Science Proves It Again! (Post 495!)

From "LIVESCIENCE": (addictive website for the Thinker in all of us... well, maybe not YOU, but you, yeah, you'd like it)

Laughter is one of the least understood of human behaviors. Scientists have found that during a good laugh three parts of the brain light up: a thinking part that helps you get the joke, a movement area that tells your muscles to move, and an emotional region that elicits the "giddy" feeling.

But it remains unknown why one person laughs at your brother's foolish jokes while another chuckles while watching a horror movie.

John Morreall, who is a pioneer of humor research at the College of William and Mary, has found that laughter is a playful response to incongruities--stories that disobey conventional expectations. Others in the humor field point to laughter as a way of signaling to another person that this action is meant "in fun."

One thing is clear: Laughter makes us feel better.

And thusly, I present to you...

DRAMATIC CHIPMUNK:

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We'll Always Have Paris?

Very soon we will witness the release of Paris Hilton from her commoner lock-up in LA County jail. Well, not exactly Commoner; her case is far from it and I won't go into all the details here because they aren't nearly as scandalous as everyone wishes they were.

Paris Hilton is shopping her first post-jail interview rights for $1,000,000. Instead of just taking it like an adult, as she said she'd do, she wants another $1,000,000 to talk about her 23 days in jail away from the general population.

NBC has already turned her down.
GOOD.
Barbara Walters may take the bait, for all her self-righteousness and ability to coax tears from the softest of sponges.

Does anybody truly give a plop anymore?

I would hope that nobody buys the rights to the interview. Paris hasn't done anything to deserve $1,000,000 in her bank account. She has not earned it. She is not talented as an actress, singer, or human. She was lucky to be born to where she was, in her grandfather's wealthy tree.

And when a network does buy the rights to it, I will not watch the interview. I will be elsewhere. They won't get any minutes of my life that I would hope to grasp onto in my old age, seeing my great-great grandkids landing their jet-bikes outside my moon-surface mansion (the dolphins will have long taken over by the year 2073 when I check out, and we'll be on the moon). When that day comes, as I lay there dying, shot in the back by a jealous lover, I would hope the last words out of my mouth will not be "I'm happy Paris learned a lesson in ja..."

But that's me. I don't want to tell you what to do. So don't force me to.

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A Note About the ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union is a highly reactive group of highly reactive people who believe that everyone has the right to do anything they like as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. Their mission statement is far longer than that, I'm sure, but you get the point.

This is a quote from a newspaper article in today's Seattle Times about a police officer who went undercover a few years ago at Redmond High. He was 22 then, and was actively buying cocaine, prescription drugs, marijuana, etc. from students of the school. And STILL getting his homework done at night. His identity was known only to the principal.

But placing undercover officers in high school has drawn criticism. In Los Angeles, where police have been doing such operations since the mid-1970s, the Los Angeles Unified School District found that many of the students arrested were in special education, and critics said the amount of drugs seized was usually small.

"It's scary. You have non-students, non-teachers sneaking around talking to kids," said Jennifer Shaw, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington state. "Our kids should be sent to school to learn. To bring somebody in to do undercover investigation is frightening."

I fully agree with Jennifer. It is frightening to think that some kids in our high schools are so loosely parented that they are dealing drugs in the hallways and therefore it is necessary that police officers and undercover operations are going on to put a stop to things that parents and school administrators should be handling.

Oh wait. That's not what she said. Maybe it was implied, but I'm sure she was NOT saying that all kids, even the drug dealers, have a right to attend school, because how else are they going to make money? Who is going to look out for the misguided youth?

Something like that, I don't wanna put words in Jennifer Shaw's mouth. If I did, the words would probably be "foot," "handful of anti-psychotics," or "common sense disguised as a fist or maybe a Chevy half-ton pick-up."



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Way To Show 'em Who The Boss Is!

America stopped 4 terror people this weekend before they could terror American airports that are busy!

It's awesome and it's in the papers and news TV because you gotta know that America is on your side! American government workers are here to protect you, and we should trust them. A couple weeks ago they also caught some terrorists in New York who took a video tape in to have it turned in to a DVD, and the guy transferring it saw the contents of the tape and knew right away it was a terror plot and notified the FBI. The tape was a show called "Martyrdom For Dummies."

