"But, my fellow Americans, what differentiates me from my competitors is that, unlike Congressman Diesel, I can unhinge my jaw and swallow my prey whole."
This was my most popular contest yet, with over 160 captions submitted! Congrats to the winners, and thanks to everyone for playing and/or voting.
In other news, MySQL continues to screw with me. MySQL is an open source (read: free) database that I use for tracking the Humor-Blogs.com data and for my commenting application. Evidently it is straining under the weight of so much use, so it looks like I'm going to have to migrate to a Microsoft (read: expensive) solution. This morning I was greeted with an error message indicating that the table where I store all the Humor-Blogs.com members was corrupted. I did a repair on the table, and it came back with the message "660 rows converted to 658 rows." Which is a friendly way of saying, "I deleted two of your members. Guess which ones!" I know that I was one of them (more evidence that MySQL hates me), but I have no idea who the other one is. I hope it's not anybody important.
Anyway, I'm going to try to convert to SQL Server this weekend. Hopefully it won't be too much of a nightmare, but if things break over the next few days, that will be why. That or the sun spots.
Have a better weekend than I will! See you back here on Monday!
Man, it's getting hard to pick these things. 160+ captions? Are you kidding me? I'm going to have to start holding runoff elections to pick the front-runners. Or maybe delegate the selection to some reliable group of people, like Iowa.
"But, my fellow Americans, what differentiates me from my competitors is that, unlike Congressman Diesel, I can unhinge my jaw and swallow my prey whole."
During a press conference, Hilary Clinton launches a pre-emptive strike on Obama's street credibility by attempting to throw up some muthaf*ckin' gang signz.
I'm virtually guaranteed to regret this, but I thought I'd try something different today. You know the rules: Submit your captions in the comments, and I'll post a poll with the best ones on Tuesday.
Very good site. Thank you:-) farm porn mother son porn dragonball porn lindsay lohan porn free porn samples home porn free porn passwords tara reid porn free porn mpegs free full length porn movies korean porn tentacle porn swedish porn free celeb porn french porn free porn stories pornstar finder nurse porn jennifer lopez porn free toon porn
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.
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.
At first it looked like Ahmadinejad was going to bomb. "Let me tell a joke here," Ahmadinejad began. "I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded."
The audience could only shrug and assume that the joke was funnier in Farsi.
Soon, however, the ruler of the repressive, theocratic police state hit his stride, pretending to be angry at Israel for "persecuting" Palestinians. His explanation of Iran's nuclear program was also a hit. "Our nuclear program is for energy, not weapons," he deadpanned.
Ahmadinejad, whose dry, absurdist wit has provoked comparisons to Steven Wright and Norm MacDonald, clearly is not afraid to take risks with his material. The nuclear energy joke, for example, relies on the audience's understanding that Iran sits on top of literally billions of barrels of oil. "I have faith in my audience," said Ahmadinejad after the show. "It's true that not everyone will understand how absurd it is for a country that is essentially one gigantic oil field to be pursuing a nuclear energy program, but I think the hardcore fans get it."
Ahmadinejad got the biggest laughs with a joke about homosexuality. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Ahmadinejad said. The crowd burst into raucous laughter at the remark.
"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon," he continued, going in for the kill. "I do not know who has told you we have it."
Many of the audience members were literally in tears at this point. Sandy Morrison, a 19 year old Columbia undergraduate, was doubled up in laughter. "Stop it, I can't take any more!" squealed Morrison.
Tim Corman, a 21 year old prelaw student, said he appreciates the dry sophistication of Ahmadinejad's humor. "I like how he doesn't just come out and say that homosexuals are routinely executed in Iran. He just acts like, 'What? Homosexuals? Where?' Like he really has no idea. It's priceless."
Ahmadinejad segued seamlessly into his well-polished holocaust denial routine. "Holo-what?" he quipped. "Isn't that a Gwen Stefani song?"
Clearly pleased with his performance, Ahmadinejad announced that he would be embarking on a six week North American comedy tour, appearing with Larry the Cable Guy and openly gay comic Ant. "They tell me someone named 'Ant' will be there,"Ahmadinejad joked, "but so far I haven't seen him."
Ahmadinejad hopes the tour will help sales of his new book, Stuff We Don't Have in Iran. The book is a collection of one-liners that has been compared to Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be A Redneck If.... The jokes all start with "In Iran..." and end with a humorous observation about how life in Iran differs from the rest of the world. Some examples:
In Iran, Michael Jackson is still black.
