There is no spoon. We do, however, have plenty of sporks.
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.
Funny how excited I get about finding a nickel on the ground. What am I going to buy with a nickel? A gumball? I’ll just leave it for some ten-year-old kid to pick up. Someone who will appreciate it.
Nickels are hardly even worth picking up any more. A nickel! What a joke. A cup of coffee is three bucks these days. That’s, geez, sixty nickels. Can you imagine handing the cashier – sorry, barista – at Starbucks sixty nickels? I’m sure he’d take them, but as soon as you pulled away from the drive-through he’d be all, “Hey, Kyle, can you believe Mr. Jingly-Pants, giving me sixty nickels? Next time go to 7-11 and get some Twizzlers too, Jingly-Pants. Maybe catch up on Bazooka Joe while you’re at it. Freaking loser.”
Why am I obsessing about this? I’m sure the kids at Starbucks have better things to talk about. Besides, last time I ordered a venti caramel frappuccino and paid for it with my gold card. I bet they don’t have gold cards. Stupid college kids don’t know anything.
I should just pick up the nickel. I’ve been standing here now for like a minute and a half. People probably think I’m lost or retarded or something. Just pick up the damn nickel already!
Forget it. What’s the point? Five cents. Five cents. I’m standing here obsessing over five cents. Didn’t I read somewhere recently that it costs six cents to make a nickel? How dumb is that? And nickels aren’t even made of nickel. They’re made of, like, bronze or something. That doesn’t sound right. Stupid lying piece of shit worthless coin. I should pick you up and melt you down and sell you for scrap.
Yeah, that’s it. I’ll become a bronze merchant, picking up nickels and melting them down in my basement. Where would you even sell scrap metal? I’d need, like, a fence or something. God, I’m an idiot.
Ok, let’s start over. Figure that it takes five seconds to bend over, pick up the nickel, and put it in your pocket. That’s a penny a second. That’s… sixty cents a minute. And, um, three hundred, no, three thousand six hundred cents an hour. That’s, uh, thirty six dollars an hour. Wow, that’s not bad. You could make decent money picking up nickels. That would be a nice little side income.
Not that I’m looking for more hours at this point. I’m already putting in a good fifty hours a week at the office. Another job would really make it hard to maintain my social life. On the other hand, it would be nice to have the money to take a girl out to someplace nicer than the Cracker Barrel.
Alright, so here’s the deal: I’m not going to go looking for nickels, but if I happen to run across one, I’ll pick it up. That will be like my official policy, so next time I won’t have to think about it. So sure, I’ve lost about three minutes thinking about whether I should pick up this nickel, but I think it’s worthwhile to invest some time up front if it results in a solid policy like that. Next time I’ll be like, “Hey, it’s a nickel!” And my official nickel-picking-up policy will kick in. After a while it will be like second nature. I may get so good at it that I can shave off a second or two, substantially increasing my profitability.
Ok, here goes nothing. Ready, set…
Hey, that’s not a nickel. It’s just a disc-shaped piece of metal. Geez, this is demoralizing.
Recently I came across a very disturbing news item on Yahoo. Here is a quote:
"More and more foods bear a mishmash of warnings that they might accidentally contain ingredients that could seriously sicken people with food allergies. Yet there are signs that the labels are creating confusion among families that should heed them — even as new testing shows there is a real, if probably small, chance that foods with even the most vaguely worded warnings truly pose a risk." - Food Label Warnings Seen as Confusing, Yahoo! (AP) News
Thank goodness we have the Associated Press to point out the dangers of unclear writing, eh? I mean, I think that's what they are pointing out. I read that paragraph six times and I'm still not entirely sure. Every time I think I've got a choke-hold on one of those sentences, it twitches and lurches in some wholly unexpected direction. Now if it was me, I'd write something like:
You know those labels that you see all over food packages these days that warn you that the food might contain peanuts or something? Aren't those things confusing? And now there are tests that show that some of those products really might be dangerous to some people, so it would probably be good to have clearer warnings.
But then I'm not a trained Associated Press professional. It's too bad, in fact, that we couldn't get the AP to write those food warning labels. I'm thinking something along these lines:
Associate Press Peanut Butter (Crunchy Style) This product -- quite possibly among others -- is likely to contain ingredients which, although generally deemed safe, may nevertheless cause problems not generally anticipated by those most concerned with such warnings. These ingredients -- even the safest of them -- have the potential, if present in the product, to cause such harm in even the remotest quantities, to those whose tolerance is well below the accepted threshold. Caution is advised.
Associated Press Low-Tar Cigarettes There is new evidence that ingredients of these cigarettes -- possibly present in quantities thought to be below acceptable levels -- may not significantly reduce the amelioration of their reputed ill effects. Smokers, excepting those not concerned with decreasing the improbability of incidental harm associated with the lack of compounds counteracting potentially carcinogenic substances, are urged to consider reducing the rate at which their consumption of chemicals in this class is combined with the augmentation of the reaction of other naturally occurring compounds, whose volatility may require additional precautions -- although only under extreme conditions.
Associated Press Industrial Herbicide Herbicides in this class manufactured between 1999 and 2007, in compliance with U.S. and international pesticide restrictions -- though not inclusive of local and municipal ordinances -- necessitate the implementation of a (generally biweekly, although varying environmental considerations in some zones may require daily evaluation of this frequency) recalibration of abatement schedules designed to reduce, but not eliminate, the reliance on reversion techniques employed to augment blanket reduction of post-use (and in some areas, pre-use) degradation of potentially harmful compounds, and may, in some cases (depending on absorption rates and tolerance-induced re-uptake considerations), warrant the gradual decrease of overall concentration of associated compounds in the affected areas. Failure to comply with this warning is a federal offense.
Just imagine the number of lives the prevention of whose premature foreshortening might be forestalled by the augmentation of these warnings. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Some readers may experience partial duplication of entries, not excluding this one, at humor-blogs.com.
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Whoops. Wrong comment. Looks like my anti-spam code needs some adjustments. Although I have to admit to being curious what 'tentacle porn' is. Would pictures of me feeding a dead squid to a beluga whale count? Because then I think I might actually have some tentacle porn from our trip to Seaworld. Let me know if there's a demand.