I am funny!

Go America!

It's always best to tell the terrorists all the ways that we are catching them so they are afraid of us and never try those ways again. Don't just catch them and whisk them away and say nothing about it. The terrorists read newspapers, too, so while it may look like the government guys are really only saying "Hey, we protected you!", what they are really saying is "Hey, Terrorist John, we know how you tried to get us, and we stopped you! Now you have to find all new ways to get us!"

That's awesome to do that all the time. Keep telling the plotters all the ways we stop them. And that way, much like a game of poker but where you tell the other players what cards you have, they will know exactly when to hold 'em... and when to detonate 'em.

God...
Bless America.
Please?

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Somebody Had To Say It

Well... I finally did it.

I often tell people to open their mouths to the inconsiderate folks in their midsts and let that inconsiderate person, or "assclown," let them know they need to pick it up a notch.

I took a pull off that bottle tonight at the grocery store.

I worked 10 hours today. I was there about 10 hours, is what I'm saying. Cut to the chase, I wasn't in the mood to be held up from getting home. Not by traffic. Not a woman who did F-all for the entire day except find her favorite navy blue capri pants and a shirt with stars on it to match those pants. And wear sunglasses inside.

Why did we invent the roof?

So I saw this woman moseying about the store, cart packed with all sorts of items. She pulled one of my favorite moves: Cart parked in random spot, shopper flits off to find something three rows over, cart is in everyone's way. I usually move the cart to a safe spot. Not until I've deposited cart-ward the most expensive item in the vicinity. This time it was a multi-greens powdered shake mix. That'll run ya 'bout $33 a tankard. Enjoy.

Oddly, I go over my 15 items so I have to go into a regular line, of which 2 are open. I get in behind, you guessed it, the Shaded Wanderer, or "Bitch Nose." I asked God to direct my focus elsewhere, and He answered. I turned to my left, and behind me was a nice older lady (older as in "High-waisted lavendar pants", not older as in "Dude, your aunt is single, right?") She had only two items in her cart, both of them for a surely aloof if not near-death cat. I asked her if she'd like to go ahead of me, she had only a few items.

"Oh, that's so nice, but no thanks. I'm going to lean here on my cart for a moment," she replied. "Sweet ass, though."

I made part of that up.

She had on red pants, but I digress...

As the Lady Still Wearing Sunglasses Indoors (5'6''-ish, bottle-blonde, spray tan, lots of gold jewelry, no discernible income) is finishing her transaction, including $33 for GreenShakes!, her credit card slip is handed back to her JUST AS HER PHONE IN HER PURSE ON THE FLOOR RINGS.

I wouldn't answer it. You wouldn't answer it. Then again, we don't drink box-chardonnay until 5 and then burn it off with a shopping trip. Even though we've been meaning to.

Of COURSE she dug through her purse for her phone before signing her slip. Why the hell else am I writing this in a mu-mu?

So as the guy hands the slip back to her and she launches into a conversation about what to have for dinner, she gets at least 45 seconds (count it off, it's longer than you think) into the chat as though nothing else was happening around her. No shopping. No other people. Zoned out. Until finally she says "Well what do you want me to do about it?"

And I just kind of nonchalantly said "Signing your credit slip would be nice."

The check-out guy had a look of surprise on his face. Ten seconds later, she said "Well, I have to go, I'm at the store and I need to sign my slip." Ten more seconds. An extra minute of time. Of life. Burnt by someone else. My favorite moment was when she hung up and acted exasperated and said to the cashier "Gosh, my daughter, she's done with school and moving back home and she can't figure out what to do for dinner and I'm trying to get settled into my new house, ya know?" She just tried to blame the last minute on HER DAUGHTER and HER LIFE.

The cashier was very nice to me, and laughed as the lady walked away.

Nobody forces you to answer your phone unless you're in a hostage situation, which this ALMOST turned in to. Very simply, being aware of the other people around you, common courtesies, the simplest of niceties can take you very far in life.

