You've got Spam!

If you are the owner of an email address, chances are you've received Spam.  Most of us see these emails for what they are and delete them immediately.  There are people, however, mostly the gullible newcomers to the wondrous web, who actually open spam and read it.  Those same people are the ones who send chain emails to all their friends.  If you are lucky enough not to know what a chain email is, I envy you.  It's a type of spam that basically tries to get people to forward the email to as many people as possible through emotionally manipulative stories, get-rich quick pyramid schemes, and the exploitation of superstition to threaten the recipient with bad luck if he or she "breaks the chain."  In fact, by the late 90s, approximately 572% of all email was a chain email. 

Thankfully, it's not as widespread anymore, as people have mostly wised up, though I still find one in my inbox every now and again.  Most recently, I got this one from a co-worker:

"Pass this on...

This year we are going to experience 4 unusual dates: 1-1-11; 1-11-11; 11-1-11; 11-11-11 and that's not all.... Take the last two (2) digits of the year you were born - now add the age you will be THIS year, and the result will be 111 for everyone!!! This year October will have 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, and 5 Saturdays. This only happens every 823 years...."

This is the reply email I fired off shortly afterwards:


I hope to Edward Cullen and Jacob Black's love child that this is supposed to be satire and you're just making fun of the feeble-minded sorority girls passing this around to all their friends. I would have expected this from my sweet old great aunt Ethel, as she always sends me chain emails about cats with bowties and Bill Lumberg giving away half his Microsoft fortune to people who perpetuate the chain ("keep the cycle going and it will bring you good luck"); but not you, Chris.

First of all, October, 2011 will not have 5 weekends.  That was last year.  Yes, the first two statements are true, but of course your age plus the year of your birth will be 111, because we are in 2011. (19)84 (year of birth) + 27 (age I will turn this year) = (20)11. Holy Twilight! It's merely a coincidence. In the same way as next year it will be 112, and in 2023, the last two digits of your birth year plus your age that year will add up to 123.

As for the 5 weekends in October happening every 823 years, let's think about this, a year can only start on one of seven days, so there are seven possible basic calendar years. Add leap years, and there are fourteen basic calendars. Period. And one of those calendars only gets used every 823 years? How would that be possible? It's not of course, all 14 calendars get cycled through regularly; in fact 2010 uses the exact same calendar as 1999.

So 1999 ALSO had 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October. So did 1993. 1982 as well. 2021 (the next time it will happen) will probably see another round of pernicious chain emails (or thought messages or whatever we will have by then) going around telling people to "Rejoice, for this only happens once every 823 years!! Just send me your banking information and I'll see that all your astrological dreams are fulfilled"
 For more information on Twilight and other nonsense, refer to the article I wrote on the subject: http://spacebetweenmyears.blogspot.com/2011/03/twilight-blows.html

Fox News Confrims

Fox News, you've done it again.  In your race against the obviously superior and less-biased CNN, you've not only failed to put out an actual front-page article, but also failed to use a spell checker.

Usama bin Landen Dead Fox News Confrims.

bin Landen.  As in "yeah, dem terrists bin landen dem planes in them buildings in New Yawk.  Der terker jerbs!"

It's gotta be true, since Fox News confrimed it.  Way to go, Faux News.

CNN, while a couple of minutes late to the party, actually took the time to post a front page article, mercifully free of spelling and grammar errors. 

But of course, since a large majority of Fox's viewership can barely read, I guess it doesn't really matter, does it, Fox?

They killed Osama?  I didn't know we was after the president

The People vs. Luke Bryan

Deputy: All rise for the entrance of the honorable Judge Max Fightmaster

Judge: Please be seated.  Now, first we'll have the prosecutor state his case.

Marshall Eriksson: Thank you, your honor.  In his recent hit song, the defendant talks about rain being a good thing.  However, we all know that rain is the leading cause of April showers and...

Judge: Hang on, I want to hear this from the horse's mouth.  Mr Bryan, would you please tell me the lyrics to your song?

Luke Bryan: Yes, yer Highness, see, mah sawng goes a lil sumthing lahk this: rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky - back roads are boggin' up, my buddies pile up in my truck...

Judge: Get to the point

Luke Bryan: Rain is a good thing

Judge: I see.  Mr Eriksson, your rebuttal?
 

Marshall Eriksson: As I was saying, rain is the leading cause of April showers.  April showers, as we all know, bring May flowers.  Mayflowers bring the Pilgrims, who bring smallpox.  Rain is definitely NOT a "good thang."  Lawyered.

Boom

Luke Bryan: What now?  Pilgrims?  Whazzat?

Judge: Pilgrims, Mr Bryan.  Don't you know anything about American history?

Luke Bryan: Nah, I got out at fourth grade to pursue mah music career.  My momma said I could sing real good.

Judge: I see.  Well, short of any further evidence in support of rain being a good thing, I'm going to rule in favor of the plaintiff.  Mr Bryan, your argument is invalid.  From now on, you are banned from singing that song.  I'd also suggest you don't reproduce, but I don't have that authority.  You're now free to go get drunk on "whiskeh" and have unprotected sex with your girlfriend.  God help us all.