In Iran, Starship is still "Jefferson Starship." In the more conservative areas, it is still "Jefferson Airplane." ("None of our cities were built on rock and roll," Ahmadinejad notes wryly.)
In Iran, Britney Spears is still a perky 17-year old with that innocent schoolgirl thing going on.
In Iran, there are only three Star Wars movies, and the third one ends with an Ewok slaughter.
In Iran, Kurt Cobain is still alive but Courtney Love is dead.
In Iran, Woody Allen is still funny.
Ahmadinejad is currently working on a second volume of "In Iran..." one-liners. Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments.
Now that Fred Thompson has announced his presidential candidacy, some television networks are yanking reruns of Law and Order featuring Thompson's character, District Attorney Arthur Branch, in order to comply with "Equal Time" restrictions. The equal time provisions keep TV networks from biasing the outcome of an election by giving too much exposure to any one candidate. Well, except for candidates who can use their current positions to get on the news. And candidates with a lot of money for ads. So, um, basically the purpose of the law, like that of most laws, is to protect rich incumbent politicians.
Anyway, it occurs to me that pulling Law & Order is a rather crude way of complying with the equal time regulations. I did some "thinking outside the box" this weekend and I came up with a much more elegant solution: Rather than decreasing Fred Thompson's time by pulling his show, why don't we give shows to all the other candidates?
To make it fair, the new shows should be fictional programs rather than news or commentary type shows. And by "fair," I mean "fair to me, the viewer, who doesn't want to see any more O'Reilly Factor or Hannity and Colmes type shows." Here are some suggestions:
McCain: D.C.P.D.
John McCain is a renegade cop who doesn't play by the rules. He saw some bad sh-t in 'Nam, and he doesn't have the patience to deal with the politics of the Washington D.C. Police Department. He's sick of seeing criminals go free because of legal technicalities like "search warrants" and "due process." He's been eligible for a full pension for seventeen years now, and the brass would like nothing more than to see him kicked off the force. But they can't deny that despite his unorthodox methods, McCain gets results. McCain is determined not to give up until he has purged the D.C.P.D. of every dirty cop in its ranks, and he doesn't care how dirty he has to get to do it.
Hillary the Vampire Slayer
In this spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hillary Clinton is an archaeologist, cooking show host and mother of triplets who has a terrible secret: She is three sixteenths vampire! With just under a quarter vampire blood coursing through her veins, she has superhuman strength and tolerance for marital infidelity, can take sunlight in small doses and isn't quite creepy enough to be exiled from human society. She must be constantly on guard against her nemesis, Barackula, vampire prince and host of Cooking with Barackula.
Oh, Dennis!
Dennis Kucinich stars as Dennis Kay in this wacky sitcom about an odd looking but funny guy who is married to a vapid and unreasonably hot chick. Dennis is an inventor who makes a moderate income from his one successful invention, spray-on socks. Now he stays at home with their three children while his wife Melissa (Denise Richards) goes to work as the tanning consultant for the Miami Dolphins. He's supposed to be home-schooling the children, but somehow his "lessons" always turn into ideas for another invention. Will they be able to thaw out Rufus the cat before Melissa gets home? Will she ever wise up and leave his dumb ass? Will the children ever learn to read? Find out on Oh, Dennis!
The other advantage of these shows is that if they take off, maybe some of these people will give up politics. Any other ideas? We're going to need a lot more shows if we're going to cover all the candidates.
I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest poll. Get your captions in by tonight!
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With my own presidential hopes dwindling, I have turned my attention to the current crop of candidates. Which of these gentlemen or harshlady, I wondered, is worthy of my vote?
Sadly, I find all the popular the candidates wanting. It's not that they're bad candidates; I just find myself wishing for a little more. For that reason, I have begun to consider possible running mates for each of the leading candidates -- people who might give the ticket that extra oomph it needs.
Candidate
Possible Running Mate
Hillary Clinton
Monica Lewinsky
PROS:
Once held an actual paid job in the White House
Good for taking on tasks Hillary finds distasteful
May be able to forge a model of cooperation that will also work between Sunnites and Shi'ites
CONS:
Voters may think, "She's ok, but is she really the best we can do? I mean, couldn't we have any babe we want?"
