1/1/2

So--how ya feelin'? Me, I'm a bit icky from whatever microbial thingie it is that's taken up shop in my biosystem, but it could be worse!
YOU'RE the one with the hangover!!
Handy hangover remedies from MSN. I've always found that an ounce of prevention the night before is worth a pound of not feeling like horrid putrid death the next day. More precisely, have a full stomach before partying, then afterwards take at least 2 very large glasses of water, 2 ibuprofen, a B-complex vitamin, stay up just long enough to pee one more time before collapsing on the bed, & brew chamomille tea in the morning. It's not as good as how "I don't need another beer" works the night before, but there ya go. Hangovers can only be avoided, not cured.
A good preventitive from over-indulgence is working in a liquor store! Get a hangover & you never want to touch booze again, let alone look at $50,000's worth of alkie-holl for a full shift.
WORST popular folk cure: COFFEE! I remember--umm, let's be nice & just say "someone's" first hangover, & her boyfriend recommended a big steamin' cup o' java. She was MOST unhappy after that. I explained that 1)coffee dehydrates you, which is 90% of what a hangover is; 2) you're body's now fighting off both a depressant AND a stimulant. She came to work on 1 hour's sleep. 3) Call in sick. Tell 'em it's food poisoning, which, really, it is.
Best bet is still "know when to say when." There's a good reason why "intoxicated" has "TOXIC" in the middle.

Got my 1st copy of HITCH. Wow, Bill likes! Heavy on reviews rather than articles (the opposite of Cool & Strange Music! Magazine). But it's fun & funny (first line of the review of "Jeepers Creepers": "Movies don't suck much deepers."). And, as a plus, has a lobby card from an old InExob, & a review of "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

Someone's getting a sub to HITCH as an Xmas gift, but I needed his zip code. Just before that part of the phone book was the alphabetical index of the Yellow Pages. Know how the regular phone book has those abbreviations at the top of each page, so you know where you are in the alphabet? Here are the ones from the Yellow Pages index:
Boat-Dental
This 1981 spin-off from the popular TV series "The Love Boat" failed to catch on, despite being about second-level TV stars like Don Knotts and Shirley Jones finding love & laughter while getting root canals.
Dental-Halfway
John soon learned that no matter how much money he saved at Halfway Dental, getting your cavities filled with peanut butter was a bad investment in the long term.
Halls-NoiseAfter releasing the successful New Age relaxation CDs "Rainforest Slumber" & "Distant Waterfall," John's "Halls of a Middle School Between Classes" CD sold poorly.
Nondestructive-ShoesAlthough John's latest invention wasn't as popular as the bulletproof vest, it was a favorite of Jerry Falwell, since every time he opened his mouth he shot himself in the foot.
Shop-Writers
This is a lot less funny than I thought it would be, isn't it? Maybe I should go buy a writer at the--
Never mind.
Wrought-Yoga
"What hath yoga wrought!" cried Alexander Graham Bell, as he invented the Lotus position.

Okay, that wasn't as good as I thought it might be. Go read this, it's better. Be shocked at my lack of snarkiness!

Bad News: George "My head hasn't been where the sun shines in 20 years" Lucas has decided to follow up Jar Jar's triumphal appearance in Crapisode One with N'Sync playing Jedi Knights in Episode Two, Attack of the Clueless. Good News: They all DIE!

Good Gourd, but I'm SO TIRED.
Inventory Day at work. The last day of December may be our busiest, but the 1st day of January we're open is the slowest. And half the store's been bought, so there's that much less to count.
It's not hard physical work, just punching numbers into a pocket calculator. But try doing that every few seconds for 4 hours & see how alive your brain feels, my friendly. And Bill does not understand why, when there are a half-dozen 2-member inventory teams, it is always Bill's team that ends up counting HALF THE ENTIRE STORE EVERY INVENTORY. Perhaps the other teams forget that fingers are for pressing calculator buttons, not putting up asses?
Thus, we have very little tonight. In fact, we'd have nothing, if Star Chaser hadn't sent an internet test that meshes nicely with a long-running InExOb theme, "Who Chose The Corporate Mascot?"

Take the Corporate Mascot Test at Willaston's Lounge!

The...Duracell Bunny?
Wasn't the Duracell mascot some big Aussie dude many years ago? Or William "Wild, Wild West" Conrad, daring you to knock a battery off his shoulder?
At least I wasn't Jerry Van Dyke.

Dammit! Potential excellent story ruined by my non-proximity to the event!
Some woman was on the phone at the front of the (very large) store, & I picked up that she was kinda hysterical, but everything next is second-hand.
She came in (looked middle-aged & blonde, reasonably well-dressed from my vantage point) & begged to use the phone. She became hysterical with whoever she was talking to, wanting them to come pick her up & drive her home, despite having her car right here. The party on the other end of the phone hung up on her. One of the owners offered to call her a cab, but she got even more agitated. "Call this number!" she said, but didn't want to talk to the person herself. Since by now she seemed to be either nuts or on drugs, he said "Get out."
So she went next door to Captain Ed's, a seafood restaurant. "Call this number!" she told the Captain, who did.
That person that she didn't want to directly talk to said, "We've been looking for her for two weeks! And so have the COPS! Call the police!" So she gets thrown out of another business, & the Captain calls the police.
Where does she go? Back to us. She gets thrown out again. We call the cops.
She tries to get some total stranger in the parking lot to drive her home. In her car.
She's in the last place that's both open & hasn't thrown her out yet, the hair salon, when the police arrive. She leaves in the back of a squad car.
Captain Ed arrives in our store in need of a drink. He says that she had needle marks on her arms, which explains almost everything. Smart enough to realize that she's too strung out to drive herself, smart enough to know that a cabdriver might take her to the cops, but too strung out to not realize that she was better off asking us for a bunch of quarters, then just using the payphone in front to beg a ride.
Sorry. No punchline. I missed all the details.

The classical station is playing some DC-area orchestra's version of Leopold Mozart's "Toy Symphony" with accompaniment by modern-era noisy talky toys, & it's most amusing. Hmm...Maybe I can find it using this My Music Agent thingie...

"But one thing is for certain: if those Al Qaeda terrorists had come out of the caves where they live and burrow and dig and hide long enough to go to San Francisco International Airport in the little closed-off section where civilians aren't allowed to go, well, they'd learn a thing or two about bravery, and specifically about bravely shooting yourself in the ass. No two ways about that."

Dueling Dipshits: An off-duty police chief is so angry about waiting for his hamburgers that the owner of the diner throws him out--And dials 911! So the cop arrests him.
Surprisingly, the cop's name is not "Wiggum."

My Cat Hates You. Well, not my cat, Kill Kill loves you all. But these cats hate you.

Did you see The Man Who Never Was?
Me neither. Not because he wasn't; this is an old movie I'm talking about. It was a true incident: In World War II, the British took a corpse, put it in a military uniform, handcuffed a briefcase full of papers to its wrist that implied that D-Day would occur in southern France, & shot it out of a torpedo tube, hoping the Nazis would find it. They did, & diverted troops there, although they were mainly convinced that the invasion would come in northern France. Not in Normandy, but Calais, and largely because they saw a large build-up of tanks in a nearby part of England. The tanks never were, either; they were another part of this elaborate fake-out--in fact, the tanks were inflated tank-shaped balloons.