The lady behind me with the cat supplies nearly threw out her back trying to lift her 10-lb bucket of cat crap-sand. I offered to help her again when I put the little grocery divider down and said "You should really get smaller, lighter bags." Jeez, what an idiot. Some people, huh?

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Coming To, And Staying In, America

The main problem with President Bush's Immigration "Reform" bill, besides the fact it had a LOT of margin-doodles, is that it okays immigrants who are already here illegally.

Not just Mexicans. Canadians. Irish. Brits. Germans. Chileans. Cubans. Yes, Virginia, even some Afghanis, Iraqis, Iranians, Chinese, Japanese, and perhaps even an Aussie. Some are good citizens, working and shopping at ROSS and not smiling and, most importantly, keeping their music down. Some may be criminals escaped from their home nations. We don't know. We may never.

Any bill that says "You fooled us! You win! But the rest of you, well, you get in line there, you cheeky buggers!" is just far too jaunty to hold agua. One bill. One law. For everyone. It can't be gray, it's gotta be Red & Blue. (I'd say "black and white" but God knows somebody would take that wrong and call Jesse Jackson and then I'd have to straighten him out again this week)

If somebody breaks into your house and just kind of hangs out in the attic, but then comes down and starts bathing, even if you're not there, or eating food from your coffee table that you passed out before eating thanks to your pill habit, hey, THEY STILL BROKE IN. The limits of compassion stop when it is taken more than it is given.

I fully understand that many thousands of the people illegally, and legally, immigrating doing a lot that we just could not bring ourselves to do. Like working fast food. Or getting really bad dye jobs (fright-blonde and meat-red are big). But someone has to do it, there's a need to fill those jobs, and it's likely that working in America beats not working in a country that cares. Kids gotta eat. Mother-in-law needs to have those moles cut off her cheek. Dollaz get paid.

America doesn't owe anybody anything. Not a free hand, not a free job, not a pass to the Disney Store. We are a nation that has an identity as a melting pot, but somebody still has to monitor the contents of the pot to make sure it's cooking evenly. A lot of people in this country illegally (some of them lazy F'ers masquerading as "stand up comics") are taxing our public resources. I bet a large number of uninsured, non-English-speaking immigrants have received better care in the past year than soldiers sent to Walter Reed, or even many insured, tax-paying dog groomers. We owe the world common courtesy, but we don't have to keep the doors wide-the-F-open to prove it.

I am all for diversity, brotherhood, and the common cause of humanity progressing on the basis of a need to progress. It will eventually come back to governing ourselves, filling in our own pot-holes, and taking care of our neighbors because the government is too busy trying to figure out how to double-tax tapwater used for car fuel. When that day comes, it would be really great if I could understand the language of the guys siphoning off my garden-hose as I spray them with buckshot and fright-pee at 3 in the a.m.

FRIGHT-PEE is probably the funniest thing you'll read all week.

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Big News To Share

A big Congratulations and well-wishings out to my friends Jessica and Chris "Black Tony" Butler, the proud new parents of a healthy baby boy, Freeman Butler.

I chose not to include Freeman's middle name for a specific reason:
Can't remember it.

A small phone-received picture of the newest addition to the Butler legacy shows everyone to be doing well. Mom's looking glam, dad's still a stud, baby looks like he's ready to chill for a while, yo. Just chill out, maybe get something to eat, be cute, what-not.

Awesome.
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My friend and brother Michael "Mike/MurphDawg/The Rear Admiral" Murphy is heading out for a tour of duty in the Middle East today. Mike re-enlisted as a pilot in the Navy in May of 2001 back when Pres. Bush was unable to make decisions that didn't affect people's lives, when we still had to pay a late fee if we returned a movie an hour past due.

Due to a long-standing agreement between the Navy and Army, Mike was optioned to the Army based on some of his highly-rated skills, namely "Leadership," "Marksmanship," and "Being highly reactive to somebody shooting at him or his buddyship."

Please include Mike and the many people mired in the conflicts in your prayers. If you would like to email Mike, you can do so at the address provided HERE.
He may not get it or a while, though. He'll have plenty of spam to wade through once he's back on-line.

