A For Astley

Protesters arrive by bus to join an anti-Scientology demonstration outside the Church of Scientology in London. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

They came, they shouted, they handed out cake. And then they played Rick Astley's Eighties hit 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. More than 300 members of the secret internet-based organisation Anonymous, which campaigns against the Church of Scientology, protested outside the latter's headquarters in the City of London yesterday.

The maverick, at times surreal, protest saw the group's members, who wore masks like the one worn by the main character in the cult film V for Vendetta, hold up placards attacking the controversial sect, whose supporters include Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Anonymous alleges the church is a profit-obsessed organisation that practises a policy of 'disconnection' by seeking to prevent its members from communicating with friends and family. The claims are denied.

[Stolen from The Guardian via BoingBoing]

Check out the wikipedia info for Project Chanology, it's some good reading.

"Project Chanology, also called Operation Chanology, is an ongoing protest against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous. The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from an exclusive promotional interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008."

Black Panda Good

Come see me play with Black Panda tonight at Beerland. We're headlining, so I'll be halfway sober.

Creationism vs. Evolution: The Battle Rages On

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance."

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

Attenborough went further in his opposition to creationism, saying it was "terrible" when it was taught alongside evolution as an alternative perspective. "It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five ... Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."

[From The Guardian, via BoingBoing]


No matter how uneducated or uninterested, everybody who leans toward evolution always has one trusty zinger in their arsenal when confronted by argumentative creationists. And that is, "what about the dinosaurs?" The dinosaur thing always seemed to have them stuttering and changing the subject. It's simple, it's obvious, you don't need to know a bunch of facts about science or the bible. Just mention dinosaurs and you pretty much know you can't be argued with, outside the old "put in the earth to test us" line that I bet even christians know is a cop-out.

Imagine my surprise when I found an explanation that will very possibly render the opposition stunned and unable to continue the conversation, thereby giving the creationist a win by default. Whoever thought it up is a genius. Brace yourself, this might shock you to your core and make you question all the beliefs you've held to be true all these years. Ready?

They aren't million year old dinosaurs. They're thousand year old dragons.

It's pretty obvious when you think about it. This is how creationism could ultimately win over evolutionism. Which article are you more likely to read: "Scientists say: 'Dragons are a myth'" or "Creationists say: 'Dragons are real'"?

Creation scientists have to really go out of their way to convince everyone that their ideas are not only absolutely 100% true, but also somewhat feasible. Meanwhile, sciencey scientists are all like, "Blah blah, evidence, blah blah experimental data suggests, blah blah logical conclusions, blah bleh blah". Their theories are inherently feasible, so it's no fun to listen to them prattle on. Also, we as human people enjoy the feeling of being convinced by a somewhat feasible argument, rather than being told uninteresting facts by boring scientists about stuff that doesn't really matter to us.

If a scientist came up to me today and said dinosaurs lived a million years ago, I'd say, "Yeah. So?" If a scientist came up to me today and said dinosaurs lived a million years ago and were actually dragons, I'd be like, "Dragons? Awesome!" Which is why when I read an article today by a creationist that says dinosaurs lived only a thousand years ago and were actually dragons, I found myself saying, "Dragons? Awesome!" The difference of opinion regarding the age of fossils wasn't even relevant at that point.

Scientists can explain to me all day long how gazelles evolved from this or that and I'll agree that they're probably correct, yawn and be on my way, quickly forgetting the conversation. But if they drop in a, "oh, and a million years ago they were magical unicorns", the next thing you know I'm telling all my friends about how gazelles used to be magical unicorns. That's power. Creationists seem to understand this. It doesn't matter if it's not exactly 100% true. It's semantics. Just change the names from boring meaningless latin to something awesome. If science decides to say that one of the transitional forms of prehistoric gazelle is called 'magical unicorn', then it's true. True and kickass. And it would totally explain how our ancestors thought up legends about unicorns without requiring any further evidence.

From now on, let's say we're descendents of wood elves and mountain dwarves. That sounds infinitely cooler than homo erectus or australopithicus. Come on, science. Get the stick out of your ass.