I had a dream the other night, in which I was a photographer in the "Miss Teen Mount Waitango Contest" in New Zealand. Mount Waitnago was repeatedly so prominently in the dream that I wondered if it might be a real place that I'd read about while indulging my New Zealand obsession.
There's no "Mount Waitango," although there is a place called "Waitangi," which isn't a mountain but a bay (Maori meaning of the name is "Weeping Water"). And the Treaty of Waintangi was the sworn agreement of the British government in 1843 to protect the native Maori's property rights. Since this was the 19th Century, this meant "Now the white guys kill you & steal your land." But (at least according to my encyclopedia) this eventually led to "permanent peace" a few decades later. I haven't really dug too deep into this, but I know that the Maori have a very strong representation in modern NZ politics, & aren't still jammed on reservations like Native Americans. Or, unlike Australia's Tasmanians, alive as they weren't hunted down like animals. Literally--Tasmanians are an extinct people, & the Aussies were cruel enough to take the last corpse & stuff him for a museum exhibit.
And thus we end as we began--with creative uses for dead bodies.

Tomorrow Kevin gives Pookie its brain transplant! So if there's a long pause on this end, it means the operation wasn't a success. Though there most likely will be a pause anyway, as I have a lovely TWELVE HOUR SHIFT on Monday, so I'll be in bed early tmw & maybe too tired Monday to post anyway.

Testing, 1 2 3 4.
Windows XP is xpeeing me off. Even though Kevin told it to install to the new hard drive, it updated itself onto the old HD, which I wanted to keep on Win98. Which made a lot of the programs on there--programs that I wanted to keep, that was the whole point of 2 HDs--just not work. It takes me a long time to find anything, now that I have 6 drives. And this exactly all I'm going to write, so I can see if I've at least figured out how this thing works.

OK, it worked. But that's about all you're getting tonight. My 12-hour-shift was cut down, due to the snowstorm. Cut down to 11 hours. On 5 hours sleep, & of course, not 5 hours in an actual row. One thing I'd forgotten about 12-hour-shifts is that they don't seem to last 12 hours, as the 1st 3 or 4 hours don't even register on my brain.
I brought the store's deposit to the bank. The line was slow because of 2 jerks. One was some old lady who had a dozen different transactions, each preceeded & followed by a complete rearrangement of her purse (one involved a transfer of $6,405 to Poland--how'd she hit on that figure?) The other slowpoke was me. Hey, the store generates some big deposits, & it's not like the bank's going to let me help count it.
Bloomberg Financial was playing on the TV on the wall. I looked up at the stock crawl & the 1st thing that I saw was "Big Lots" trading at $10 a share. Right after that I saw the next logical step for AOL-Time-Warner. It was something called "Borg Warner." Resistance is futile! Your company will be assimilated!

Kestrya points out about the Usama pic "They're supposed to read English?" They should've done it in cartoon form, like on those food packets! That could be a real funny thing that someone could draw!
Someone. Yep. Someone.

1.5 GHz AMD processor, 512Megs of RAM...I guess that Pookie v2.0 should be effective for a year or two.

Jessica's apartment management gave her a wrapped box of chocolates for Xmas! What did my condo association send me? 3 pointless letters, mailed separately over 4 days (why weren't they sent in 1 envelope? Because our condo fees pay for their postage). One 2-page letter bitched about "storing items in the common areas," specifically some resin stacking lawn chairs in the courtyard. You'd think that they were a pickup truck on cinderblocks. And, of course, the next day several pallets of something appeared in the parking area.
The Somethings were roofing tiles, the mention of which were inexplicably absent from the multiple mailings. What did my condo association send me for Xmas? Guys pounding the fuck out of the roof over my bedroom.
At least today it didn't start until noon. Kill Kill was missing when I got up. That's unusual, & more unusual was the fact I couldn't find her in any of her lurking places. Possibly she was under the waterbed. Cats don't like unexpected noises, like roofs being pounded. She turned up eventually, as I settled down to surf for the hour I had left before work. She found a nicely-protected spot way down on a shelf, but where she could still keep an eye on me. It was a worried eye.
She's become more chicken than cat of late. Not skittish, just...prescient. I was always taught that animals live in an eternal Now, with no concept of the future. Like "Now the human is home, so Now I get food!" I read an (offline) article a week ago that this seems to not be true; even birds, with their tiny brains, figure out that if another bird of their species is watching them hide food, they'd better come back & hide it again before it gets stolen.
I first noticed this when KK the Underfootnik was in her stage of always following me around very closely--she'd get her tail stepped on every so often. If you've stepped on a cat's tail, you know that blood-curdling siren that goes off. But she kept making shorter versions of it while being underfoot when I really couldn't see her. I was the one who jumped, but she'd be quite calm. One day she did it, & I realized that she wasn't saying "You stepped on my tail!" but "You're close to stepping on my tail!" What, she understands cause & effect?!
She hates the baking pan. Or more exactly, the clattering noise that occurs if I drop it. Recently she began running away if I took it down from the top of the refrigerator (which is where it's most likely to fall), so I left it on the oventop. Then she'd run if I hit it with something, so I became more careful around it. Then she'd run if I even moved it. NOW she gets nervous if I pick up a roll of tin foil, since I never do that unless I'm about to use the pan...
Over 2 years ago, KK had her 1st encounter with turkey, 1 of a very few people foods that she actually likes. I was roasting 1 in the oven, & the enticing smell brought her up to the oven top. The top was hot from the heat radiating from inside the oven, & she jumped down quickly. She wasn't hurt, but she immediately realized that "hot oven=bad." So ever since, she's been afraid of the oven. But only if I'm taking something out. She instantly figured out that it was only really hot when I was taking something out. And what causes her to run? Me picking up a pot holder. Smart cat.

FREE NUDE PIX!