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#460 - A Blog Among Blah

I was going to write something poignant and provocative, evocative and emotional, sweet and sour, vegan and carnivorous, but my Wife! is in the other room watching "Planet Earth," a fantastic new series on the Discovery channel. I wish I had a 50-inch rear-projection flat-screen just to view this.

But sadly...

I have one just to watch Cartoons and football and cooking shows.

But she's in the living room yelling "Gross!," which is my cue that something awesome is getting eaten by a cave rat-faced lobster monkey. And that... that I gotta see.

More when gross is over.

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What's All The Buzz About?

Just a quick note, this will not be a "humorous" entry, unlike the other ones where I try and flail valiantly. I'm not even trying this time.

I first heard about this odd, thought-provoking, and concern-causing situation just this past Thursday night. The rapid and wide-spread deaths of colonies of bees is causing a huge burden on the human-affected and human-effecting ecosystems. But only small stuff like, you know, food. Trees. Plants that contribute to medicine. Etcetera.

No bees, no pollination. No pollination, no maturation of trees. No blooming and fruiting, no fruit. No nuts. No crops. No wheat, corn, oats, etc. Imagine.

What could be causing this? Likely it's the same thing that keeps those pollinated crops growing: PESTICIDES and GENETIC MODIFICATION. Look what it did to Michael Jackson.
Quote from a story, linked below:

Something is compromising the bees' immune systems, other scientists agree; among the suspected culprits are modern pesticides and GM crops. And while no one agent might be solely responsible for the bees' disease, Moulton-Howe wonders "what happens when farmers spray herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides on land that has also genetically modified crops with pesticides built in?"

As an example, Monsanto's "Round-up Ready" crops, which are modified to withstand the spraying of herbicides, are widely used in the U.S. Recently, though, weeds have developed a Round-up resistance--resulting in frustrated farmers spraying more and more of the weed killer, in combination with others, on their fields.

Eric Mussen, an entomologist and Extension Apiculturist at UC-Davis, also found that some fungicides approved by the EPA for bee safety, while not killing adult bees, are fatal for bee larvae and young bees.

Here are some stories I found that back this up. I don't want to say I can smell a Conspiracy, so I officially will not.

Story #1: Why Are All The Bees Dying?

Story #2: Article Specifying Some Findings

But this does have the makings of humans negatively affecting their environment to a startling degree, and when that happens, it's time to figure it out and stop hoping the aliens or Jesus or the Democrats can bail us out. What can I do? I'll post the answer when I find it.

For now, all I can suggest is buying as many "Organic" products as possible. They cost a bit more, but when you'll quickly earn that money as you rise up the management ladder while co-workers in your hive die off from eating the wrong foods. Or will all those preservatives do their job? See what I mean? My head's buzzing now.

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A Simple Courtesy

There are times in life between the ages of birth and death that being "the best" or "making the most" of something is considered "great," "fantastic," "jackpot," and if you're my family, "just enough to keep yourself in the will."

However, there are times in life where making the most of something or performing like you're trying to win a prize is, quite simply, unnecessary. There's no need to share what you're doing with somebody else. No reason to draw attention to it. And you should do whatever it is you have to in order to be courteous to those in the vicinity.

So hey there, guy in the first stall 10 minutes ago...
Unless you won some sort of horrifying jackpot, there's no need for what was going on there.

Two words, Mr. "Casual Friday is the OTHER Day Of The Week I Wear Running Pants to Work!"...

COURTESY FLUSH.

What year is it? How old are we? There's no reason to do THAT, and it makes me uncomfortable having to shake the stall door three times before having to chin-up to peer over at you and yell "WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?!"

You are doing yourself no favors. And YES, I will be posting the Polaroid I snapped of you. Notch that under my "Vigilante Justice For Restrooms" campaign. I don't know if you are of this, but there is far less soundproofing in a men's room than you may think. Ka. Blam.

And this is far less about what you think it's about than it is the simple courtesies we can afford each other in society. We are far more rude to and unaware of our neighbors. Be it a phone conversation or a near explosion... TAKE IT OUTSIDE.


