Cute Break

Enough of all the bullshit and politics and Obama and Ryan and Trump and Hannity and Beck and sanctimony and flip-flopping and hypocrisy. STFU!



Okay. Now, back to business.

Juggalo Season Again!?

You may recall this post and video from last year around this time. Yes, that's correct: it's Juggalo Season. Again.

For those of you way out of the loop and not willing to click, Juggalos are a social scene wrapped around the music of hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse. They drink Faygo and some paint their faces like clowns. Scary clowns.

Well, at the just-past Gathering of the Juggalos this year, Tila Tequila (who apparently sings?!) decided to lay her rhythms on the Juggalos. They did not like it and pelted her with bottles and rocks, then chasing her to her trailer, which they rocked and broke out windows.



Oh, and for the record, they fucked up Method Man too :(

Ah, Juggalos.


UPDATE: From AV Club - "Excessive makeup, grating voices, oversharing of all things gross: The Kardashians are the new Juggalos."

Ah, Kardashians.

Jesus Monday: A Book, a Play, a Bastard Pope

Big week in Jesus news to be sure.

Philip Pullman, author of the "His Dark Materials" has written a new book, a work of fiction, entitled Good Man Jesus, Scoundrel Christ about how Jesus had a twin named Christ that did all the exaggerated scribe work and how that played out in creating a lasting memory through the church. Looks like good stuff. Of course by "good stuff" I mean paired with sanctimonious bullshit protests and misplaced aggression of sheep-like churchies.

At Tarleton State University in Texas, a student - in participation of a theatre class - chose a play entitled Corpus Christi about the life of Jesus and the apostles...except they're all gay men. Hrm? That sounds like some good stuff! And by "good stuff" I mean the Lt. Governor douchebagging a reprimand across the airwaves, misinforming the public that the play would use taxpayer dollars after having, well, NOT read or seen the play. And...scene. The professor cancelled the performance, folded like a house of cards under a Texas-sized ass.

Ah, but the real story is all the flack Popehat is pulling down on himself and the Church because a couple hundred priests molested a couple thousand little boys. No biggie, right? Nothing that can't get swept under the rug, right?

Let's do a quick recap from last week's post: Pope Ratzie lambasted the Irish Church in saying they handled things incorrectly when dealing with the molestation cases. But Ratzie himself was the one holding the broom when he himself was an archbishop, holding strong to the line of "keep it secret."


Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan appears as a caricature of religion and faith in his goon robe and wooden throne.

The archbishop above came out and called the Pope's predicament much like that of Jesus being accused unjustly. Um, no; calling someone to task for covering up and/or not reporting a crime to the proper authorities is the very definition of justice. The "unjust" part of the story might have been the priests who abused their power and authority to steal the innocence from little boys.

Even Sinead O'Connor has an op-ed piece in the Washington Post dissecting some of the bullshit and calling the original apology letter "hollow."

It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Will the Pope step down? Will the magnitude of the scandal collapse the backbone of the whole Catholic structure? We can dream.

Deer for Breakfast

No, not venison omelets. Just this:


Love it, sweethearts!

Michael Jackson's Hair on Fire - Pepsi - Video Uncovered

You may be saying to yourself: "That's awful. No one wants to see that."

You're wrong. Enjoy it like I know you want to.

This is Really Happening

Radiohead. Idioteque.

We're not scare mongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scare mongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles quirking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money

Any questions?

Ah, Teens and Their Porn

One of the first trips I made on the internets this morning was to MSNBC. I saw the above graphic and read Teens Cutting Back on Porn. "Really?" I thought.

So I continued my visual scan: Like others, Elkhart's porn culture feels recession.

Sounded interesting, but I was not necessarily interested enough to click. "Guess the recession's hitting just about everything," I thought.

About ten minutes and half a cup of coffee later I looked at it again and my brain corrected its Freudian slip.

Some New and Old News - Sex, Religion, Killin'

Octomom porno? I'll wait while you cause yourself great pain to block the memory of reading those words. Reality show? Believe it.

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) is worried capping CO2 will take away plant food. Seriously.

SHIMKUS: It’s plant food. … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.

Even better to watch:


Obama's administration dropped the War on Terror rhetoric. Officially. Hells yeah.

Last week OPEC said oil had nothing to do with climate change. In related news, cigarette manufacturers said smoke is nutritious, and AIG released a report that borrowing money you cannot afford to borrow increases life expectancy.

Bob Barker came close to a career in porn. Just scratch out one eye, so you can read the rest of the post. Unless that happened at Octomom. Better to be blind.

Apparently Americans are still dying in Iraq.

And if I remember my Catholic School upbringing, it's Good Friday, so 9am to 12pm represents the walk up the hill, then Jesus hung out (hehe) for 3 more hours, and it's 2:59, so 3...2...1. Jesus just died.

!SPOILER ALERT!

No worries; he comes back to life on Sunday morning.