1/9

WHAM WHAM WHAM went a hammer directly over my head at 7:45AM. The roofers were here early. Not good, as I went to bed at 2:15AM. I got up, expecting the pounding to continue any second. After 45 minutes, I realized that they'd moved down to the far end of the building and were now doing something that didn't require hammers. But having been jarred so totally awake, I knew I wouldn't be falling asleep for at least another hour. So I putzed around the web until I was tired, then went back to bed & almost fell asleep just as they started smashing right above me again. So what was that initial 10 seconds of hammering for? I would've slept until 10:15 if that hadn't happened.
I left my condo during my tormentors' lunch break. They were huddled around my garage door, watching in awe & fascination as one of them demonstrated his skills with this amazingly NEW! trend among These Kids Today, this thing they call a "hacky-sack." What, those things actually still exist outside of captivity & Phish concerts? The sacky-guy gave me a dirty look as I pulled out of my garage. He'd placed his beverage on the driveway behind it. Damn me for having my garage there! And yes, I would've run his Big Gulp over. His roof-pounding hacky-sacking ass, too. And laughed! Then played hacky-sack with HIS sack!!
One thing Kill Kill & I share is our uncanny mutant ability to shed. If it isn't covered in cat hair, it's covered in pony(tail) hair. Amazingly, KK has never once hacked up a hairball, but I regularly clog the bathtub drain. The only thing that works is--MR PLUMBER, the drain cleaner supreme! Buy some today! This page brought to you by Mr Plumber! Coincidentally, it was on sale this week. I bought a bottle (geez, am I really telling you about my clogged drain? Yeah, but YOU'RE the one still reading about it!), but decided that I'd just need it again in a few months, so why not stop by the grocery store & grab another today. Wrapped in trenchcoat against the stinging sleet, I entered Shaw's & saw that they had only 3 registers open, & none were Express. Wrapped in trenchcoat, I exited Shaw's.
A good choice, as I hit every light on the way to the movies. And almost hit a Christmas tree, which someone had thoughtfully left in the middle of the busiest road in town. The spray of melted snow from the other car's tires forced me to use my wipers. Just enough spray to make it hard to see without them, but just little enough that the wipers went skr-k-k-k-k as they dragged across the windshield.
I made it to the Macroplex with 5 minutes to spare before showtime. There were 8 cars in the parking lot, & apparently they all went to the same movie: "The Lord of the Rings."
Glad I got there 5 minutes early! I would've missed the ADS!
I remember that I saw the movie on its opening night with Rich, but which movie it was escapes me--I think it was "Blade Runner," but it might've been "Tron." Either way, it was 20 years ago, when all that theaters ran before a movie were Coming Attractions. But this time, before the trailers they ran an slide-show ad for a local car dealership. This was a first! The large audience muttered in disbelief--We PAID to see a COMMERCIAL?!--which turned to several people booing, myself included. Then the boos were mixed with derisive laughter, as the guy reading it kept pronouncing "The Tolland Turnpike" (the road this theater was on!) as "The Toe-Land Turnpike." His tone of voice became louder & angrier as the laughter grew, so it was obviously being read live. I went to the same theater a few weeks later, & the ads were gone. Gone for years. Now nobody thinks anything about them. Nobody thinks anything about the ads that they put on the handles of the gas pumps, either. Apparently, the 2 seconds that I spend looking at the handle as I put it in the tank are too precious an opportunity for the Corporations to let me waste on Not Thinking About Buying Stuff.
The trailers sucked. Or at least the movies they were promoting sure looked like they'd suck. Some MTV-made road movie with Jack Black, the next Ann Rice movie ("This movie is Rated R for VAMPIRE VIOLENCE." Wow, that's specific. What rating does WOLFMAN VIOLENCE get?), Spider-Man (looks to me that with Great Power, comes Crappy Movie), & the remake of the week, Rollerball.
15 minutes after the 3-hour tour was supposed to begin, Lord of the Rings started.
I could never be a film critic. I can tear down something that I hate, but I'm no good at describing something I loved. But I'd still make a better reviewer than than Roger Ebert's new TV partner (the show's no longer "Siskel & Ebert," it's now "Ebert & Dipshit"), who gave it thumbs down because it was "3 hours long." It was 3 hours short, in my opinion, as it flew by. Even the slow bits weren't slow. That's an amazing accomplishment; I thought that the books were unfilmable. And as written, they were. Tolkien wanted a saga like the books of yore, so the action was slow-paced, the descriptions flowery, and the meals many. During my long bout of unemployment 10 years ago, I tried to reread them. I gave up on it during the ascent to Moria, in which JRR described every damn meal they ate on every day. And yet, they remained very faithful to the story while making it into an action movie. One wonders how many people are going to buy the whole trilogy "to see how it ends!" & give up on page 300 when they haven't found enough beheadings.
I guess my review is "I think that I've finally seen a movie that will make me buy a DVD player." While it's been a long time since I've read LotR--or, more precisely, since I read it A LOT--it's all there. Every scene was like a visit from an old friend. I'd like to say that "It was just like I imagined it!" but I don't have that much imagination. The Shire, with its bright little grassy-knoll buildings. Rivendell, & that waterfall. The pits of Isengard, Moria's ruins, Lothlorien's treehouses...Good Gourd, what unbelievable set design. No, believable set design. All of them looked like places that had history and function, as if the races that lived there really, truly lived there. And those beautiful real landscapes...Hey, maybe now you understand why my favorite country to fantasize about living in is New Zealand. (I wonder what the sentence in Maori near the very end of the credits means.)
I knew exactly what was going to happen. So why was it so exciting, so nailbiting?
I could keep going on, but I won't. What a great movie. I hope that my ever-shifting work schedule doesn't prevent me from seeing another underpopulated weekday matinee. But it looks like it's not going to be leaving the theaters any time soon.
A very interesting article on the making of the movie (unfortunately, written before its release).
And I think that I did finally figure out something that always bugged me in the book--If the Balrog has wings, why didn't it use them to fly when Gandalf wrecked the bridge? I know from The Silmarillion that Balrogs, like Satan's crew, were fallen angels. Hence, wings. But, having been cast down into the shadows of Moria, the wings atrophied from lack of use. And, geez, look at the size of the guy! Man, he really let himself go! But just try to set a regular work-out pattern when you're buried at the bottom of a mountain for ten thousand years, with nothing to do but eat dwarves & watch your HBO (Humungous Balrog Orifices).

1/10

I wondered what time I should go to bed last night. I knew what time my alarm was set for, but I didn't know when the hammering would begin. I ended up going to bed not much earlier than I normally would on a day off.
I woke up to pee at 6AM. I slept poorly, until 7:45 came & went without the roofers arriving. So I fell asleep until 9:15, when today's Wham! concert began. I'm not getting up, I thought, & amazingly slept until 11:45 despite having the Anvil Chorus going on directly above my head. Sure, I woke up a few times, & my dreams involved random gunfire & prog rock drum solos, but I woke up refreshed.
The person who's suffering is my poor daughter. She was hiding under the recliner when I got up. The banging men were on lunch (hacky-sacking, I assume, or maybe hula-hooping), so Kill Kill nervously came out for some reassuring pets. Then they came back and she went back into hiding.
Usually this is mouse-chasing time, but instead she's snoozing by my head on her kitty condo. Not a restful day for her. I wonder how long we'll have to put up with this.

Ahh, yes, the Ferd'nands. I've had a couple of thoughts passed on, from Snard yesterday & Kirk today. As I am lazy, & have already said essentially the same thing in 2 emails, here's today's exchange:
KIRK: "As for the Ferd'nands, the first one is that he spends so much time looking for his glasses, he doesn't get to the list or letter 'til it's author gets home, thus missing the point of her writing?"
ME: That one confused me because the joke flowed so poorly. The long letter is prominent, then almost missing in the next panel, then he's looking in the sock drawer (do you keep your specs in the sock drawer? I keep mine in the microwave!), then we found they don't look like glasses, then...What the hell was that novel she wrote for, if she was going to be gone only long enough to buy 1 bag of groceries? It's like one of those "Unfinished Ferd'nands" I've mentioned. If he read the letter & it was "I hate you! I'm going to Manny's Guns & Groceries, & if you're still home when I get back, so help me I'll blow that stupid pointy hat off, with your head included!" and then in the last panel she did, now THAT, that would've made me laugh.
"And the second is that he gets all tired out on his way to the gym, rather than at the gym? It seems to be an instructor at front, but I don't know what kind of class guys take all together like that, most guy gym activities seem to be solo or with-a-spotter affairs."
An aerobics class, Snard suggested. Yeah, I guess that's the "joke." But what's up with that "Bodega Billy" shirt? Is there a Hispanic guy in the class wearing a "7-11 Sven" shirt?

The E-Bomb. "In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400."

Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz

Who am I here? One guy seems to be homeless, the other wandering. I don't geddit.
The second stick figure is saying a thought that might cross my mind, but it wouldn't be directed against bums. Just 99% of the human race.

1/11

Since you're just DYING to hear about the roofers, here's the update:
It rained & they didn't come.
So they won't be back until Monday. That's 3 days of peace for little Kill Kill. Though she still slept under the recliner, just in case.

Who is Miss Clio? A pair of "money grubbing extortionists" named Feder & Stolz.

