Kid Nation
I'm sure you heard about this TV show - they sent a bunch of kids out into the middle of nowhere to start their own town, see if they could organize government, divide labor, etc. Anyways, a couple of the kids ended up getting burned or something while they were cooking, and now the army of nanny-state pansies is poised for attack. They want to sue based on the grounds of child neglect or unfair working conditions or something. Look, you pussies, when I was a kid we called that kind of thing 'summer camp', and we sure as shit didn't get paid for it. I don't know what the legal ramifications of this will be, but you can bet your ass the higher ups at the Boy Scouts of America are pissing in their olive drab nut-huggers right about now.
Senator Craig
This is absolutely hilarious (except for the profiling part, which just kind of 'has its moments'). Who knew that all you had to do to get some bathroom tail was tap your foot and wave your hand? And here I am all these years just barging in and bellowing "Anyone interested in a little how's your father!?" It's kind of irritating though, when you think about it. I mean, here we all are showing up two hours early for our flights, being herded through the security check; and this guy's seemingly found a way to get the full body cavity search and everything without having to wait in line at all. I guess it's just one of the perks of being a senator.
As an aside, it makes me wonder why it is that people do this stuff in bathrooms. I mean, most of us cozy up next to someone at a bar or a party or something, and then have sex in the bathroom. It just seems a whole lot easier to proposition someone if you're not surrounded by the sights and sounds of pooing strangers. But I don't know, maybe your average cottager has strong enough game that he or she can close the deal with that kind of a soundtrack playing in the background.
Thoughts? Comments? Advice?
During last night's episode of Last Comic Standing, John Reep touched on something that resounds with a lot of people - take the stupid Bluetooth earbud off your head if you're not actually on the phone. His comment was "You look like a tool." I think it's a behavior that deserves, due to its prevalence, a bit more attnetion.
I've never understood it myself, why people do this. It makes about as much sense as taking your steering wheel with you after you park your car. I wondered if maybe it was a status thing, like, "Check me out, I've got a Bluetooth thingie." That theory doesn't hold up though, when you consider the cost of an earbud. What're they, like 50 bucks?
You know what I think it is? I think most people are just plain old morons, and for some reason it makes them feel neato to wear the earbud. Maybe it makes them feel futuristic, like a character in a sci-fi novel; which is about as sad as people who dress up for the Renaissance Fair. Or maybe it makes them feel important, like "People are constantly ringin' my bling, yo. I gots to keep my Bluetoof on G"; which is sadder still, because they're not actually talking on it.
The fact of the matter is, the only time you need to use the stupid thing is if you're on the phone while already doing something with both hands, like making dinner, driving, or beating someone about the head and neck with a Big Bertha Titanium 454. Unfortunately, people use the earbud for no apparent reason all the damn time. They're not even all that convenient when you do have to use them (the volume is lower, they drain your battery, etc), so why the hell would you sit there and use it if your stupid phone is right there in your pocket?
The main takeaway here is that wearing an idle Bluetooth has become a universal signifier; it's the modern equivalent of a dunce cap.
Have any of you finished the last Harry Potter book?
I read it this weekend, and finished last night at the godawful early hours of this morning.
All throughout reading these books, I've noticed that they make fine parables for the current war on terrorism/Islamofascism. I'd be willing to bet, though, that the author's intention (much like Tolkien, I'd imagine) was not to create such a parallel. But I just can't help but see it. Does anyone else? Just figured I'd ask...
As we speak, the stock market is erasing all gains for the calendar year. I guess that's what happens when a real estate market that's been betting on future equity with risky (and sometimes fraudulent) mortgages collapses and sends the value of your average mortgage brokerage from triple-A to junk bond status. Well, that and the disappearance of billions in homeowner's equity that people were assuming they'd rack up over the past year or two. I'm not saying it's going to be raining day-traders on Wall Street or anything; I'm just saying it's one of those days where people are losing their asses.
It's also one of those days where you should be increasing your 401(k) or 403(b) contributions. You'll be able to get more for your money now than you could yesterday; which means you'll be holding more shares when the market comes back.
