’ve always felt about thirty-eight. Even when I was in elementary school, I felt about thirty-eight. When the other kids were worried about getting picked last in softball, I was worried about what I was going to do with my life. I was a lot like Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, in Annie Hall:

Alvy’s mother: He’s been depressed. All of a sudden, he can’t do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Alvy’s mother: Tell Dr. Flicker. (To the doctor) It’s something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding...Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.
Alvy’s mother: What is that your business?

Grade school is a terrible place for a thirty-eight year old.

There were times in school when I was literally bored to tears. I used to fake illnesses so I could get out of doing math drills. School just dragged on, and on, and on, and there seemed to be no point to it. It was all just one colossal waste of time, and nobody felt the need to explain why I needed to be there. It was, in fact, solid real-world training for the quarterly all hands meetings at Galactic Invertebrates.

My strategy for dealing with this sort of tedium hasn’t changed much over thirty-eight years. It’s a two pronged strategy, consisting of (1) doodling pictures of Spider-Man in the margins of my “notes,” and (2) cracking inappropriate jokes.

At one of the first of the pointless all-day meetings at Galactic Invertebrates, the human resources director spent an hour explaining the organizational structure of the company. Which was amusing in itself, because G.I. had no organizational structure. She explained, to a room of blank faces, that G.I. was what was known as a “matrix organization.” She asked if any of us knew what a “matrix organization was.”

Up to this point I had been content with my drawing of Spidey dodging the many arms of Doctor Octopus, but when somebody feeds me a line like that, I can’t resist.

“Well,” I said. “I know that nobody can be told what the matrix is.”

The human resources director looked at me with the look that my mom has on her face while she’s reading this, but everybody else had a good laugh.

It’s not just business meetings where my involuntary boredom defense mechanism kicks in. The other day I was in a finance committee meeting at my church, where we were going over the budget for next year. As I am only the church’s treasurer because of some kind of divine joke, I never have anything useful to contribute at these meetings. I mean, unless you consider drawings of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger to be useful.

Eventually we got to the pastor’s salary, and someone was going through a book that listed the average salaries for employees in various church-related jobs.

“Hey,” I said. “Does that book break it down by denomination?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why?”
“I was wondering how much a couple of Baptists would run us.”

This little remark had the effect of completely derailing the meeting for ten minutes while we tried to ascertain what flavor of minister would give us the most bang for the buck. Very productive.

Just out of college I worked at a company that cataloged legal documents for class action lawsuits. It was the sort of mind-numbing job that computers do these days. A coworker and I used to amuse ourselves by making little adjustments to the letters on the outside of the bottles of Liquid Paper, so that the labels read “Squid Paint” or “Liquid Baby.” I even made one that read “Quid Pro Quo.”

When we ran out of unmolested bottles of Liquid Paper, I turned to writing lengthy missives for the company’s suggestion box. I once wrote a 500 word essay explaining why the company should get a trained monkey to go around the office refilling our coffee cups. I included a detailed cost-benefit analysis, in which I explained how much money the company would be saving through increased productivity. Then, at the very bottom I wrote in small letters:

P.S.: Please disregard my earlier request for a soda badger.

Paperwork bores me as well. I’m terrible at anything that requires attention to detail, and I suspect that only about 3% of the thousands of forms that I’ve filled out in my life have ever been read by anyone. Lately I’ve taken to hiding bizarre comments on any forms I have to fill out, in an effort to determine whether anyone is reading them. For example, on the application for my current job, this question appeared: “What was your reason for leaving your last job?”

They gave me a full line to respond, but I didn’t need it. I wrote a single word: RABIES.

Clearly it wasn’t a dealbreaker, as I got the job, and was never even asked to get any shots.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a little more tolerance for tedium, but my patience for people who deliberately waste my time has eroded at about the same rate. The net effect is that I’m at least as big a smartass as I was in fifth grade, but I’m much more confident about it now.

Well, I’d better get going. I think I’ve got a meeting to get to.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: The Butt of My Own Joke | Human Inertia No one can be told what humor-blogs.com is.

Why Do You Do It?

It is understandable that many of you regard me with apprehension bordering on fear.