1/12

A guy brought in a shopping cart full of empties & said "They're wrapped up all nice for you!" 300 empties wrapped in duct-taped garbage bags. Wow, THANKS! Here's your $15 deposit back, all wrapped up nice! I stapled the bills into a used condom!

Emboldened with my success in getting the A drive to work (I turned the cable upside down, which was Kevin's idea anyway), I tried to Frankenstein me a backup computer from bits of the old relics lying around, added to the 350mz motherboard & case from the old one. The motherboard's pretty much all that's left in it, besides the power supply, but I've got multiple old HDs, A drives, & CD drives from the various dead Pookies.
"LET MY CREATION--BOOT!!!" I screamed, as my loyal hunchback Kill Kill hoisted it into the open ceiling to be struck by lightning.
It booted. "IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!!!" But the HD wasn't "ATAPI compatible," which I will solemnly nod my head in agreement to as if I knew what the hell it meant.
I suppose that I could swap the 2nd HD out of New Pookie back into its corpse. I mean, there's only 6G of free space left on it, anyway! (Old HD's total storage space: 2.5G)

The BBC's Top Silly Stories of 2001. I would've put this up yesterday, but I thought that I might come up with something for one particular one. But I didn't. Can you guess which? "Wak."

1/14

(cue dramatic theme music)
"This is a CNN Special Report!"
(cue spinning computer-generated logo with the Flag flying in the background)

ANNOUNCER: "America is still reeling in the aftermath of yesterday's shocking suicide attack on the President's esophagus by a fanatical pretzel. We take you now to the White House, where Attorney General Ashcroft is speaking."
ASHCROFT: "The cowards behind this attack on the President can only be described as having twisted minds! Get it? Twisted?
"We have established the new Office of Heimlich Security to deal with any other threats. There will be a few additional measures put into place to guarantee that never again will despicable yet delicious evil-doers threaten our way of life!" (holds up the Constitution, which he's completely blacked out with Magic Marker except for the Second Amendment)

ANNOUNCER: "More headlines: The FBI has detained hundreds of tasty pretzels for questioning, and has put Mr Salty on their Most Wanted List.
"The air force has begun bombing suspected Rold Gold training camps in the Snyder's region of Hanover, Pennsylvania.
"Airlines have confiscated all bags of honey-roasted peanuts, and are screening all passengers for Combos.
"Several suspicious letters that were sent to Congressional offices have tested positive for traces of salt.
"Support for US actions against Saltiban forces has been offered by the military leader of neighboring Snackistan, Mr Peanut.
"The FBI says that there is a 'credible threat' that America will suffer a second attack by fundamentalist Beer Nuts, and has put the country on high alert for the next few centuries.
"More late-breaking stories as we receive new information and cheap puns and lame jokes."

Terry Jones--an individual who rates unbelievably high on my cool-ometer, as he is the only person in human history to have been both a Monty Python member AND Space Ghost interviewee--on The War on Pretzels Terror: "Osama bin Laden is looking 'haggard'. A videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera TV showed the Most Wanted Man in the Known World looking haggard. And in case we didn't notice how haggard he was looking, the Western media have been pounding us with the word ever since the pictures were released.
"So I would like to congratulate George Bush and Tony Blair on the first concrete evidence that their 'War on Terrorism' is finally achieving some of its policy objectives."

Richard Dawkins on brains & genes, religion & violence, Blues & Greens. "When you visit the doctor today, he or she will give you an x-ray. For the same price as an x-ray in 2050, you will be able to have a complete genome sequence.
"It means that people will have to get used to the idea of not just knowing that they are going to die sometime, but when. Everybody will be in the same position as a cancer patient who is told, 'You are going to die at this time.'"

"In the hopes of wheedling out the peeping black atom," Govynda excerpts a 200-year-old book that's still funny.

1/15

A couple of months ago, Zippy the Pinhead featured the "Volcano Church" 2 miles from here. Today...

This is a quarter mile away. The sign, if you can't quite read it, says "Eat More Chicken, Avoid Mad Cow." That was their pre-9/11 slogan. It was replaced by "Gou Bless America" (that's what it looked like after part of the "d" broke off). "Zippy (hearts) Vernon" is written in the 2nd panel.
Not only do I drive by Tasty Chick virtually every day, in the winter when the leaves are off the trees, I can see its sign at night from my front window.
No, wait. "Could" see.
About a month ago, the sign stopped lighting up at night. This happened right after a Monday & Tuesday where the place was more crowded than I'd ever seen it, in 15 years of living near it. I checked after a few days of lights out, & there was a handwritten CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign on the door. It was replaced a few days later by a CLOSED TEMPORARILY sign, & again a few days after that, by just CLOSED & a "New Listing" sign from a realtor. I guess that those two busy nights were the "Goodbye, Tasty Chick" party.
Tasty Chick had been open for 40 years. I didn't give them a lot of business, unless you measure it as a percentage of how few take-out places I ever patronize. (I hate cooking, but take-out isn't a very cost-effective way of feeding yourself) They did have great food--The above-mentioned nuggets were unbelievably good; 100% tender white breast meat & not the chewy chopped & formed poultry leftovers that one normally associates with the word "nuggets."
The only thing that must be worse than having your family business close after 4 decades is getting some free publicity a month too late.

Local reaction to Zippy visiting the Volcano Church (about halfway down the page). It explains the inscrutable joke of that strip (I didn't know that the church had been condemned! That's why God's not there), and the theme of this one ("I demand an apology!").

On to the useful: Both Kirk & Mitch of 24-Hour Drive-Thru had this amazingly easy pop-up killer site featured today. Spread the love, I say! Actually, spread the hate of pop-ups. Click, a new window opens, click it closed--DONE!

1/16

What a crappy day off.
The roofers pounded above me while I tried to sleep, then started on the awning right outside my window--and I mean RIGHT OUTSIDE, there were these guys stomping around outside my living room. Good thing that I didn't have to go to work; the roofers put their compressor-thing right in front of my garage door, left it on, & went to Gourd knows where. If it'd been off, I would've moved it, but I'd already had crappy enough luck that I thought that if I gave it a push, it'd eat huge chunks of asphalt from the driveway & fling them at my head.
I'd already wasted time trying to figure out why the A drive was running at 1/100th speed. I'd found this old DOS game (like 1985 old) that I tried to install. It didn't work, & somehow fucked the A drive in the process, so I tried putting a different drive in, but that didn't work any different. It's not the drive, it's...Who Knows. Something beyond my capabilites to fathom.
The web editor I'm using switched from "free" to "expires in 45 days" since the last time I downloaded it, & if I keep saving to its files because the A drive won't let me save to floppies, what happens to my files when it expires?...So I spent my day in home detention downloading editors,

none of which would LET YOU TURN THE DAMN WORD-WRAP OFF, so that every line was a run-on sentence just like this except that you'd have to scroll all the way to the right just like some idiot amateur HTMLer who doesn't understand how pre tags work & I'm sure that you agree how IRRITATING THIS IS.

"A team of state police, bomb-sniffing dogs and National Guard troops will be stationed near Gobbler's Knob Feb. 2 to ward off problems at this year's Groundhog Day festivities." Some people think that they are way, way, WAY more important to the World than they really are.
If the groundhog doesn't see its shadow because TERRORISTS blow him up, how many weeks of winter does that mean?

1/17

From my mother: "So, you don't seem to believe that the leader of the biggest power in the world could fall off the couch and pass out from eating a pretzel. Thank god he wasn't eating a meatball grinder." Yes, it runs in the family.

I got this email today:

I hate you and everything you stand for. Bite me.
Yours Truly,
Mr. Encyclopedia
p.s. Kill Kill rocks.

