Tuesday, December 28, 2010

To catsitters, to make much with thyme...

Visited my parents in Texas over X-mas. I live in Kentucky. That's like, over fifty miles away! Some friends were visiting from Kansas (I have some quite long-reaching associations... bear that in mind when messing with my mafia) and they needed a place to crash that didn't have babies or mother-in-laws, and preferably had a cat. I has three cats. They are beefcats who sleep in sausage gravy, if you didn't know.

As with any time someone house/cat sits for me, I left them a note outlining some basics. I started writing something like...

"Hey, D&S...

There's food. There are cats. Don't confuse them..."

But it just rang hollow to me. So I decided to do what any of us would do...

I wrote a long lost chapter of the Necronomicon.

Here, then, is the unedited version of this note...
(BTW, I'm posting this because I want to get to twenty posts in a year, and this may just help push me over the edge. That, and it's pretty damn funny... Also some background info: I'm babysitting a cat called Milkshakes, and my apartment has a room that tapers in the ceiling and recesses in the floor, which makes it look like a church. So naturally I put a flag with the FSM in there, with x-mas lights. I am normal.)

The Gospel of the Methhaus apartment (as dictated to the "Mad Arab"), The Lost Book of the Necronomicon

1. And the lord thy god, the great oldest one, said unto the keepers of the felines of the one who looks at the dead:

2. Who soever eateth the pork curry in the box as cold as R'hley shall rejoice, for gastric pleasure and spelling mistakes shall be theirs.

3. And unto you I give the contents of the manna room, for within ye shall enjoy the delights therein.

4. But yea, heed ye this warning. Thou shalt not eat of the truffle, for if thou doust, thou shall encourage the wrath of the squid beast.

5. And thou shalt not consume all of the tomatoes dried by Masaka's gaze, or the crawling chaos shall enter your ears and eat upon your sanity.

6. And before the keepers could respond, the great oldest one continued "... Your sanity! The chaos shall eat it! Nibble nibble nibble! Which is a shock, let me tellst thou."

7. And I did see the pot that makes the black lifeblood, hidden with the blender, under the washing area where cats fear to tread.

8. And behold, the seven rolls of papyrus that shan't be used twice, hidden under the sink in Bath's room.

9. And shall the fattest of the beefcats whine? The oldest one said "Yea, for when you shall feed the beefcats, the whiner shall demand treats."

10. And I looked and saw, in the drawers beside the food of the beefcats, a plethora of treats for beefcats.

11. And the sheets were cleansed.

12. And the bananas were purchased.

13. Yet, tho the keepers did request it, the juice of the cow's breast was nowhere to be found.

14. The great oldest one saw my confusion, and said "I forgot. I could have gone to the store again, but I couldn't be bothered."

15. And I saw the takers of refuse, for they come on the day of fri. And all were pleased.

16. But then, lo, I did smell a great stench and heard a scratching sound. I did wail and gnash my teeth, and the oldest one said "The beefcat with the name that shall bring all of the cultist males under 18 to the yard has stinky poos.

17. STINKY POOOOOOOOS!!!"

18. And I wondered about entertainment, and was pleased when I saw over 400 geebees of entertainment on the small box of the Revo in the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

19. And I wondered about internet access, and was dismayed by the wire that must be connected to the top of my lap.

20. And I wondered aloud, "O Oldest One, What if I have a queery about something? Whom shall I pray to?"

21. And the oldest one said "Pray ye to the one who looks at the dead, for his cell phone shall be in service, and he shall answer."

22. And thou hast lost the game.

23. And the oldest one said "Verily, that is what she spake!"

24. And when I asked "What do you mean by that?" I was banished to the abyss, starring Ed Harris.

25. Happy intercoursing holidays, and danke.

Song of teh post: Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff
Pissed off Lovecraftian elder god of teh post: Cthulhu! Ia Ia Cthulhu Ftaghan!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Paleontology goo...

So many people have asked me what could possibly be on a paleontology final... Well this is the first part of the final. The second part will be correctly identifying fossils down to family/genus level. It's not perfect. But it's what I got. Not gonna post the questions either... gotta retain some semblance of mystery. This is the first draft, I'll clean it up laters.

And I'm actually doing this for my own benefit. I'm hoping some paleontologist will stumble on this and correct my ass. I'm an undergrad, but I deserve a scholastic spanking sometimes... In any case, this is the science I intend to do my graduate work in. Enjoy!

1.
Preservation or fossilization of animals can occur in several ways. Hard parts can be preserved in the following ways: Complete preservation by way of immediate burial (which is highly rare), decay of soft parts and/or transport of the hard parts which can lead to the hard parts being preserved unaltered or recrystallized (calcite changing to aragonite, silica, etc); if no recrystallization occurs, material can be removed through many processes, resulting in internal molds and casts, of either partial or complete preservation; if material is added, by pore intrusion by minerals (permineralization), sediment or mineral infill, or molecular replacement, an internal cast may happen. Naturally, most fossils are a combination of any of the above processes. Also there is petrification, which is a chemical process normally used to refer to fossilized plant material. These do not take into account footprints, ripple marks, trace fossils, or burrowing animal evidence, as they do not contain any soft or hard parts of an animal.

Both hard and soft parts of an organism can be fossilized, although obviously hard parts are much more likely. For soft parts, the most complete method (indeed, the most complete of any form of preservation) would be freezing of the body, in whole or part. Such examples as wooly mammoths in Siberia, and even the waste products of certain arctic and antarctic animals, lead to an extremely accurate account of the lives of extinct animals. Of course, preservation like this is entirely climate dependent. Other examples of soft body preservation or fossilization are environment dependent, but much more likely to occur, namely desiccation and burial,. Rapid burial under anaerobic conditions with the concurrent decreased possibility for scavenging and decay (due to the low oxygen) is possible, however rare. These lagerstatten (those Germans and their wonderful words) occur all over the world, with the most famous being the Burgess shale of Canada. Near perfect soft body preservation of organisms led to discoveries that are described in Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life. Also very good preservation systems can be found in Mazon creek formation near Chicago. These, of course, would give the paleontologist a very good amount of information about past ecologies and the biology of the organisms therein. Barring that, a life assemblage (fossil assemblages that are buried in situ) are the second best, while not as perfect as a lagerstatten like the Burgess shale. Life assemblages give us a great glimpse into the ecology of an area and the biology of the critters preserved there (as long as one accepts the concept that modern analogues are accurate when compared with similar animals from a long extinct time).

Modern areas of prime fossilization are rare, as human behavior and habits can disturb many potential fossil-forming areas. One of the prime areas that could be used is a very deep lake with inlets of sediment flowing in rapidly. The lack of oxygen in the deep water, the cold nature of water past the sunlight penetrating zones, an absence of scavengers due to the lack of oxygen, and a rapid burial could preserve and fossilize hard parts quite well. The outflow of large rivers also has the potential to bury animals quickly, although there may be oxygen and scavengers present.