My threatening countenance over there to the right, my merciless rants against the likes of Thomas Kinkade and my position as unquestioned despot of Humor-Blogs.com -- all of these factors contribute to the perception that I am a man not to be trifled with. Or with which not to trifle, if you prefer.

Be assured, however, that I am not in fact a very intimidating person. I'm tall, yes, but I also have very slender wrists. That photo of me to the right may resemble Will Smith in Bad Boys 2, but that's mostly because, well, from the neck down it's Will Smith in Bad Boys 2. Truth be told, I'm not even really black.

My rants are mostly for effect. I generally can't sustain that level of anger for more than about a minute and a half. I just don't have that kind of attention span. So while I've settled on Thomas Kinkade as a nemesis, he has little to fear from me. Remember when I was running for president? Or when I picked up the cause of getting Huey Lewis played on classic rock stations? Yeah.

Occasionally I'll get an email from the Humor-Blogs.com contact form that reads something like this:

Oh kind and benevolent sir,

I am a mere worm who is not worthy to waste a moment of your time, but when I try to [do some simple task] on the Humor-Blogs.com website, I get a message that says [some horrible looking incomprehensible ASP.Net error]. I'm sure it's something that I'm doing wrong, but if you have a moment I would greatly appreciate it if you could find it in your heart to assist me with this problem.

Here's the deal. It's not you. It's me. Well, it's the Humor-Blogs.com site. See, I work on it for about 45 minutes every other week, usually for just long enough to break something that was working the week before. The site is kind of hacked together, and I don't have time to test my changes adequately before rolling them out. That's what users are for, right?

So you don't have to feel bad about informing me of some screwy error message or other weird behavior on the site. It's possible I already know about the problem, but there's a good chance I don't. In fact, sometimes I'll get an email alerting me to some problem, and I'll take a look at it and think, "Holy crap, how long has that been broken?" If nobody tells me about it, it doesn't get fixed.

Ok, so now we've established that I'm a nice, non-threatening guy (think James Spader in Stargate), and that I genuinely do appreciate your feedback about the Humor-Blogs.com site. Given these facts, it is all the more surprising that some of you manage to bug the crap out of me and make me want to beat you severely about the head and neck with a large metal stapler.

Here, specifically, is a list of stuff that you should feel bad about doing, and that will cause me to turn into the Hulk:

1. Failing to follow directions that are clear enough for your cat to understand.

You know how the join form says:

Step 1: Link to Humor-Blogs.com

...and then there's a checkbox that you have to check that says:

I have read and complied with step 1

Why do roughly a third of you check that box without linking to Humor-Blogs.com? Was it the 18 point bold font or the intricate binary mechanics of the checkbox control that confused you?



And then you get an automated email saying you've been rejected because you haven't linked to Humor-Blogs.com, which specifically says:

We were unable to find a link to Humor-Blogs.com on your website. Please make sure that the link is on your blog...and then RESUBMIT your site.

And yet, rather than simply adding the link and then re-submitting your site, you send me an email telling me that you've added the link. After all, why should you have to resubmit your site just because you did it wrong the first time?

After getting a few dozen of these emails, I added this line to the bottom of the auto-rejection:

You can respond to this email if you want, but there's a pretty good chance that will irritate us.

Which causes people to respond with:

Sorry if I'm irritating you, but I have added the link now.

Sigh.


2. Using the "contact" form to join Humor-Blogs.com.

Occasionally I will get an email from somebody who has filled out the contact form on the Humor-Blogs.com site, requesting to join. Why do you do this? Here's a simple mnemonic device that you can use to remember which form to fill out:

• If you want to join, fill out the join form.
• If you want to contact me, fill out the contact form.

See how it rhymes?



There is one question on the form that people occasionally have trouble with. To join, you have to enter the name of one of the Marx brothers. A few days ago I got an email from someone that read:

marx brothers - who the hell are they?

Bad news, friend. Not knowing who the Marx brothers are disqualifies you from having a humor blog. And not knowing how to do a Google search disqualifies you from being on the Internet.