1/18

I'm itchy. And scratchy.
No, that doesn't mean that I'm going to attack myself with an ax. It's wintertime, and the livin' is itchy. Dry indoors air. So I bought me some moisturizing skin wash. Ooh, just say that, all soft & moisty-like: "moisturizing skin wash." I bought it at BIG!Lots, but I also needed a sponge. Maybe I'm the only person who'll find this funny, but B!L had a whole display of Luffa. You remember, the sponge that's also an edible oil filter.

If you read Brunching Shuttlecocks, you've read the Geek Hierarchy, if for no other reason than that the page didn't update until 2 weeks after posting that. Here's the new guys at the bottom of it, who intend to spend the next 4 & 1/2 MONTHS waiting in line for the premiere of the next Star Wars movie. They make a point of saying that they'll be "the first people to see it," apparently ignorant of the fact that they're in Seattle & it'll open on the East Coast 3 hours earlier.
Of course, they're also apparently ignorant of the fact that they're waiting in a line to see the triumphal return of Jar Jar. One assumes that the line will remain quite short.

An interesting Ebert essay on PC in movies. "I quoted Chris Eyre, the Native American filmmaker, who was on a panel with me that afternoon. 'For 100 years,' he said, 'American Indians have played the same roles in movies. Either savages or spiritual peoples who exist on some mystical plane. It is time to let us just simply be people.'"

This reminds me of my old hard drive.

Honest spam: "MeetThatSpecialSomeone@dateing.dateing45ut4me.com" offered me today a "Date for Christmas." Which year?

1/20

Another spam, this one from "boneall@4-vendor.com." That might be a good name for a porno site, but I don't think that I want someone who bones all to offer me refinancing.

I'd just got off the highway & on to the exit yesterday when the right side of my car started making a weird noise. It went away as I slowed down, then started up again, even when I was doing only 25 in the store parking lot. I got out & took a look. The sound was me driving on a tire rim. One tire wasn't just completely flat, it was smoldering. If I'd gone another mile on it, it might've caught fire. On the other hand, if it'd blown out a mile earlier, it would've happened as I was doing 75 on a crowded highway.
Since these were the same tires that came with the car over 4 years ago, I had them all replaced. An unexpected $270 expense right after spending $580 on the Pookie upgrade, but my financial situation is well up to the task. And it's still cheaper than the cost of a year in traction if the other 3 tires blew.

Part of the reason I knew the computer upgrade was necessary was the fact that the Snappy software wouldn't install, & the game "No One Lives Forever" was so slow that it was unplayable. So both those programs sat unused for a year. I'd have to call Alanis Morrissette to find out if this is irony, but the Snappy hardware turns out to be defective, & it's really hard to play NOLF when you can't find the damn manual. Pressing every single key on the keyboard to find out what they do gets pretty boring.
This morning Kill Kill used the footstool as a scratching post, strong enough that she tipped it over & the storage compartment spilled out. "You're a genius!" I said, as right on top of the pile was the manual. How did I reward her? Took her to the pet grooming place to get her nails trimmed.
But I do that every 6 weeks. At 6 & a half weeks, the claws get sharp enough that it's less like playing with a cat than playing with a fistfull of razor blades.

Speaking of claws, a blind cat takes a bite out of crime! As well as a good chunk of some guy's face.

Journal of a COBRA recruit:"First day of boot camp was a bear. All of the other boots seem like nice guys. Don't know what any of them look like because the first thing they did when we got here was give us blue helmets with black hankies to cover up our faces. I'm getting pretty good at recognizing people's eyebrows though."

"Captured on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are now killing people. God has fled. Avenging angels hide out in the Everglades. And other tales from children in Dade's homeless shelters." The beautiful, terrifying & heart-breaking world of homeless children's folklore. Unfortunately, the story is from 1997; I'd love to read a follow-up on their highly-detailed, self-created theology. And find out what happened to the children--"One ten-year-old Miami girl who, after confiding and illustrating secret stories, created a self-portrait for a visitor. She chose a gray crayon to draw a gravestone carefully inscribed with her own name and the year 1998."

1/22

Sense of Duty posting, as I feel guilty knowing that people read this every day, but there isn't something here every day. Some people, in fact, just keep looking at it until it does update (st-augustine.fl.da.uu.net, you know who I mean!)

So...

Umm...

Nice baseball weather, isn't it?
(Only Kevin will get that joke)

The Lord of the Rings movie novelization. I read the 1st chapter in horrified disbelief, then Chapter the Next laughing. It's a joke!

The USA PATRIOT Registration Act. "For Bill's reaction, see above entry."

I assume that you've heard of the Nielsen Ratings, which determines what brain-rotting slop gets forced down your throat via the visual sewage pipes--err, sorry, I meant to say "what TV shows you watch." They have a branch called HomeScan, which is pretty much what you might think that it'd be: They give you a personal UPC scanner, you scan the barcodes of what you buy, send the info to them over the phone, and then they tear it all apart for facts like a demographic Torquemada.
(Torquemadas are the latest food specialty from Taco Bell! It's a taco wrapped in a chalupa wrapped in a gordita wrapped in a chihuahua! Ad catchphrases include: "Not getting a Torquemada is TORTURE!" "They're fresh off the RACK!" "You'll say ANYTHING to get a Torquemada!" Unlike most Taco Smell products which come with little packages of hot sauce, Torquemadas come with little packages of Pepto-Bismol, so after eating them, you'll never say "No one expects the Spanish Indigestion!!")
I used to send in those surveys I'd get in the mail ("Tell us what you think & get free samples & coupons!"), which I think is why they asked me to join, "As soon as there is an opening for your demographic." It took 18 months before they sent me anything, so I guess the Freaky Misanthropic Loner slot was tied up until then. Despite my love of privacy, I joined. I'd skew their database simply by telling the truth. They waited so long to bring me on board that I'd actually fallen out of my demographic, as at that point I'd been unemployed for a year. This was followed by my job as manager of the Lechmere music department, when I was spending more money on CDs than on food.
What do I get out of it? I earn points that can be swapped for products from their "Gift Catalog." Unfortunately, the points were rigged to keep you on HomeScan for a minimum of 6 months (the minimum time they needed to plot your demographics) to get even the cheapest gifts. What did I get out of my 1st 7 years on HomeScan? A Dustbuster & a vacuum cleaner. How long would it have taken me to earn the money to just go out & buy them? About a day.
I think that they realized the crappiness of the system, as they made the gifts much "cheaper" starting a year ago. I got a pair of wireless headphones a few months ago, & I've already racked up enough points to maybe grab something else cool--small, but cool.
"And this is going where, Bill?" Nowhere. We also get monthly surveys. Usually they're obviously some company pre-plotting their next ad campaign. And I like giving my input, as I'm never swayed by ads, especially as I don't watch enough TV to even see the results. They're not so much preaching to the choir as they're asking the guy in the church parking lot who's throwing rocks at the parishioner's cars.
I bring this up, as today I got one of their surveys that goes straight into absurdity. Try to follow the logical progression in the headings to the questions:
Thinking About Magazines...
Now, Thinking About Removable Dentures...
Now, Thinking About Cream Cheese...
Well, it made me laugh. If you didn't, remember that the next time you see a "Sense of Duty" posting!