No longer a spring chicken
With two women on the ticket, voters may be reluctant to ask important underwear-related questions at town hall meetings
May placate voters who have been upset to learn that the "John Edwards" campaign does not in fact have multiple candidates named John Edward
Popular with Chicago's several million dead voters
Experience duping media and public
CONS:
"I'm getting the letter I. Iron... Ira... Ira something. Irap? Iram? We're definitely going to be attacked by terrorists from a country starting with I, R, A. Does that help?"
Squirrelly face and hair gel make me want to punch him
Thomas Jefferson won't shut the hell up during cabinet meetings
Efforts to bait Ann Coulter into calling him a "faggot" have so far been unsuccessful
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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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It's been a while since I did a post inspired by Parade magazine, and as I am now a candidate for the presidency I thought I should give the much respected Sunday newspaper insert a gander to see what is happening in this crazy world of ours. I was shocked at what I found. Howard Huge, get out of that kiddie pool! You're a dog, silly!
Howard, you see, is comically rolling around in the children's pool, whilst the lady of the house notes wryly, "And he's the one who hates to take a bath."
In case you're not familiar with the hilarious Howard Huge comic strip, this is from Howard's Wikipedia entry:
The comics star Howard, an enormous but lovable dog (a gentle giant, perhaps) and his family and neighborhood kids, and include such classic scenarios as Howard getting leaves all over the carpet or wagging his tail, thus negating his great poker face. Generally speaking, Howard's being large causes him to encounter inconveniences not normally faced by average-sized dogs. He is known to have been called a "maroon," as in "That Howard Huge.... what a maroon!"
I admire the ability of the wikipedist to almost completely conceal his disdain.
I tried to find a sample Howard Huge comic strip, but a Google image search for "Howard Huge" yielded this photo of model Sophie Howard and I completely forgot what I was looking for.
Once I had finished reading the entire (aptly titled) "Laugh Parade," I moved on to the magazine's more substantial features. I found particularly fascinating an article that purported to explain "Why America's Future Depends on Space." In it, noted astronomer and poultry expert Neil deGrasse Tyson argues that China is overtaking us in space.
At first I thought, well, they need it more than we do, right? They have like 8 billion people, and that's a lot, even if they are half the size of normal people. But then I realized that noted astronomer and heavyweight champ Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about outer space. The article notes:
"During a recent trip to Beijing, I expected to see wide boulevards dense with bicycles as a primary means of transportation. Instead, I was surprised to see those boulevards filled with top-end luxury cars, while cranes knit a new skyline of high-rise buildings."
Can you believe that? Not only do the Chinese now have automobiles, they have cranes capable of knitting a skyline. Here in America we can't even get the pigeons to stop shitting on our top-end luxury cars, while over in China they've trained waterfowl to fabricate buildings out of yarn. I imagine these buildings are more impressive from a distance than close up, but still.
Evidently the knitting cranes were a fortuitous by-product of China's space program. The history of space exploration is littered with such happy accidents. For example:
"When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, a blunder in the design of its optics generated hopelessly blurred images.... Eager astrophysicists [Is there another kind? -- Diesel] wrote suites of advanced image-processing software to help identify and isolate stars in otherwise crowed, unfocused fields... Meanwhile, medical researchers recognized that the challenge faced by astrophysicists was similar to that faced by doctors in their visual search for tumors in mammograms.... The medical community adopted the new techniques being used for the Hubble to assist their early detection of breast cancer. Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope."
To demonstrate just how vital this research is, here is a photo of a healthy adult woman's cleavage.
As if the threat to our nation's cleavage weren't enough, there are lots of other benefits associated with space exploration. Like, for example, it makes us feel really good about ourselves.
Noted astronomer and French navy admiral Neil deGrasse Tyson relates:
"The most popular museum in the world over the past decade is the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It's an American legacy to the world. But, more important, it represents the urge to dream and the will to enable it. These traits are fundamental to being humans and have coincided with what it is to be American. When you you go to countries without such ambitions working within their culture, you feel the absence of hope. Due to all manner of politics, economics and geography, people are reduced to worrying only about that day's shelter or about the next meal. It's a shame, even a tragedy, how many people don't get to think about the future."
That's right, it's our duty as Americans to dream big dreams and do the cool stuff that less fortunate cultures don't get to do. As Jesus once said, "The poor you will always have with you, but you should build some kickass museums." I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that this attitude truly coincides with what it means to be an American.