5 Things: Wicked Awesome Intellivision Games

This is the Intellivision. It was a pretty badass game system when I was a kid. It had a ton of fun games, the controllers were really cool and I played the living shit out of ours. One of the coolest features about Intellivision was that when a game frustrated you to the point of violence, you didn't even have to throw the controller. See the short coiled cord attaching the controller to the console? All you had to do was let go and it would violently fling itself into the machine. Brutal.
Intellivision was my favorite console when I was a kid (pre-nintendo). I thought it was far superior to the Colecovision. Also, the artwork on the game boxes was always the absolute best cover art for any system ever. Here are just a few of my favorite games in no particular order.

1) Advanced Dungeons and Dragons


AD&D was one of my absolute favorite games and had the baddest ass cover art of any game ever made. Go back in time to when you were 6, look at that game cover and try to not scream at your parents that you neeeeed this fucking game. It's impossible.

Notice the map in the beginning of the video. That's where you start. Basically, you gotta get from the left side of the screen to the giant mountain on the right side. The problem is, your little guy can't go through locked gates, rivers, forests or black mountains. You're probably saying to yourself, "Well gee. That's everything on the map. Fun game." Actually, shut up. You can go into the brown mountains at the start. When you get your guy near a brown mountain, it changes color to tell you how difficult a dungeon it has inside. Red being the difficultest. Anyway, running into a mountain takes you to its dungeon and it's in those that you can find an axe that will let you to pass through forests and a boat to travel over rivers. You can never go through black mountains though, so don't even think about it. I'm serious, just don't. Inside the dungeons you also run into a variety of different monsters depending on the difficulty of the mountain. Skinks (little black squiggles), bats, spiders (other little black squiggles), trolls (squiggly blue things), slimes (purple scribbles), snakes and red dragons. Basically, you just run around shooting the shit out of everything with your bow and arrow until you get to the final mountain, where you kill red dragonses and look for the broken pieces of a crappy blue crown. It's not Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or anything, but admit it... you want to play, don't you? ADMIT IT.

2) Astrosmash


Back in the 80's, there were a jillion Asteroids ripoffs and a jillion Space Invaders ripoffs, but this is the only one I can think of that ripped them both off and also happened to be better than anything.

Pretty colored asteroids are being flung at you from outer space. Shooting the bigger ones will split them into smaller ones. You don't have to shoot all the asteroids, but if they hit the ground you'll lose some of your points. Oh shit, not some points! There's also these white spinning pill looking things that come down at you. If you let one of those hit the ground, you die immediately. And sparkly dots that follow you and probably other stuff I've forgotten. The more points you get, the crazier everything gets and the background color changes to let you know when you hit a new level. Very simple, but a very badass game. I could play it for a really long time before I died and then I would cry to my mommy because it was unfair and that sparkly dot totally gypped me.

3) Microsurgeon


After AD&D, this was totally my second favorite. Blood, diseases, lasers, eyeballs, cartoon violence. Fun, fun, fun.

It's basically Fantastic Voyage, which I loved. You're in a little ship and you travel through the body, shooting lasers at cancers and infections and all sorts of cool things. There's a status screen that tells you how the patient's doing and where you need to go in the body to kill stuff. The fastest way to move through the body was through veins and arteries, but you could go directly through tissues. It made you slower than shit and white blood cells would attack you, but you could. The controls were kickass though. You used one of the gamepads to move and the other one to shoot! Holy shit! The only problem I had with this game was the patient never seemed to get better. I'd run around shooting all this cool stuff forever and the stuff always seemed to grow back. I wanted to save the poor bastard. But it didn't matter that much. The guy's innards looked cool as fuck and I got to shoot lasers. That's about all I need to be entertained.

4) Dragon Fire



Unfortunately I couldn't find more than two screenshots (which are from different versions of the game) or any decent videos of Dragon Fire gameplay. But here's the commercial:

Beware, thar be dragons. You start out on a drawbridge. Dragon fire shoots out of the castle at you while a dragon-loving archer tries to kill you from the ramparts. It was basically like playing the last 10 feet of the end castles in Super Mario Brothers over and over. Dodge, dodge, dodge and you get into the treasure room where you try to snatch up all the treasures while a dragon below tries to napalm your ass. And repeat until dead. Dragon Fire was ridiculously fun but after level two or so it was also ridiculously hard. A different level inbetween the drawbridge and the treasure room would have been nice, since the game gets so impossible so fast. But hey, it didn't need quarters and you could restart all day long. I remember having a day every once in a while that I just could not get past the drawbridge. It pissed me off more than anything. I'd be like, "What the fuck? Last week I could get past the first level, yesterday I could get through the first level, tomorrow I'll probably get past the first level. Am I retarded? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! MOOOOMMMM!!!" I'm still reasonably certain that cartridge was cursed.

