February 5th, 2005
Hmmmm
Over the last couple of weeks, I've seen a number of google image search hits looking for "plane ticket" or "PLANE TICKET" for the shouty amongst you. Mostly from varying places in Canada.
Posted by fad at 2:01pm
Site Stuff
You'll be seeing weird error messages in the comment stuff and maybe elsewhere. Just try to ignore them. Everything should still work, but things elsewhere need error messages.UPDATE: Ok, back to normal.
Posted by fad at 10:22am
February 4th, 2005
Time To Elevate Feet
Ok, that's it for a while. Hope you have a good weekend.
Posted by fad at 6:06pm
FAD 2.0
Dear Annoying Geeks Who Actually Manage To Spawn: technology isn't ready for you yet.Although decimal designations are commonly used for successive versions of computer software, many computers can't seem to handle it for human names,Damn tax cuts for the rich.
[...]
The state birth certificate, however, reads "[kidname] Two Point Zero,"
[...]
Officials at the Social Security Administration and state Health Department said their equipment can handle only letters with hyphens and apostrophes.
Posted by fad at 4:39pm
Phew!
Whee, that was fun! Click here and scroll up to go relive the joy if you missed it.
Posted by fad at 4:08pm
Goose!
Posted by fad at 4:01pm
Duck
Posted by fad at 3:50pm
Duck
Posted by fad at 3:41pm
Duck
Posted by fad at 3:34pm
Duck
Posted by fad at 3:26pm
Duck
Posted by fad at 3:21pm
Yet Another Failure
Well, I tried to come up with another of those fake Friday Five/Friday Meme things, but they all came down to the same unfunny, stupid Scientology joke. So none will be forthcoming. I apologize for failing your entertainment needs.
Posted by fad at 2:55pm
Uncle Jesse
You had to know this was coming. The basic belief is that anything that can be harmful therefore has no benefit. Or, if it does have benefit, it should only be parceled out to the people under careful government control.Alcohol consumption is linked to 60 different medical conditions and is as much a threat to worldwide health as smoking and high blood pressure, says a report by a team of three international experts.One major problem with trying to use the same approach to alcohol they used with smoking: it's a hell of a lot easier to create one's own alcohol. We know what happens when you artificially attempt to reduce demand through high pricing or bans. People find a way, and with alcohol, it is easiest of all. They potentially will reduce the overall number of people using, but they will increase the use of dangerous substitutes by others.
[...]
He and his colleagues wrote that previous research showed that increasing the price and reducing the availability of alcohol could lower consumption and save lives, the Telegraph reported.
Posted by fad at 2:31pm
The End Of 'Amadeus' Freaked Me Out
Whenever I'm ill, especially if it is accompanied by a high fever, one thing I damn well want -- nay, need! -- to see is a clown.Hospital clowns Dr Little Cake and Dr White Cabbage told reporters they wanted to take some time out from their usual work on the children's wards and try their jokes on the Pope.Something tells me "Little Cake" and "White Cabbage" are a little more lyrical, or at least clowny, in Italian. Then again, these are clowns, so expecting too much may be expecting too much in a too much expectionary way.
Posted by fad at 1:46pm
Expansion
You know what my favorite Hollywood characters all have in common? A heart of gold, of course."There were no paranormal events that took place on the film that I know of. Thank God!" said Reeves, 40, who plays the title character in "Constantine" a man who battles to send demons back to hell.And heart-of-gold nihilists are my favoritests of the bunch.
He described his character as a "world-weary" and "nihilistic guy with a heart of gold."
"Constantine kind of knows it's fact. So I guess if I had any doubts before, I probably have a little few less doubts now," he said."[A] little few less". I need to work that phrasing into my everyday use right the hell now. "You lose some weight?" "I weigh a little few less than I used to. Thanks for noticing."
"Want another drink?" "Yeah, but a little few less ice this time."
Posted by fad at 12:12pm
Strange Hatred
I hate trying to type "March".
Posted by fad at 11:47am
Wait Until The Union Hears
I'm sorry, but we don't truck with no fake gatoring around here.Alligator heads are popping up in the pond at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, but don't worry. Officials say it's just ducky.Use the real thing, or learn to cope, wussies.