Anyway, occasionally I'll get a comment like this one:
Great idea. Are you going to run for president? I'd vot for you.
Which, frankly, is a little disheartening, and not just because I don't know what votting is. You see, I am running for president, and have been for some time now. I guess with all the Huey hubbub and caption contests and whatnot, my message isn't really getting out.
I think part of the problem is that I'm not actually running in the current presidential election. As I wrote back in July:
Campaign season gets longer and longer with every election, and using simple high school calculus and some PhD-level guesswork, I have extrapolated from current trends to determine that by the year 2020 campaign season will be roughly thirteen years long. In other words, to have a chance of winning the presidency in 2020, a candidate will have to have begun campaigning no later than 3 o'clock this afternoon.
I guess it's just going to take a while for votters to get used to overlapping presidential elections. The campaign has also hit a few speed bumps, such as the notorious bubble wrap incident.
If only there was some way to capture the heady idealism and enthusiasm of the early days of the Diesel in 2020 campaign. I recently went back and read some notes I jotted down when I first started down this long journey to the presidency, and I was moved to tears by the heartfelt sentiment and utter lack of any salvageable ideas.
One of the problems with running a 13 year campaign is that by the time the election rolls around, the issues that you originally built your campaign on have generally either worked themselves out or gotten so out of hand that you'd be crazy to bring them up.
I've decided, therefore, to be the Gridlock Candidate. I vow that if I am elected president, absolutely nothing will be accomplished during my tenure. No new taxes, no new programs, no tax cuts, no 'reforms.' I might start a war or two, but not until I've finished the ones we've already got going.
Look, the fact is that we have way too many laws in this country already. Surely some of the problems that those laws were intended to address have either been solved to everyone's satisfaction or aren't going away ever. Take prostitution, for example. Every once in a while our local paper publishes the photos of local women who have been arrested for solicitation of prostitution. Now I don't want to be too hard on these women; clearly their lives did not turn out the way they imagined when they were huffing paint behind the middle school gymnasium. But let's think about this: If you're a man who is willing to pay good money to risk getting a life-threatening disease from Miss Methamphetamine 1992, the threat of a night in the pokey probably isn't going to keep you off the streets.
At the very least, I think we should have a constitutional amendment requiring that we repeal two laws for every new law that gets passed. Oh, and in case you're thinking, "Ok, so are you going to repeal two existing constitutional amendments before you pass this new one?" Why, yes I am, smart guy. I'm going to repeal both the 18th and the 21st amendments, thereby repealing both prohibition and the repeal of prohibition. Trust me, it makes sense once you've had a few drinks.
In California, we even pass laws to solve nonexistent problems. For example, a few years ago we passed a ballot proposition that outlawed selling horse meat for consumption by humans. I'm not sure what college hazing ritual prompted this ban, but it was overwhelmingly supported by Californians, who must have thought they were striking a blow against the budding horseburger industry.
The San Francisco Chronicle noted at the time:
There is no formal campaign against the measure, but critics point out that there are no slaughterhouses in California that process horses, and that horsemeat is not generally available for purchase.
So basically people voted a proposition into law because, goshdarnit, people like horsies. That's democracy in action, folks.
I've done some research into ridiculous laws, and I was amazed at what I found. Here are some samples:
In Australia, it is illegal to sell a car with a dead haberdasher in the trunk.
It is illegal in Hungary to castrate a monkey without permission from its owner.
Ohio state law prohibits flying a stolen kite.
In Boston, it is illegal to stab a sitar player while he is playing.
In Mexico, it is against the law to fake a seizure in order to facilitate a bank robbery.
It is against the law in Tennessee to pay a prostitute with chicken dumplings.
In Scotland, it is illegal to attempt to pass off photocopies of your bum as legal tender.
I don't know about you, but I'm about fed up with these unnecessary laws. So what do you say folks? Are you ready for the Gridlock President?
Get out there and vote for me (in 12 years) and together we won't get anything done!
Wow, where does the time go? According to Steve Miller, it keeps slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future, but then he also spoke of the pompitous of love, so that tells you how much he knows.
2008. What is up with that? When I was growing up, it was kind of assumed that time would never progress beyond 1999. That's why we made everything out of styrofoam and dumped our motor oil behind the garage. In science fiction movies and pop songs, 1999 was the cutoff for a mythical future that would never actually arrive. In 1975 there was a TV show called Space:1999 that was so horrendously bad that the writers clearly didn't expect human civilization to last until next Thursday, much less the next millennium. We were so sure that the world was going to end before 2000 that we even made up a fake crisis called Y2K in the hopes that it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then 2000 came and went, a year so dull that Wikipedia lists the Broadway opening of Seussical as one of its key events.
So here we are, nine years into the future, and what do we have to show for it? Hand-held GPS units. Fantastic. Now I can know exactly where I am when I'm stuck in traffic because I STILL DON'T HAVE A FRIGGIN' JETPACK.
Anyway, it's that time again. Yes, those of you who have followed this blog from its infancy will recall that at the beginning of the new year, I descend from the lofty heights of my ivory tower of sarcasm to solve one of the major outstanding problems of the previous year.
As I wrote at the end of last year:
Every year on this date I write down the ten biggest unresolved problems of the outgoing year on small pieces of paper and throw them in a hat. Then I put the hat on my head and dance around the house in my bathrobe to the strains of Journey's Separate Ways until all of the scraps fall out except for one. The last remaining problem is the one that I will solve, for the benefit of mankind. This year's big problems include global warming, the cancellation of Arrested Development, and that popping sound that my sternum is making these days when I move too suddenly. Most of the rest of the problems are related to some trouble spot in the world, such as Darfur, Afghanistan, or I-580 between Pleasanton and Livermore.
Last year's winning problem was Iraq, my solution to which was, of course, to sell the U.S. military to the oil companies. I can't be blamed for the fact that nobody listened to me. Let's hope those in positions of power don't make that mistake again.
Having once again written down the world's biggest problems and placed them in a velvet fedora, I shall now proceed to dance gaily about my furniture and pets. Dance along if you like.