Next case, The People Vs Nickelback

Lord of the Fly Kills

It's starting to get warmer, and with the warm weather comes something very annoying - flies.  And tons of them.

They're everywhere; buzzing around outside frolicking with the fly ladies, savoring the tasty garbage heaps and raw sewage, and generally being a nuisance.  The flies have even infiltrated my office, and they are seriously annoying.  They buzz around your head and land on your face and they're driving us crazy.  Over the past 3 days I think we've killed close to 100.  At first, we kept track on a whiteboard, but got tired of that after about 35 kills. 

Anyway, so today I was prowling the office with a rolled up magazine looking for the few remaining stragglers (until the door opens and reinforcements pour in to take their places).  On my way around the office, I stopped by one room and addressed one of my co-workers:

(This was in a southern drawl, so you're going to have to sound it out for full effect) 

"Howdy, ma'am.  I'm just on the prowl for some escaped convicts.  Are yew folks harborin' any fugitives?  Ya'll know it's a felony to shelter the flies?"

For some reason she just bursts out laughing.  Maybe because that accent's just ridiculous if you're not wearing a cowboy hat?

"Ma'am, this is serious.  These pesky criminals are a serious health and mental wellness risk to the whole office, have you seen 'em?"

She's wasn't very helpful, so I continued the search on my own.  I finally encountered one of the bastards at rest, and as I snuck up behind it, it was blissfully ignorant to the world of pain that was about to happen.

Pictured: a world of pain

Just before I smacked it into mush (come to think of it, we're really going to need to start cleaning the fly guts off the walls, ceilings, printers and... you know what?, probably the entire office), I murmured: "I'm going to teach you that it is NOT ok to be a fly."

Here's the aftermath:

Myatt Daaamon.

 I swear the placement was unintentional.  I guess Matt Damon just really wanted to headbutt a fly.

Twilight sucks

If you haven’t heard of the Twilight series, you’re either luckier than a double lottery winner who stood under a metal pole in a thunderstorm and didn't get hit by lightning, or you have been living under a rock for the past few years. Maybe you're just old.

Twilight is an unholy series of books crapped out by Stephenie Meyer, which got turned into even unholier movies and has teenage and twenty-something girls going inexplicably apeshit crazy over its male characters, especially Edward Cullen.

 

Why they do is anyone's guess, as this is what the actor actually looks like in real life:

   

"Jimmy, call security and the janitorial staff.  I think Pattinson is about to crap his pants again.  Looks like a big one this time."

Twilight is what people in literary circles like to refer to as ‘Mary Sue’ fiction and what I like to refer to as "drivel I wouldn't line my birdcage with."

According to a Cracked.com article on fan fiction,

"A Mary Sue is a thinly veiled representation of the author, or more accurately, the person the author wishes she could be. Her main characteristic is her utter amazingness, which is so strong it creates a kind of black hole that sucks in the established personalities of the characters around her.

Wise characters are baffled by the Mary Sue's superior intellect; emotionally distant men cave in and fall in love with her, and cold characters are impressed by her tragic past. She usually features a striking appearance and unusual name (think Sookie Stackhouse from the ‘True Blood’ series) and spends her days surrounded by people telling her how wonderful she is."

Even Stieg Larsson (the guy who wrote "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") is guilty of writing Mary Sue fiction. Before writing his best selling trilogy, Larsson was a Swedish magazine writer whose life's mission was exposing corruption. Coincidentally, the fictional version is a Swedish magazine writer whose life mission is (you guessed it) exposing corruption. He is also very rich and talented, admired by many important people and constantly being seduced by beautiful women, including a former abuse victim whose fear of men is cured by his cock. But I’ll let this one slide, because his books are pretty awesome.

By all accounts, ‘Mary Sue’ authors are some of the richest and most successful authors on earth. Stephenie Meyer is a prime example of an author that churns out Mary Sue "literature." So is Charlaine Harris of 'True Blood' fame. Most romance novels fall into this category; fantasy books written by women, for women (sad, lonely women), about the perfect man coming and sweeping the timid, insecure protagonist off her feet. Incidentally, this picture of Charlaine Harris is a good example of what most romance novelists look like:

People who don't get any, tend to have a very active fantasy life

I'm not saying everyone who reads romance novels is a lonely, overweight woman who builds up the concept of the impossibly perfect man in her head while stuffing her pudgy face with Dove chocolates, telling herself that some day her prince will come, all while crying herself to sleep every night in the paws of the only male who will ever love her (as long as the food keeps coming - and can we really call cats' attitudes towards their owners 'love'?), her tomcat Mittens, which she dresses up in inane costumes and carries around the house until he finally snaps from all the unwanted affection and scratches her face up.

Yes, this cat is dressed up as Edward

Just like I'm not saying that everyone that watches weird anime porn is an inexplicably arrogant nerd who lives in his mother's basement and subsists on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, which fuel his poorly written online tirades on subjects like WoW and Star Wars.