Two life-size, urethane-foam alligator heads were put in the pond Wednesday to scare away ducks and geese so the growing bird population will not become a health hazard.
Posted by fad at 11:36am
Chef Fad
Finally, after eleven years of waiting for that bastard who stole it from me the first time to leave, my dream job is once again open.Walter Scheib is packing up his spatula after nearly 11 years at the White House stove, and the president needs a replacement.This job is totally mine. I make the bitchinest sheepherder's hors d'oeuvres this side of the Jersey Lilly, and no one better bother cooking when I make my special Mexican Velveeta fondue! And if it's one of those fancy state dinner things, no worries. Salisbury steak is always a crowd pleaser. Hell, I even know the difference between cilantro and parsley.
[...]
"The residence staff has just begun the process of looking for a new chef,"
Posted by fad at 9:54am
Snap Up Those Rights
Someone read this story today and thought, "Dude! I gotta put something like that into my movie!"It was a scene right out of "Home Alone," but the locale was a Quiznos Sub shop in North Seattle, where the franchise owner was absent for weeks and the skeleton crew made due with a dwindling food supply and a lot of irate customers.No money support, the owner is the contact with the national chain, so things are a bit bare.
"Due to bad owners we are out of a lot of things, please do not get mad at the employees & manager," explained the cardboard sign on the door.
Inside, the dessert section was empty, the chip shelves were mostly bare (except for jalapeño chips) and the soda machine was fringed with little white "out of order" signs (except for Vanilla Coke).Which is should be a nice market research note on what people aren't keen on.
Since food vendors would no longer deliver on credit, [the manager] drove to discount grocers to buy lunchmeat, using cash from the previous day's till. She bought the special Quiznos bread from other franchises, rationing part of what was left after the lunch rush, so there would be enough for the crew working the dinner shift.In Soviet Russia, restaurant Quiznos you!
"Crew" was a generous term, since only three other employees remained from a staff that once topped a dozen. They started quitting around the time their checks started bouncing, [the manager] said. [One man], 26, stuck with the restaurant out of loyalty to [the manager], even though his unpaid wages reached about $450.I mean, the story comes complete with semi-slacker, loyal employee who, in his mid 20s, isn't much in a rush for anything.
"I like working here," he said Tuesday, leaning against an empty countertop that was supposed to hold the soup, which the store also ran out of. "Everybody gets along like family."
[He] earns $7.60 an hour, but he only got paid for the full shift if there was enough money in the cash register.
Posted by fad at 9:26am
Mmmmm....Sniffing
At least he picked a legal substance to get hooked on.Police say they are trying to help a man with an addiction to sniffing petrol who has been banned from going near any filling station on Teesside.Personally, I prefer sniffing other things (mmmm....fresh Legos), but to each their own.
Posted by fad at 6:43am
February 3rd, 2005
Another Genius Study
Well shit on me and call me Nancy, who woulda ever guessed this?Problem drinkers are well known to be at higher risk for the kinds of accidents that send them to the hospital. But a close look at who shows up in the emergency room has found an equally strong connection between occasional drinking and injury.Intoxication, even if only once in a while, could cause a feller to sometimes injure hisself? Gee golly.
From a public health point of view, the findings demonstrate a concept known as prevention paradox: while a heavy drinker is individually at greater risk, society over all bears a heavier cost for people considered nonproblem drinkers because there are so many of them."While the person intentionally trying to hit people in the nuts is a more immediate testicular danger, balls face a heavier burden of risk from those who casually swing a purse or bag and accidently pop a guy because there are so many of them." See? You can use that phrasing for anything! But, don't worry, they have a plan to keep you safe.
The findings suggest that moderate drinkers consider limiting themselves to just one or two drinks and not mix drinking with leisure time activities like sports where there is a chance of injurySo, only drink in bed, surrounded by fluffy pillows or in a padded room in outer space.
Posted by fad at 6:00pm
To My Downstairs Neighbor
Obviously, I don't really care that you smoke pot. However, I'm not sure why you only seem to do so whilst in your bathroom with the exhaust fan on. It cannot do anything to mask the smell or really speed the dissipation. In fact, about the only thing it does is fill my bathroom with that stale weed smell. I suggest you just relax and consider using more of your apartment for this activity.Sincerely,
fad (which is a fine enough name despite the protests of some)
Posted by fad at 4:50pm
So Very Wrong
Ok, time to burn the internet. It can't get more evil than that.