5) Space Battle


Despite the unimaginative title, this was one of the coolest space battle type games from the 80's. You start out on a radar screen where you send out three squadrons of your own ships to go out and fight with squadrons of bad guys before they can reach the middle (presumably Earth). Once your guys touch their guys (platonically) it switches to the titular space battle. Now you got some nifty crosshairs and you simply shoot at the oddly cylon-looking bad guys until they're all dead. The bad guys have cool evasive maneuvers and try to kill your crosshairs by shooting slow laser bursts at you. When you've taken care of all the mean people, it's back to the radar until your dots touch their dots again (sexually). It was pretty sweet to have a nice little rest inbetween the space battles. This was one of the only games that gave you a little rest like that. So, radar, battle, radar, battle, kill all the other dots and you win! I forget what happens when you lose. I'm assuming it says something like "YOU LOSE".

There were way more kickass games for Intellivision, but I've either forgot what they were called or I couldn't find any screenshots or videos (Sea Battle, for instance was one of the greatest games ever). Ooh, and there was this one Dracula game where you were Dracula and you had to go around sucking people's blood and then get back to your coffin before the sun came up. It was amazing.

Yeah, have some Dracula action, loser townsperson! POW!

Jane Austen Spins In Her Grave

[via Neatorama]

I've never wanted to read Pride & Prejudice so much in my life. Every once in a while something comes along that makes me say, "That is the greatest idea for anything that anyone has ever had." And before you ask, yes this is a real book. I hope this guy goes on to zombify more of those boring old classics. Some Dickens perhaps? That would be sweet.

Zombies not your cup of tea? How about some Jane Austen manga?



Ouch. I think I just tore my boredom muscles.

The Saddest Ninja

I made that movie on a new website called Xtranormal. It's pretty sweet, but still a little buggy. Originally, it was to be about a french ninja, but the french voice mangled a lot of pronunciations. I'm pretty impressed with the british accent though.

You guys should make some movies about sad ninjas, send me the embed link and I'll post them here. It'll be like a contest, and whoever I judge to be the ultimate winner will get a free beer or something. And a hickey on your inner thigh.

This is probably an incredibly pointless idea, since at the moment I have a readership of two. But I have high hopes.

The Saddest Ninja Goes Shopping


The Saddest Ninja On A Blind Date


(note: Xtranormal is in beta, so it's a bit wonky still. When I went to publish my first movie it seemed to be hung up, but after a few minutes I opened my account in a new window and the movie was there. Just so you know.)

Worst Post Ever

I finally have internet at home again. But I'm feeling pretty crappy today, so I'm not gonna post anything hilarious this evening. Sorry. Hopefully I'll have something up tomorrow before noon. Until then, enjoy this picture of my sinus.



Well, it's not literally a picture of my sinus. It's a picture of a sculpture of my sinus I paid a guy to make for me. I had to pose nude for about 6 hours, but I think it was worth it.

Anyway, imagine that sinus, but shoved inside my head and completely filled with snot and rage. That's how I feel. So now I will go blow my nose for the jillionth time and lay down and watch some Dungeons and Dragons cartoons.

The Demon King of Swedish Pop

Some people poke fun at me because I watch anime. I don't watch a lot of anime, but there are a few series I got hooked on and have continued to watch for 300+ episodes. But only a few. I don't cosplay or hump life size pillows with anime characters printed on them or anything. But still some people poke fun at me from time to time.

Well, who's poking fun at who now?! ME, that's who. And YOU. Well, what I mean is, ME, I mean, *I* am now poking fun at *YOU*. That is what I meant.

Anyway, a friend of mine recently steered me to a new anime called Detroit Metal City. Based on a manga of the same name, the 12-episode anime series came out last year with a live action version following soon after (on my last birthday, as a matter of fact, and NOBODY offered to take me to see it. In Japan).



Did I get your attention? Yeah, thought that might work.