2.
Temperature.
Temperature factors are obtainable from fossil assemblages because of several reasons. First, certain animals will not survive in certain temperatures (too hot or too cold will kill an animal). This is particularly important when thinking about cold blooded animals like lizards or amphibians. If the modern analogues of these animals cannot survive below a certain temperature, it is likely that their ancestors weren't able to tolerate cold temperatures either. On the reverse side, polar bears do not tolerate hot climates very well; their bodies are evolved to tolerate frigid temperatures. If one sees several lizard fossils in an assemblage, then the paleoclimate must have been one that had warm temperatures. Also, the growth rate and reproduction of animals is dictated to a large part by the metabolism of the creature. A cold environment creates a slow metabolism, which in turn decreases the growth rate of the animal. This makes breeding a very late stage process as opposed to warmer climates, in which pedomorphosis is more common rather than peramorphosis, as occurs in colder climates. However, each animal has a particular zone of temperature that it abides best in, and according to Van Hoft's rule, lower the temperature deviates from ideal (every ten degrees Celsius), the slower the biological reaction rates are (by a factor of 1 to 6). Also, morphology can be affected by temperature in many ways. Warm water has more dissolved calcium carbonate for marine critter shells to form, and less dissolved gasses which make cold water animals intolerant to the temperature by a roundabout way. Even the handedness of certain gastropods denotes temperature, with certain species coiling right handedly during warm periods, and left handedly during glacial periods. This is all, of course, based on our assumption that certain species behaved in ways that their modern analogues do. There may be arctic lizards we don't know about, but when diagnosing a fossil assemblage, taking into account all the fossils makes us relatively certain. It is a safe assumption that an arctic lizard, if there ever was one, would not inhabit the same ecological area as a set of other warm weather species.

Salinity.
Mean salinity of the ocean is around thirty five percent NaCl. This does not mean, however, that all ocean water is the same percentage saline. Waters near the shore (especially near freshwater outflow) are subject to widely varying salinity (so-called brackish water), which leads to particularly hearty forms of life living there. Massive outflows of freshwater can give way to periods of evaporation that concentrates the salt in the water. Particularly, organisms that have evolved the ability to regulate the amount of salt in their bodies (otherwise known as euryhaline). These are usually relatively simple life forms like certain bivalves, crustaceans, and forams, and can be a definitive argument for the paleoecology of the area being one of fluctuating salinity. Most marine critters are stenohaline, which means they have no ability to regulate the amount of salt in their bodies. Some critters, usually exclusively in fresh water, have very little tolerance to salt, and some, namely certain types of algae, shrimp, and bacteria, can tolerate hypersaline conditions. All this, of course, is exclusively dealing in marine realms, as there are few euryhaline terrestrial animals (some species of reptile excluded) and even fewer inland salt water bodies. In this example, our assumptions are based off of not only the modern analogues, but the positions of animals with each other in life assemblage fossils. Bivalves and molluscs that exist near each other must have had similar salinity tolerances, which leads to better evaluation of paleoecology.

Light.
Most organisms need light to survive, either by primary production or consumption of the primary producers (some deep sea animals live off of the sulfuric compounds that emanate from hydrothermal vents, with other animals living off them: yet more biostratigraphic guide fossils, if they ever fossilize). Plants are the obvious potential fossils, but in marine environments, it gets a bit more tricky. Certain organisms that do not photosynthesize yet are first or second level consumers or are symbiotic with photosynthetic organisms can't exist beyond the photic zone. Hermatypic corals, large forams, and giant clams are dependent not only on photosynthetic organisms for food, but even for their symbiotic relationships with them. As a rule of thumb, any organism that is light dependent or it's primary consumers cannot exist outside of a narrow margin in and directly below the photic zone. Ahermatipic scavengers and the predators that eat them exist further down the ocean column. In an extreme example of our dealing with the inherent problems of defining the ecology of an extinct system, both of the above assumptions (that dealt with temperature and salinity, respectively) can be used. The organisms that exist near each other coupled with the behavior of extant species are accurate estimations of the paleoecological areas and the paleobiological realms of extinct species.
3.
Ordovician.
After the Cambrian extinction, some small evolution of vertebrates was evident in the Ordovician period, along with the extinction of some deep-water trilobite species, but the biggest expansion was in the shelled critters. Among the most dominant were the pentamerid and inarticulate brachiopods, the tabulate corals (which were the primary reef builders after the rudists) like halysitdae, which spread widely during the late Ordovician, the cryptostome and treptostome bryozoans, archaeogastropods like macluitdae, shallow water trilobites like asaphinids, and most abundantly, the crinoids, which went a huge expansion during this time, and are the most dominant fossil presence.

Jurassic.
Scleractinian corals expanded, with types like montastrea being the most dominant, along with saccocoma crinoids, but the gastropods like turritella, molluscs like the oyster-type graphaea, and ammonites like stephanoceras expanded greatly. Trilobites are now all but extinct. What is particularly interesting is the expansion of the vertebrates like liopleurodons being abundant, although rarely fossilized. The shallow marine environment of the Jurassic was abundant with many varied types of life, including pseudodiadema echinoids (sea urchins) that evolved from more primitive echinoids earlier in the Carboniferous period. Overall, the bioecology of the ocean branched out and expanded in several ways, with lots of major diversification from the Permian and Triassic periods, and with the shelled critters overtaking crinoids as the most dominant fossil presence.

Eocene.
Long after the first mammals inhabited the land, they returned to the ocean, with the first species of whales evident in the Eocene. The neogastropods were in full flourish, with several genera evident in the fossil record, like nassarius and conus. Nautiloids were taking the niches of ammonites,which were dying out. Sea urchins like Lutetiaster were abundant in the warm, brackish waters, as well as several hundred species of fish (the dominant vertebrates in marine environments), like diplomystus, which is now extinct. The Eocene contains several modern analogues to current genera, if not those exact genera that have changed little in thirty four million years, adding or dropping species occasionally. The most dominant form of fossil are still the shelled critters, with neogastropods and molluscs overtaking the more primitive shelled animals.

4.
It would be safe to assume that since limestone is made primarily of calcium carbonate, that the production of the rock would be predicated on the production of animals that produce calcium carbonate for some reason, be it shell production, stalk production, or even as a byproduct of some other process (though this is far from likely). It therefore stands to reason that the best way to discover what a particular limestone formation is made of is dependent on the forms of life that make the calcium carbonate. Sure, geological reworking has a definite factor to the overall texture of the limestone, but the basic parts, not to mention the larger fossils, would remain unchanged. So, in essence, the only real way to distinguish on sight a particular type of limestone would be to analyze its skeletal components and what type of fossils lie in it.