Noted astronomer and Toronto middle school superintendent Neil deGrasse Tyson states that only 7/10 of one percent of American tax dollars goes to space exploration. That's a scant $15 billion, barely enough to pay for $15 billion worth of ridiculously expensive space crap.
"Couldn't that money be better spent on education or research to cure all manner of cleavage-related illnesses?" you ask. Nay, I say. Nay. For then we would know exactly which problems we were solving with our money. It's much more exciting to throw money at an incredibly impractical project in the hopes that we'll make a colossal error eventually resulting in a small -- but very real -- positive effect in some unknown area.
I'm still trying to decide what massive impractical project to undertake while I'm president. Perhaps I'll build the first intercontinental vacuum tube messaging system, or democratize Iraq. Whatever it is, it's going to be big. I mean, really, really big. If only there was some way to illustrate the truly unprecedented scale of this project.
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Humor-blogs.com supports sending a man to Mars by 2010. I'm thinking Jim Belushi.
It irritates me that marijuana is illegal. Not because I smoke pot, but because I think throwing people in jail for growing marijuana is a phenomenal waste of tax dollars, considering that there are so many other plants that I'd like to see outlawed.
There are many differing opinions on marijuana, but here's something we can all agree on: Poison ivy sucks ass. If we're going to outlaw plants, why don't we start with poison ivy? Is there a strong pro-poison ivy lobby that I'm not aware of? Who exactly is standing in the way of outlawing poison ivy? Is it Haliburton? It is, isn't it? Those greedy, rash-inducing bastards.
There is no poison ivy around my house, but my property is infested with plenty of other gratuitously cruel and ugly plants. I live in the California Central Valley, on a parcel of land that used to be an orchard. Yeah, I'm one of the people who's responsible for the disappearance of our precious farmland. Occasionally some wistful old crank will write a letter to the local paper complaining about how developers are destroying all of our farmland. "50 years ago this area was all orchards," they say. Which is true. On the other hand, why stop at 50 years? A hundred years ago, before we started moving rivers around, it was all desert. Why doesn't someone start a campaign to stop the destruction of our historic uninhabitable wastelands?
It is true, of course, that we need farmland. If we keep losing farmland, our nation's food production capabilities may decline to the point where our children are eating only six or seven meals per day. "Mommy, why don't we eat linner or snackfast any more?" little Susie will cry, clutching her growling tummy, now almost completely hidden by her extra-large t-shirt. What will we say then? That mommy needed a three stall garage so now there are no Cheetos farmers any more?
But as important as agriculture is to the cause of making sure America's children remain the largest in the world, it's not like the Central Valley has been farmland since the molten lava on earth's crust cooled over 800 years ago. Trust me, the greater Modesto area would not naturally revert to a scene on a salad dressing label if the pesky humans just stopped building stuff on it.
In fact, if I were to let my land revert to its "natural" state, it would look like this:
Pretty awful, huh? Instead, thanks to a lot of hard work and persistence, it now looks like this:
Yeah, I haven't had much time to work on the landscaping. Still, the trees look nice, don't they? I'm thinking some azaleas would really spruce the place up.
Here is a sampling of the "natural" vegetation around here:
We call this "puncture vine," or -- more affectionately -- "goat heads. " Doesn't look too bad, does it? Nice little yellow flowers, lovely greenery... but say, what are those little bumpy seed thingies?
A close-up of one of the "goat heads," also known as HOLY SHIT WHAT IS STICKING OUT OF MY FOOT?!?!
In case that's not clear enough, here's a magnified image:
Step on one of those things some time and then tell me that marijuana is really the problem we want to spend our resources on.
What the hell is that sticking out of my foot? Oh, it's just humor-blogs.com.
Those of you who have been around since I started this site back in October know that my blog has always been in a constant state of evolution. I've tried a lot of different kinds of humor pieces, from one-liners to top ten lists to fake news stories. Frankly though, most of the posts I really enjoyed writing and feel good about are of the random nonsense variety. My very first post was a made-up account of my encounter with a sea turtle, and that post has set the tone for most of this blog. So you'll probably be seeing more stuff like this and this from now on.