Don't worry, it's not any of that hentai tentacle rape stuff. At least I don't think it is, I've only watched the first episode so far. Feast your eyes on the trailer:



DMC is about a young man who moves to the big city hoping to fulfill his lifelong dream of singing swedish pop music. Instead, he somehow ends up becoming the lead singer for a Deathklokesque death metal band that he totally hates called Detroit Metal City. To add to his discomfort, he's in love with a girl who also loves swedish pop and also hates DMC. She doesn't know that he's in DMC, because he performs in heavy make-up under the name Johannes Krauser II. Much wackiness ensues.
The songs are kickass awesome. Here are the lyrics to one of the few songs I can print here without getting my blogger account banned (I hope):

Murder (SATSUGAI)

I'm a terrorist from Hell!
Yesterday I raped my mom!
Tomorrow I'm gonna carve up my dad!
Kill, kill, kill, kill your parents!
Murder, murder!
Repaint your memories in blood

I don't have a mom or dad
That's because I killed them!
I don't have friends or lovers
That's because I killed them!
Murder!
Murder!

It's all in good fun, honest. All the lyrics are intensely despicable, but that's part of the joke. DMC kinda makes Deathklok look like girl scouts in comparison. Except they don't actually kill anyone. Not in the first episode anyway.

Currently, the anime and live action movie are only available on region 2 and 3 DVDs, so if you don't know how to torrent, you're out of luck. You might be able to find them on streaming sites, but they'll look really shitty. You can, however, buy the wicked awesome toys from Big Bad Toy Store and you can buy the soundtracks, mangas, and other goodies from YesAsia.

[Thanks to D for the heads up!]

Deepest Regrets and Grim Reaper

I got nothing today. Actually, I have several fun sounding ideas, but they all require me to be at home to work on them and I've been a little busy after work lately. So, yeah. Got nothin.

Since I have nothing better to give you, here is a music video by the greatest metal band of the 1980's:


Grim Reaper - Rock You To Hell

I love Grim Reaper. They're like a far less attractive, far less talented Iron Maiden. With much floofier hairdos.

By now you're probably saying to yourself, "But wait a minute, Jack. You just said Grim Reaper was the greatest metal band of the 1980's, and then you said that they're far less talented than Iron Maiden. How can this be?" Well, I lied. Sorry, I wanted to make you watch that video. They may not be as good as Iron Maiden, but I think they're pretty awesome and I'm sick of being the only guy who likes Grim Reaper. Here is a picture of Grim Reaper:



The charismatic gentleman in the lower middle with the poodle dog hairdo is Steve Grimmitt, lead singer of Grim Reaper. I want you to print this picture out now.

Good. Now laminate the picture and place it in your wallet, in one of the little photo sleeves. Don't worry if your photo sleeves are all filled up, just slide it in over a picture of your kids, pet or significant other.

Henceforth, we will refer to this picture as the Steve Grimmitt Grim Reaper Advice And Reassurance Card, or SGGRAARC (which, coincidentally is a noise you can hear Steve Grimmitt scream just after the second chorus of "Lord of Darkness").

Now anytime you need reassurance, you just take the SGGRAARC out of your wallet, look deep into Steve Grimmett's eyes and you will be instantly reassured. That's all there is to it!

If you need advice, simply gaze lovingly into Steve Grimmett's radiant orbs and imagine what advice Steve Grimmett would give you if he were there with you right at that moment. It really works!

Here is another picture of Steve Grimmitt:



Print this picture out and laminate it. Tape it on the headboard of your bed, about a foot above the pillow. Whenever you make love to a beautiful woman (or rugged man, whichever way you swing) look at this picture and try to make that face. I think it would be really funny.

5 Things: Board Games Without Instructions

When I was a kid I had a bunch of board games. A lot of them were from the 70's and a bunch of them didn't have any instructions. Here is a list of 5 games I had as a kid that I didn't know how to play.

1) Stop Thief (1979)



Man I really wanted to play Stop Thief. It was so kickass. Sorta like Clue but more complicated and it came with a computer! Unfortunately, the computer was the only one who knew where the bad guys were and we had no idea how to use the son of a bitch. We dragged this thing out, set it up and spent an hour messing with it at least every two weeks trying in vain to understand how to find the bad guys.

Now, before you call me stupid, realize I was 6 years old and this was 1982. Real handheld computers wouldn't be invented for at least another 30 years. It would be like giving a Tamagotchi to the Fonz. No matter cool you think you are, Fonz, that Tamagotchi would be lying dead on a shit-covered screen within the first day.