Hey ladies, I'm single and ready to mingle, but you have to be at least a 7.5 for me to even consider you

Anyway, back to Twilight.  It's essentially just a masturbatory aid for Stephenie Meyer, who found out she could get rich by pandering this nonsense to the female masses.  I found this (very accurate) post about Twilight on TheOatmeal:

"First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn't described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. You can read 400 pages of Twilight and barely have any idea of what Bella Swan looks like; as far as anyone is concerned, she’s a giant Lego brick. Appearance aside, her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward - a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to. By creating this "empty shell," the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear.

So after a few chapters of listening to Bella whine about high school, sucking at volleyball, and being the center of attention, the second major character is introduced. Imagine everything women want in a man, then exaggerate it by ten thousand - and you've got Edward Cullen. The level of detail that the author goes into while describing Edward's appearance is remarkable. Stephenie Meyer’s use of the phrase “Edward's perfect face" is far into the double digits, in the first book alone. The author describes in excruciating detail his muscular pecs, clothing, hair, eye color - even his goddamn breath (I'm not joking).

Probably not what Stephenie Meyer envisioned when she wrote: "Bella felt Edward's passionate breath on the back of her neck"

Edward intensely listens to everything Bella has to say, even if she's bitching about having diarrhea on Christmas or her preferred method for cutting a sandwich in half. As far as the reader is concerned, Edward cares about nothing in the world more than Bella. What the author has done is create a perfect male figure - a pale Greek statue which the reader can worship and in turn be worshipped by."

If you’re still not convinced Twilight is gayer than Elton John, consider this. Did you know that male bats have the highest rates of homosexuality of any mammal? Twilight explained.

Anyway, in case you needed more proof, it looks like Edward has been getting it on with Jacob behind Bella’s back.



The gummy worm story

A couple of years back I was visiting some friends in LA and stopped by a gas station to get some snacks.  I picked up some soda, some chips and a bag containing about 2 pounds of gummy worms.  When we got back to the house, I completely forgot about the bag.  This was a hot summer day, already in the triple digits, so the car's interior promptly climbed to about 140 F.
 
2 hours later, I remembered the bag and went out to get it.  The gummy worms had completely liquefied, leaving me with a plastic bag of hot sloshing color.  I stuck it in the fridge to let it cool down.  When I checked on it a few hours later, it had hardened back up into a solid block of gummy, which was surprisingly hard to cut.  I ate about a quarter of it.

In case you were wondering, nothing bad happened.  I didn't get sick or constipated.  The one notable thing was that it turned my poop green.

FYI, crystal meth does that too.  Not that I personally do meth.  It's just a little factoid I thought appropriate to pass along, given that today's March 17th.

 

So in a nutshell, if you want green poop for St Patrick's day, eat a bunch of gummy bears/worms or do some meth, though the gummy bears are probably less addictive.  Happy St Patty's day!

Am I right or what? Part 2: John Boehner

You know what really chafes my privates?  The way John Boehner pronounces his name.  In case you haven't heard of him, he's the current Speaker of the House, a position held until recently by Nancy Pelosi.  It seems I can't turn on the news without seeing him and hearing the retarded way he pronounces his name. 

John Boehner is a member of the Republican party, but that's not the only kind of member he is.  He's gone to great lengths to ensure people pronounce his name 'Bayner' instead of 'boner.'  I don't know where he gets off changing the proper pronunciation of his name, but he seems like kind of a tool.  I don't know much about his policies, but he has the kind of douche-y face that kind of makes you want to punch him:

"He had a face only my fist could love"

And it's not just me.  Apparently, he's such a dick, he even got his own Dickipedia entry.  Just look at the gavel he chose:

No, I'm not overcompensating for anything, why do you ask?

He even puts the douchenozzles from the Jersey Shore to shame with his tan.

Tell me I'm wrong

He needs to stop pronouncing his last name 'Bayner', and insisting everyone else do the same.  Here's the reasoning:

I'm pretty well traveled, having visited many cultures and learned several languages, even achieving fluency in a couple of them, and in all of my travels and language studies, never have I ever seen the combination 'oe' even come close to being pronounced 'ay'. 

His Wikipedia page says he's of German and Irish descent, and I'm fairly certain 'Boehner' is German.  German happens to be one of the languages I know, and I'm pretty sure it's not pronounced 'Bayner'.  In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's spelled Böner in German, and the closest pronunciation in English would be 'Berner' or 'Buurner'. 

The only language I know of that pronounces the letter combination 'OE' as 'AY' is Korean.  For example, the Korean last name 최 is spelled Ch-o-i (choi), but pronounced 'chay'.  That is the ONLY language I know of that has that rule.  And even though he's doing a fairly decent job of changing his skin color from white to leather due to repeated visits to the tanning salon, he will never be Korean.

So, Mr Speaker of the House, please, stop trying to reject your heritage, accept your true name, and next time you're behind the podium, stand up with an erect posture and a stiff upper lip and announce to America and the world: "I am John Boner."

No matter how much it hurts