Have a happy Easter.

ShamWow: You'll Say "Hooker, Gimmie My Fucking Tongue Back" Every Time

The Smoking Gun is my hero today.

You know Vince from ShamWow, right? How about a refresher on the mug:



Wait! Holy asshats, Vince? Why do you look so disheveled?

Turns out that Vince picked up this girl:



Wait! Why does she look like that?

Can I tell the fucking story? Cause ya know we can't do this all day.

Vince was propositioned by the girl above, took her back to his hotel, gave her $1000, and apparently at first kiss, she clamped down on his tongue which prompted him to struggle and then repeatedly beat her about the face and head at which point she finally let go. Vince ran down to the lobby, bleeding, cops got involved, and they were both stitched and booked. Not surprisingly, it appears they were both drunk.

Ah, Vince, 15 minutes can be so short. Ya won't find Billy Mays whoring it up like that.

The Mountain Goats

You ever find out about something - a show or a band - and wonder how it was that you missed this and begin to question your level of competence when it comes to your understanding of popular culture? (Yes, that would include my post on Little Britain.)

I counter that feeling of complete despair and shame by - instead of burying it deep inside and hiding in the corner of my room in the dark - tearing it wide open for the whole internet to see.

The Mountain Goats - This Year


I would like to thank Dino Stamatopoulos and 44 days of Moral Orel for bringing me to the light.

Today's Special - A Whole New World

My friend Brent sent me a lovely link to Today's Special that talks lovely smack about Palin's Pad in Alaska. It's a wonderful blog that I will soon Linktastica! for posterity, something it could have garnered simply because of being called Today's Special and having a picture of Muffy (Nickelodeon fans of yore unite!).

But this is good. I actually read back to April of this year because it was so wonderful and caught this gem. Watch it all the way through.

Obama New Yorker Cover - WTF?

What the fuck?

Obama campaign is pissed. McCain nods in agreed outrage - or perhaps foreplay to sleep as he hugged his teddy and began immediately snoring.

At first blush, I thought it clever satire, and then this quote smacked me in the ass:

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page told CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday that the cover "is just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there."

Aye, there's the rub. The satire or "lampooning" is clever to clever (or at least educated) people. It opens the conversation to those who like to pine intellectual about the political ramifications of the upcoming election. No one else.

The ignorant people out there, those who don't have access to the New Yorker/wouldn't read the New Yorker anyway/cannot read, will glance at the cover on the national section of the evening news, confirm their conviction, and mumble something about gangs, negroes, or Muslims. And perhaps, in their own version of clever, will combine all three into a racially-charged aphorism that'll make their friends spit Budweiser out their nose.

Er, MGD. Dincha'ear? Faggy Bud sold out to them Europeans.

G4: Morgan Webb or Olivia Munn?

I've been privy to the joys of the G4 channel for only about 8 months, but oh, joys there are. My two favorite shows on the deliciously hip/techie/nerdy channel are X-Play (although I preferred the simplicity of the old, game-core, version before the G4 powers that be decided that is should be a mini-AOTS) and Attack of the Show.

Some (stereotypical) men love Pamela Anderson or are hot on Catherine Zeta Jones. As far as movies go, I'm enamored with Christina Ricci. But we're talking about G4, and I don't think anyone, stereotypical or not, can argue with the delicious gamer and tech intellect paired with smokin' hot looks of Morgan Webb and Olivia Munn.



And I can't even remotely decide.

Could I have left the Webb/Munn question alone? Could I have posted images that were respectable as opposed to the FHM/Maxim/Whatever layouts? Sure. But then it wouldn't be as hot.

As the construct of my sentences reflects, the hottest thing about these women is their brains. Their penchant for tech. But being easy on the eyes doesn't hurt either.

What're your thoughts?

UPDATE: Taking into account a level of respect for these women, here they are sans exploitation, avec their respective co-hosts (see comments for full 'splainin'):






Ladies, please allow me to make some sort of amends for this phallocentric post: My eye candy and yours, David Duchovny.



...and for Frieda Bee: it's pretty difficult to find David Duchovny in his skivvies. Actually, damn near impossible. This is about as close as it gets.

Emo Wars in Mexico: Triste y Enojado

(Triste y Enojado = "sad and angry")



No, this is not a joke, although it is being treated like one because it deserves to be. From G4tv:

The frightening image above is from the front lines of the Emo Wars currently being waged across Mexico. Brave flat-iron brigades and elite moping squadrons have been deployed.

The war began in March when several hundred punks,metal-heads and rockabillies went on an emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, 160 miles north of Mexico City. The emos are fighting back with marches and an alliance with riot police.

Although some say Emo is regarded as homosexual in Mexico, others (like me) think kids always do this kind of dumb thing to each other, whether it's the mods v. rocker "wars" of the 60s or the punks v. skinhead wars of the 80s. I'd also like to note that the music of metalheads, punks and emos sounds almost exactly alike, so beating someone up over the razor thin distinction in styles and affectation is depressing evidence of the violent nature of humanity.