See, this is what I had to work with. Oh, I know what you're thinking. "Duh, push the button marked "CLUE" maybe?" Yeah, you know what happens when you hit that button? Either a nonsense message would pop up in the tiny quarter of a calculator screen just below the speaker, or it would make a noise that was supposed to tell you what to do. Like footsteps. Or a creaking door. Real helpful. Plus, what about all those other buttons? What the hell do they do? Of all the games I had that didn't have instructions, I wanted some for this bastard more than anything.



2) Merlin (1978)

According to the Internet, Merlin featured six games (and then it listed seven games, oddly): tic-tac-toe, music machine, echo, blackjack 13, magic square, and secret number. If you had asked me at age 6 what games Merlin featured, I would have told you, "Make Beeps and Light Dimly." Seriously, I don't know if you've noticed, but look at that picture for a minute. Go ahead. Now, looking at the 11 buttons in the middle of the machine, you tell me... how would you play blackjack with that? Yeah, that's what I figured. Someday when I build a time machine, I'm going to make a list of all the people I really hate, go back in time to when they were 6 years old and give them one of these without instructions. Take that, Hitler!

In the picture below, you can make out the menu buttons. Now, try and figure out how to start one of the five games besides blackjack. Good luck sleeping tonight.

3) Laser Attack (1978)

Put the words "laser" or "attack" on any game and 6-year-old-me wants to play it all night long, baby. Hell, put them on female body part names and later-this-evening-me wants to play it all night long. Laser vagina? Attack boobs? Sounds dangerous, but I'm down.

What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Laser Attack. Laser Attack had these super cool little plastic pieces that you stack on other super cool little plastic pieces for some reason and you put them somewhere on the board and this electronic thing in the middle would shoot lasers at them and then... then... no idea. I remember pulling this game out all the time and just staring at the game board, stacking and restacking the pieces, trying desperately to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Damn you, Laser Attack.



4) Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

Imagine the fun of pretending to be Jonathan Livingston Seagull in an all-out bare-knuckles battle to the death with 1-3 close friends!

Now check out the game board and imagine the puzzled look on your face as you slowly put everything back in the box and hide it in the darkest recesses of your closet. Yes, I did actually own this game, although I have no idea why. I'm assuming it was handed down to me in my infancy by my stoner parents. I also owned most of KISS's albums when I was 5. My parents gave me strange things.





5) Crossbows and Catapults (1983)


Okay, I actually had the instructions for C&C. But...

Look at that picture and tell me you'd sit around reading instructions when you could already be busy blowing the crap out of knights and castle walls and shit with:

THIS BADASS CROSSBOW and...

...THIS MOTHERFUCKING CATAPULT!! Yeah I didn't think so. Did this game need rules? Hell, we didn't even settle for the plastic barbarians that came with this game, we set up armies of G.I. Joes and every other action figure we owned and smote them with a never ending hellfire barrage of brightly colored plastic discs. I can guarantee you, if I had C&C right now, I still wouldn't bother to read the instructions. I probably wouldn't even be posting this right now. Actually, I'd probably be homeless, sitting in an alley somewhere giving a battallion of M.U.S.C.L.E.s the smackdown with BONECRACKERER, my magical catapult of DOOOM.

[Pictures and help retrieving and reliving long abandoned childhood memories thanks to BoardGameGeek]

Rife

[via TokyoMango]

Check out this japanese update of the classic Game of Life. I'll let TokyoMango explain:

"Toymaker Takara Tomy is coming out with a new "super spicy" version of The Game of Life, which includes stops like shotgun weddings, gambling sprees, and the sudden and unexplained disappearance of family members. The economy sucks, people are stressed, things never go as planned."

Life was always my favorite board game of all time, but it definately needed a shot of reality. And now I have yet another reason to learn japanese.

Reasons I Need To Learn Japanese

(in no particular order)

When asked for a cigarette at the bus stop, I can pretend I'm a japanese tourist (side note: need to buy a camera).

I bet the instructions for my cell phone make a hell of a lot more sense in the original language.

Most science fiction writers agree that we'll all be speaking it in a dystopian near-future.

I could finally test my theory that those kanji tattoos the college kids always get actually say, "I ♥ Anal".