Anyway, now that I've cleaned out my sock drawer, I realize that my mind is also cluttered with the seeds of a lot of fake news stories that I don't feel like writing. I like the idea of satirical news pieces, but they're kind of tedious to write -- and presumably to read. So I've decided to do another sock-drawer post of news items. I'll keep them short in deference to the attention spans of both the readers and the writer of this blog. I present to you the first entry in the Mattress PoliceNews Briefs:
Barak Obama Hopes to Be First Creamy Eggnog President
It's no secret that Barack Obama has had his eye on being the first black president. Now, facing criticism that he is "not black enough," Obama has subtly shifted his strategy. "I've had several high level meetings with my advisors and the fine folks at Glidden," he said at a press conference this morning, "and I am confident based on their counsel that I am well-positioned to be the first Creamy Eggnog President." He assured a crowd that the shift would not affect his policies regarding non-Creamy Eggnog Americans.
Nickelback Determined to Be the "Next Nickelback"
Lately music industry gurus have been abuzz with the question: Who will be the next band to wear the wuss-rock crown? Contenders include Hinder and American Idol also-rans Daughtry and Bo Bice. Yesterday Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger did his best to put an end to the speculation. "There is only one real contender for the title of the "next Nickelback," and that's Nickelback. We were Nickelback when everybody thought we were the next Def Leppard, and we'll still be Nickelback when Daughtry is the next Creed," Kroeger said.
Axl Rose Admits "Chinese Democracy" Was a "Just a Joke"
Former Guns 'n' Roses lead singer Axl Rose made a startling announcement yesterday regarding the release of the perennially delayed album Chinese Democracy. "I meant it as a joke," he said. "I thought 'Chinese Democracy' was a fairly well known euphemism for something that was never going to happen. When people took me seriously, I had no choice but to play along." Rose first announced plans for the new GNR album in 1994. "I was going to call it Hell Freezes Over, but the Eagles beat me to it. And then they really confused things by actually releasing the album." Rose put to rest any speculation about the album. "There absolutely will be no GNR album called Chinese Democracy. Even if I did plan on recording another GNR album at one point -- which I didn't -- I simply wouldn't have time these days. All my energy is going into my solo project." Rose's first solo album, due to be released April first, 2008, is tentatively titled Pigs Fly.
House Passes Timetable for Withdrawing Support from Britney Spears
The House of Representatives today narrowly passed a resolution that sets a firm timetable for withdrawing support from Britney Spears. Dick Cheney harshly criticized the measure. "Britney is obviously not ready to stand on her own yet," Cheney argued. "If we give up now, we risk losing all of the time and energy we as a nation have invested in her." A slim majority in the House disagreed. "We all love Britney Spears and wish her the best," said Speaker Nanci Pelosi. "But at some point she needs to get her act together. Maybe this timetable will give her the push she needs."
That's all for now, folks. I'll be back Wednesday with more nonsense. And don't forget, this Friday I'll be posting the picture for the next installment of the Mattress Police caption contest.
Recently my wife was reading an article in Parade about the world's worst dictators. (Yes, this is the second post over the past week prompted by Parade magazine. I'm also reading a 700 page book about artificial intelligence, ok? It's called being a Renaissance man. Look into it.)
Like many people, I rely on Parade to provide me with some geopolitical perspective, not to mention hearty halftime meals for my Super Bowl party. (Actually, I rely on my wife for both of those things, but she in turn relies on Parade. And just because I couldn't tell you who played in the Super Bowl to save my life doesn't mean I don't need a hearty halftime meal, so get off my back.)
Anyway, it turns out that the world's worst dictator is some dude named Omar al-Bashir. He runs a little country club and spa called Sudan. You may have heard something about it in between Anna Nicole Smith's breasts. Er, in between stories about Anna Nicole Smith. And her breasts. Her non-biodegradable breasts.
------------------------------------------------ Interlude: 3007 A.D.
Archaeologists are excavating Anna Nicole Smith's grave.
Archaeologist 1: "Hey, I found something." Archaeologist 2: "What is it?" Archaeologist 1: "Guess." ------------------------------------------------
So this guy, this "Worst Dictator in the World," has killed at least 180,000 civilians in Darfur and driven 2 million people from their homes. My question is, what exactly are they looking for in a dictator? I mean, this guy's no Hitler, but who is? Except Stalin, I mean. Stalin was pretty much Hitler.
But those two guys really skew the curve for the rest of the dictators. I think that you'd have to say, all things considered, that this Omar al-Bashir character is a pretty good dictator. I can see how he'd lose some points for limiting himself to sub-Saharan Africa, but you play the cards you're dealt. Give him some time.