Earlier today I got a message from the contact form that reads simply:

CheddarTed.com
it's the best

"CheddarTed" either does not understand what a "join" form is, or is not interested in joining. But none of that matters now that I know that "it's the best." Upon receiving this email I immediately crossed off "cinnamon raisin bagels lightly toasted and slathered with butter" and penciled in "it." Because now I know. Thank you, CheddarTed.


3. Doing absolutely nothing original ever.

You know what the world needs? Another blogger who scours Youtube looking for funny clips. And maybe a crazy cat lady, who is SO crazy that she calls herself the Crazy Cat Lady. And, um, like a bazillion more mommy bloggers. But not just bloggers who happen to be mommies. I mean bloggers who blog about poo-poo because poo-poo is funny. And make sure you use one of these words in your blog title: Rant, musings, random, ponderings, ramblings, stuff, nonsense, meanderings, observations, etc.

It's blogs like these that make me feel like I'm performing a service for humanity. Or servicing humanity, if you will.

Look, I'm sorry if you started your blog in 1998, back when Random Ponderings from a Crazy Mom (with Eight Cats) was an original-sounding title. But you have no idea how many of these blogs I have to slog through for eight seconds a week looking for a link to Humor-Blogs.com. At least TRY to come up with something interesting-sounding.

In fact, here are ten blog names, off the top of my head, that you can use. First come, first serve:

1. Three Men and a Goat
2. That Ain't Chili, Pedro!
3. I'm the Reason It's Called a 'Wife Beater'
4. My Monkey is Watching You
5. YouTube-Tied
6. My Inner Demons Are Watching Cinemax
7. Mainlining Gravy
8. Eighty-six Billion Miles (is Still too Close to You) -- This one is actually a country song for a space Western I'm working on, but it works.
9. Funny Jokes from the BOWELS OF HELL
10. I'm not a MILF because that's physically impossible

Look, I'm not saying they're all grand slams, but a blog with one of those titles would make me think, "Ok, I have to know what this is all about." Got it?

In the meantime, I'll keep adding your Mommy Cat Joke Youtube blogs. Because I'm a nice guy.

Are you smart enough to join humor-blogs.com?

Congrats, Kadi!

There was a firestorm of controversy regarding this week's caption contest. Why does controversy always come in firestorms? Has there ever been a thunderstorm of controversy? A sandstorm of controversy?

The controversy revolved, tornado-like, around the question of how much shameless self-promotion is appropriate when competing in this little contest. So let me clear this up, once and for all: If you win, you've done about the right amount.

Kadi did about the right amount this week. Actually, she was fairly restrained this time around, which evidently got her the self-deprecation vote. Nicely played, Kadi! You win a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary. Send me your address and I'll get it in the mail to you.

You also get the coveted In Your Face Award. Again.




Bee took second place, with:

Trimming my fingernails with your teeth shows your loyalty to the family.

And the bitterest of good sports, stushie, took third:

Your first task, Luigi, will be to shoot the James Caan dwarf that's clinging to my right shoulder.

Have a great weekend, everybody. Especially those of you meeting Bossy in San Francisco tonight. It looks like I won't make it, what with work and a bad cold kicking my ass this week, but I'm sure you'll carry on without me.

I'll be back on Monday with a post in which the author of that "Footprints" poem gets buried alive under a mountain of Precious Moments figurines.

But not really.

But maybe.

Humor-blogs.com once stood by while a family of chipmunks perished in a firestorm of controversy.

Blogger of Light(R)

I’ve decided that I need a nemesis.

A commenter recently suggested that His Excellency Lord Monkeyhands could be my nemesis, but I don’t know. It feels like settling to me. Monkeyhands isn’t up to being my Joker or Lex Luthor. Maybe if he, Human Inertia, Stoner, and three of my other worst bosses got together, they could be my Sinister Six, but that’s about as much credit as I’m willing to give them.

A great nemesis can’t be an idiot; he has to be brilliant but twisted – someone who has the power to accomplish great things, but uses that power only for his own demented ends. Someone like Darth Vader or Hans Gruber from Die Hard. Or Thomas Kinkade.

Yes, you heard me right. I have selected as my nemesis Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light®.