The most predominant forms of life that contributed to the past petrogenesis of limestone were usually confined to shallow tropical ocean water environments. Of course, in order for limestone to be made, things have to die. When they die, they collect and are lithified. Limestones like the enormous chalk beds that formed during the cretaceous (creta, in Latin, means chalk) are made up of microscopic organisms called coccolithophores, the poorly cemented coquinas made of fragmented shells (and because of this have to be at least as old as the evolution of CaCO3 shells), and oolitic limestone, made out of oolites, onion layer-like deposits of calcite around a grain of sediment, can and have formed over vast swaths of time. But here, condensed, is an approximate overview of some of the early eras.

Archean:
Stromatolites dominated the life form arena, up until the Proterozoic, and produced what CaCO3 we can find from this time period today.

Proterozoic:
Still mostly stromatolites. Evolution occurring among some groups of corals and critters, but not much is in the fossil record.

Cambrian:
The Cambrian explosion led to a vast diversification of organisms; corals, bivalves, trilobites, a few molluscs, etc. All of which are carbonate producers. From here on out, with a few variations, the major players in limestone production are here.

Ordovician:
Anthozoan corals abound, and more and more critters take shape and contribute to the fossil record in limestone. The development and expansion of bryozoans as well as the radiation of gastropods and articulate bivalves occurs, along with uncoiled nautiloids.

Silurian-Devonian:
Tabulate corals and forams are the primary limestone contributors here.

This trend occurs up until the Cretaceous, when some of the main distribution of limestone takes the form of the coccolithophores in chalk. All throughout this time, shelled organisms are dying and being lithified or recycled and turned back into CaCO3 for the other critters to use. It's difficult to keep tabs, but as a general rule, the animals that were able to use CaCO3 created and were fossilized in limestone, and generally they were of increasing complexity, from simple bivalves and solitary corals to complex, colonial corals and other bivalves, gastro/cephalopods, and complex arthropods.

5.
Forams/ Diatoms
Heterotrophic feeding/ Autotrophic feeding
Shell composed of:/ Shell composed of:
Tectin, agglutinated/ Silicious “frustule”
material, or secreted/
calcite/
Precambrian-Holocene/ Jurassic-Holocene

The foraminefera are more likely to be in marine environments, although some can live in brackish waters. Diatoms dominate the freshwater environments. Fusilinidae forams are great for correlating upper Paleozoic rocks, as they went extinct at the end of the Permian.

6.
Interval zone: Biostratigraphic zone which correlates the beginning and/or end of one or more fossil taxa
Assemblage zone: Biostratigraphic zone which includes multiple taxa
Abundance zone: Where a particular fossil taxon reaches a higher level of abundance


(Created with Microsoft paint program. Technically, I drew it. I'm kosher here.)

Planktonic organisms are useful for naming zones and time stratigraphic relationships because the appearance and extinctions of certain types of organisms clearly mark certain time boundaries. For instance, diatom biostratigraphy, which is based on time-constrained evolutionary apperances and extinctions of unique diatoms, is well developed and widely applicable in marine systems.

Phew!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Killing the cat, metaphorically speaking...



You know what bugs me... Hang on, that's not the way to start this...



Let's try this...



Go to a mirror. Look at your reflection. Something you've seen all your life. Sure its changed a bit since, well, every other day, but it's you. Big deal. But try this.

Feel the area of your skull just above your eye sockets. If you're a male, you probably have a ridge there. Females usually don't have this, even though its pervasive through all the races of humanity. This brow ridge is there mostly as an anchor spot for muscles in the face, and for some reason males have bigger muscle scars on their bones than females do (just ask any forensic anthropologist!). There are other muscle scars on other areas of the skull, like behind the ear and the jaw insertions that males seem to have more of than females do. Why is that? We still don't know, but are ya curious?

Now close your eyes. Express happiness. Did you smile? Of course you did. Did you know that people who are blind from birth smile when they're happy? They do. Why? If you go to the animal kingdom, the bearing of teeth is usually used as an expression of aggression. Feral children don't smile. Why do we smile? We think we know, but are you curious yet?

Now just stare at your reflection. See your face? It's composed of atoms, basically. These atoms were cooked up in the furnace of a star, billions of years ago. The carbon in the proteins, the calcium in your bones, the iron in your blood, all that stuff was thrown from a star as it exploded in its final stages of life. Did you hear that? A star died so you could be here. How does this happen? You curious about that?

All those atoms have been kicking around space for eons, millions of millenia. They coalesced into one form in one sliver of time to make you. And you can contemplate that. Imagine how precious that is! All those billions of years and nothing. Now, in this brief period of time, you are here where nothing once was. You, imperfect, spotty, farty, goofy, perverted, bad habit-having you. You can think about this fact. Isn't that amazing? For almost fifteen billion years there was nothing as far as you're concerned, and now you're experiencing it.

The universe is almost fifteen billion years old. That's fifteen BILLION. That's a large number. It's kind of hard to contemplate. Dinosaurs died out sixty five million years ago. One million years ago our ancestors were just going bald and figuring out that the sharp pointy bits of a stick can bring down a big ole beast to eat. We think that a person who is a hundred years old is really old. Balls. Old is the earth. Over four billion years old. Huge swaths of time passed between the beginning of the universe and the formation of the earth, and more huge swaths of time passed between the beginning of the earth and the formation of life. Huge swaths of time passed between the beginning of life and us. Hundreds of millions of years. There were only five hundred thousand people at Woodstock, and if you pretend each person was one year, that is almost 1/800th of the number of years just multicellular life has been on the planet.

The earth! What a wonderful place. It seems huge, doesn't it! It's massive. It's where everything we know... is! All that has happened , all history, all discovery, all murder, love, war, peace, tyrants and saints, from spears and arrows to rockets and nuclear bombs. All of it is here. At best, we've got a plaque, some footprints, and a flag up on the moon, some bits of metal floating around deep space, but who we are, all of us, is here on this huge planet. Now go to the orbit of Mars and look back. We're nothing but a pixel. All we are and know is on this tiny speck of rock floating in the middle of nothing.

All this grandeur, all the improbable circumstances, all the wonderful things, painful and pleasing, that happened for you to get here are amazing in their scope. To be alive and realize you're alive is awe-inspiring, and now that we know what we know about the universe, it's even more mind boggling! Evolution molding us into what we are today, with no reason or purpose, just natural laws and biology. You are the culmination of an evolutionary journey. You did it. You hit the genetic jackpot, and you didn't even try!

All this amazing possibility and room for growth, the terrifying vastness of the universe, the arrangements of atoms that make up the molecules that make up the DNA that make up you- all a natural process. All explainable. And all you have to do to know about it is learn! To pick up a book about genetics, or astrophysics, or evolution, or geology, or whatever you don't know about, and find out that we figured all this out- talking monkeys figured out all this amazing stuff- is truly a wonderful thing. We are a smart and wonderful species, and our curiosity is something that has propelled us to what we are now. For good or ill, it has been there, helping us.

And then, there are the willfully ignorant, the liars, the people who want to scare you into the small, ever shrinking universe that they find comfortable...