Posted by fad at 4:18pm
Slight Oversight
More money is being stolen from the state, this time in Washington.The state Supreme Court threw out a Washington's estate tax today, causing a potential loss of $430 million over the next two years at a time when lawmakers are already facing a $1.8 billion spending gap.That $430 million includes $150 million or so already collected and must now be returned. The rest of that money is projections over the next couple years. Why was this struck down?
The court's decision upholds a 1981 voter initiative that tied the state death tax to the federal death tax. The state's tax was a "pickup" tax - meaning the state got its money through a credit that the estate saved on the federal taxes. Congress began phasing out the federal estate tax in 2001, and it ends this year. But Washington continued to collect its tax based on the older tax code because the Legislature had not updated the code to reflect the new federal law."Oh, we meant to change the law, and since intent is everything, just keep collecting it. Anyway, they're dead, what do they care? All wealth is the state's. We just let them have it for a while. Time they return it once they're dead."
Posted by fad at 3:44pm
Hold Those Large Heads High
Another battle in the fight for bovine freedom.Police tried herding escaped cattle with their squad cars early Thursday after nine head escaped from the South St. Paul stockyards.These were not the first to fall.
[...]
He said a handful of officers from West St. Paul and the State Patrol spent several hours trying to control the cattle before deciding to shoot all nine before the they did any damage.
The previous escape was last summer when five cattle knocked a chute gate open during unloading or loading and wandered into residential area before police shot and killed them, he said.Never give up hope. Never give up the fight.
Posted by fad at 3:26pm
Get The Duck
"Democrats to invoke the spirit of FDR"Witchcraft! I knew the Demmycrats were all in league with Satan! Someone call Jimmy Dobson. Bet there's some homo homoing that needs to be rooted out too!
Posted by fad at 2:19pm
Zeeble Bop
Just how evil is the Bush/neocon scheme? Just how deep does it go? So evil, they have evil time machines to retroactively force evil upon the past.It's the first evidence that Enron appears to have been honing its fraudulent schemes well before the power crisis of 2000-01, when rolling blackouts darkened California as the company made at least $1.6 billion.Look, if we can't impeach Bush over things he ignored that were happening in '97/'98, then all is lost.
By November 1997, Enron apparently knew of loopholes in California's ill-advised deregulation plan, and by May 1998 - a month after the plan took effect - Enron was already falsifying transmission schedules to inflate prices, Snohomish County PUD officials said.
Posted by fad at 2:14pm
Though I Never Got The Hang Of Them
THURSDAYS ARE GREAT!
Posted by fad at 2:04pm
Notice
Get the hell off my lawn!(Besides, I'm busy researching alternative methods of alcohol consumption.)
Posted by fad at 12:13pm
February 2nd, 2005
Television Thievery
Ah, crap. It's State of the Union night, isn't it.
Posted by fad at 7:15pm
February 1st, 2005
Oh Yeah
Did anyone watch that Castro thing on PBS last night?
Posted by fad at 4:48pm
Yeah, What Do You Want
More good American jobs could be headed overseas eventually.When customers pull into the drive-through lane at a St. Louis Hardee’s restaurant, they may assume they are speaking with a young, energetic order taker a few feet away.Aw. And just as I started to get used to the particular charm of local fast food service.
[...]
As part of a test begun in December, Hardee’s is using high-speed communications equipment and employees in Anaheim, Calif., to instantly process drive-through orders two time zones away.
Posted by fad at 4:29pm
Possible Accelerated Schedule
Robert "Hunger Is Colonialist Lie" Mugabe has announced elections this spring.Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has announced a general election is to be held on 31 March.Mugabe could be in power until 2008 (taking the assumption he'd follow the current constitution), but is calling elections now. This detail makes one wonder about his health.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change is due to announce later this week whether to take part.