It's also one of those days where prospective home buyers should be taking stock of their finances. The next few months will usher in what could be the lowest price growth in recent memory. If you've got some cash to put down (because you can pretty much bet most of your Alt-A and no-doc loans aren't on the table anymore) you could really snatch up a deal from some poor bastard who locked in a 3 or 5-year ARM or a zero down loan that just hit it's final initial term. Said stupid bastard is now staring down the barrel of monthly payments that eat families whole, and has just enough equity in the house to sell it and break even. Just as an example, I know a guy who just bought a townhouse that's valued at $253k for $220k, with the seller paying all the closing costs. How bad would you need to be sweating before you'd sell your home for $30k under value and pay $10k in closing costs?
Oh, and I'm not a licensed financial advisor or anything; but I would like to point out that I'm not in any financial pinches either - quite the opposite in fact. So that should be worth something. Like maybe a free sandwich.
Recently, I started bringing some CD's to work so I could listen to tunes in the office. We hired a new analyst a few weeks back, and she heard the music coming from my office the other day. I think it was some Mississippi Delta stuff or some other old southern blues bastardization of gospel music. "OOOOHHhh! That's nice!" Her exuberance was somewhat off-putting.
The next day, I said to her "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I'm not shutting my door to be rude or anything; I just wouldn't want my music to bother anyone." I figured if no one heard it, they wouldn't be bothering me telling me what they thought of it. I already know it's good, that's why I'm listening to it, please don't interrupt me with your opinion or that epileptic, pathetic, middle-aged cracker ass-shaking of yours.
"Oh, no problem at all. Especially if you keep playing that jazz stuff you had yesterday!"
Jazz my ass. I smoldered a bit on the inside. Who the hell confuses blues rock with jazz? I kept my mouth shut on the grounds that saying a word would make me look like a music snob, or at least just a prick. Can't have people knowing I'm a prick, no sir. I smile weakly at her and pretend I'm busy.
This morning she comes in and gushes, "You like jazz right?"
"Yeah." I try not to imagine what kind of musical selection or conversation is going to follow because I might laugh. Or cry.
"Have you heard the new John Mayer CD?" I fight the tears welling up inside me. "It's so great! I mean, it's all jazz!" The tears begin to give way to disappointment. "I'll have to bring it in, or maybe I can just burn a copy on my computer!" She sounds so excited. Excited like a retard.
I seriously considered telling her that John Mayer isn't jazz, that I'm utterly perplexed at how she came to such a distinction; that he is in fact just shallow, corny, pop pablum formulated to appeal to a specific audience of juveniles who view the world as a simple place with simple problems and equally simple solutions; that jazz is anything but that; and if she brings in a copy of that CD (which I'd graciously have to listen to all the way through at least once, to avoid the prick problem above) it'll just give me a goddamned headache. But I decide that maybe acting like a complete psycho is not a good idea, so I give some kind of non-committal "Heh" or something.
I suppose the real shame is I hear that he's a good musician; and I just can't get past the lyrics. It's like chocolate covered poo. You're all, "Look there's something covered in chocolate! Yay!" Then you bite into it and find yourself somewhat disgusted, probably nauseated, and feeling like "Why would someone do such a cruel thing like that? Why?"
I work as an RN in a busy Emergency Room. One night recently I had an odd little man in one of my rooms. He had been retching for the last 2 hours in the waiting room and was continuing his gastric emptying. The catch is this-I walked by when he wasn't aware I was there and I see him with his fingers down his throat making himself puke. I don't know about you all, but I don't particularly care for the bulimia lifestyle-my stomach contents need to stay put.
Shortly after witnessing this, I was called into a trauma and when I returned the man had finally quit with the puking. I went into the room and began to check his vital signs again and get his story. Somewhere in his long story about smoking since he was 9 years old (now in his mid 40's) and his current ailments he shows me a sore on his arm. The conversation, pretty much verbatim was this:
"A dang 'ole spawder bit mee. I jest laynced et wif mah knife to git da poison out. Then ah leet mah dawg lick it."
(trying not to let my disgust and dinner be visible)
"Huh, interesting. Why did you decide to do that?"
"Weel, dawgs mouts is cleener dan humans."
"That may be sir, but all the same, I'd use peroxide next time."
The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.
First off, how does a 'symbolic citywide ban' work? Does its symbolic status mean it creates an unpunishable offense? Or that it's just not going to be enforced? And furthermore, bitch has got to be the least offensive derogation in modern English, second only to something like 'dork'.