1/23

A day off, & nothing to do. So I went dollar store shopping. The Salvation Army was not worth the visit, & neither was Family Dollar. I don't know how big this chain is, though it's big enough that they're listed on my HomeScan scanner. They're too homogenous for me; there's never anything unusually weird. Though they did have a set of mouse glue traps with an interesting cover illustration. Most mouse traps have realistically drawn vermin on them (many eschew mice altogether & use big evil rats), but this had a pair of Tom & Jerryish cartoon mice, one laid out flat on its back, stiff as a board. Its little paws were folded over his chest, surprisingly not holding a lily. Beside him stood another mouse, rubbing his tiny fists in his eyes to wipe away his tears of grief. Crimeny. What a place for anthropomorphism. Why not have some baby mice crying "Daddy, why doesn't Mommy move any more? Mommy, I want my MOMMY!" Possibly PETA has infiltrated the glue trap industry.
They also were selling a Barbie ripoff called "Las USURPADORA!" I don't hables Espanol, but what could that mean besides what I thought it meant? A trip to Babelfish confirmed that it means "The USURPER!" What the hell? Is she rising up against the tyranny of Generalissimo Barbie? Possibly Castro has infiltrated the doll industry.
Next I went to Vernon Dollar, which must be doing well. They used to be half of The Tool Box, a place that was basically an used tool pawn shop. Now Tool Box had moved next door & Vernon Dollar had expanded into the rest of the space. Probably just this week, as they seemed to be still setting up.
I got a Bullwinkle CD wallet for $1.25, even though it commits the cardinal sin of giving Boris & Natasha pink skin rather than the traditional Pottsylvanian Pale.

Boris appears to have downed a bottle of wodka, and Natasha has a terrible migraine. Ah, the toll that the years of having your ass kicked by a retarded moose will bring.
I bought one of those little helicopter propellor launching toys. "Party Favors" said the package, but there were only 2 in there, so it's not a very big party. They caught my eye as, for no discernable reason, the launchers were shaped like hand grenades. I thought that Kill Kill might enjoy chasing them, & I was right. So right that I went BACK to the store after 20 minutes to buy another package, just to have more propellors.
I also bought a second little toy pinball game. I bought it originally because--Uhh, never mind. It's part of someone's birthday present. But then I read the instructions on the back, & had to have one of my own (all contents sic):

Intelligent Marble
Intelligence add Lucky
A GAME OF MARBLES
Marble is a kind of game that is very modern now. It collects excitment,fasciration. It's a very interesting game. It can not only trains lover's skill and intelligence but also is a best way for lover to make friends. It's an intelligent game for a family to be a happy field. Spring your miracle,competite your level.
Play ways: 1 The two parties of intelligent competition must own themselves "Intelligent Marble". Within the fixed time if you shoot the five provided plastic teased pearl early or late,you'll get a grand total.If the last digit of the grand total has a "EIGHT",you'll get a "Auspicious Seat". If the lucky last digit of the grand total has a "FIVE",you'll get a "LUCKY SEAT". 2 Others, the two parties will judge winning or losing,according to the highest grand total.The one who get the highest grade is a big winnet. 3 Before a game begins,players may also engage to shoot the five provided plastic teased pearl early or late,getting the grand total. We winner according to how many points it can reach. Where there is a will,there is a way.The training of will, intelligence,skill will be your best ladder of success.it is your best training way of defeating everying.

How to Seem Smarter. Read this, & you'll be a veritable Intelligent Marble big winnet!

The Bushies claim that since 9/11, divorce is down, marriage is up, more Americans are going to church, & more people are joining the armed forces! NOT.

1/24

IT'S AMERICA'S HOTTEST NEW COLLECTABLE!!
Here and here!! Get those bids in NOW!

1/25

Re the above link, Kirk asked: "What do you think the memo on the check says?"
I replied, "Landscaping around tennis court--planting."
There's a word under "landscaping" that I can't quite read, but it could be "lepers." I suppose that you can't be too picky about the help when you're Jerry.

I went to eBay last night out of sheer boredom. I searched for the usual auctions of interest (Space Ghost, Brian Eno, Dawn Wells), then on a whim looked for "Jem & the Holograms." When I knew that Jessica really wanted those old 80s cartoons, I tried to get them on eBay, but they were always crazy expensive. But the Law of eBay seems to be that the 1st time an item is up, it goes for a zillion dollars, but every with every subsequent listing, the price goes down. Last fall Jem videos were priced like the ultimate collectible. But I guess that everybody who wanted one got theirs, as I was the only bidder on a pair of *sealed* videos & won them for $5.
eBay requires a dedicated email address, such as my Netplex POP account. So, after winning the videos, I checked my POP mail.
Apparently, it's been longer than I remember since I checked it. There were 2 emails relating to the auction, & 345 pieces of Hormel pork byproduct. Highlights:

"I have much better girls for you," including urls titled "fistdeep.com" & "cumageddon.com." Watch the Antichrist GET IT ON!!

"RE: Practice GOLF when it is dark!!! 25825." "Perfect your put with the worldÿFFFF92s finest private, portable putting green." And it's a "one-time only introductory offer. We are testing a joint venture with the manufacturer. In an effort to estimate market demand, we are making a limited number (100 units only) available to avid golfers at a deep discount." Wow, only a hundred! Maybe you shouldn't have sent the mail to someone whose sole golf experience consists of putting through little windmills!

"is everything ok, mr. pingel." Okay, I've seen some odd tricks to get you to read spam, but "Mr Pingel"? It turned out to be an online pharmacy. Can I have Mr Pingel's medical marijuana prescription?

Which nicely segues into "Don't Bogart That Joint... 23873" from "The Head Shoppe." They offered "KATHMANDU 2 ... a viripotent cannabis alternative for blissful regressions of vexatious depressions...Kathmandu Temple Kiff possesses all of the positive virtues fine ganja/cannabis without any of the negatives. An amalgamation of high concentrates of rare euphoric herbas, Kathmandu is offered in a solid jigget/bar format and is actually more UPLIFTING & POISED than cannabis / marijuana while rendering Euphoria, Happiness, Mood-Enhancement, Stress/Depression Relief and promoting contemplativeness, creativity, better sleep, lucid dreaming ... and enhancing the sexual experience!!!" And it's only $65 for a ".75 oz. jigget/bar"! And the email's from Finland, which puts the whole "Nepal" connection into suspicion. (Of course, if you *are* from Finland, let me know...)

From the "I am SO not a spammer" email address kkte6zdiablt@hotmail.com, I get an offer to buy a "Pill to Increase Your Ejaculation by 581%." 1: What for? 2: Who determined that it was a 581% increase of splooge, & not 580%? Did they count each individual sperm?

"FURRY NAKED BARNYARD FRIENDS!!!!!!!!! 19753" Yes, it's from Russia. There seem to be a lot of VERY DESPERATE Russians over there.
Actually, it's the distinction that the Friends are both Furry AND Naked that makes this one. Wouldn't want to see Bossy the Moo-Moo weaing overalls!

"VELUPTUOUS CHEARLEADERS (FREE FOR LIFE) C" OH BOY, NOW I'M EXCITED!! Cheerleaders covered in VELVEETA!
One link is for "Puritan Sex." Horny Pilgrims. Yeah, cut a hole in the sheet, forsooth.
"To be taken off this list please respond with 'GET ME OFF' [LOL!] in the sub ject 'Under Bill s.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th US Congress this letter cannot be considered Spam as long as the sender includes contact information and a method of removal.'" Yeah, right. Our horny Pilgrim forefathers put that in the Constitution, right after they added the bit about reselling the email of anyone who does that as a "confirmed address."