If Zanu-PF gains a two-thirds majority in parliament, it would be able to change the constitution, which could be important if Mr Mugabe, 80, decides to step down or if his health worsens.Leads to the suspicion that he wants to act now and get that little constitutional change issue out of the way sooner than later. Could also just mean that he feels things are stacked properly to most easily announce the results he wants. Wonder if they'll get the Jimmy Carter Goober Of Authenticity. Jimmy hasn't involved himself in the last two major democratic votes, so maybe one that has a good chance of being rigged will help him get back in the groove.
President Mugabe has the power to nominate 30 MPs within the 150-member parliament.
Posted by fad at 3:08pm
Orly
Probably over an argument about who was prettier.Hollywood couple Orlando Bloom and Kate Bosworth have split after dating for nearly three years, People magazine reported Monday.So that was the sound of hysterical fangirl shrieking I heard this morning and not just my morning yell of horror.
Posted by fad at 1:04pm
Gollum
Since television, games and movies control our behavior, I hereby blame Return of the King -- the crappiest of the three movies -- for this.At some point, Jose allegedly bit off a third of his brother's middle finger on his right hand. According to the complaint, police said Jose appeared to be quite drunk.Well, that's good to know. But the real question is, did he get the precious back?
[...]
"Yeah, I'm not proud to say I did, but it happened so quick," he told KMSP-TV of the Twin Cities. "We were both kind of intoxicated. I didn't sit there chewing or gnawing or anything like this."
UPDATE: Tag closed because some philistines can't handle my art. At least I'm safe in the knowledge that I'm not understood in my own time. That means I'm a genius for sure.
Posted by fad at 1:00pm
In Which I Comment On A Commercial
I tried Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper once. It's not bad, but nothing special. But I have to give them praise and honor and meats and cheeses for using the Muppets version of that "Menomena" song in their commercials.
Posted by fad at 12:15pm
Booger!
I call it the Dr. Johnny Fever Syndrome.The researchers identified women in the study who were 70 or older and assessed their mental status using various tests of memory, verbal fluency and general mental skills over a six-year period starting in 1995.Drink up, granny!
[...]
The study, by Dr. Mark Espeland and his colleagues at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., used different tests of mental abilities and found that women who had one drink a day scored higher than those who did not drink at all.
Posted by fad at 11:55am
Giant John Wilkes Booth
Call the Super Best Friends, the minions of David Blaine are on the loose in Russia.Across Moscow, a chestnut as old as crystal balls and gypsy curses makes regular appearances on the crime logs — hundreds of victims a year who say they were seduced out of their money in seemingly chance encounters with strangers. Many claim they were hypnotized by intense stares, mesmerizing babble and warnings of curses on their loved ones.Curse you David Blaine!
Posted by fad at 10:21am
I Initially Missed The Word 'Statue' In The Headline
First millions of women vote, now another victory for the sisterhood.Trouble began as soon as Baggage Handler, a statue of a suitcase-toting naked man surrounded by luggage, was installed in a turnaround at the marina in this lakeside resort town.And thus ended the Patriarchy. Mark down the date. They'll be telling the soma raised children about this in the school farms one day. This statue almost didn't get set up due to the brave but initially futile efforts of those who didn't want this clearly oppressive symbol of dominance and cultural destruction of the "age of exploration".
[...]
Now vandals have bashed away the penis on [on the] 61/2-foot epoxy-impregnated plaster statue, broken the ankles and knocked over the 24 suitcases.
At a town council meeting in January soon after the publicly funded statue was unveiled, [the Mayor] and a number of local residents demanded that it be removed.Speaking for the entire world, I thank him for his dedication to the progressive cause. The artist has, of course, reacted with the usual proper perspective.
Council members said they were unaware of the nudity last year when they approved the statue as one of four temporary art works for the roundabout in 2005-06 but voted 5 to 1 to allow it to remain through September, when it is scheduled to be replaced. [The Mayor] cast the lone no vote.
"Someone said to me, 'Well, what did you expect, putting a nude statue up in Penticton?' That's like saying to a woman who's been raped, 'what did you expect wearing a skirt that goes above your knees.' Disgusting,"Of course an oppressor such as himself trying to force phalluses upon society to remind women they are to remain silent would bring up rape.
Posted by fad at 10:04am
Please Don't Take The Jokes As Serious Economics
Oh, I can't wait to see the strikes over this.The French government is proposing plans to ease the rules on the country's 35-hour working week.Of course they've been making noise about that for years. Let's see how popular this idea is.