Evolution has no explanation as to why and how around 1.4 million species of animals evolved as male and female .
- Ray Comfort

To say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can. - Kirk Cameron

The real purpose is to say the Bibles true, and its history. Genesis is true. - Ken Ham

Oh, absolutely, ... because, you know, the Bible teaches that God made land animals on day six, alongside of Adam and Eve. - Ken Ham

Only Christianity and its teachings can explain the purpose and meaning of this world--and also gives the basis for right and wrong, good and evil, etc.
- Ken Ham

"The Earth is billions of years old. The geologic column is the way to interpret it, and Charles Darwin's evolution is right." That is what they teach in order to be a good communist. Did you know that Russian teachers come to America to study education because the American educational system is considered the best in the world for teaching students these three principals. This prepares them to be good communists and to doubt the word of God. - Kent Hovind

“Who are you gonna believe, the scientists or God?"
(Mewling crowd OF CHILDREN) “God!”
"That's right, and don't you forget it!”
- Ken Ham

Cain promoted the evolutionary doctrine that man can progress by his own efforts… When God rejected his [sacrifice], he became angry at God. Since he could not hurt God, he took out his anger on God’s servant, his brother… Cain’s efforts to “evolve” closer to God met with disaster... The story of evolution continues in Gen. 9:22, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.” ... When the people left the Tower of Babel, they took their false religion of evolution with them. - Kent Hovind

These people are evil. They want to take your awe, curiosity, and wonder and throw it away, replacing it with shame, flagellation, and the "honor" of begging for forgiveness for being human. They lie, cheat, and in some cases, steal, to have their way with your sense of adventure to make it fit in with their tiny little worldview.

Don't let them do this.

Keep your awe. When you look in the sky at night, don't think that it's a pretty decoration created for you, think of it as a frontier to be explored. When you smell a flower, or pet a puppy, or hold a baby, don't think that it was just a whim of a bored skybeast that brought it into your path, think of how the flower came from other plants, whose evolution is directly linked to the evolution of the insects that pollinate it, or that the puppy came from wolves that inhabited human settlements ten thousand years ago, or that the baby came out of the womb in a time where its chances for surviving were greater than its chances of dying by a huge margin, thanks to medicine, science, innovation, and curiosity.

We are cheated by the people who demand reverence for a bronze age deity. Cheated out of our wonder. Cheated out of our awe. Cheated out of our lives.

Give them nothing but skepticism, and don't take them seriously. They don't love you. They want to destroy the only thing you have that is insubstantial but powerful enough to destroy them...

They want to destroy your curiosity.

Song of teh post: Rise Above, by Black Flag
World view of teh post: Skepticism for the win, baby!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Haiku time...



Haiku time again?
How about "PENIS PENIS
PENIS PENIS!" LOL!

Wolves are attacking!
Someone get Sarah Palin!
She is good wolf food.

Ancient form of art...
Poetry, timeless and new...
Nipple Sausage Rot.

Ah! Aqua Buddha!
Let your ice creamy goodness
Ruin my health care!

Someone as funny
and clever as I am still
makes minimum wage.

Burn up that work clock!
Blog and get paid for blogging!
American Dream!

Be wary of me...
I am unstable and wild...
OVER NINE THOUSAND!

There once was a man
From Nantucket... Wait a sec.
Wrong poetry style.

Does anyone have
Change for a paradigm? WOAH!
I just
blew your mind!

Purge these silly thoughts...
Make them work for, not against...
Zen art of bullshit.

Can't sleep? Let me help!
Call me now, I'm standing by
With Iron hammers.

If something is made
of iron materials
is it "ferro"cious?

That last haiku was
something just for the geeks, nerds
and mad scientists.

Sup, brah. You should know
This copy of Windows is
Not Genuine, dude.

"Know what you're doing?"
"Of course! I always do this!"
"Then why are there flames?"

Can't sleep? Let me help!
Call me now, I'm standing by,
With pills and nude clowns.

Bukowski was right!
I write better when I'm drunk.
My liver agrees.

Have you heard the news?
They will kill all Grandmas soon!
Damn you, Obama!

Can't sleep? Let me Help!
Call me now, I'm standing by
your bed with a snake.

Lady in red boots
stomping on my scrotum smiles.
She is paid quite well.

If god is both all
knowing and powerful then
why do the tunes suck?

Someone pass me a
Vicodin and a gogurt...
I'm on a journey...

Can't sleep? Let me help!
Call me now, I'm standing by,
I'll bring the Boone's Farm.


Song of teh post: TV Party, by Black Flag
Poet of teh post: Fiendly Grimmish Writes/such bad poetry that you/will shit yourself dead.

Monday, November 1, 2010

In Defense of a Liberal Worldview (I are Seriose voter, this are Seriose stuf)



There are a few things I feel that I should clear up before the vote tomorrow. (FOR CHRIST'S SAKE ARE WE GONNA HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN!?!?!?) Mainly due to the fact that there are people who value rhetoric over reality, furious to functional, imaginary over intelligent. (SERIOUSLY! THESE FUCKWADS ARE THE ONES THAT GOT US INTO THIS FUCKING MESS!!!!!) If you told the average tea party enthusiast (THEY CALL THEMSELVES TEABAGGERS! TEABAGGERS!!!!!) that most likely their taxes went down under Obama's administration, or that the best way to economically run government isn't to let corporations have more rights than citizens do, but to carefully balance available taxable income with social and political programs, you'd get a firm, yet reasonable debate. (BULLSHIT! THEY CALL ME HITLER!!! COCKBAG, DOUCHEHEAD, SHITBRAINED, GOPHERFUCKING, ASSHAMSTER, DICKSTAIN, BALLRIPPING, HYPOCRITICAL, TOADMOLESTING, MOLESTACHEHAVING, VULVALANCING, KNOW-NOTHING MERCURY ADDICTS!!!!!111ONE!!) I find that informing these wonderful people of some non-revisionist history, some basic science, and some social theory can help them see our side of the picture. (YOU HAVE TO NAIL THEM TO A CHAIR AND STAPLE THEIR EYELIDS TO THEIR FOREHEAD BEFORE THEY EVEN GET THE NEURAL IMPULSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T SHARE THEIR RELIGIOUS/POLITICAL/ANTI-SCIENCE VIEWS EVEN EXISTS IN THEIR FUZZY LITTLE XENOPHOBIC BRAINS!) What follows is some hard, painful truths for these misguided people (DICKS!!!!) and some helpful suggestions for dealing with them. Naturally, most people of a conservative bent aren't as fanatical as these people, and will accept evidence, but there are a few of you (I'M NOT A COYOTE WITH A WITCH FETISH WHO DRINKS HER OWN URINE FROM A BABY'S SKULL. I'M YOU!!!) who need to hear the following...




Evolution: (What you gonna believe? Science or tribal shamans with no hygiene and little reasoning power during their short, miserable lives?)