If you’re not familiar with this “artist,” he’s best known as the man who has produced essentially the same painting 8,436 times over the past 20 years. Kinkade-land is a place filled with cottages almost militantly cozy, a place where it has always just rained, but it never rains. There is no sun in Kinkade-land – only an endless panorama of supernaturally illuminated clouds. It is a place where human beings, if they are seen at all, are represented only in the distance as Ice-Skating Boy or Man on Horse, never as individuals with names or identities. Judging from the freakish glow emanating from the cottages, the people in Kinkade's paintings are probably too busy stoking their fireplaces and lighting the drapes on fire to be seen outdoors.



Let me be clear: Kinkade’s talent is undeniable. If you’re looking for someone to paint a rain-slicked street, he’s your man. But somewhere along the line Kinkade went from competent landscape painter to billion dollar bullshit artist.

Saying that Kinkade has sold out is like saying that the Nazis lost track of what National Socialism was all about. First of all, any artist who comes up with his own trademarked tagline has preemptively surrendered any claim at creative integrity. What kind of artist devises a particular style and then essentially announces that he’s never going to progress beyond that style for the rest of his life? It’s a sort of deliberate artistic retardation, like if the Beatles had decided in 1964 to be the She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah Group®. Although maybe Van Gogh would have had better luck if he had marketed himself as Painter of Swirls®.

Kinkade found something that works, and is sticking with it. I’ve never seen a Kinkade painting of a bowl of fruit or Madonna with child. I’m not sure he could paint a portrait of a human being if he had a gun to his head. Can you have no desire to push yourself, to learn or produce anything new, and still call yourself an artist? I don’t know, but you can make a hell of a lot of money.

At this point Kinkade is a cottage industry (ha!) that is almost entirely independent of the creation of original paintings. Kinkade “originals” are turned out at a rate of nearly 500 a day at a factory in California. His paintings are digitally photographed, transferred onto a plastic-like surface and glued onto canvas. Each print features a nominal contribution by “highlight artists,” assembly-line workers who add a dash of color here and there. This unique touch allows Kinkade to charge up to $10,000 for what are essentially Xerox copies of original paintings. Prints that have had Kinkade’s signature mechanically etched into them – complete with DNA sample – go for quite a bit more.

I frankly don’t begrudge his selling insanely overpriced carbon copies of mediocre paintings by the horse-drawn buggy-load. If I could take a dump in a paper bag and sell it to morons for $10,000, I have to admit I’d be sorely tempted.

What galls me about Kinkade is the way he equates his greeting card sentimentality with Christianity – thereby elevating his cynical, manipulative, greed-driven business practices to the level of “evangelism.” God knows what luminescent cottages and glittering cobblestones have to do with the gospel, but to Kinkade it’s all one big fuzzy package. Go to the Lighthouses wing of Kinkade’s online gallery and you’ll be greeted with the message:

The power of a towering lighthouse, the unforgiving force of the storming sea, and the bravery of a sailor’s perseverance, all remind us of God’s strength.

If you’re like me, you vomited a little in your mouth when you read that. For starters, it reads like it was written by a fifth grade girl. The first sentence, if you remove the modifiers, reads “power…reminds us… of strength.” Yeah, I wonder why that is. Maybe because they’re synonyms? “Bravery of… perseverance” is a phrase devoid of any meaning. And then there’s the intellectual laziness of postulating that every element of the painting symbolizes the exact same thing:

“Jimmy, can you tell me what the lighthouse signifies in this painting?”
“Ummm... God’s strength?”
“Very good! And the storming sea?”
“Errrr... God’s strength?”
“Excellent! And how about the –”
“God’s strength?”

Way to go, Jimmy. You could write copy for the Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light® website, telling the adoring public exactly what each of Kinkade’s paintings make us feel. So far I’ve learned that God is brave, powerful, stormy and unforgiving. Man, who needs the New Testament when you’ve got the gospel according to greeting card art?

The best art, in my opinion, is the kind that asks no questions and creates no uncertainty. True art is about creating graphical representations of objects calculated to provoke a specific, predetermined response.

Wait, did I say ‘art’? I meant ‘pornography.’