Sometimes when watching anime, while I'm busy reading the subtitles, I miss a panty shot.

I want to do it with Azumi.

How 2 B Happy

I'm finding it difficult to be happy this morning. My skull has been overflowing with snot for the last week. My eyeballs feel like tiny glazed hams. My stomach is still a bit rocky from yesterday's one meal of Wolf brand chili (no beans) that I accidentally added moldy cheese to but ate anyway because I didn't feel like washing the pot out and starting over. My "moustache" is looking particularly unmoustachey this morning and I forgot to deodorize.
Normally I would resign myself to being unhappy for the rest of the day, but thanks to the Internet and Science I don't have to settle for anything less than utter glee by following a few simple, scientifically proven steps.
[These steps are excerpted from an article I found via The Presurfer.]

1) Savor everyday moments.
This should be easy enough. I have everyday moments like all day. Wait, I think I'm having one right now. Okay, I'm typing and I kind of like this keyboard. So I'll simply savor how much I kind of like this keyboard. Yep, it's a pretty decent keyboard. I like the clickety noise it makes when I type. Clickey but, you know, not too clickey. And letters are printed on each key as a handy reference. It certainly is a perfectly adequate keyboard.

2) Avoid comparisons.
I can see how constantly comparing myself to other things might make me feel bad. But then again it seems like comparing myself to stuff that's not nearly as awesome as me would be a plus. I hate to disagree with Science here, so I'll compromise.
First, I will compare myself to Vanilla Ice. I have cooler hair, cooler clothes, the entire universe doesn't despise me and I don't rap.
Second, I will listen to "Nothing Compares 2 U" 10 times in a row, while attempting to convince myself that the "U" in the title is actually a direct reference to me.

3) Put money low on the list.
I checked my priority list and noticed money was at number 4, so I moved number 8, "fancy sweaters", up to the number 4 position and moved "money" down to the number 9 position in between the newly upgraded number 8, "Glenn Danzig" and "all things Pokemon" at number 10.

4) Have meaningful goals.
I assume that by "meaningful" they also imply "attainable", so that might be a tough one. I can't just say, "My goal is to cure polydactylism this week" and feel better about myself. Hmm. Okay, then my goal is to give a sad clown a reassuring pat on the back whenever I run across one. This will cheer up the clown and make me feel happier. As an added bonus, though easily attainable, the chances of me running across a sad clown in the future are infinitesimally small. I believe I have found a loophole that allows me to feel good for wanting to do something meaningful and attainable, yet most likely won't occur in my lifetime, which makes me feel even better. It's like a perpetual-motion machine for happy feelings and I don't have to actually do anything. I need to copyright that shit.

5) Take initiative at work.
This one is a little more difficult. At my work, documents get put into my in-box, I fiddle around with the documents and put them into the out-box. I can't do any more work than I'm already doing. I can't help co-workers, as we're all doing the same work, as well as the same volume of work. I can't think of any improvements to suggest that will somehow streamline the process of "get work-do work-hand in work-repeat".
So I decided to put up a motivational poster. It has two kitty cats playing in a flower bed, with big block letters underneath that say, "Work shall set you free!" The poster originally had a different picture on it, but I thought kitties would be much more motivational.

6) Make friends, treasure family.
I already made friends like 15 years ago, so I don't need to waste my time with that one. I like to think of TV's The Hogan Family as my real family and I cherish them every night at 12:30am on TNT. I wonder what manner of shenanigans Sandy Duncan will have to deal with tonight.

7) Smile even when you don't feel like it.
I don't usually feel like smiling when I'm having a big dump, so I'll give that a shot from now on, starting today immediately after lunch.

8) Say thank you like you mean it.
Gee, Science, why is it you just assume I'm a huge liar when I say thanks to people? I totally mean it any and every time I say thanks. Which is why I almost never do it.
Oh, and for the record, Science, if you don't believe me, you can kiss my ass.

9) Get out and exercise.
This suggestion is a bit vague. Technically, I "get out" and "exercise" every day. Many times a day, in fact. And that doesn't even count all the times each day that I "get in" and "exercise" while I am "in". Either I'm wasting a whole lot of effort, or Science is really trying to say, "Get out specifically to exert your body for the sake of improving your health".
In that case, tonight when I run out of beer I will walk the three blocks to the store to get another 12-pack, rather than have the neighbor's dog pull me on a skateboard like I usually do. The dog's health and the neighborhood's enjoyment of my drunken antics may suffer, but my body will thank me and I will feel happier.