It happens. It's happening now. It has happened in the past. It will happen in the future. Deal with it. Just because you "don't believe" in it, or that you offhandedly dismiss anyone who does as a "Darwinist" or "Evolutionist," doesn't mean that it isn't FACT. If you bothered to Google "evidence of evolution" you'd be inundated with facts, facts FACTS! It can't get much clearer than "you're wrong". No amount of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming will stop it.
How to fix this problem...
All you have to do is deny any modern medicine or technology to these science deniers. One round of blood letting and humor testing, complete with leeches and prayer, and you'll see these people running back to science, maybe even learning a thing er three.

The Founding Fathers (I gots a boner for teh flavah of teh slave owners!)

Ok, here's the deal. Imma give you a few quotes, and you tell me if they came from the founding fathers or www.atheists.org members...
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." "Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government." "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity." "Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together."

Give up?

They are all from our founding fathers. People like Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, et al, they were convinced that the health of the country was inversely proportional to the association that it has with the church. "But we have god on our money!" "The pledge of allegiance has god in it!" Please. Look up when those things were added and under what circumstances. Then we'll talk. By the way, Darwin is on British money. They consistently outperform the United States in almost every standard of healthy societies. And they're the lousiest performers in all of Western Europe. Makes you think, if you could.
How to fix this problem...
These people want a religion based society rather than a secular government? Tell them to go kick it in Iran or Somalia for a while. Then ask them if they want Jesus with that constitution burger.
Also, just because it isn't in the constitution doesn't mean its against the law. Federal taxation pays for social security, medicare, etc. So unless you're totally off the government tit, don't bite down.

This isn't "your country." (Ahm takin mah countree back frum teh socialist nazi communist atheist muslims whut done runed it!)

We all live here. When we were bitching about Dubya (who was an abomination unto the lord, I know 'cause he told me (the lord, not Dubya)) you told us to love our country or to get out. Now you want to take your country back because we aren't stupid or mean enough to tell you to love it or leave it. Double standard? Surely you jest! (By the way, I'll see your Aqua Buddha and raise you a Swift Boat.) We all live here, get used to it. SO WHAT if you gotta press one for English? SO WHAT if you can't go to a gas pump without seeing a furrin language? SO WHAT that the gay neighbor wants to get married to his boyfriend of twenty years? SO FUCKING WHAT? Abortion is not murder, gay marriage will not lead to your wife leaving you for a truck driving dyke, your taxes aren't the problem. And to pretend that only your type of people deserve to live here is doing a disservice to all the people whose lives have been made better and more fulfilled because of the diversity in our country. In other words, you're a dick, and if there's a hell, I hope it's full of Mexican tormentors.
How to fix this problem...
Take off your Jebus or Mohammad blinders for two minutes, look around you. These are things that take a minimum of thought, so think for a minimum amount of time, and you'll see that we are sharing this country with a huge and diverse group. Not everyone believes what you believe, and nobody wants to make you believe what they believe. Be a dick about your own life, but let others live theirs.

Companies love you! (and that sweet, sweet lifeblood money that your children will undoubtedly fork into their gaping maws when they can afford the necessities in life, like diet Coke and Hummers.)
This should be a 'nuff said argument here. Companies don't love you. They want your money, not just from you using their products, but they don't want to pay taxes on their money. They want to get it all. "But the law of competition is sacrosanct!!" Dammit, no. You know what happens when competition is allowed to fulfill its natural destiny? One entity wins. Think about it. Do you want your children to go to Wal-Mart high, or to have to pay their taxes to Pepsi.gov? Regulation keeps behemoth multinationals from controlling everything!
How to fix this problem...
Apart from not buying from huge meganational corporations, there's not much left to do. The wave of deregulation is a huge and all encompassing one, and apart from a massive shift in our cultural consciousness, we, in the immortal words of Epicurus, are fukt.

And finally...
Liberals, please listen carefully... ('cause if you don't I'm going to beat you with a fetus)
If you know you're right, don't be afraid. These people have no argument that doesn't revolve around mistakes, so point out those mistakes. Be ruthless. Call out bullshit when you hear it. Who cares if they say "liberals can't take a joke" or laugh in your face? When you stand up for your beliefs as they're doing, you're going to get a few swings, maybe a few altercations under your belt, but every time that happens you figure out how to erode their posts a bit. This is a great country, with room for a wide array of opinions and philosophies, but if someone is so insanely, thigh suckingly, arse wideningly stupid that what they're saying doesn't make sense, then call their shit out! "Obama is a Muslim!" "BULLSHIT!" "The left are all nazis!" "COME ON, YOU IDIOT!!!" "Anyone is Hitler!" "OTHER THAN HITLER, NOBODY IS HITLER!"

In other words, tell them to...
GROW THE FUCK UP!!


Sorry. I'm normally pretty full of levity, but this has... irked me.



Song of teh post: We Are 138, by The Misfits
Angry Liberal of teh post: Everyone that understands that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck aren't the torchbearers of the illumination.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Story of Rufus 'Hornswagle' Capon


Chapter 1: Origins



Part 2: The Headmaster

When we asked about Rufus's school days, he got a wistful, contemplative look coming from the area around his rectum. Fortunately he was sitting down, so we didn't get to see it, and the look on his face was far more appropriate for the circumstances.

"My school? My school!? I've never forgiven those syphilis riddled rat finks for the torture and humiliation they put me through!" His eyes burned with an angry fire and his hand, which had found its way to his genitals, was flicking his right testicle repeatedly. "Those people, if you can call them that, I prefer to call them scum breathing, shit stained, ass widening, thigh sucking, wart fondling, Twilight reading, low lives who masturbate into hand lotion and play 'who's in my mouth' with doberman pinschers that- Deborah! Saliva vacuum!"

With that Rufus was escorted out into the waiting room, injected with Pepto Bismol and heroin, and wiped. Fortunately for us, we have entered the time of his life when actual records have been kept, and we can now do independent research regardless of his personal feelings. We dug a bit, and found his headmaster, Heinrich Aribertheim, was still alive and living in Swaziland.

When we found him, he kindly invited us in and had us sit down on some quite comfortable, if oddly leathered, recliners. He fetched us tea, gave us some cookie dough, and showed us the school uniforms he designed for his students. They were a lovely shade of tan, with red arm bands, a white patch, and a window made of mostly black stitching, but with what looked like permanent marker connecting the arms. "Bloody patch makers forgot to stitch the arms of the swast... er... window together. The window stands for the window to the soul that we open in educating the youth. That and glass." He then went into his desk, past crunchy copies of "Chunky Druids Fucking Cookie Jars" magazine, and pulled out a picture of his best friend from his school days, whom he only referred to as "Dolphy."



He finally sat down and removed his eye, placing it in our journalist's cup of tea, which was oddly salty and smelled vaguely of ammonia, but we didn't want to insult him. He sighed and recounted his time with Rufus...

"Ah, Rufus. He was a very special boy. Sure he did well in all his classes, Zyclon-B, advanced ditch digging, walrus kissing, ob cetera, ob cetera, but where he really shined was the specialist classes, such as Plumbing and Germ warfare... I mean mineralogy.