You know who's a lousy dictator? Al Gore. First of all, he's kind of whiny and non-threatening. Second, he doesn't really run anything. Third, he keeps trying to "build consensus" and win people over with "appeals to reason." Let me tell you, Earth in the Balance is no Mein Kampf. And Davis Guggenheim is no Leni Riefenstahl. And, uh, Tipper is no Eva Braun. That's what I've heard, anyway. You know how guys talk.
Al Gore missed a key opportunity when he claimed to have invented the Internet. He should have claimed to have invented the Spanish Inquisition. Or something even worse, like syphillis. Tell me you'd risk crossing the guy who's in charge of syphillis.
"Dude, you look terrible! What happened to you?"
"Oh, man. I voted against Kyoto and Al Gore gave me syphillis."
And now he's gone and gotten himself nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I know, I know, Yasser Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize and he was a murderous terrorist bastard. But still, there's a cachet of pacificism that goes with getting the Nobel Peace Prize. It's unfair, especially since 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? There's no way that Al Gore could have singlehandedly prevented the war if all those people refused to work within the political process to find a solution.
Ah, but history doesn't want to hear about the faceless men and women who are ignorant of the conflict they could be participating in. Besides, the faceless are notoriously poor combatants. History remembers the Great Men with Faces, like Al Gore and what's his face in the Sudan.
In a ritual that is becoming all too familiar, scientists have once again announced troubling news from outer space. Despite repeated assurances from the Bush administration regarding prospects for long term lunar stability, it appears that the moon continues to disintegrate.
"At this point there seems to be little we can do," said Hans VerHoeven, director of the non-profit Council on Lunar-American Relations. After millenia of being pounded by meteors, VerHoeven noted, the moon finally appears near total collapse. "Yet the Bush administration insists that we must 'stay the course' with regard to the moon," VerHoeven added. "It's insane."
Terran Imperialism
Critics on both sides of the aisle have roundly criticized the Bush plan to require the Moon to continue to orbit the Earth at its present distance and velocity. "Release Earth's grip on the moon NOW!" read signs at a recent protest march which inexplicably occurred at a Taco Bell outside Redding, California. Denouncing "Terran imperialism" has become a favorite rallying cry of the those who sympathize with the suffering of the uninhabited sphere.
"First we send probes there looking for water," said Susan Jarvis, an unemployed Redding resident who attended the rally with her three unemployed children. "Well, guess what? There's no water. It was all lies. At least no planets disintegrated when Clinton lied about the Alpha Centaurians telling him to shag Gennifer Flowers."
An American flag now waves unnaturally over the previously pristine surface of the Moon, a harsh reminder of Earth's past meddling in the region's politics. The nonexistent locals, who might once have welcomed Earth's superior technology in their fight against the constant barrage of space debris, are now strangely silent. The schools are empty, lacking even buildings to signify their presence. The playgrounds are indistinguishable from the nearby cornfields, in which no corn grows. And every square foot of the benighted satellite bears the scars of billions of years of neglect and an atmosphere even thinner than Earth's tired promises to "send another expedition" some day.
Not everyone blames Earth for the Moon's problems, however. Ted Barnett, a student at Chico State University, was angered by the protesters. "Everybody talks about how much light we get from the Moon," he said. "Nobody bothers to mention how light the Moon gets from us. Anyway, get out of my way so I can get a f---ing gordita, for f---'s sake."
If You Are Indifferent to Something, Set It Free
The Bush administration has belatedly announced a plan to allow the Moon to slip 1.6 inches further away from the Earth per year, letting Earth's rotation slow gradually over the next 5 billion years. Critics argue that this is "too little, too late," and point out that the plan has to be renewed by Congress every four years. Democrats are worried that if they lose control over the House of Representatives at any time over the next five billion years, conservative Republicans will attempt to reassert Terran supremacy over the Moon.
"We've learned that you can't trust these lunocons," said Jarvis. "We've wasted enough of our gravity trying to hold onto a Moon that doesn't want our help. It's the same old story."
Is The Tide Turning?
Jarvis' own story goes deeper, however. It turns out that her son was Joseph "Woogie" Jarvis, a surfer who disappeared in a massive wave off Maui. She bristles at the idea that she is protesting out of anger at her son's Moon-related death. "My son's death was tragic," she says, "But the bigger issue here is why is the Moon in our gravitational sphere in the first place?"