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The Last Time This Comic Stands For That

The growing popularity of self-empowerment and needing attention has caused far too many people to stand in line for a shot at fame. This is true with American Idol, Presidential Elections, and for Last Comic Standing. Remember the old days, where talented people really stood out from the crowd and were immediately snatched up to sleep with assistant director’s assistants for a spot in a commercial for used cars? Aaaah, the early 2000’s.

The last and latest open call audition for a shot at the NBC show “Last Comic Standing,” now entering season 5-ish. The line started, from all reports, around 36 hours ahead of the auditions. I was still at home in the Seattle area when I got the call at 2pm that the line was already nearly 100 deep. I almost cancelled my ticket, but seriously, how many chances will I get in life to have a dream shot of sleeping outside and standing in the Arizona sun before having a dream crushed on TV? None, because those dreams were not going with me. They had other work to handle at home. LCS is a chance for a comedian to quantum-leap in their career. It means TV, great managers and agents, more money, and also a lot more road time and chances to build a career. It is a shot worth taking, just make sure the aim is true.

I got to the Tempe Improv around 9pm, and got in line with Travis Simmons, and we were numbers 94 & 95. We walked up and down the line to find people we knew, and chatted a while. I cannot give enough Thanks and Admiration to the lady who started the list of names and numbers so we could flow freely to and fro in the line. It saved a lot more headaches the following day. And to the comedians, the campers, the hopeful in line who worked together to make sure nobody had their stuff stolen, and nobody lost their place in line. We policed our own, and it worked out greatly.

The end of the line, at 9:30pm, was #171. In 2006 I got in line at 10pm and was 75th in line. Why would the line have grown so much in the past year? Please see the opening line of this entry. There are barely 171 funny people IN THE WORLD, I guarantee you that they were not all congregated on the sidewalk and lawn of a strip mall in Tempe. Funny is, of course, subjective, and it would be subjected to many twists and turns over the next 20 hours. The line would swell to over 200, which was small compared to other places.

So let’s get to the highlights:
1) The San Antonio fall-out helped the line have more comics than expected, and those guys are very dedicated. Check out THIS entry at SheckyMagazine.com for why that was so. The producers of the auditions appeared to have handled things poorly in TX, causing a rumored 50 comedians to head for Tempe.
2) Rumor had it that upwards of 20 spots in the front of the line were claimed by students of the local university. Not sure if that’s true, but if so, it kills 20 spots in line for people who may have had legit shots at having impressive auditions. Not that college kids aren't funny, but, by tradition, people aren't funny when they still have hope.
3) Open calls are not for the faint of heart or weak of ego. Hell, there were people I have seen on MAD TV, MTV, working comics and touring acts and commercial actors IN LINE for this thing. It matters a lot to some people. Those 20 spots matter a little more now.
4) There was one guy in particular in Tempe who kept trying to cut in line, a guy with a chain going from his ear to his nose, wearing blue and red, and everyone kept an eye on him. He was roundly booed and chastised for lying about purchasing a spot from a woman who had moved for a moment.
5) As the day moved on, people were buying spots from comedians near the front of the groups that were being herded through. The biggest buyouts were $400, the lowest I know of was $250 for a spot 4 ahead of mine, which was #87 when all was said and done. Attrition, heat, reality check, people left for whatever reasons.
6) While people complained about how long it was taking to get through the appointments of comedians who got a nod from an agent or booker so they didn’t have to wait in line, I reminded a few people that having an appointment doesn’t mean that person’s a better comedian than anybody else, or that they’ll have a better shot at getting through. The bigger issue for many people, that one could sense from the fact that so many people were saying it, was that a lot of the line were “headliners” and “road comics” and “veterans” and waiting in that line can be a gut check as much as a career check. It was for me.
7) A friend of mine, Andy Peters, had an appointment and did a joke that they said they couldn’t use on TV. I’ve heard the bit, it’s hysterical, and it’s far less offensive than a Gollum impression, how black people differ from white people, or having one premise about how your mother from another country says things funny because she’s, you know, from another country. To me, anyway. Andy is a very good comedian and is on his way up, so I told him not to sweat blowing the biggest opportunity of his comedy career.