"I remember when he came to me and forced me down onto the floor, saying what he wanted to do was give me some tea, or a tea bag, or whatever. He then pulled down his pants and put his scrotum on my head. I had expected this, of course, so I started thumping his testicle with my right hand while I punched his nose with my other fist. He tried to get up and that's when I stapled his scrotum to my forehead. I can still see the scars when I look at his patented 24 hour scrotum cam. Wait, that wasn't me..."

Aribertheim then passed out, mumbling something about the master race. When aroused, he continued his recollection...

"Mr. Aribertheim..."

"Mein Gott! How did you know my name?!?"

"You told us your name was Heinrich Aribertheim."

"Oh! Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I forgot that my name was Heinrich. I am not a criminal. I am normal."

"Of course. Mr. Aribertheim, when we told Rufus that we would be contacting you, he panicked and started foaming at the mouth and his teeth moved about and he got very moist. Why was that?"

"Ach, that must be because of the pants."

"Pants?"

"Ja. He once made a special pair of pants for me. I was his underwater firestarting professor one year, and I was paid handsomely for this privilege by his father, who expected Rufus to get a good grade. I was sitting in my fourth period class, threatening my students when Rufus came in, carrying a pair of pants. He presented them to me and I put them on, briefly exposing my hairy buttocks. When I put them on, I felt giddy, joyous, like I had never been exposed to pleasure before. What I didn't know was that he had laced the pants with some type of drug. I don't know the correct term, but the slang for it was 'cat pee.' So there I was, feeling gemuchlichkeit, and the next thing I remember I was standing on a field, ordering the marching of the students into battle. We then invaded Poland. He was reprimanded and a mark was made on his permanent record."

"... that's it?"

"Ja. He was pissed!"

"We'll check with him on that. And finally, headmaster, what does Hornswagle mean?"

"...Verlassen sie hier, sie jüdischer rohrmonteur!"

Epilogue: Upon further interview, we have turned Heinrich Aribertheim over to the authorities. Apparently, his real name was Kennith Grunderson, wanted for artificial lubricant fraud.

Epilogue 2: It turns out that the testicle thumping anger was brought about by his having a permanent mark on his record. We still don't know why.

Next time, Part 3: The Love of his Life...

Monday, August 16, 2010

My weekend? Fine!

Honesty is not always the best policy...



“Ah! Friday five o'clock! I'm ready to kick my heels up and relax for a change! I think I'm gonna go camping.”



“Ah! An end of the one misery and a beginning of the other misery! Spending the week locked up in a fluorescent box staring at a computer is now going to give way to me spending the weekend in my poorly lit apartment staring at a different glowing box, maybe pausing long enough to put pants on as the overworked delivery boy delivers me my greasy Chinese food, but probably not, and definitely not tipping him. This sedentary existence will be punctuated by me grabbing my heart and panicking in vague cardiac pains occasionally, quickly realizing that it's only my body trying to make me seem more important than I know I am.”



“What you guys got planned for the weekend?”



“I know my weekend will be the far superior one of what anyone here will do, so I will force you to lie to me about your plans.”



“Well, Kyle, I'll probably catch that Pinter play at that theater on twelfth, then finish that book I got about the early American revolutionary thinkers. Have you read A Problem of Culture? It's fascinating. Anyway, on Sunday I'll take a walk in the park and clean up my apartment. I got my brother coming to visit on Monday.”




“I haven't actually read a book in years. My real intentions are to get a case of Mexican beer and take all the sheets off of my bed, lie in it in my underwear which I won't change until Monday morning, and contemplate the ceiling fan above my bed while a comedy show plays silently in my darkened bedroom, probably something British, like Mitchell and Webb. Eventually I'll be drunk and sleepy enough to realize the juxtaposition of my miserable life and the humor glaring at me from the silent television, and cry for about an hour before falling asleep, spilling my beer onto my naked mattress and entangling myself in my stained, crunchy duvet. I will wake up, urinate into the kitchen sink, and eat a sandwich I had prepared for this past Monday's lunch but forgotten about, and spend the rest of the weekend clutching my stomach in gassy agony when I realize, yet again, that things really can go bad in the refrigerator.”

“Awesome, Gordon! How about you, Debbie?”



“Well, I think I'll take that weekend trip to DC. I've always wanted to see the monuments and museums, and we only live an hour away, it's a shame to only see such an important place once or twice a year. I'll check out the museums tomorrow and the monuments on Sunday, it's supposed to be really sunny then. And I really want to check out that new vegetarian restaurant that opened last month!”



“On my way home tonight I will buy the cheapest wine I can find, pizza rolls, ice cream, and fill up my stolen xanax prescription. I will spend tonight eating horrible things, drinking as much as possible, and spiking it with the pills. Tomorrow I will continue this pattern, but I will add the toying with razor blades, first just holding the packet, then opening them and removing that strip of brown paper from one of them, forcing me to stare into the gaping maw of my own interminable depression as I gaze into my bloated, puffy face in their gleaming metal. On Sunday however, I will starve myself as punishment and scream at my own reflection, angry that I can't force myself to do the simplest thing in the world, ending this charade that is my existence and finally putting myself out of my own misery, either eating the whole bottle or finally slicing my arms open in my bathtub. I will print out and burn my suicide note no less than four times during this period.”

“Excellent! Bill, what do the young people do on the weekends these days?”



“Well, I'll probably head over to Hilligans, flirt a while, maybe chat someone up. I'm not attached to anyone, and I enjoy playing the field, so I may find myself... getting a bit lucky. Hehehe!”



“I have no interpersonal skills. But that's OK, because I am currently downloading twenty gigabytes of hardcore pornography, mostly about the degradation of females, but I have chosen some German shepherd/woman porn to watch as well. As my increasing arousal mounts, I will masturbate like a crazy chimp on speed, first watching a woman take over fifty loads of semen into her mouth until she gags and vomits, is then forced to eat dog food, and finally watching her being forced to perform oral sex on a dog, presumably the one she stole the food from. I will climax, my excitement will subside immediately, and I will be consumed by such shame and hatred for both myself and the female sex that I will delete the porn from my computer, which I will download again about six hours later after I view something mildly arousing on HBO. I will weakly masturbate yet again, with slightly more acceptance not only of my own sad, sad life, but also of the degradation that some women put themselves through to fill out a contract that they had been duped into signing, and by virtue of that contract gotten a horrible drug addiction. However, when viewed against my life, a drug addiction seems like a basket of sunshine and roses and needles.”



“You dog you! Bill, what I wouldn't give to be young again! Well, you guys have fun! I'm off to my apartment. See ya monday!”



“The only thing that will save us is either a zombie apocalypse or a nuclear bomb that one of us has hidden up our noses. Someone please set it off! No? Fuck.”

Song of teh post: Liar, by The Damned
Hope of teh post: Hope? Seriously?

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

I give up...