However, a recent poll shows that the majority of French workers do not want to work longer hours.Well that's a three fingered shocker if I ever heard one. Who would ever suspect that most people wouldn't work more if they didn't have to? Certainly no hard socialist or communist would think that. The communist solves the problem by helping The People™ express their real desire to work by forcing them to with the encouraging killing off of a few inauthentics. The capitalist is more than happy to let you not work; they just hope you pick a comfy ditch to starve and die in. The Randians will just rant at you for several hours, then participate in weird, rape-like sex rituals that are at the center of their religion. Well, that's if they can actually find another person who is as correct about Rand as they are and is therefore worthy of being around.
Yet the real problem facing France is unemployment, running at almost 10% of the workforce. The Socialists theory that shorter hours would create millions of new jobs did not live up to its promise.That just means it wasn't tried right.
Posted by fad at 7:27am
He Probably Did Not Eat A Lot Of Pork
Steeeeeve Perry.
Posted by fad at 6:47am
Rancid
(Upon checking email last night to discover 6 new trackback notification emails within a couple minutes of each other)Shit.
What?
Spammers.
No...
Yep.
Shit.
So I had to turn them off completely. Good thing too because since last night there have been several thousand attempts, at a rate of several a minute, to hit the trackback function.
Posted by fad at 6:07am
January 31st, 2005
Joke Falls Apart
Goddammit. Everyone always steals my ideas before I get a chance to use them.A man ran into the nearly empty Oregon Senate chamber Monday and sat at the podium for nearly an hour, holding a 12-inch butcher knife to his chest, before police arrested him.If it was a protest to raise awareness about the lack of petunias for whales, I'm going to be really pissed. That means someone's been snooping.
[...]
During the standoff, the man was talking to himself and smoking a cigarette
Posted by fad at 4:58pm
Great Set Up, Though
I had hoped that a story about a a goat, a man named 'Randy Cox' and a jealous dog named Dandy would have been more interesting.
Posted by fad at 2:23pm
Something Learned Watching 'The Core' This Weekend
Hillary Swank is trying to communicate with me through her movies.
Posted by fad at 2:15pm
Stupid Farmers
Brave Republican lawmakers stand firm in a passive agressive fight to keep Indiana one of the last free place on earth.Republican lawmakers who control the Indiana General Assembly are taking their time on Governor Daniels' proposal that the whole state observe daylight-saving time.Fight on, dear sirs. Fight on. Do not let its scourge encroach any farther.
Posted by fad at 2:10pm
I Hate My Fullname
We all read stories or know of incidents of parents naming their children poorly, but I'm not quite sold on this suggestion for preventing bad naming.Take your baby's new name for a "test run," he suggests. Pose as a person with the name you're thinking of and hit a schoolyard, a rock concert and a bar. See how different sets of people respond to the name you have in mind.The schoolyard is the best one. Just imagine some dude walking around a bunch of kids, "Hey kids...call me 'Chip'. I wanna be your friend. Your friend 'Chip'. Yeah, 'Chip'. You kids wanna play with 'Chip'?"
And why does it have to be a rock concert? Can't they test it out at a nice outdoor arts festival or lite jazz setting?
Posted by fad at 11:20am
Poppings
Forget any other details about today, it's Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day! If you have none near you right now, there is this cheezy online version to help you celebrate.
Posted by fad at 10:05am
Cliche
Tonight's challenge: Will I actually watch this tonight. TV is my best and dearest friend, but it has been known to let me down once in a while.
Posted by fad at 9:52am
Easily My Best Stunt
By request: Hugs.
Posted by fad at 9:12am
Plus I Got In Another Gillespie Slam
Now that the anniversary stuff is out of the way, it's time for everyone's favorite feature: The lazy review of the wacky search hits from the second half of the month. This will be short since most searches were for the one mentioned below, Elijah Wood's penis and with whom he may be sharing it, bunt cake and other boring things.- hamsters at the inauguration ball
- Sorry, none that I know of. However, had John Kerry won, there would have been a symbolic releasing of caged hamsters followed by demonstrations of how he performed mouth to mouth to save one's life.
- asparagus pee flammable
- It'd better be or I've been wasting my time for the last 6 years.