The last audition to be seen was probably # 80 in line. Prior to that, there was zero line movement for about 2.5 hours. I did not get to audition. At that point, I don’t even know that I would be ready to go do jokes, just basically go in and talk about the humanity and the weird coolness… cool weirdness… of the phenomenon of fame, lines, and people who need hugs from their parents. I suspect next year people will camp out in line again, and some of them will be there with a plan and a dream. Some will be there with a price tag on their spot, camping out merely to sell it off. The best suggestion I heard was to have the producers call the clubs of cities near or in their audition spots to pick 20 comedians, have them compete for 5 or 10 appointment spots, (so you could get 30 to 50 appointments from a city and it’s neighboring metropolis, plus whomever else got a slot from outside sources), and then let the open call be for people who have no idea that their city even has a comedy club or a scene, or people not up to snuff for one of those spots. It’s a plan that favors the best of the bunch, and I’ll always support that.

So next year, would I do it again? Not without an appointment. Which means the next year requires that I keep working to evolve as a comedian and a person and get my act together, in all senses of the phrase. I actually got to meet and talk with a guy who is an active, working writer for TV and commercials, which is where I want to get to, soon. His insight and attitude and buddy-ship were worth every penny I spent on the trip.

Also, my buddy Ryan Hamilton made it through the first selection round, so he’ll be getting some TV time very soon. Watch him and vote for him every chance you get. He’s a great comedian, a great human being, and has absolutely no chance of helping my career, so you know what I say is sincere. I wish those comedians with established careers and Comedy Central Presents: specials all the best as they move towards getting more MySpace hits.

Back to the funny.

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Technology Speeds It Down

I need a headset for my desk phone at work. Yes, I go to work. Almost every day.

The headset that is "all the rage" right now is, of course, a BlueTooth, wireless earpiece to use for my DESKPHONE at work. To use it, one must plug the base of the phone into a USB port on the PC, install software, download the latest software patches, restart my computer, then launch the application that finds which kind of phone I use (if it's listed), and fill in all of my information so that the dialing and connection manager - and you know how I feel about management - can access it when I launch the application I need in order to dial-in to a conference call about a spreadsheet.

I have to also register my car with the parking management folks via their website. No sweat. I go in and try it, but the model of my car is not listed. So I have to download the patch of the latest data so I can see everything that is supposed to be offered. The model of my car is the ONLY THING not listed. Year, Make, Color, etc. all there. Model. No. No models are listed, in fact. So that's not MY goof of having a nearly-official P.O.S. ride, it's the website, which ought to, perhaps, have all that sludge loaded on its backside.

So I have to download that patch to see the MODEL of my car, throwing me over to another website that has 5 different options of downloads, none of which are clearly labeled as the one that I was suggested to download. So MAYBE I'm downloading the right one. I run it. It hangs my machine for 2 minutes. Then it asks that I RESTART my computer.

So that I can get the MODEL of my car.
So that I can REGISTER my car with parking management.
So that I can park my car AT woRK.
And then come INTO work.
And do some work.
Eventually.

Either they want us to just ride the bus, or to spend so much time here that our cars never move, and we have to call our families to bring us clothing now and then, and we'll just use our computers to look at what's going on the world, passive, flabby, clammy. Tepid.

Technology: It Owns You.

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Never Leave Your Pod Again

Relationships.
Music.
Food.
TV shows.
Movies.
Entertainment.
Work.
Finances.
Drugs.
Conversations.
Re-runs.
Family photos.
S.
E.
X.

Thank you technology. We will never have to go out into the globally warmed global outside again.

I'm 99% positive this is how the gray-skinned, big-eyed, long-fingered, telepathy-using, small-bodied, probe-famous "aliens" evolved. I think they were here a billion years ago and come back to see if we're done yet. Hence the butt-thermometers.

Time to go order pizza with cinnamon brownie salad.
I'm also 90% sure that Domino's is selling us food that falls off the back of trucks.

If I'm not here in a week... I was right.