There are a few things that I hold as constants in life. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Molly Ann Cupcake will be cute when she's not screaming. My cats are beefcats who sleep in sausage gravy. There are four lights. These things are more than consistencies to me, they are anchors that influence my day to day living and dictate the whims of my conscience. Over the past few weeks, I've found that several of these anchors are rusted, loose, or otherwise not real. Here are a couple of them...


I'm actually mostly a vegetarian, so this one shouldn't be too bad. I mean, after all, one of my personal, musical, and comic heroes has joined my side (more like a pescatarian, as he does eat fish occasionally) so I should actually be happy. But I'm not...

Look at that guy. He makes it a point to be as strong on the outside as he wants to be on the inside. He is the definition of definition. He is like a side 'o beef with eyes. He didn't get that way eating tofu, you know. One of his quotes from one of his spoken word albums went something like (when describing eating at a Russian restaurant) "... there was vegetables for the vegetarians and meat for the real people...", so he was serious about being at the very least omnivorous to a huge degree. Why does this bug me? It means he's getting old. That means I'm getting old.

"But he's merely listening to what his body is telling him to do, and since he can't lift weights with as much vigor as he used to, he doesn't need the extra calories or protein." I know, I know. But Black flag came out with their first album the year that I was born, so he's been around all my life in one way or another. He's an angry, alpha male type, and to think of him violently tearing into a bag of lettuce rather than the side of a still breathing beast is kinda sad.

So what, you say? That's a stupid reason to feel like a paradigm has been subverted! You're probably right. But it still feels weird. Moving on to something that we can all agree is an abomination...


When Molly, my niece by friendship, says "Gabba gabba" and points expectantly at the monitor, and I pull up some Yo Gabba Gabba from the computer and play it for her, she is enthralled. Watching her is hypnotic, because she dances and hums along and basically interacts with that silly, trippy "lets-make-a-kids-show-about-the-dangers-of-mixing-psylocybin-with-pcp-and-then-sing-about-it" show like it's a real person. She was over here last night as her mommy was looking up Yo Gabba Gabba stuff for her second birthday party, when I heard a familiar voice say something like "I'm doctor Tony!"

That voice clicked in my head, but I couldn't make myself look. I didn't want to believe it. I glanced up, and there he was...



This man combined the cooking chops of LaRousse, the foul mouth of that guy who sleeps by the dumpster outside the China One King Buffet, the writing style of Hunter S. Thompson steeped in Jack Kerouac, and the drug taking ability of four Keith Richardses. He has traveled the world eating things that you and I would never even consider edible. He was almost kidnapped by the Cambodian military. He's shot automatic weapons with the Yakuza. He ate a god damned duck fetus AND the still beating heart of a live cobra on the same day! Of all the people in the world that I would say would never be allowed within five hundred yards of a kids show, he's in the top three (the others being Mao Zedong and Max Shreck).

This stings like peeing vinegar razors.

But at least there's no weirdness like this happening with other people, like, foul mouthed comedians...


Well, then, there are no respected satirists...


... sex-humor peddling musicians?


... someone who was in an adaptation of something by Douglas Adams?


... Ok, how about anyone who appeared on Jackass?


... Does anybody else feel weird about this?

At least some things are sacred. I mean, it's not like hell's freezing over, right?


Oh, BITE ME!

Song of teh post: Billy Bad Breaks, by The Damned.
Cupcakeface of teh post: Molly Ann Cupcake.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

KAFFAH KAFFAH KAFFAH!!!!11!ONE!1!


Have you ever had an enlightenment experience? I have. I'm currently in Louisville, KY, at Sunergo's Coffee having an iced espresso. I know, I know, one must be considered a coffee snob of the highest order when one orders a coffee with more than two syllables and that ends with an "O" vowel sound. It calls into question one's masculinity and makes people who find Waffle House the height of culinary achievement sneer over their four teeth and down their noses on their tiny faces in the center of their giant heads. Well to those people I can only say...


I reached this level of enlightenment by the Haight/Ashbury method: chemically. Sometimes Caffeine can give you just the edge you need to attain true Buddhahood (not the pansy way of sitting in front of a wall and staring at it for hours until your brain decides that it'll give up the goods). This coffee is amazing. Imagine being wrapped in a warm blanket fresh from the dryer on a cold winter day in front of a fire with your face gently buried in soft cushions, your mouth being slowly stuffed full of your favorite chocolate dipped fruit and something wonderful happening to the area between your knees and navel. That's what this coffee does. It steals your mind and makes you happy while being politely firm about the joy you must receive.

I am loathe to be brand loyal, but damn. This is a microroaster in Kentucky and they ship their product anywhere in the world!!!

All those who love coffee and know me will be expecting a shipment of enlightenment soon.

Song of teh post: Coffee House Blues, By Lightnin' Hopkins
Roast of teh post: Tanzanian Peaberry

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The story of the Hawk...




I've been asked about my hairstyle several times. Here is the true story of the events that have led up to my most severe style...

Thousands of years ago, long before Flo ever said "Kiss my grits," and in an area of the galaxy that the most fashion conscious people on earth will one day call "the area that brings new and dreadful meaning to the word 'gauche,'" a supernova occurred, vaporizing a planet with only two continents whose inhabitants had, through evolutionary pressures, evolved wheels on the ends of their legs. These beings were called 'Derbs.'

The Derbs were a peaceful race, far removed from the concept of war and destruction. Their two continents were called Wftda (pronounced WOOF-duh) and Wbtda (pronounced WOOB-duh), and in millennium they had never fought each other for supremacy. They reached this nirvana-like society by strange means; most notably by the Shirley Jackson short story "The Lottery" style social purging. Once a year every society would hold a lottery and twenty female Derbs from each continent (the females ruled the planet) would get together and race around in a circle, trying to pass each others countrywomen and slamming into each other. The women who passed more of their opponents won, and their continent would be declared the ruling continent. Since their society was peaceful, this was all the violence needed in their world.

But when the planet was vaporized, particles of it flew through the cosmos at near light speed. One of these particles flew into Earth's orbit, entering the atmosphere and passed through the brains of two men, called Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon. They then created the sport of Roller Derby, subconsciously naming it after the Derbs. Eighty years later, in Bowling Green, KY, two women decided to create their own derby league. Their history is too fanciful to believe, but let it be known that even though they are immortal, they do find themselves susceptible to bribery by whiskey and hot dogs.

This roller derby league was created and two teams emerged. The Vette City Vixens and the Bowling Green Hot Broads. These two teams were fierce and powerful, but they had no way of knowing when to perform their miracle stunts on their amazing track. They needed a 'timekeeper,' or by its Latin name (name removed as it may actually summon C'thulhu). Then my phone rang...

I was asked if I could be their time referee. I accepted and was informed that my picture should be taken for their website and fliers. I contemplated this situation and, upon consultation with Lay 'Em Lola, a Hot Broad who, unknown to her, had been invaded by another particle of the planet of the Derbs, decided that I wanted her hairstyle. She has a Mohawk as well, and one fine May afternoon in early April, I was given this hairstyle by one who HAS THE VERY SPIRIT OF THE DERBS INSIDE HER!