The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.
Ten rappers were cited in the legislation, along with an excerpt from an 1811 dictionary that defined the word as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman.”
Oh I get it now, she was using a 200-year-old dictionary when she developed this ridiculous, boondoggle-of-an-excuse for legislation. Sister, in the past two hundred years 'the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman' has come quite a long way. You may want to take this waste of taxpayers' money back to the drawing board, and try to target words like cunt, whore, jizz dumpster, or cum guzzling gutterslut.
I'm just saying, if you're going to throw time and money at a 'symbolic' gesture to restrain free speech, at least go after words that might get a modicum of support based on their shock value.
As she circulated her proposal, she said, “even council members are saying that they use it to their wives.”
And probably a certain one of their fellow counsel members...bitch.
The thing that really got me was that this woman gets a salary composed, I'd assume, of tax dollars. On the outside chance she doesn't get a tax funded salary, I'd imagine her office space and supplies are composed of tax dollars. Which, in either case, means she's spending someone else's hard earned money on a 'symbolic' project.
Personally, I thought it was a revolutionary way to look at work and compensation; so I tried to implement the tactic in my own workplace. In my weekly meeting with my VP, I told her I'd have to hand off some of my current tasks in order to work on a symbolic project for the organization. She said she applauded my symbolic initiative, and gave her full support of my pursuit of symbolic improvement for our division; as long as I was willing to accept a symbolic paycheck. Did you guys know that they actually make symbolic money? They call them foodstamps, but you can actually get real food for them! What a deal!
One of the regulars at the bar is having a birthday this week, so everyone wants to get a little party together for him. The guy even took the following day off, as he plans on obliterating his liver and needing a three day weekend to recover.
So T sends a bunch of us an email saying we should get some ballons and cake and shit. I'm thinking to myself the last thing this guy needs are some fruity balloons and a cake. First off, he's an excellent cook himself; and sometimes he'll show up at the bar with a platter full of freshly made hotwings or quesadillas. I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather have something like that than cake. If we're going to have cake and icecream, why don't we just go down to the roller rink and glide around like a bunch of gayass schoolchildren? Secondly, he's a middle aged bachelor. That motherfucker doesn't want cake, he wants an all expense paid trip to the titty shack capped off with a roll in the hay.
Unfortunately, none of us are willing to do that last favor ourselves nor do we have the combined jack it would take to pay a professional to take on the job. So fucking cake and balloons it is.
In his latest post, Skank mentioned blowing donkeys (nice hobby there, Skank!). Which got me to thinking. I once saw a video of a chick blowing a horse. As if that weren't disturbing enough, I was 13 when I saw it. I was over at my sister's boyfriends' house after he had a bachelors party and he asked me if I wanted to see some porn. I was 13 so I said, "Hell yeah!". And he puts on this video of a chick blowing a horse. I was like - that's not porn, that's illegal. Do you know how big a horse dick is? Can you imagine how hard it must be to get it in your mouth (no pun intended)? Now imagine the amount of sperm it ejaculates. The chick looked like a horse had just ejaculated all over her for lack of a better description.
But what I really want to know is what would possess someone? Whether it's a horse or a dog or a goat. What's the attraction? Human genitals are ugly enough. Must we start licking other species genitals? What possesses a normal woman to fuck her Border Collie? Besides the fact that it's hung like a Border Collie. Loneliness? Boredom? The thrill of doing it doggie-style...with an actual dog? I mean who does doggie-style better than a dog.
I find this absolutely fascinating. The same way I find a train wreck fascinating. Enough so that I've decided to start a research study to determine why people, but specifically females, will have sex with horses and dogs. The study will be called "Human Females and Their Physical Attraction to Equines, Bovines and Canines - What The Fuck?" If any of my female readers have had sex or thought about having sex with any four-legged animal over say - 30 lbs., and would like to be part of the study, describe your experience(s) in comments. I will analyze this data and report back with my findings on the psychology of these twisted freaks. All participants will be compensated. And when I say compensated, I mean I'll rent a few ponies for an afternoon and you whackos can have at 'em.