- linda blair's tits
- Sorry to disappoint whoever was looking for those here, but I hope you eventually found what you needed.
- al franken shithead
- It is with some pride that I point out such a search hit found this place.
- Playboy magazine's hairiest women
- The same cannot be said for this one.
- 'wacky inventions for groundhogs'
- Sorry, we only discuss serious inventions for groundhogs around here.
- soviet batshittery
- Now there's a goldmine of possibilities.
- i hate charles dickens
- Then you have a good and pure heart.
- why when i cough do i pee
- Because that's freedom, baby!
- women's studies girls gone wild lesbians
- "One of these things is not like the other ones"
- virginia postrel nick gillespie
- Ah, someone looking for how His Smugness, the Gillespie, donned his Fonzie jacket and set about ruining (with the exception of bringing Matt Welch on board) a once great magazine!
And so there goes another half-month of peering into the internet's brain.
Posted by fad at 6:47am
Punch And Pie Will Not Be Provided
Today marks 3 years since I started blogging. The first site was originally created as a joke for my friends, then discovered somehow by Tim Blair whose links sent me a mighty 70 hits a day. Now, just in the last week, 90% of traffic here is referral and attempted comment spammers (as well as people searching for "tub girl", which is really not right).A lot has changed since then (including just about everyone's url, not just mine). Back then I was in the middle of my second and last 27th year and, from looking at some old archives, full of the newbie need to praise/link Instapundit all the time. In my defense, I claim it wasn't as lame to do that back then. The initial site was mostly political commentary bluster, now I lack the self-confidence to pretty much believe in anything anymore.
But at least I still have my lame jokes. And since I seem to be addicted to this stuff, those jokes and I will probably be around for awhile.
Posted by fad at 6:16am
January 30th, 2005
Admin Stuff
You are going to see a bunch of extra error messages in the comments and such. I'm working on something that required turning them on. Everything should still be working, though.UPDATE: Ok, I'm done with that for now. The weird messages should be gone. Weird posts....well, we'll see.
Posted by fad at 1:20pm
The Election
As the election got going last night, I found myself glued to the coverage until about 3am or so in some sort of odd, stupid, helpless, hopeful vigil. Basic decency required wanting the whole event to go off as smoothly as possible (which meant, simply, without lots of death and destruction in the hopes of nothing more than terrorizing the populace).The coverage was interesting, just on a contrast level. CNN turned it over to the international desk, which, as I understand it, is just another set in Atlanta, but the anchors have non-American accents (and the woman anchor has strange, mistimed emphasis spasms as she speaks). The main Baghdad correspondent's updates could be paraphrased as this:
"Well, even with the extreme threat of violence, it appears they are actually voting. This despite the threatening looming threat of violently threatened violent violence that looms as a violent threat over all those threatened with looming violence today."
Their people at some of the outlying polling places seemed, at times, to be swept up by what built into sometimes giddy chanting and dancing by those waiting in line. Some would accuse them of letting their objectivity fall (they kept that in line by using the term "violence" when they could), but it was nice to see them being so human along with the scene. To not be carried away at least a little bit by such joy would have been more false than a slight loss of objectivity.
FoxNews was its usual strange hilarity. The main man in Iraq was, of course, Geraldo who was spitting defiance at any stinkin', bastard terrorist who might get in his way. You'd think he'd been Ramboing it up through the countryside the way he was going.
The main anchorwoman sounded like she'd gargled a clutch of rough gravel before airtime. The instudio stuff was mostly, "This is a fantastic day, but what I wanted to ask you is, isn't this just the most fantastickest?" Then Susan Estrich showed up, and I had to turn away. While after midnight seems the most appropriate time for the visual and auditory effect of Estrich, it is the time one is least prepared to deal with it.
Finally, the ink covered finger thing is really cool. For a brief moment last night, I thought about coating mine to show solidarity. Then I remembered it was 3am and I had a couple drinks in me. I've been learning these are usually not the best conditions for my best ideas.
I really do hope that this is the beginning of a truly free and democratic Iraq. Tough, tough work ahead, but a brave first step can only get the momentum going. May the Iraqis have a great, free and prosperous future.
Posted by fad at 12:53pm