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The High Heels

I hope I never again hear a women wearing tiny, pointy shoes complain about how their feet are killing them after a long night of dancing and drinking free drinks.

Mostly because I saw THIS picture.
It's the result of "Foot binding," an old practice in China that is making a comeback! It was published this week via YAHOO! Photos via the AFP, and nearly made me lurch-forth the smoothie I made for breakfast.

It was a cruel practice done to ensure women, usually those kept as concubines, would have dainty, feminine feet. How big are a normal woman's feet in China?

Anyway, a little perspective for the ladies in the Manolo's.




She's point at her TOES, bent under her foot after the bones were broken and wrappd to this shape. Note the red shoe there.


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Like You've Never Had A Craving?

There's a certain energy to a day at the Empire when you can tell something big is going on. A beta release of a video game, maybe somebody kissed a girl they didn't pay, BIG stuff. Today is one of those days.

In the cafeteria they are showing the broadcast of the World Cup of Cricket, as many of the people working at the Empire are from parts of the world that understand Cricket. They must be way smarter than us, or just don't over-complicate things. The match is being projected onto a screen slightly larger than the bedroom I grew up in. It's a pretty intense game. I started picking up on it slightly before a riot broke out after one of the bowlers complained about a wicket call, and the overs were starting to dwindle. I digress.

So I'm watching the World Cricket Cup unfold between Bangladesh and another team, and I hear a rumbling behind me. A talk-rumbling. A full-blown "hub-bub," bub. I wonder if perhaps there's a new Halo-3 poster being hung near the free soda closets. Or maybe somebody said "I prefer a Mac." I had to inspect.

I drew closer to see a line, easily 50 dorks deep, each of them twitching and giggling and jovial in the way only Mt. Dew and a lack of sunlight can do to a malnourished body. What is this line? Is this like the pie line in "Revenge Of The Nerds," or as it's referred to at the Empire, "Holy Story Of Best Life Ever Told On Screen And Too Short But Still Awesome With Boobs and the Down There Of A Woman"? Oh no. The draw?

Taco Salad bar.

Your choice. Tostada bowl. You fill it with ground beef (seasoned!), chicken, or vegetarian option. By the time I saw what the rush was on for, the line had swollen like a geek in sweatpants on High School P.E. Push-up test day. Amazing. They were Texting each other on phones, talking into their watches, and using telepathy. Freaky stuff. For Taco Salad bar day.

There's no real social relevance other than it's funny to watch people who act like they've never had diarrhea.

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The Seeds Of Patriotism Cannot Be Dug Up!

I don't smoke marijuana. I don't ingest it. I don't look down on those who do, or do not.

But THIS is ridiculous.

She needs to wise up and understand that the laws of this country are there to protect her from the drug dealers and the hardships of drug addiction. Does she want to be addicted to weed the rest of her life? She'll be way better off without it, much more clear-headed and able to enjoy the last few months of her life, fully cognisant of the pain coursing through every inch of her withering, patriotic body.
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Why Good Always Wins Out

This past weekend I, along with a couple hundred other people, crammed cheek to cheek into an over-hot theater to watch "300," a movie about a comic book. The comic book told the story of the Battle of Thermopylae (translation: Fighting The Hot Maple), a battle where 300 (roughly) Spartan men stood to fight an advancing, demolishing, unbeatable Persian army. The Persians were led by their king, Xerxes, who was portrayed in the movie by RuPaul. The basic idea was to make this a dramatic representation of the actual events, for which the home videos are in a box somewhere in somebody's cousin's basement. It was really going to be tough to make it accurate.

Persia, which is now better known as Iran, was once a marauding force under Xerxes. They crushed rebellions, enslaved other cultures, burned and pillaged, you know, the yoozh for the day. It was a LONG time ago, mind you. Like before TV was made, LOOOONG ago. So now, after a $70,000,000 opening weekend, "300" is poised to rake in close $200,000,000 before Memorial Day, the opening day of "Bad Movies For Summer" come out. It's really a pretty great movie to see, though the writing is pretty cartoonish.