Thomas Kinkade isn’t an artist. He’s a purveyor of pornography. And the worst kind of pornography, at that: the kind without any naked people doing it.

Thomas Kinkade and Michael Bay have each had exactly one original idea – and it’s the same idea: to make a billion dollars off the way light refracts off pavement. But at least there’s no Michael Bay gallery at the local megachurch, and at the end of a Michael Bay show a lot of shit blows up.

I won’t even bother to go into what a complete ass-hat Kincade is on a personal level. You can research that yourself. Suffice it to say that Kinkade once said that Picasso “had a talent but didn't use it in any significant way.” Presumably Picasso wasted too much time trying out new things, and never bothered to come up with a catchy tagline, like “Painter of Cubes®.”

Painter of Light®, my ass. Thom, you’re the Painter of Light Porn®. Hell, you don’t even rise to the level of Michael Bay. You’re the Shannon Tweed of oil painters.

F--- you, Thomas Kinkade.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Vincent Van Gobot | I Pity the Fool Who Tries to Feminize Me Humor-blogs.com has talent, but has never used it in any significant way.

Vote!

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Minor annoyances like work continue to get in the way of my all-important blogging duties. Remember, the winner gets a copy of Antisocial Commentary, so vote wisely!


Bee said...

Trimming my fingernails with your teeth shows your loyalty to the family.

Jami said...

"You're soaking in it."

Avitable said...

Unfortunately, Diesel misunderstood and made the man an auger he couldn't refuse.

Wendy said...

With the fifth goon that week stuck to his ring, Don Diesel reconsiders his choice of bling.

Sparrow said...

Don Diesel took great pleasure in this final humiliation of his arch-enemy, Lord Monkeyhands.

Mark said...

"No," said the Don. "That's not the ring I wanted you to kiss."

renalfailure said...

Your lips say "yes" but your scalp says "let's just be friends."

Kadi said...

No disrespect, Don, but if I am to be your right hand man... perhaps you should start wiping with your left.

stushie said...

Your first task, Luigi, will be to shoot the James Caan dwarf that's clinging to my right shoulder.

Annie said...

Yeah, the second hand is just jumping in place. I think you're right, your battery's shot.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Your Brain (for Dummies)

Congratulations on your selection of the Cerebronix Diesel 1000 Carbon-Based Brain!

The Diesel 1000 is a state of the art cerebral engine that takes advantage of the latest in organic brain technology. We think you’ll be glad you chose the Diesel 1000.

Note that the Diesel 1000 is a high performance machine designed for a wide range of abstract thinking purposes. We do not recommend the Diesel 1000 for casual brain users. If you plan to use your brain primarily for mundane tasks such as doing geometry homework and remembering dentist appointments, we recommend exchanging your Diesel 1000 for something from our PracticalBrain line. You may also be interested in our Cerebroutine module, which allows your brain to easily focus on repetitive activities for hours at a time. The Diesel 1000 is not designed for such tasks, and using it in this way may void your warranty.

Features

The Diesel 1000 is designed for abstract thinking. Your brain can be used for all sorts of tasks, from making up absurd lies to designing database schemas. The analytical engine used by the Diesel 1000 is very powerful, and features an onboard counterfactual processor, which allows your brain to devise absurd hypothetical scenarios and discount empirical reality. The Diesel 1000’s analytical engine should be used with care. If proper precautions are not taken to keep the analytical engine in check, serious problems can result. (See Troubleshooting below).

The primary memory module of the Diesel 1000 has been optimized for storing abstract concepts and vast amounts of trivial information, such as the names of sitcom characters and the planet that the aliens were from in Highlander 2. It is not designed for storing addresses, appointment times, the names of people you may actually meet in real life, etc. Diesel 1000 users are encouraged to obtain an external storage/reminder device for remembering such items.

New in this model

The Diesel 1000 now comes equipped with Cerebronix’s high-performance H42 humor module. Users of previous Cerebronix models often expressed frustration at their inability to get their brain to function as expected while performing various mundane tasks such as trying to get to a job interview or perform simple repetitive manual labor. While the humor module does not actually facilitate these tasks, it creates an existential buffer between the Diesel 1000’s core processor and the reality of the situation. This helps keep your brain from becoming unstable. Note that you should only rely on the humor module to protect your brain until you can get out of the situation that is causing the existential threat. Failure to do so may void your warranty. (See Troubleshooting below).