I hope this clears up any confusion...

Song of teh post: Roller Derby Queen by Jim Croce
Rollergirl of teh post: Lay 'Em Lola

Monday, June 7, 2010

The Story of Rufus 'Hornswagle' Capon



Chapter 1: Origins

Part 1: Those who knew him when... The Nanny.

Smiling to the root of his vas deferens and improperly placed intrauterine devices, Rufus “Hornswagle” Capon laughed that tinny laugh that drove Margot Kidder around the bend all those years ago. “My childhood? You'd have to ask the woman that I called Nanny. I'm sure she'd give you a much better and more accurate portrayal of OH JESUS WHY DID I DO THAT?!?!,” he said as he stubbed his cigar out on the head of his penis. It's true, of course. His childhood, shrouded in secrecy mostly by the federal government of Paraguay, is a subject of extreme debate among modern historians, as ancient historians would never have known about him.

Acting upon his suggestion, we did locate his nanny, now living in a leper colony in Cornwall, England. Her lips smiled, fell off, and were stapled back on as she described his true origins. Here now, unedited, is her entire story.

“Ah, Rufus! Is he still around? Still putting cigarettes out on his penis?”

“He's moved on to cigars now.”

“Hah! He's been doing that since he was six months old, bless him.”

“Could you tell us a bit about yourself, miss...”

“Oh, please, call me William. I was born into a coffee bean roaster on the south side of France. After rescuing me once I reached a light city roast, I was put in an orphanage at my parent's request. There I learned the skills I needed to be a nanny for such a wonderful little lama beast such as Rufus. Skills like tattooing, savage beating with a monk fish, large vegetable insertions into the... uh...”

“The nostril?”

“Oh yes, that too. Anyway, such a lovely boy he was. Eyes were never his strong suit, but who needs eyes, I told him, when you've got your wealth. And he lorded that over all others! Oh boy, was he a dick. He used to take his pocket money and pay best friends to fight to the death. He'd import croutons from the tropics and use them as urinal cakes. But he was a kind boy occasionally. I remember one day I was enjoying a cup of meat tea in the sitting room which doubled as the feces storage facility when he walks up to me, completely straight faced, and said “Nanny, why do people fight? Why are there wars? Can't we all just be friends?” Seeing a budding glimmer of compassion and empathy in this wide eyed little boy who so recently had been terrorizing his friends with whips made of poison oak bark, I smiled at him, patted him on his tiny little toes, and said “Shut your fucking mouth, little shit drawer, or I'll smack you so hard you'll get pregnant.” I booted him in the teeth just to make sure he got the message, and he ran off screaming, later to attack me properly with a machete. Such a lovely boy he was.”

“What's your most vivid memory of Rufus's childhood?”

“Oh lord, that's a butt plug of a question. I'd have to say it was the time we got him back from Magic Space Camp Camp.”

“What's that?”

“It's a summer camp where all the children dress up as the members of ABBA and are led by the headmaster, who's dressed as Oscar Wilde, to recreate the musical “Phantom of the Opera” on the moon while sawing ladies in half. It's a bit of a specialist camp, of course, but it was either that or juvenile hall for that murder charge, and his father was rich. Anyway, he got off the shuttle and ran up to his father's servant's mistress's chauffeur's father's mistress's servant and leaped into his arms, sobbing. I asked him why he was crying, and he said that during the finale he stumbled over his lyrics and shat in someone else's pants. He was just about to explain how he got his poo into some other person's underwear, and just stopped stubbing that smoke out on his tadger, when the Russian ICBMs started screaming overhead, and the bombs started falling. When Hitler's tank rolled up to our limousine, Goering got out and started having sex with (large section removed due to CIA request). That's how he got that scar underneath his skull.”

“Just a couple more questions, William. What was the best thing about your time with him?”

“Oh that would be the day that I left his sorry ass and never looked back. I shot him in the face with a large flaming potato gun...”

“The potatoes were on fire?”

“No, the gun was. Anyway, after I shot him in the face, I turned in my notice and hung him by his toes as a parting gift. I never saw him again, but then that's a good thing. I'm still receiving money from his family as a settlement out of court, and the doctor says that if I ever get over this leprosy, I may regain the use of my extremities and bodily sphincters. I have to hand it to him though, that specifically engineered virus was very clever.”

“And lastly, William, what does 'Hornswagle' mean?”

(long pause) “You get the hell out of here right now. Get out and I never want to see you again!”

The authors would like to thank William for her kind interview.

Next time, Part 2: Those who knew him when... The Principal.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Books I'd like to read, if only they existed...

Every summer I find myself with lotsa free time to occupy my already ADD riddled mind. I love to read, but rarely find right books. I'm kinda picky like dat. If someone would write these five books, I'd be grateful. I'll buy multiple copies and give them to all my friends and certain members of my family.


REVIEWS

"It's an obscure book. I doubt you've read it."
-Hipster standing outside the bar smoking

"Whatever. It's pointless anyway."
-Emo kid shopping for razors

"A non-stop informational storm which made me want to wear a Genesis shirt ironically and drink lousy beer, for FASHION!"
-Fiendly Grimmish




REVIEWS

"I laughed, I cried, I prayed!"
-Alan David Berlin

"Disgusting, immoral, repugnant, and falling short on every family value that we as Americans hold dear!"
-Mark Sanford, Governor, SC

"Lets you into a magical world in which nobody but gay people don't exist. I give it two engorged phalluses up!"
-Fiendly Grimmish








REVIEWS

"Finally one of our own speaks out. This has been a long time coming, and can only open dialogue among all people."
-That friend of a friend that said that one thing that time.

"We have concluded that this is, scientifically, the best book in existence."
-Those doctors that did that study one time.

"I had no idea it was so hard. This is quite a load. I'm glad it came."
-Fiendly Grimmish




REVIEWS

"I had no idea everyone loved my work so much. (starts sobbing) I'm so deeply touched by this... thank you for including me in this tome of... (incoherent speech through blubbering weeping).
-Glenn Beck, Contributor "Gays Have Married? Now I Can Do My Sister!"

"While I'm not... I can't read this. There's no words on it. I ca... FUCK IT! WE'LL DO IT LIVE! NO, FUCK THIS!! SHUT THIS MICROPHONE OFF NOW!"
-Bill Orally, Contributor "Excerpt from 'Those Who Trespass'"

(Vomiting sounds)
-Fiendly Grimmish




REVIEWS

"I say, quite the eloquent book. I'd give it two thumbs up, if I had knuckled digits."
-Charlie the cat

"Ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball..."
-Fido

"OMG I loled! It are teh awesum! Wuts going on? Y dat kitteh has a knifey? No! Don be stabbin mah hed!"
-Fiendly Grimmish






Song of teh post: Reading Rainbow theme song.
Book of teh post: A Liars Autobiography, by Graham Chapman