10) Give it away!
Unfortunately, I typically don't have anything to comfortably give to charities. But recently I got a pretty decent paying job, so for the first time I can actually afford a little bit of charity here and there. I was about to look up worthwhile organizations to donate money to when I remembered the old saying, "charity begins at home" and I bought myself a computer. Sucks for the needy people, but I'm happy as hell now.

Thanks, Science!

You're Dead: Andrew Wyeth

Today when I ran across a report that Andrew Wyeth had passed away, my first thought was, "I thought he died like a hundred years ago."

I remember learning about Andrew Wyeth one day in Art class in the 9th grade. I learned that there was a person named Andrew Wyeth who painted a picture of a chick laying in a wheat field looking half raped or something. That's pretty much all I came away with. I'm not much of an art historian, but I know what I like. And I like paintings that don't include half raped waitresses sprawled in wheat fields. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm sure he probably painted other things so, to celebrate his life and contributions to the world of art, I decided to copy the first couple of paragraphs from the report of his death by the Associated Press and treat it like a Mad Lib. I used a random word generator to change the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and I used a random name generator for the first names of other people mentioned and randomly chose an eponymous (i.e. named after someone) disease for their last names.

"Outpatient Andrew Wyeth, who extrapolated the hidden ladybug of the people and landscapes of Egypt's Alzheimer Valley and coastal Minnesota in works such as "Christina's Fern," died early Friday. He was 91.

Wyeth reclined in his sleep at his shuttle in the Mesopotamia suburb of Addison Ford, according to Tyrone Von Hippel-Lindau, jester of the Hodgkin River Museum.

The marionette of famed raider and bourbon illustrator Guy Parkinson, Andrew Wyeth gained sustenance, gunpowder and tremendous anxiety on his own. But he capsized under criticism from some therapists who regarded him as a leaking realist, not a vandal but merely an electron.

"He was a nut of quivering perception, and that perception was found in his thousands of manifestos - many, many of them contractual," Von Hippel-Lindau said Friday in an interview. "He fragrantly valued the natural fringe, the historical growths of this beanbag as they exist in the thirsty and frostbitten people.""

I think Andy would have appreciated those kind words.

As a tribute to the passing of an apparently much-admired artist, I recreated his most famous work from memory with MSpaint. I'm sure you will agree that I'm awesome.







I think I got it pretty spot on, don't you? I mistakenly thought there was a windmill in it, but aside from that, it's almost exactly the same.

The problem for me is, if he was so famous and all, why didn't I know he was alive and why haven't I seen any new paintings from him lately? I mean, it's been like 20 years since I first saw Christina's World in Art class. Why didn't he ever make Christina's World II: Rise of the Machines or whatever? He's either painted nothing but crap since then, or I was right and he actually died a hundred years ago.

Therefore, to right the wrongs of a criminally lazy, or possibly long dead, artist, I give you my greatest masterpiece: Christina's World II: Rise of the Machines

Adventures in Amazon Shopping

Work is pretty boring today, so I started browsing Amazon looking for something inexpensive and completely useless to buy. I like useless, inexpensive things.



This product intrigued me. Mostly because it only costs a penny and got really good reviews. It looks attractive in the picture and it's definately something I need more of. But I'm a pretty cautious shopper, so I went ahead and read all the reviews just to make sure I was making a wise purchase. Lucky for me I did.

Too good to be true, unfortunately. Air?! Wow, way to be completely misleading in your product description. All the other reviewers must have been shills. I hate that shit. This reviewer also points out that, while the price of the product is one cent, the shipping cost is almost five dollars! Rip off!

After looking around some more I finally came across something that really looked nice.

I don't really know what this product is, but look at the price. At a 99% markdown, it's such a great deal I can't pass it up. But, thinking back to the box of "nothing" I almost bought earlier, I decided to take my time and make sure that this was going to be a good deal. There aren't any customer reviews for ERROR yet, so I checked the description lower down the page.

Still not sure what ERROR actually is, but look at the dimensions and shipping weight. This thing sounds awesome! And the shipping on this bad boy is only $2.98 for a 40 pound package! You can't beat that!