Troubleshooting

This section outlines some common problems users may experience when operating the Diesel 1000.

Recently I followed another driver to a party in a strange part of town. I tried to get the Diesel 1000 to memorize the route, but it insisted on imagining a hypothetical scenario in which KITT’s voice in Knight Rider was provided by Charles Nelson Reilly.

This is normal operation for the Diesel 1000. The Diesel 1000 is a highly imaginative machine that needs constant mental stimulation. If it is in a situation where the available input is not sufficiently interesting, the counterfactual processor will automatically activate, providing amusement for the Diesel 1000.

After the party, I asked for directions back to the freeway. I tried to get the Diesel 1000 to pay attention to what the person was saying, but as soon as they mentioned turning on ‘Elm Street,’ it became fixated on devising a Nightmare on Elm Street joke that it could work into conversation at the next available opportunity.

This is also normal operation for the Diesel 1000. The Diesel 1000 is not designed for retaining detailed instructions. If the directions are very important to you, we suggest singing them to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song.

I think I’m lost. I have no idea how to get back to the freeway. Does this thing have any kind of guidance system?

No.

Ok, I’m definitely lost. Seriously. Help me out here. I’m in a really bad part of town and I don’t even know what direction I’m going.

We recommend activating your Diesel 1000’s humor module until the threat has passed.

Why does the Diesel 1000 refuse to stop and ask someone for directions?

The Diesel 1000 is an XY-series brain, and is therefore incapable of asking a stranger for directions. Also, what’s the point? Remember the Charles Nelson Reilly thing?

Yeah, that was pretty funny.

Exactly.

Sometimes I catch the Diesel 1000 wondering if life has any purpose. It gets stuck making the simplest decisions, constantly wondering “What’s the point?”

Your brain is in an infinitely recursive “why” loop. This can happen if the Diesel 1000 is not given enough abstract problems to solve. In such a case, the Diesel 1000’s counterfactual processor kicks in, developing new problems for the analytical engine to solve. When the counterfactual processor runs out of problems, it posits the Diesel 1000’s own existence as a problem to be solved by the analytical engine. The analytical engine is unable to solve this problem, and the inability to solve this problem becomes another problem for it to solve. The analytical engine is also unable to solve that problem. And so it goes, until your Diesel 1000’s resources are being consumed entirely by an infinite number of unsolvable problems.

The H42 humor module is designed to recognize the absurdity of this situation and take enjoyment from it. At some point, however, the humor module is likely to be overwhelmed. In this case, we recommend having your brain serviced by a professional.

About this documentation

The Diesel 1000 is designed to be self documenting. If you are reading this documentation, congratulations! Your brain has reached a rudimentary understanding of its own mental processes, and has taken it upon itself to explain its basic inner workings to you. Although this will likely produce a feeling of relief and perhaps even happiness, you should be aware that this documentation is by no means complete, and may contain errata.

You can expect an update to this document in another 38 years. Good luck and have fun with your brain!

Humor-blogs.com has half a mind not to list this post.

Caption Contest: The Godfather

Finding little inspiration in the current crop of movies and TV shows, I have once again gone back to the classics for the caption contest.



You know the rules. Submit your captions in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites, and I'll post the top ten in a poll on Tuesday. Since I still have a few copies of my book lying around, I will give a free copy of Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police to the winner.

Have fun!

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Tag at Your Peril!

Hail, carrion-in-waiting!

I am Grûndir the Implacable, Nazgûl and Meme-Wraith. I serve the dark lord Diesel in the capacity of dispatching troublesome memes from these premises.

It has come to my attention that there has been some scurrilous talk since my last appearance on this blog. Rumor would have it that I have been 'sulking' in Diesel's barn, scrap-booking and listening to Foghat, afraid to show my face because of the lukewarm reception to my last post. Allow me to put these baseless lies to rest.