"Become a M i n i s t e r Now!" Ohhhhh Gourd. Yeah, it's him again. Minister Charles Simpson. "You can say 'WELCOME TO THE WORLD!!!! I AM YOUR MINISTER AND YOUR UNCLE!!'" Let's not waste any more time on this guy--AGAIN.
"Copyright 1997"--Wow, Uncle Chuck's been pulling this scam for a long time now.

From Frank Young (no relation!) is "Time Travelers PLEASE HELP!!!!"

message: If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help
My life has been severely tampered with and cursed!
I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!
I need to be able to:
Travel back in time.
Rewind my life including my age back to 4.
Be able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.
I am in very great danger and need this immediately!
I am aware that there are many types of time travel, and that humans do not do well through certain types.
I need as close to temporal reversion as possible, as safely as possible To be able to rewind the hands of time in such a way that the universe of now will cease to exist. I know that there are some very powerful people out there with alien or government equipment capable of doing just that.
If you can help me I will pay for your teleport or trip down here, Along with hotel stay, food and all expenses.
I will pay top dollar for the equipment. Proof must be provided.
Please be advised that any temporal device that you may employ must account for X, Y, and Z coordinates as well as the temporal location.
I have a time machine now, but it has limited abilitys and is useless without a vortex. If you can provide information on how to create vortex generator or where I can get some of the blue glowing moon crystals this would also be helpful.
Also if you are one of the very, very, few beings with the ability to edit the universe PLEASE REPLY!!!
Only if you have this technology and can help me please send me a (SEPARATE) email to:
Robby0809@aol.com Please do not reply if your an evil alien! Thanks

The Pliocene Pussy Cat Theory.

1/26

The Two Hour Version of "The Lord of the Rings."

The latest highly addictive drug has been identified: "Psychologists and psychiatrists formally define substance dependence as a disorder characterized by criteria that include spending a great deal of time using the substance; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; giving up important social, family or occupational activities to use it; and reporting withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it.
"All these criteria can apply to people who watch a lot of television."

1/28

I'm in the middle of a little tiff with Amazon.com. My gift certificate was used up after buying a book & a CD, so I threw it out. Then I found a UPS Post-It tacked to my door, saying that I had a delivery from "FufillCo." Since there's another William A Young in the condo complex (who fails to put his condo number on all of his mail), I thought that it might be for him. After an hour of fighting with the UPS web site, I determined that FufillCo is Amazon's third party shipper for out-of-stocks. Unfortunately, they charged my credit card for that, rather than use up all of the gift certificate. Which I threw out, of course, so I can't use it. Hopefully, this will be resolved in a more satisfactory way than my 1st Amazon purchase, which was also my first online purchase, ever. They sent me 2 copies of a computer game when I wanted one. I immediately returned it, unopened, & for my effort they charged me a $10 "restocking fee." Just like what doesn't happen when you bring something unopened back to a real store. I didn't buy online again for years.
I emailed them with part 2 of the gift certificate dilemma, then went to Lileks' The Bleat. "Hello Bill" said the little box from Amazon. GAH! They're after me! I'm a marked man! Waitaminnit--I read it too fast, it really says "Bill The." Jeez, Colossus the Amazon Project, get the whole name in if you want to scare me.
Great. Fucked World's little box says "Hola Bill The."
(Yeah, I know how to turn it off, but for the moment, it adds surreality to surfing)

Why is there a quiz asking How Well Do You Know Bill the Splut? Because it's trendy! (Vyn has one--Though I saw this link a week or so ago on Pop Culture Junk Mail, I wasn't all that excited about doing it myself. Then I got a reasonable score on Vyn's, simply by guessing. So...I guess that I don't know her that well after all...)
Hmm. Unless I made some giant mistake with the quiz, it works oddly. It let me weight the questions, but seems to ignore that & just give points for the "right answer." Most of the questions have several right answers. If the idea is that I'm supposed to add up the points, here are the *real* scores so far (in the format of Name-- Score/Real Score):

Kitty-- 60/91
Gally-- 50/89
Chameleon-- 60/87
Krissy the Tramp-- 50/81
Vynnie-- 40/80

1/29p>I took a walk in the state park today.
This is notable for no other reason than, in late January in Connecticut, there should be inches of snow on the ground (unless there's feet), and the temperatures shouldn't get above 30. It was 60 the last two days. The big tree outside my back window has already budded.
Today's old record high temperature was 53. It hit 70.
The cliche about New England weather is, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Like most cliches, there's truth in it. In 24 hours, we'll have highs in the 20s & a day and a half of freezing rain. But if winter picks February to begin, that's okay. Spring is 50 days away, so how bad can it get? (And piano-sized hail immediately began to fall)

How well do you know Kill Kill?
One quiz, no weighting! (Since that doesn't work anyway!). It's easy & hopefully amusing for her fans; I'm pretty sure that all the answers have been mentioned somewhere in The News (except for one, which would take some pretty close observation of her pictures).
High ranking in the Bill Quiz currently goes to "Anon" with 96. Although this person might be the similarly imaginatively-named "?" taking it twice, so it doesn't really count.

For once, Lileks fails: The source material is far more interesting than his snarkiness. They're amazing sculptures from the oddest sources. And how quickly must've that one made of meat taken, before it got stinky? I remember old Honeywell magazine ads using wires & "hi tech" (for the 60s) computer bits that just fascinated me as a kid. Maybe by the same sculptor, a few years later?

In a charge that's far more serious than Winona's shoplifting, Jeb Bush's dotter forges a drug prescription. I suppose that Lileks will decry this as another result of "liberal parenting" (or more likely ignore it).
Jeb the Aider & Abettor's dotter is named Noelle. His wife is named Columba. You'd expect his sons to be named Santa and Boliva. But they're cleverly named Jeb Jr & George. George W, I bet.
I had to go into the office at work when that news hit the radio, trying my best to repress my smirk. Just like the conservative commentators are all over Enron just like they were Whitewater--NOT!--I figured that my conservative boss would have a far different reaction to this news than he would if Chelsea Clinton was the culprit. And there he was, making excuses about "kids" & "how this should be a private matter." I simply said "A 24 year old is NOT a kid!" and didn't even bring up the whole impeachment farce (Blowjob: BAD; Enron sending thousands into bankruptcy so that Dumbya's oil billionaire buddies loot billions more at their expense, MORAL).
Of course, this is the same guy that *insisted* that Bush did NOT choke on a pretzel. He "breathed wrong," resulting in a faint. The ability of some people's minds to override reality is amazing.

"My Funny Valentine" is the latest contest on the work radio station. Call in your "funniest family story," and you're entered into a drawing to win a Disney vacation. They started with this entry (every "." equals a second of dead air):
DJ: What's your funniest family story?
CALLER: ...My cousins were...No, wait, uh, my uncles...and, ah, my aunts...and my father...ah...there was this time?...They, ah, uh, they all wore different colored sweatshirts....At this restaurant on Cape Cod.
...........
DJ: What--That's it?! Do I laugh now?!
And she got a $50 gift certificate for that!!
I could give them my funny family story, but they prly wouldn't air it: When my nephew Matt was learning to talk, he couldn't say the letter "P" and pronounced the "Tr" sound as "F." Toddlers love large machines, and one day he saw a big dump truck. He pointed at it and screamed, "LOOK, Daddy! BIG DUM' FUCK! BIG DUM' FUCK!!"

A foreigner's guide to America: "Restaurants that combine food and entertainment are an American specialty. You've probably heard of such famous American establishments as Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Café, where you can enjoy a variety of fried foods underneath Jean-Claude Van Damme's underpants."