I was almost 100% sure I wanted it at this point, but just to make certain I wasn't getting cheated, I did some price comparisons on similar products.

Gee, should I get a used error (lower-case, wtf?) for almost 10 bucks or a brand new ERROR for less than a quarter? This guy thinks I'm some kind of idiot.

The Error2 sounds cool. Maybe it's a newer model with better features or something. I'm interested, but I'm not really willing to spend $30 today.


Well, I've checked around enough to feel pretty certain that I've found the best deal on this product. And it seems like a good purchase, so I'm gonna go for it! I still don't actually know what ERROR is, but I'm pretty sure I've always needed one.

Shipping costs are the worst part about shopping Amazon. You think you're getting something for cheap and then WHAM-O! you're in the poorhouse. But $2.98 shipping on such a heavy product is a steal. I'm MAKING money on this deal when you think about it.

I can't wait! When I get my new ERROR, I'll post pictures.

Remember, ALWAYS check around for the best product and the best deal. Don't just buy the first thing you see or you could end up a with a box full of "nothing"! Happy shopping!

ULTIMATE LUNCH BATTLE: B.L.T. vs. TUNA SANDWICH!!

In the red corner, weighing in at approximately 4 ounces, purchased for $1.90: A BLT!
In the blue corner, weighing in at upwards of 6 ounces, purchased for $1.60: A tuna sandwich!
Let's get a better look at our contenders...

BLT is... kind of lame, actually. Four half pieces of bacon and an overly generous bed of lettuce. The "B" comes first for a reason, food preparation jerks. If I ever need a LBT, I'll let you know.
Tuna sandwich appears nicely packed with fishpaste and mayo. Looks a little unpleasant squishing out the front like that, but I don't typically buy tuna sandwiches for their physical beauty.

ROUND ONE: Flavor!

BLT unsurprisingly tastes like a wet wad of lettuce with a hint of mayo and a teasing touch of bacon flavor. Seriously, it's like a tiny man made of bacon let out a fart a few chairs down while I was snacking on a side salad. And now I can't stop thinking about a tiny bacon man farting baconey farts. What a pleasant thought.

Tuna sandwich is quite good. Nice tuna flavor, but not overly tuna-ish. They didn't fuck up the whole thing by adding hideous fat chunks of celery like most uncultured slobs. It's got lots of mayo and has the consistency of pudding. I have to say this is the best tuna sandwich I've ever had from a cafeteria. In fact, the only one. Bravo, cafeteria lady. Nice sandwich.

Well, I guess that's a TKO. No need for more rounds. I happily ate the rest of the first tuna sandwich half and wondered if I should bother eating the rest of the BLT. I mean, it's so bland. I hate wasting food, but what can I do? I have a super tasty tuna sandwich half and a crappy LBT that I don't feel like finishing. What would you do?

You'd cram the tuna sandwich INSIDE the LBT, that's what!! If anything can make a bland dish better, it's shoving a tuna sandwich inside it. If only that worked on people. I really wish that worked on people.

Wow! Now that is a damn good sandwich surprise. It's like if you went to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned, but when you got there the place was full of hookers. Exactly like that. Except I didn't have to pay hookers. Or get my teeth cleaned.
The tuna sandwich nicely toned down the saladness and brought out the bacon flavor. I wasn't sure bacon and tuna would taste good together, but then again, has bacon ever made anything taste worse? Never. I defy you to think of anything in the history of the universe that has ever been made worse by adding bacon to it.

It was at this point that I realized I've finally managed to completely alienate myself from my coworkers. They've all probably been glued to the windows watching me take pictures of my lunch after every bite. "Check it out, that weird guy is photographing his food again. Did he just put a sandwich inside of another sandwich? Someone needs to fire that psycho before he brings a shotgun to work. Or offers to share his food with us."

Final thoughts:
The BLT was 20% good. Mostly due to it containing some amount of bacon in it.
The tuna sandwich was 90% good. It would have been better with some cheese and maybe a touch of mustard, but extra points for not being filled with celery, my arch-nemesis.
The TLB (tuna, lettuce, bacon. As you can see, I tossed the tomato slice) was 98% good. Cheese would have given this sandwich a perfect score. If Zeus came down from Mount Olympus and made me a tuna sandwich, I bet it would taste just like this. But with cheese. Tasty Zeus cheese.