Whew, I really need to start working out. That video, by the way, is irrefutable evidence that the primary qualification to be a music video director in 1983 was the ability to borrow your dad's camera.
Ok, so this year's problem to be solved by me is (air drum roll please)...
The weak U.S. dollar!
Oh geez. Really? I was kind of hoping for something a little more interesting, like, for example, anything else. But again, rules are rules.
So the problem is that the dollar has lost a lot of its value in relation to other currencies, even made-up ones like the Euro. This is a problem because, well, now if I want to travel to one of those countries, it's more expensive. Of course, I never go anywhere, so I don't really care about that. And people who have enough money to take trips to Europe or whatever can just suck it.
A weaker dollar also supposedly means that stuff imported from other countries is more expensive. Which is why, I suppose, Wal-Mart is hurting so badly. Since there are no buyers for cheap Chinese crap any more, they have no choice but to buy their cheap crap from American manufacturers.
That doesn't sound right. Hmmm. Are we sure this is actually a problem?
Oh, I know! How about the national debt, which is denominated in dollars. It's up to about $9 trillion right now, and it keeps growing. Of course, since the dollar has dropped about 30% against the Euro over the past few years, in a sense our debt is now effectively $3 trillion less than it was in 2003.
Ok, maybe I should just skip the part where I explain why this is a problem, and move on to the solution.
First, let's look at why this happened. Originally, the dollar was based on our supply of gold. If you had a dollar bill, you could actually go to the federal government and trade your paper bill for a little lump of gold. The government found this inconvenient, because it meant that for every dollar they printed, they actually had to have a little lump of gold, and gold is expensive. So back before you were born they changed the rules a little, so that they could just print however much money they wanted without making sure they actually had that much gold. Much more convenient.
So now the dollar is worth something because, well, everybody assumes it's worth something. Instead of being based on gold, the dollar is based on trust that the federal government won't print any more money that it really needs. Which is, as standards go, not quite on par with a shiny metal that can be made into pretty trinkets. Surprisingly, this system has been known to break down, as when the government decides that it really needs to bring democracy to Afghanistan or midnight basketball to Philadelphia.
I suggest a two-pronged approach:
First, there is the problem of currency devaluation caused by indiscriminate printing of money. Don't misunderstand me: clearly the federal government needs to be able to continue printing insane amounts of money with impunity. I suggest that from now on, however, the government only be allowed to print foreign currency. Perhaps we could print a run of a hundred billion Euros to warm up. Then maybe a few trillion Brazilian pesos or Nepalese Rupees. This would simultaneously give our treasury more money and weaken foreign currencies relative to ours. We could even target uppity little countries that we feel are getting out of line. If the Danish piss us off, we crash their economy by printing a few bazillion Krones.
Second, it is essential that we peg our currency to some commodity that is universally recognized as valuable. Sure, gold or silver would work, but I think we can agree that precious metals are a little old school. After all, we're running a 21st century economy here, not a pirate ship. We need a commodity that is sufficiently rare, and yet considered valuable by today's sophisticated and educated citizenry. I suggest marijuana.
Federal, state and local governments confiscate millions of tons of precious marijuana every year which they burn in vast quantities without even having the decency to put on a Pink Floyd record first. This pot could be freeze-dried and stored in vast government facilities with names like Fort Ganja and the United States Federal Hash Reserve. We could put it right next to the Federal Doritos Repository.
Of course, Joe Citizen wouldn't be able to turn his dollars in for a dime bag. That would be irresponsible. Marijuana is a dangerous drug which must remain at all times in the hands of the squares. But that doesn't change the fact that it's extremely valuable. The federal government would not be allowed to print more money than could be justified by the current street value of the total U.S. pot supply.
So there you have it. We protect the integrity of our currency by pegging it to marijuana, while ensuring that we can meet all of our vital needs by printing unlimited amounts of foreign currency. One more problem solved. Oh, I suppose there might be some long term negative consequences, but we're not likely to ever see them. It's a well-known fact that the world is going to end by 2010.
Mrs. Diesel and I were lying in bed on Saturday morning, having been awoken by the sound of our children squealing and pounding on things in the next room. The kids routinely get up two hours before we do on weekends so they can get a head start on making our house into a disaster area.
"I think you're cute," I announced to Mrs. Diesel, as I studied her features. "Even your weird little nose is kind of cute."
"My weird little nose should be growing on you by now," she replied.
We both snickered as we pictured her nose growing on me.
"Like how they grew a human ear on a rat," I said.
"Who is 'they'?"
"The evil scientists."
"What makes them evil scientists?"
"Well, they -- "
"Grew a human ear on a rat," she said.
"Exactly." I said.
"Why would they do something like that?"
"I think it makes the rats easier to handle in the lab. They probably got tired of trying to grab the rats by the tail."
"The human ear has long been considered an excellent handle," she noted.
"Think of what a time-saver that would be," I said. "One scientist would be like, 'hey, Bill, can you hand me that rat?' And then Bill would just grab the rat by his ear-handle and toss it to the other scientist."
"Uh huh."
"And the other scientist catches the rat and says, 'Thanks, Bill. Conducting inhumane experiments on rats is so much easier now that the rats have handles on them.' And then Bill is like, 'Shhhh! The rat can hear you!'"
"You know," Mrs. Diesel said, "Just because the rat has a human ear, that doesn't mean it can understand human speech."
"Mmmm," I said thoughtfully. "That's true of so many things with human ears."
"I wonder how the rat feels about having a giant ear sticking out of its back."
"The rat is probably like, 'Hey guys, can you keep it down? It's so loud in here. Not so much on this side, but over here it's like, wow. Really loud."
While we were having this conversation, the noise level continued to escalate in the next room.
"Speaking of which," Mrs. Diesel said, "We should probably get up and tend to the children,"
"Yeah," I said. "In a few more hours they'll be fashioning crude spears to hunt ear-rats."
The first thing you should know about me is that I don't play be the rules. I never have. In fact, I'm not even sure what the rules are. I mean, I have a vague idea, enough to be certain that I don't play by them, but I have no in-depth knowledge regarding the rules.