Imagine, Grûndir the Implacable craving the affirmation of faceless blog readers! The notion is laughable. Mark this, blood-bags: Long after you have withered, fig-like in your graves, I will roam the land in my ceaseless quest to wipe memes and hobbits from the face of the earth.

Yes, thousands of years from now the sages of a future age will pore over records of this era, tracing the origins of the great meme-slaughter, saying to one another, "Truly, Grûndir the Implacable was one bad motherf***er. Does this comprehensive and nicely annotated scrapbook not attest to this fact?"

And I shall sit on my throne, an unquestioned despot, ruling over a golden age free of both memes and unnaturally abbreviated mammals, surveying what I have wrought. Throngs of creatures, both living and undead, shall assemble before me to gaze upon my ominous visage and hear my flawless rendition of "Slow Ride" on Guitar Hero 3.

Anyway, that is the plan. I think those are reasonable goals, but I do not want to over-commit, you know? Maybe I shall decide to raise alpacas instead.

But enough of this talk! On to the matter at hand.

This blog has become a veritable breeding ground for memes of late. Take, for example, the "Excellent Blog Award," granted by both Jeffrey Ellis and Daisy. Tracing the genealogy of this meme, I have determined that it is over ten weeks old. Now if each recipient of this award followed the instructions and tagged ten more blogs, and if each generation in the propagation of this meme takes a week, then after seven weeks this meme will have been awarded to ten billion blogs. And as there are only about 100 million blogs at present, this means that every single blog in existence should have received this award 100 times. I therefore castigate the readers of this blog for your failure to deliver the other 98 Excellent Blog Awards that are due. Your insolence will not be tolerated!

Daisy has also tagged this blog with the most vile meme that I have yet encountered: the innocent-sounding "book meme." One might expect this meme to give one the opportunity to list the six most recent books one has read, but this meme has no such lofty ambitions. It expects us to:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.

The purpose of this meme is, in other words, to propagate complete gibberish across the Internet. I cannot express to you how thankful I am that someone has finally taken on that task.

It so happens that the nearest book to me is the scrapbook I have been working on, so here are my sentences:

"Vigorous flailing, while inconvenient, is a sign that you have picked a particularly robust hobbit to torture -- weak, sickly hobbits are easier to manage, but do not provide as much amusement over the long term. Note that if the creature flails wildly and screams for its mother when you pierce its flesh with a sharpened stake, you may have accidentally bagged a boy scout. Look for the telltale kerchief and hairless feet."

Quilly has pawned off the "Message in a Bottle" meme. I am supposed to put a message that means something to me in the bottle. This one is actually hits rather close to home.



I do not expect you to understand.

Kev tagged this blog for the "To Do List" meme, which requires that I list five things on my “to do” list for the week that are not related to work. This one is easy:

1. Set hobbit traps.
2. Check hobbit traps.
3. Torture hobbits.
4. Scrap!
5. Bury hobbits.

For all of these memes, I tag the Rosicrucians, Melanie Griffith, anyone who has seen the Virgin of Guadalupe, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Edith Wharton, Oscar Goldman, Gwen Stacy's clone, the last three people to die in Reservoir Dogs, the man from U.N.C.L.E., Jello Biafra, Wampy, Warren G. Harding, the guy who played Doogie Howser's best friend, and Glacial Spain.

The memes in these parts are getting so out of hand that I have decided to take offensive action against them. I am offering my meme-dispatching services to anyone who requests my assistance. Simply post my meme-protection badge on your blog and I shall take care of any memes that come your way. When someone tags you, let me know (by posting on your blog, submitting a comment here, or sending me electronic mail) and I will dispatch the meme either with a guest post on your blog or a post here. You can contact me via electronic mail at grundir[at]mattresspolice.com.



My lord Diesel has provided the code for the badge here:

<a href="http://www.mattresspolice.com/2008/04/tag-at-your-peril.htm"><img border="0" alt="This blog is protected from memes by Grundir the Implacable" src="http://www.mattresspolice.com/images/protected_by_grundir.gif" /></a>

If his duties for the kingdom of Googul permit, my master shall return on Friday for another round of the caption contest. Be here, and have your wits about you!

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Tremble Before My Shovel! | "What's in your bag?" Listed on humor-blogs.com.