I couldn't even try to put it better. And if that's not enough, we've got a YouTube. It's in Spanish, and I don't know Spanish, but the visuals of the angry Emo mob are priceless:

Sesame Street: Back in the Day

Subway!

Virginia Heffernan has an excellent piece in the NY Times about Volume 1 and 2 of "Sesame Street: Old School" being released on DVD, focusing primarily on how non-PC those original episodes were, and how those characters got from there to where we can still see them today (e.g., Snuffleupagus could be seen by everyone in 1985 as not to exacerbate Big Bird's condition into full-blown mental illness).

What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

The only part of the article that didn't ring true to the spirit was a single snippet on the first page:

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time.

The point of running through the grocery list of "atrocities" was to show how PC we've become, but the single farmer's careful handling his organic milk is something that rings PC/"social conscious" true in the light of today's Big Box stores and farm factories.

Excuse my literary nitpicks. Read the article. It's worth the walk down memory lane and stuffed full of things I was never aware of concerning a show that helped me grow, read, write, and eventually become this blogger that you're reading right now.

Talk to Kids PSA

Some days, when the martial law of Pakistan as an off-site dry run of what Busheney is planning to do to America gets you down, you can always turn to viral video. In this case, high quality viral. It's a "Talk to Kids" PSA. And it made my day. Enjoy.

Medical Marijuana All Over Again: Ouch, that Hurts Man

Longtime readers may recall a commentary I did on medical marijuana called Marijuana Duck, Duck, Goose - Same Old Story that got picked up by Digg and all hell broke loose.

Well, I'm back with a story I snagged off Wired Science entitled A Little Marijuana Helps, but Lots May Hurt. Interesting. Can I get a summary?

Summary
Hey, you know how all those people like cancer chicks and MS guys who say that weed makes 'em feel better? Let's do a test on it! We'll take the active "it burns!" chemical from hot peppers (and, subsequently, pepper spray) - capsaicin - inject it under their skin, and get 'em high. Then we'll ask them if it hurts. Dude? Dude.

Results
After 2 minutes, no one noticed any "It burns, oh, God it burns!" difference. After 45 minutes, those who had gotten "moderately" high said it hurt less. But those who got really high said it hurt more, even though they felt much "higher."

Problems
Honestly, I'm surprised this bar-closing brainstorm of an idea warranted any merit. Much of what we know about the benefits of marijuana is the relieving of chronic pain or reinstitution of appetite.

• New Stimulus
  
  Shooting someone up with capsaicin is the physical equivalent of causing a hairline rib fracture. The problem with the way the experiment was handled was that it did not mimic one important aspect of the reason people - some of whom may never have smoked marijuana before - turn to using marijuana: unavoidable, chronic pain/nausea. The people in the study were completely healthy and introduced to a new stimulus - constant, burning pain. Then they smoked. If you're going to do a study to see if marijuana can "officially" help those with chronic pain, study people with chronic pain.


• No External Stimulus
  
  In my limited medical, partial psychological, and extensive marijuana experience, the symptoms that are known to be highly successfully ameliorated - chronic pain and lack of appetite - have one thing in common that can only be visualized or recorded if you put stoned people in front of the television: distractive stimulus.
  
  In a word: stonervision. Get someone without an appetite stoned. Sit them in a comfortable chair and monitor them and ask them how stoned they feel and if they would like a cracker, they might feel uneasy and eat a cracker or two. Get that same person stoned, sit them in the same comfy chair, and flip on South Park Season 1 (play all), you don't even have to ask them; a subtly-placed bag of Nacho Cheese Bugles will simply disappear.

My point? Don't break someone's arm, get them stoned, and call it a study on marijuana and pain. You're studying the wrong things and getting people way too stoned and asking why they're fixating on the pain. The joy of marijuana (and, in my opinion, the success it holds for millions whether in pain or stressed) is its ability of purposeful fixation. Books, television, video games, and even new places are a release, an external stimulus that can give us joy, meaning, and even reward. Paired with marijuana, these things can "make it better" for millions of people who are too concerned with pain to enjoy anything else.

There are many more variables to consider; if you're going to test it, test it right.

HP Misconstrues Technology Misquote

Intel Co-Founder, Gordon Moore, stated that the number of transistors you can inexpensively place on an integrated circuit will double about every two years. This is known as Moore's Law. This relates to processing speed, memory capacity, and computer hardware of that nature.

Unfortunately, Moore's Law is often misquoted as doubling every 18 months.

And sometimes that 18 months rule is linked to something that is completely unrelated to the original prediction. And you get an HP ad:



Along with saying the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle explains that the observer affects the nature of what is being observed, Moore's Law misquotes are up there on my list of pet peeves. Pop culture rapes again.