I should add that when I say I don't play by the rules, I don't mean that my behavior never coincides with that which the rules prescribe; I mean that there is no intentional effort on my part to follow the rules -- although, of course, my lack of familiarity with the rules precludes any effort to intentionally flout them. My relationship with the rules can perhaps best be characterized as a combination of calculated disregard and apathy.
Also, although I stated that the fact that I don't follow the rules is the "first thing you should know about me," it is actually the third thing, which is why I first informed you that my name is Diesel and that I am a cop. In my defense, I provided these two facts merely as essential background information for my main point, which is that I don't play by the rules. If I had started off by telling you that I don't play by the rules without letting you know that I'm a cop, you might have gotten the idea that I was a dentist who pulls perfectly good teeth or something. And that's not my style.
I suppose I didn't really need to tell you my name, but I like people to know who they're dealing with, at least when they're dealing with me. When they're dealing with other people, it really isn't any of my business, although generally speaking, I think people should, whenever possible, let other people know who they are dealing with. It's only fair.
And I don't want you to get the idea that I'm unwilling to pull a healthy tooth, if it comes down to it. There's no reason that it would come down to that, but when you've been in this job as long as I have, you know that it's often very hard to tell what it's going to come down to, especially when you don't know who you're dealing with. Now in this case, you are dealing with me, Diesel. I've given you that much. But who am I dealing with? There's the rub.
In any case, I only mentioned the bit about the dentist because it seems like a dentist who doesn't follow the rules is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Nobody wants a dentist who doesn't follow the rules. It's not a selling point for a dentist. But for a cop... well, then it depends, doesn't it? It depends, for starters, on what the rules are exactly, and as I've mentioned, I'm not likely to be of much help there. I'd love to be able to give you chapter and verse from the rules, but frankly that's not my job. Or maybe it is. Still, I'm not going to.
Oh, sure, a cop who doesn't play by the rules gets into his share of tight spots too. The difference is that dentists can't shoot their mistakes and plant evidence on them to make it look like a mugging gone bad. Well, I imagine they could, but it's not really their area of expertise. Anyway, you get the point.
Hey, I didn't say it was fair. You may not like it, but that's the way things are.
Did you hear that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize? This surprised me, as the odds seemed to be stacked against him. After all, if a guy named "Gore" can win the Nobel Peace Prize, what's to keep a guy named Horrific Slaughter, Guts von Carnage, or even Yasser Arafat from winning?
To be honest, I didn't even know that the argument over global warming had escalated into a full-fledged armed conflict. As I wrote in my book when Gore was nominated, "Al Gore doesn't deserve all the credit for preventing the Great Global Warming War. I mean, shouldn't some of the credit go to the millions of individuals on both sides who aren't fighting?"
On second thought, though, I suppose the lack of violence is a evidence of Gore's tireless efforts. Imagine how many people might have died if Gore hadn't kept a lid on the fighting. It is only right that we should recognize Al Gore for his role in forestalling global warming-related violence, just as George W. Bush was universally lauded for keeping Iraq free of WMDs.
And let's not forget that most of the world's hot spots are, well, hot spots. Iraq, Rwanda, Burma, Compton -- they're all located in hot climates. It stands to reason that the more hot climates there are in the world, the more terrorists, insurgents and dictators we will have. The only guaranteed way to cool down these hot spots is to reverse the trend toward global warming. Once these places have a more reasonable climate, their people will realize that there is more to life than lashing out with car bombs and box cutters just because they're a little edgy about the weather. As long as the Middle East routinely experiences temperatures over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be filled with people who are ready to snap the next time somebody tells them that at least it's a "dry heat."
The true scale of the global warming threat has only recently been discovered. In fact, a mere generation ago the biggest threat seemed to be from countries in cold climates. We even called it a "cold war" because the Communists seemed intent on moving from their frozen potato fields into more hospitable climates like those of Southeast Asia and Latin America. But the Soviet expansion was doomed by America's secret weapon: Star Wars.
No, not the anti-ballistic missile program. The movies. Yes, just as the battle for galactic supremacy moved from the ice planet of Hoth to the desert world of Tatooine, the struggle for global domination moved from the frozen wastes of Eastern Europe to the sunny climes of the Middle East. Coincidence? Maybe, but what about the portentious thawing of carbonite-encased Han Solo and Leia's use of a "thermite grenade" in her plot to save him? All of these events clearly add up to one undeniable conclusion: I'm a HUGE geek.
The point is, people in moderate climates tend to not be much of a threat to us. When was the last time we really had to worry about Italy, Spain, France or Mexico? I know, Canada isn't really very dangerous either, but that's just because we've never really pissed them off. If Canada ever really gets upset, you're going to see a side of them that... ok, I can't keep this up. I had you going there, though, didn't I? Look at them up there, with their cute money with birds on it and policemen on horsies.
Anyway, Canada's harmlessness notwithstanding, extreme climates are, generally speaking, the source of most of the belligerence in the world. This is why our polar ice caps are so vital. We need that ice so that we can export it from really cold areas to really hot areas like the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. By evening out global ice distribution, we will make both extremely hot areas and extremely cold areas more hospitable to human life, so that eventually they are both marginally habitable, like Buffalo. And we'll finally be able to pull our troops out of Iraq, so that we can deploy them to more important places, like the North Pole, where they can help ensure the global dominance of Big Ice.
Oh, you may argue that my suggestions are not "politically feasible." You may contend that I'm "grandstanding," or "employing scare tactics." You might even argue that none of my ideas make sense "economically" or "scientifically." And you know what? You're right. And that's exactly why I'm not going to win a Nobel Prize in economics or chemistry any time soon.
If I play my cards right, though, I might just win me one of them Peace Prizes.
I've decided that I hate memes. In case you're not familiar with blogging lingo, a meme is the blogging equivalent of a chain letter. Usually you’re instructed to answer some silly questions on your blog and then “tag” five or six other bloggers. Then those bloggers answer the silly questions and tag five or six other bloggers, and it's just a goshdarnawfullotoffun. Some people welcome being tagged, because it relieves them of the responsibility of thinking of something to blog about that day. My feeling is that if you like being told what to do, maybe you should be doing something useful like getting me a beer instead of blogging.