1/30

Wow, I'm surprised how few people have taken the KK test, as opposed to how many took the Bill Quiz. At any rate, voting has ended in the latter. Correct answers have a *.

What is my favorite animal?
Cat
*White Cat
Monkey
Flying Monkey
A dinosaur eating John Ashcroft

If I had a time machine, I\'d use it to...
Kill Hitler as a babe
Kill Babe Ruth
*have sex with Dawn Wells
Buy Microsoft stock
Buy Enron stock

What movie have I seen more than any other?
The Road Warrior
*Voyage Into Space
The President\'s Analyst
Michael Bolton: Live at red Rocks
Michael Bolton: Dead after being pelted with rocks

I am strangely obsessed with...
*Inexplicable objects
Jerry Van Dyke
Dawn Wells
Linguine, in a light clam sauce
Dawn Wells, in a light clam sauce

I like a nice glass of...
*Genesee red beer
Chartreuse & Cuervo
Saranac Lager
Baby\'s blood
YOUR blood!

The thing I like most about this quiz is...
*It\'s free
That flashing banner ad at the bottom!
The little flags--Who knew there were that many countries with crosses on theirs!
The flying monkeys
The little bits of kibble that it gives Kill Kill when you take it

My proudest online moment was...
Yahoo! Pick of the Week
Yahoo! Pick of the Year
Cruel Site of the Day
Mentions in the LA Times & on TechTV
*My online friendships

Who\'s a big ole stoopy-head dumbass?
John \"Dipshit\" Walker
Ann Coulter
John Ashcroft
Dumbya
*ALL OF THE ABOVE!!

Which would I like to have most of all?
All the riches on Earth!
Unlimited superpowers!!
An Amry of Flying Monkeys!!!
All of the ABOVE *and* sex with Dawn Wells!!!!
*Kill Kill by my side

Online tests are...
Fun!
Dopey!
Buttery!
Chalky! Like chalk!
*Better when they\'re over!

Snard got the highest score, excluding Anon, who I still think is someone who took the quiz twice (The first Anon that is, as a second one with a different score has replaced the first. "Anon" must be the default when you don't enter a name, which is another flaw in the Friends Test). The lowest score was Haxan with a 10 (49 weighted). That's the only person that actually knows me in real life! Of course, I'm not a big talker about my personal life offline. That's what this thing is for.
If the Kill Kill quiz ever gets a reasonable number of attempts, I'll give those answers.

Speaking of whom, she's so enamored of the toy propellors (quiz hint!) that I went to Vernon Dollar to buy more. Wow, everything in the store's 50% off! That's great!
Wait--no it isn't!
They're going out of business! I only discovered this place 3 months ago! And, according to their sales tax permit, they opened only in late August. So I bought twice as many propellors, a magnetic multi-head screwdriver (hey, it was 50 cents!), and a little picture frame with white kittens on it, which had eyes the color of Kill Kill's (sorry, no quiz hint here!).
If you need a Bullwinkle CD wallet or Intelligent Marble game, let me know. Soon.
In the hour since I went, we have gone from 24 propellors to 17. Killsy loves 'em, but I don't recommend them as a cat toy. They disappear too quickly.

"You should die on Wednesday March 13, 2052 at 4:39:35 PM." Oh, man! And I had plans for that Thursday!!

From the Onion, "Lesbian Identity Ends Abruptly Mid-Junior Year." It's set at Oberlin, where I went to college, and--well, maybe you had to be there.

Googlewhacking, a game of trying to find the only search result for weird combinations of words. Sorry, but I left that stage a few years ago, thenk yew.
It's from 24-Hour Drive-Thru, a blog that went from Very Fascinating to Painfully Dull in record time this week. The author's a recently unemployed tech writer, and the dry tech news that's suddenly populated the page indicates that we're looking at an online resume. But everyone needs a job, yes? So good luck to Mr Wagner in his search.
He does have a recent feature that's surprisingly interesting: excerpts from Mark Twain's "Roughing It." It's as funny as it's well-written; it's only the technology and an occasional turn of phrase that keeps it from reading like something just written. Did you know that they weren't originally called "jackrabbits," but "jack-ass rabbits"? Me neither!

"For too long our culture has said `if it feels good, do it'," said former alcoholic coke-head unprotected-sex-haver & father of under-age drinkers & uncle of a drug-prescription forger Dumbya last night. "Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: Let's roll."
What the fuck "ethical creed" is that? "Let's Roll"? Roll out the bombers! This War on Terrorism feels so good, we're gonna attack 3 more countries! We'll show those dictatorial American-hating Fundamentalists (excluding Pakistan) that sponsor state terrorism (excluding Pakistan) and have weapons of mass destruction (excluding Pakistan)! We'll show THEM that we're not the paranoid, egotistic big bully they claim we are!! United We STOMP!
And they all cheered. Now I'm REALLY scared. "Oceania will always be at war with Eurasia."--George Orwell, 1984

1/31

20 or so years ago, when Global Warming was just taking hold as a theory, I remember an interview with one of the scientists at its forefront.
He was asked, "So, you're saying that all the icecaps will melt, flooding the cities while the rest of the world turns to desert?"
"No, that's not what we're saying. Weather is a very complicated machine. The most likely short-term result of Global Warming is that the weather will go crazy."
As you remember (wait, no, you prly don't--I'll get into that more when we look at the Kill Kill Kwiz results), 2 days ago, it was 70 degrees in January. When I went to bed yesterday, the forecast was snow after midnight, then 24 hours/2 inches of freezing rain. Two inches is a lot of any kind of rain (for contrast, an inch of rain is 10 inches of snow). The temps were to be in the 20s. It didn't start until kinda sorta around noon, temps were in the mid-30s all day, & we only got a Slushie of light semi-frozen drizzle.
Oh, and tomorrow? If THAT forecast is to believed, highs in the low 60s, and a thunderstorm.
A January thunderstorm. Nahh, there's no such thing as Global Warming! The weather is PERFECTLY SANE.

I just unscrewed the trackball to remove whatever was clogging it. Yes, it was white hair. So there's a nice segue into the results of the Kill Kill Kwiz.

My name was inspired by a...
Book
Song
*Movie
Band
Brand of Chinese firecracker

These are the only People Foods that I like. Which is my paws-down favorite?
Shrimp
*Turkey
Limited edition, highly collectible tyna fish
Lettuce
Bill's wrist

How many Inexplicable Objects has my beautiful face been in?
2
3
4
*5
More than 5, easy

Which is NOT fun to chase and bite?
Rattly mice
*Long-haired mice
Toy propellors
Pony tail holders
Bill's feet

Which is not a scratching post?
The bed
The door jamb
Any cardboard box
A shelf
*The scratching post

Who is my Aunt and Godmother?
Jessica
Kitty
Dawn Wells
Mary-Kate and Ashley the Wholesome Twins
*Jessica and Kitty, respectively

What color are my eyes?
Blue
Green
Golden
Plaid
*Blue, then green, now golden

Which of these does NOT scare the kibble out of me?
Vacuum cleaners
*Total Strangers coming into the house
Roofing Crews
Pot Holders
Aluminum Foil

What are dogs?
Dumb
Smelly
Dirty
*Excellent slve labor when I become Queen of the World
All of the above

My favorite music is by...
Cat Stevens
The Stray Cats
Ted Nugent (because of "Cat Scratch Fever")
Edgar Winter (because we share the same skin color)
*If the anthropomophism wasn't bad enough, did you also have to use the lame puns?