Do you think the animals like it? Do they care? Do they have the mental capacity to feel violated? Or do they just think, "What the hell is she doing down there?". The answers to these questions will be harder to answer. But I promise to get to the bottom of this with exhaustive and extensive anecdotal evidence.
So please, I need your participation. For science.
Thank you in advance,
"Dr." Will
*The views and ramblings of Dr. Will are not necessarily the views of the management at Snooze Button Dreams.
So, in preparation for what I (and others?) can only pray will be the utter failure of commerical music as we know it; I just want to throw out some bands. I love the hell out of 'em; some are new, some are old; but they're all designed to, I don't know...NOT BLOW DONKEYS!
(JJ Grey) and Mofro: Imagine a band; musically inspired by southern rock, the blues, and their own southern jazz roots. Take that band and give it a lyricist who channels James Brown, Ray Charles, and the blackwater region of Florida where he was raised in a way that makes you wish you were from there. Their most recent CD just came out, their sophmore release still goes for over $35, and their first was listed on Amazon as one of the best CD's out there. When I was looking for their sophmore disc a month ago, it was going for well over $75. Limited edition - apparently there are just...more copies now (ahem). If someone can get me a copy of Lochloosa for free, I'll gladly trade my posting priviledges at this illustrious website. For most of you, this would be tallied in the 'plus' column.
Jamie Lidell - If Timbaland, Jack Johnson, and modern funk had a love child; it would be Jamie Lidell. His 'Multiply' disc has it all: bluesy tunes, rappy tunes, neo-funk. Now we know where Justin Timberlake bit his entire music career from. Top secret info? I love listening to music that sounds like it comes form someone, or some time, that you don't expect it to. Like, for instance, this CD. I mean, isn't that what makes music so wonderful?
The standards: Never forget that your old music still stands up: Sublime, Goldfinger, Green Day, Live, Nirvana, ('scuse me if my chronology gets whacked here), Clapton, Creedence, the Stones (the old ones, not the touring ones), Zep, Hendrix, McCartney&Lennon, Ray Charles, Ellington&Parker, and from here the music becomes so intrinsic that the actual artists disappear. You know those songs: The Girl From Ipanema, etc. Those songs that existed only in the moment that you saw them performed, because after that, they were never performed the same.
God rest music.
Here’s another bonehead move from the wonderful people who have brought good music to a grinding halt by signing and encouraging the shitiest of artists over the last fifteen years.
These idiots are the ones responsible for the demise of the music industry. CD sales are down, I don’t remember the number exactly, but A LOT this year. For about the fifth year in a row. For a good reason, of course; the music being out sucks. And when I say sucks, I mean like a Vegas hooker in the penthouse suite at the Wynn.
And now this.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard. I guess if you can’t sell music, you may as well litigate for it.
The crux of the matter is that bars and restaurants are supposed to pay for music that is played in the establishment. I know from experience that most places subscribe to one or more music subscription thingies that cover this or are supposed to. However, The good folks in the music industry are now suing the shit out of everybody.
“ASCAP says that besides broadcasting songs over the radio, television and Internet, the definition of performing copyrighted music includes playing it "any place where people gather," with the exception of small private groups.
For restaurants, that includes playing songs as background music, by a DJ and even music-on-hold over phone lines, according to ASCAP's Web site.
"As long as it's [played] outside a direct circle of friends and family, it is considered a public performance," Candilora said. "A musical composition is somebody's property."
Basically, what they are saying is that if you hire a band to play at your bar, and that band plays a cover song, they want their $.08 or whatever it is nowadays. See, back in the dinosaur days when I was young, the industry wanted everybody playing these songs in bars. They wanted cover bands because they got songs out there and then people who liked them often bought the album. But those days are over folks. It’s easier to sue people, since no one’s buying the shit on the shelves these days anyway.
“ASCAP alleged that a DJ at Ibiza played three copyrighted pop songs without paying a licensing fee, which Candilora calculated would have cost Ibiza $979 a year, considering the size of the venue and the type of performance.
"I think it's absurd," said Eshagi. "Not only DJs have bought that music, I also subscribe to an online music-use service, and I'm also paying the cable company for the same thing. I don't know how many times we have to pay for a song."”
The answer is, you shall pay until blood runs from your ears! Or until the industry starts putting out some decent shit and sales pick up. Don’t hold your breath.