Some memes even have the chutzpah to refer to themselves as awards. Because, after all, that's how awards work, right? Martin Scorsese gets one, and then he gives one to his five buddies Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Copolla, Brian DePalma, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas, and then George Lucas gives them to all the directors he stole his ideas from, and after about three days of this, you walk into Starbucks and catch Michael Bay trading winged statues with three guys named Alan Smithee.
Look, I don't mean to seem ungrateful. I'm flattered that you think I'm a thoughtful blogger or funny blogger or blogger with particularly iron-rich blood. But isn't all this meming getting out of hand? Lately memes have been piling up on my porch like the dead frogs in Magnolia. Sure, it's cool at first, but after a while they start to smell.
I appreciate being tagged for these (well, maybe not the girl one), but let's take a step back and think about this for a moment. Consider for a moment a typical meme, in which you have to recollect the names of all the pets you've ever had and then tag five other bloggers. You write your scintillating account of Mr. Fuzzy's hairballs and then tag five of your pals, who each surprisingly deliver equally riveting narratives. This goes on and on. Let's say that each link in the chain takes 2 days, and that every tagged blogger follows the instructions diligently. After one month, the meme will have propagated to over 30 billion people. That's right, not only has your meme been done by every Inuit and aborigine on the planet, it's actually created 24 billion new people. That's great if you like people, but I get anxious in groups larger than 20 million. And after a few more months, there would be more people than atoms in the universe, which gets dicey because most people* are made up of more than one atom.
Don't worry, this nightmare scenario is unlikely to occur, because memes seem to have an intrinsic propagation limit. Sociologists refer to this as the "DNC Point," after the moment at the Democratic National Convention in 1996 when the entire crowd did the Macarena and America threw up a little in its collective mouth.
The point is that built in to the concept of the meme is the assumption that eventually people are going to stop following the rules. If they didn't, the meme would take over the universe. So, in the interest of preserving the universe for future generations of multi-atomic citizens, I'm not going to tag anybody for any of these memes. I do feel like I should at least respond to the people who were kind enough to mention my blog in their meme posts, but unfortunately I'm kind of an ass, so I have difficulty responding graciously to such things. Therefore I have decided to delegate the task of responding to memes to a good friend of the Mattress Police, Grundir the Implacable.
Grundir, as you may know, is a ring-wraith (Nazgûl) who until recently worked for the Dark Lord Sauron as Undersecretary for Evil Ring Acquisition. Before becoming one of the Nazgûl, Grundir the Implacable was a well-known Númenorian king and hedge fund manager. Although his reputation has been tarnished by the ongoing Mordor embezzlement scandal, he is known as a pillar in the evil community and was even recently named as a potential vice presidential candidate. Grundir is at a crossroads in his career, and has been staying with us while he "sorts out his priorities." We like having him around because he keeps the weeds down around the estate and he's great with the kids.
So without further ado, I present to you my good friend and Nazgûl Grundir the Implacable.
Hello, Mattress Police readers! I am Grundir the Implacable. I would like to thank Diesel for the honor of handling his memes. I swear on the souls of my Númenorian forebears that I will not fail in this task, my lord! I also would like to thank him for letting me stay in his barn while I get my shit together. Can I say "shit" here? Bah! I am Grundir the Implacable, servant of the Dark Lord Diesel. Deal with it! The sun climbs ever higher in the eastern sky, and with it the hopes of the throngs of Mattress Police readers for a new post. Even the immortal are slaves to the juggernaut of time. I shall return another day to dispatch my meme-related responsibilities. For now, let this fateful hour not disappoint my lord's willing thralls. Publish, I tell thee. By the Shadows of Angmar, PUBLISH!
I spent some time a few weeks ago pondering the notion, often propounded by the media, that American women have unhealthy self-images.
I was sitting on a rock on the shore of Pinecrest Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains, surrounded by the beauty of nature -- and the ugliness of several hundred fellow vacationers -- when it occurred to me that "unhealthy" was a generous adjective. In some cases I was actually nauseated.
I don't understand how this happened. You'd think, after 30 years of magazine covers designed to make women feel ashamed of their bodies, that homely, outsized women would be at least a little reluctant to loll about on the beach with six square inches of sheer fabric stretched across their girth so tightly that they look like the captives of a particularly unmotivated brigade of Lilliputians.
Where is the shame, people? The puritans get a bad rap for their repressive views on sexuality, but at least they didn't have to see three inches of ass crack waddling down Main Street on a regular basis. I have it on good authority, in fact, that the Salem witch trials were merely a slightly overzealous attempt to stamp out muffin-topping.
Somehow, in the campaign to convince people that major surgery, botulism injections and a rigorous schedule of vomiting are essential to a young woman's physical and psychological well-being, something went horribly wrong. On one hand, we've produced a bumper crop of plasticized anorexics with poison in their eyebrows -- and we can certainly be proud of that. On the other hand, a considerable number of women seemed to have learned precisely the wrong lesson from this media barrage. Apparently a lot of them think those magazines work sort of like a mirror. They pick up a magazine with Jessica Biel on the cover and think, "Oh, so THAT's what I look like. I really need to expose more of my abdomen."
I hate to tell you this, but NOBODY looks like that. Jessica Biel doesn't even look like that. Jessica Biel could pick up six magazines with her picture on the cover at the checkout stand, tell the clerk that she is buying them because a lot of people tell her she looks like Jessica Biel, and pay for them with her Jessica Biel branded Visa card with the name Jessica Biel embossed on it, and the clerk would still snicker and whisper under her breath, "In your dreams, honey."
--Interlude--
While I was thinking these deep and important thoughts, dangling my feet in Pinecrest Lake, a boy who looked to be about 8 years old was chucking rocks the size of his head into the water for no apparent reason. After about ten minutes of this, he walked over me, carrying a particularly smooth, round rock and said, "Do you think this is the flattest rock there is?"
I told him in no uncertain terms, "Nope."
He tried to skip the rock, and it sank.
--End interlude--
Look, I don't have anything against ugly people. I'm glad you're comfortable with your body. The problem is, the rest of us are extremely uncomfortable with your body, and we outnumber you like six billion to one. We go to the beach to enjoy ourselves, not to see the world's largest open air cottage cheese buffet.