Like an increasing number of disillusioned citizens, Jarvis drives a car bearing a bumper sticker that reads "Support the Surfers -- Release the Moon." She dismisses the contention that the moon might disintegrate even more rapidly if it is released from the Earth's gravity.
"That's a lie promoted by the Moon-mongers at Haliburton," Jarvis argues. Haliburton, the profiteering firm formerly run by Dick Cheney, has recently come under fire for rumors that it is building a gigantic evil base on the dark side of the moon, where it will be free from international scrutiny, heavy corporate taxes and five sixths of its current weight.
The Dark Side of Moon Policy
"Of course Haliburton doesn't want to let the Moon go," said Jarvis. "They'd like nothing more than to chop the Moon up into little pieces and sell it to Earthlings as moon rocks. And then they'd chop the Earth into pieces and sell it back to the Moon. That's just how evil they are."
The Terran public seems to agree. In a recent opinion poll, 58% of respondents agreed with the statement "Haliburton is an evil company," while 36% agreed with the statement that "Haliburton is an evil, fire-breathing lizard." 7% thought that Haliburton was "a small rodent indigenous to Guatemala, which subsists entirely on discarded cell phone batteries and coca beans." 76% said that they would buy Haliburton stock if they had the chance.
Jarvis and several dozen of her unemployed friends are coordinating another rally next week in Stockton. They are planning an aerial photo of the protesters, arranged in a crescent formation, simultaneously bearing their posteriors. The photo will be sent to the White House with the caption, "We've got your Moon right here!"
Meanwhile, the desolate Moon soldiers on, powerless to change course as it hurtles toward its inevitable doom.
The Top 10 U.S. Presidents - Now 100% Context Free!
I generally shy away from politics on this blog, but the other day I saw a bumper sticker that really made me think, as bumper stickers often do to thoughtful people like myself. It read:
Well that hit me like a ton of bricks. How true! I mean, unless you count the death of the credibility of the feminist movement, which I don't.
For those of you who aren't as "up" on politics as I am, the bumper sticker was, of course, comparing the innocuous perjury and finger-wagging self-righteousness of Bill Clinton to FDR's devious maneuvers designed to get the U.S. into World War II. Until the day I encountered this bit of wisdom (wisdom = truth that rhymes), I had always figured that FDR's omissions and exaggerations were justified by the defeat of Nazism and Japanese imperial
Stumble it!
Digg it!
Man, it's getting hard to pick these things. 160+ captions? Are you 
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.
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.
Soon, however, the ruler of the repressive, theocratic police state hit his stride, pretending to be angry at Israel for "persecuting" Palestinians. His explanation of Iran's nuclear program was also a hit. "Our nuclear program is for energy, not weapons," he deadpanned.
Ahmadinejad hopes the tour will help sales of his new book, 
Now that Fred Thompson has announced his presidential candidacy, some television networks are 
Hillary Clinton
Mike Huckabee
Barack Obama
John Edwards
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.
There is no poison ivy around my house, but my property is infested with plenty of other gratuitously cruel and ugly plants. I live in the California Central Valley, on a parcel of land that used to be an orchard. Yeah, I'm one of the people who's responsible for the disappearance of our precious farmland. Occasionally some wistful old crank will write a letter to the local paper complaining about how developers are destroying all of our farmland. "50 years ago this area was all orchards," they say. Which is true. On the other hand, why stop at 50 years? A hundred years ago, before we started moving rivers around, it was all desert. Why doesn't someone start a campaign to stop the destruction of our historic uninhabitable wastelands?
Anyway, it turns out that the world's worst dictator is some dude named Omar al-Bashir. He runs a little country club and spa called Sudan. You may have heard something about it in between Anna Nicole Smith's breasts. Er, in between stories about Anna Nicole Smith. And her breasts. Her non-biodegradable breasts.
Al Gore missed a key opportunity when he claimed to have invented the Internet. He should have claimed to have invented the Spanish Inquisition. Or something even worse, like syphillis. Tell me you'd risk crossing the guy who's in charge of syphillis.
In a ritual that is becoming all too familiar, scientists have once again announced troubling news from outer space. Despite repeated assurances from the Bush administration regarding prospects for long term lunar stability, it appears that 
The Bush administration has belatedly announced a plan to 