Don't get me wrong; I think we should treat ugly people the same as everybody else. What galls me is that ugly people don't seem to appreciate how much effort this takes. If you're ugly, keep in mind that the people around you are doing everything they can just to maintain eye contact with you. If you insist on having a crappy personality as well, they have no reason to keep you around any more. Unless they're also ugly people with crappy personalities, in which case they're only hanging around with you because they have nowhere else to go. And that's just sad.
If you're an ugly person with a great personality, at least you have the option of hanging around with other ugly people with great personalities or, if you prefer, attractive people with crappy personalities. But if you're ugly on the inside as well, you're just screwed. You can tell yourself that you're ugly on the outside with creamy nougat on the inside, but if everyone around you has the personality of Rosie O'Donell and the looks of, uh, Rosie O'Donell, then the odds are pretty good that you're just a big onion of ugly with layer after layer of ugly under a thin papery membrane of ugly. It's also a bad sign when people burst into tears everywhere you go.
My wife and I were once standing in line behind a group of ugly women who were engaging in the favorite pastime of ugly women: talking smack about still uglier women. It was during this exchange that I developed the First Rule of Ugliness. As the conversation went from catty to caustic, I turned to my wife and said, "You know, ugly people really shouldn't be superficial."
She gave me a long, hard look and said, "Yeah, I think you have something there." It's great to have a wife who is so supportive.
Also, she's hot.
One clarification regarding yesterday's post: You do NOT have to have a "humor" blog to participate in the Humor-Blogs.com Revenue Referral Program. It can be any kind of blog or website. So what do you say? Help me out and make some money and the same time. Read more here.
Barely three weeks into a 13 year campaign, insiders report that the Diesel for President organization is struggling to regain the momentum of its heady early days. Having blown most of its budget on Mentos and bubblewrap, the group is having trouble keeping its focus. Rancorous infighting has broken out between staffers, who haven't been paid since the campaign's inception, and volunteers, who have accidentally been paid every day and twice on Tuesdays.
Meanwhile, there is confusion at the highest levels regarding how many levels there are, and how one can know what level one is on when the the elevator buttons have been replaced with Mentos. Rumors of nude thumb wrestling among the female staffers are rampant, and have not been nearly as helpful as expected in raising morale.
Senior campaign officials admit to having underestimated the difficulty of explaining to voters that Diesel is not in fact running for the current presidential election, nor the next one, nor the one after that, but rather the one after that. Some of the difficulty is blamed on the misguided strategy of targeting future voters who are currently between the ages of five and seven. The campaign's Tomorrow's Voters Today program apparently consists mostly of bribing grade schoolers with bubble wrap. A transcript of one of these exchanges was obtained by reporters when it was mistakenly mailed by overworked staffers to the cable company.
Staffer: Hey kid, you want some of this? Kid: I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. Staffer: I'm not a stranger, I work for Diesel. You know, the Mattress Police? Kid: So you're a policeman? Staffer: Why not? So do you want some? Kid: What is it? Staffer: It's bubble wrap. Kid: Why the crap would I want that? Staffer: It's fun. Watch. [Popping noises] Kid: What's that in your other hand? Staffer: Nothing. Isn't the bubble wrap cool? I bet your friends don't have bubble wrap. Kid: Is that candy? Staffer: Let's focus on the bubble wrap. I give you the bubble wrap, and you promise to vote for Diesel in 2020. Kid: Gimme some candy and I won't scream that you touched my bottom. Staffer: Ok, ok. Here. Take the friggin' candy. Just vote for Diesel in 2020, alright? Kid: Yeah, whatever. What the -- These are MENTOS. Staffer: What's wrong with Mentos? They're the Freshmaker. Kid: (Yelling) Miss Jordan, this man touched my bottom! [Tires squealing]
The campaign's slogan, "Diesel: Time for a Change is Coming," was unfamiliar to 68% of the respondents in a recent survey, despite the fact that the survey was conducted inside the campaign's headquarters. The campaign has bandied about several other possible slogans, such as "Diesel: Past Imperfect, Future Tense!" and "Diesel: Something something something," which was inadvertently printed on 70,000 bumper stickers and 50 yards of bubble wrap.
To make matters worse, the organization's tax exempt status has recently come under fire from the I.R.S. Highly-placed sources indicate that the government is leaning toward classifying "Diesel in 2020" as either an illegal money laundering operation or a "dangerous cult." Diesel could not be reached for comment, but he is reported to be hoping for the latter.
At this point, the only hope for Diesel's campaign would seem to be a major shakeup, such as an embezzlement scandal or the selection of a new candidate. Senior campaign officials, vacationing in the Cayman Islands, have denied seriously considering either of these options. "We're 100% committed to Dennis," said one official. "We believe in the mission of the Apple Police."
Perhaps it was too much to hope for, that a regular guy like Diesel could some day become president. Perhaps it was too little to hope for. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was the exact right amount to hope for. Those would seem to be the options.
Diesel, for his part, isn't giving up. Not until he gets those federal matching funds anyway.
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I came across two alarming statistics recently. I read one of them in our local newspaper and the other one on the side of a Happy Meal container, so I'm pretty sure at least the second one is true.
Statistic 1: The world's population is likely to peak at 9 billion in 2070 and then begin to decline. Statistic 2: Over 50 million Build-a-Bears have been sold since 1997.
It doesn't take someone competent in mathematics to see that, projecting from these trends, custom-designed teddy bears will outnumber people by the end of this century. If this weren't the case, would I have been able to generate this convincing chart in Excel? Hardly.
Numbers don't lie. Neither do pictures. And when numbers and pictures agree on something, you know it's serious.
The socioeconomic ramifications of this are staggering. It's a known fact that teddy bears who aren't loved as if they were a real live bear go bad faster than shows starring John Stamos. By the end of this century, we simply won't have enough misplaced treacly affection to go around. And thanks to our aging population, we'll be more dependent than ever on creepy middle-aged spinsters to love our bears for us. But there is a limit to the number of tea parties that even the creepiest of these women can have. What happens when we reach that threshold?
I'll tell you what: Build-a-Bears standing pathetically on every corner holding signs that simply read "Hug?" Marauding bands of Build-a-Bears wandering the streets, looking for hugs in all the wrong places. Build-a-Bears trolling chat rooms looking for a quick hug from an unsuspecting minor. Eventually bears desperate for affection will be breaking into our homes and smothering us to death with their fuzzy, cuddly love.
We need to take a stand before this situation gets out of control. First, every Build-a-Bear should be fitted with a shock collar that can be used to control the bear if it starts getting overly affectionate. Second, the bears need to be treated with Hug Aversion Therapy (HAT), a process of conditioning in which they are subjected to bear hugs while being forced to watch a three day marathon of According to Jim. Finally, the Build-a-Bears need to be trained in some sort of trade -- probably something that is too dangerous for humans to do, like coal mining or transporting six pounds of heroin in their bellies.
In this way we can create a servile caste of Build-a-Bears who cater to our every whim while they secretly plot to someday cast off their bonds. Except it won't be a secret, because we'll know they're doing it. Because if there's one thing I learned from watching sci-fi films, it's that the servile caste of apes/robots/Morlocks/whatever is always plotting to some day cast off the bonds of servitude. That's why everyone once in a while we'll grab a bear randomly off the street and torture him until he admits that he was plotting to cast off the bonds of servitude. Then we'll execute him and scatter his stuffing as a warning to the other bears.
It is also very important that we avoid saying things like "A world ruled by Build-a-Bears? That's absurd!" Because someone always says something like that right before the servile caste finally overthrows the bonds of servitude. Then it will be the humans' turn to be the servile caste, and we'll have to wait until the Build-a-Bears get cocky and say something like, "It is the natural order for Bears to rule Humans. Humans will never be anything but SLAVES! Mwuhahahahahahaha!"
It could take hundreds of years to achieve that level of ironic hubris, however, so our best bet is to stay on our guard and rip the stuffing out of anybody who looks like he might need a hug.
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Humor-blogs.com just wants a hug. And to rule the world with an iron fist.
Recently I attempted to answer the question, "How do scientists know how many spiders the average person swallows in his or her sleep?" My hypothetical scenario involved a crack staff of expert researchers and several graduate students desperate for cheap housing. Sadly, I have been informed that no such scientific study has ever taken place, presumably because the scientific community is too busy solving "real problems."
One of those problems is, of course, aerosolized toilet water. Shockingly, scientists have found that flushing the toilet with the lid up can spread bacteria as much as eight feet away -- into what is commonly known as the "toothbrush zone." This isn't an urban legend like that thing about eating spiders or the one about alcohol causing birth defects. Microbiologist Charles Gerba did an actual study on the aerosol effect of toilet flushing, probably using someone else's toothbrush.
This is a quote from an article about the study:
"Droplets are going all over the place—it's like the Fourth of July," said Gerba.
This raises the obvious question: Why did Charles Gerba's parents celebrate Independence Day by splashing him with toilet water? And did this have any effect on his decision to become a microbiologist rather than, say, a fireman?
The article goes on to say that:
Obviously, the idea of toilet water being unknowingly distributed around the bathroom is less than appealing.
This is certainly true, although frankly I don't mind the toilet water not knowing where it's being distributed. When your toilet water has reached the level of sentience where it's aware of being sprayed across the room, it's definitely time to get out the Comet. And maybe call an exorcist.
Gerba notes that while toilets are obviously not sterile environments, they tend to not be as bad as sinks, because toilets are generally cleaned more often.
"If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts, he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet and crap in your sink," Gerba said.
Yes, but what would the alien's dog drink out of, Mr. Smarty Pants Microbiologist? And another thing: Have you even stopped to consider that maybe the bacteria levels in my sink are so much higher because of all the aliens crapping in it? How can I be expected to keep a clean hand washing area when every extraterrestrial visitor who stops by insists on unloading one in my sink?
Between you and me, I've long suspected that aliens have been crapping in my sink. I can think of no other explanation for the mess. And what else could they be doing in there for so long? I knock and knock, and all I hear is alien grunting. One time they even had the nerve to ask for a magazine. After a while they run the water for a bit, then there's some splashing in the toilet, and they're gone, just like that.
The problem of bacteria being spread by flushing the toilet has an obvious solution: Stop flushing the toilet. This may sound extreme, but as long as you can convince your house guests to crap in the sink like any self-respecting alien would, it shouldn't be a problem.
On the other hand, I like to pee standing up, and I'm not confident in my ability to arc the stream that accurately. Don't get me wrong -- I can write my name in the snow with the best of them, but there's always an ellipsis at the end, if you know what I mean. And you really don't want ellipsis all over your cabinets.
Ok, so maybe the best thing would be to just close the toilet lid before flushing, because I'm not going to pee sitting down just to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of the Alpha Centaurians. In fact, my real concern is what happens when they do a study showing how much bacteria is spread when a man urinates standing up. Never mind that urine is sterile; you know they're going to find that peeing while erect -- er, while standing -- creates an unfriendly teeth-brushing environment, because of all the collateral bacteria it stirs up.
That's going to make half of the population very unhappy, because they will need to make some radical changes to their daily behavior. I am, of course, speaking of women, who will have to work harder than ever to keep toilets clean. No longer will they be able to go two or three days in between toilet cleanings; from now on, toilets will have to be cleaned at least twice a day to ensure that no dangerous bacteria is present for me to stir up when I urinate.
Not that the responsibility lies solely with women. I, for one, pledge to do my part by doing that thing where I pee around the edge of the water in the bowl to help break up the hard water deposits. Also, when I'm out working in the yard, I'll make a point to "stretch my legs" behind the shed rather than come inside. And, of course, I will encourage my son to continue to pee on the wall behind the toilet, where his urine will dry into an innocuous yellow stain in the corner.
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone with any of the positions that I've taken in this post, particularly the standing up one. Go ahead, send hate mail.
See if I invite you over next Fourth of July.
Did you enjoy this post? There's plenty more like it in my book, Antisocial Commentary. Order your copy and help me to not have to get a real job, so I can keep writing this crap. Thanks!
And if you need another Diesel fix right now, check out my guest post over at Say No to Crack! It looks like even the realm of Mordor isn't immune to political scandal.
Recently I wrote about how my yard is infested with a satanic weed known as Goat Head. It occurs to me now that my characterization of this plant may have been a little unfair. The fact is that Goat Head is an integral part of the ecosystem in this area. Every living thing in creation has a purpose, and the purpose of Goat Head is to rule with a great fiery sword over the Infernal Dominion of Demon Weeds.
In case you missed my previous post about Goat Head, here he is now:
I know, he doesn't look that bad, but when you step on him it feels like this:
And don't get me started on what he can do to your tires.
Legend has it that Goat Head came into being when Cerberus, the three-headed demon dog, humped Satan's leg. Some of Cerberus' demon seed dripped off Satan's ankle and landed on Satan's Area Rug -- also known as the California Central Valley -- and Goat Head was born.
Goat Head gathered strength from the ungodly Central Valley heat and, unlike non-Satanic vegetation, did not require water to survive. Rather than using the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar, Goat Head used the energy of hate to transform hope into fear, joy into sorrow, and puppies into sugar. Goat Head laughed at 110 degree heat and chortled at dry, cracked earth. He was also mildly amused by fire, although it did tend to get old after a while. Soon Goat Head was strong enough to raise up for himself an army of demon-weed minions.
First he spawned his lieutenant, Stinging Nettle. Stinging Nettle looks like this:
Stinging Nettle's leaves are coated with microscopic protrusions that irritate the skin. Magnified 1000 times, they look like this:
There are many lesser demon-weeds, such as Foxtail, shown here:
Again, it doesn't look very threatening, but magnify it ten thousand times and you can see that it's made up of demons with the face of Pauly Shore.
Sorry about the nightmares, by the way.
Fortunately, I have found a way to live in harmony with the demon-weed population by carefully introducing the demon-weed's natural predator, Roundup(TM). I doubt I'll ever win the fight against the demon-weed hordes, but with the help of concentrated poisons I may at least be able to make the infestation seem relatively innocuous by dying slowly of cancer.
Cancer, by the way, looks like this:
That's right, cancer is a big, scary clown with the face of David Hasselhoff.
Humor-blogs.com may have forgotten to take its medication today.
Get your captions in by noon on Tuesday, or you will be flogged with Pauly Shore.
Stumble it!
Digg it!
I should just pick up the nickel. I’ve been standing here now for like a minute and a half. People probably think I’m lost or retarded or something. Just pick up the damn nickel already!
Thank goodness we have the Associated Press to point out the dangers of unclear writing, eh? I mean, I think that's what they are pointing out. I read that paragraph six times and I'm still not entirely sure. Every time I think I've got a choke-hold on one of those sentences, it twitches and lurches in some wholly unexpected direction. Now if it was me, I'd write something like:
Look, the fact is that we have way too many laws in this country already. Surely some of the problems that those laws were intended to address have either been solved to everyone's satisfaction or aren't going away ever. Take prostitution, for example. Every once in a while our local paper publishes the photos of local women who have been arrested for solicitation of prostitution. Now I don't want to be too hard on these women; clearly their lives did not turn out the way they imagined when they were huffing paint behind the middle school gymnasium. But let's think about this: If you're a man who is willing to pay good money to risk getting a life-threatening disease from Miss Methamphetamine 1992, the threat of a night in the pokey probably isn't going to keep you off the streets.
In California, we even pass laws to solve nonexistent problems. For example, a few years ago we passed a ballot proposition that outlawed selling horse meat for consumption by humans. I'm not sure what college hazing ritual prompted this ban, but it was overwhelmingly supported by Californians, who must have thought they were striking a blow against the budding horseburger industry.
"Uh huh."
On second thought, though, I suppose the lack of violence is a evidence of Gore's tireless efforts. Imagine how many people might have died if Gore hadn't kept a lid on the fighting. It is only right that we should recognize Al Gore for his role in forestalling global warming-related violence, just as George W. Bush was universally lauded for keeping Iraq free of WMDs.
Look, I don't mean to seem ungrateful. I'm flattered that you think I'm a thoughtful blogger or funny blogger or blogger with particularly iron-rich blood. But isn't all this meming getting out of hand? Lately memes have been piling up on my porch like the dead frogs in 
I appreciate being tagged for these (well, maybe not the girl one), but let's take a step back and think about this for a moment. Consider for a moment a typical meme, in which you have to recollect the names of all the pets you've ever had and then tag five other bloggers. You write your scintillating account of Mr. Fuzzy's hairballs and then tag five of your pals, who each surprisingly deliver equally riveting narratives. This goes on and on. Let's say that each link in the chain takes 2 days, and that every tagged blogger follows the instructions diligently. After one month, the meme will have propagated to over 
Meanwhile, there is confusion at the highest levels regarding how many levels there are, and how one can know what level one is on when the the elevator buttons have been replaced with Mentos. Rumors of nude thumb wrestling among the female staffers are rampant, and have not been nearly as helpful as expected in raising morale.
To make matters worse, the organization's tax exempt status has recently come under fire from the I.R.S. Highly-placed sources indicate that the government is leaning toward classifying "Diesel in 2020" as either an illegal money laundering operation or a "dangerous cult." Diesel could not be reached for comment, but he is reported to be hoping for the latter.
I'll tell you what: Build-a-Bears standing pathetically on every corner holding signs that simply read "Hug?" Marauding bands of Build-a-Bears wandering the streets, looking for hugs in all the wrong places. Build-a-Bears trolling chat rooms looking for a quick hug from an unsuspecting minor. Eventually bears desperate for affection will be breaking into our homes and smothering us to death with their fuzzy, cuddly love.
In this way we can create a servile caste of Build-a-Bears who cater to our every whim while they secretly plot to someday cast off their bonds. Except it won't be a secret, because we'll know they're doing it. Because if there's one thing I learned from watching sci-fi films, it's that the servile caste of apes/robots/
Between you and me, I've long suspected that aliens have been crapping in my sink. I can think of no other explanation for the mess. And what else could they be doing in there for so long? I knock and knock, and all I hear is alien grunting. One time they even had the nerve to ask for a magazine. After a while they run the water for a bit, then there's some splashing in the toilet, and they're gone, just like that.