ANYway, I saw a headline recently about how Iran is upset with the filmmakers for the negative portrayal of Persian culture in the fake movie about a true story. The quote from the article written in a Chinese newspaper is:

Javad Shamqadri, an art advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused the new movie of being "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture", said the report.

Shamqadri was quoted as saying "following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture," adding "certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

Wow. This guy is saying that the U.S. movie industry, responsible also for "Wild Hogs" and other pig-sh*t movies had the forethought to PLAN to make this movie to DEGRADE the Iranian culture that was over 2500 years ago, at least in the sense it was protrayed in the movie. And for a minute I thought the Iranians were hot-headed, short-fused, humorless, bearded nutjobs who couldn't tell a joke from a nuclear reactor fueled by enriched uranium, propaganda, and paranoia.

The story of "300" is that King Leonidas of Sparta took 300 troops, illegally and without full consent from his Council, to Thermopylae in order to head-off an attack by the Persian army. The idea was that he would slow them down and kill enough of them to allow Sparta to vote for a full defense in the time he and 299 of his spear-tossing, leather-girded loins-sportin' Spartans were plunging metal between the organs of the Persians. Eventually he would make the Athenians and Spartans retreat, only later to have his Persian forces pile-drived into their own asses. The word spread that the Persians could be defeated, so people started doing that more. It was like their version of Text Messaging.

So anyway, at least one Iranian is all pissed off about the movie. The best policy here is what I like to call the "Go Eat A Steamer" policy, where, if he wants to, the offended party can go eat a "steamer" or "log" or "singular doo-doo formation." I hope he dies of a massive coronary on the can. It was 2,500 years back.

Let it go.

An interesting side-note... China reporting that Iran is upset is like your miserly drunk uncle complaining about all the beer cans in the neighbor's lawn. Propaganda, look that-a-way... or is that what they WANT US TO THINK?

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Picture The Perfect Wedding

Dearest of Readers...
Some of the wedding photos snapped by Brian and Jennifer of Photo Elan have been shimmied into a slide-show. Their work captured the entire spectral spectrum of feelings that day.

The song playing is the song Alicia and I had our First Dance to, "Forever" by Ben Harper. Feel like crying? Look at the smiles and you can hear the laughter. Glasses clinking, people cheering and hugging. Tears of happiness were the developer's fluid of those pictures. I never knew it could be like that.

I am so ridiculously blessed. We cannot thank God, our families, and our friends enough for all of it. What an amazing day it was, when I married Alicia, became a husband, a son-in-law, and in many ways, more of a Man.

I will wax poetic another day. Just go check out those photos.

Love you.

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Dustin' For A Conspiracy

My hometown of Maple Valley was hit with a massive dusting of dust this past weekend. This normally laconic town, nestled between Renton and Enumclaw, woke up Sunday and Monday with a dust covering most everything out-of-doors, including trucks (operational and not), and the pile of shootin' cans.

I saw this on the news, how far the dust had spread, how freaked out some folks were. This is big doin' in the Valley! There were news cameras and news men and news stuff! I knew right away what this was truly about. Dusting a few small towns is nothing new. It's been done for over 500 years in order to spread anything from water to wheat to hallucinogenic mind-control compounds.

I was pretty sure that Maple Valley had finally come up on the list of towns to dust. An experimental vaccine to fight tobacco-caused mucous? Perhaps. A massive coating of Splenda to sweeten the air in general, or the other use for Splenda, killing wildlife and sickly children? Hmmm... It's hard to say.

So some dust "Samples" were taken to a "professional science lab" where a "person" looked at the dust "under a" micr"o"scope. "." Their official release was that there was a lot of Cedar pollen in the air, and this dust was that pollen, but not in the air. Perhaps this is an issue stemming from global warming, where a few warm days and some decent winds spread the seed of the cedars to the far reaches of Ray & Myrna Jackfield's fields, covering the better part of their outdoor washing machines and cow.

Personally, I am keeping an eye on old Maple Valley from now on. I was always wary of the place, even while I lived there. As it has grown, so has the pool for random samples. But this... this isn't "random." This is some X-Files stuff, I'm sure of it. This is not the government. You can trust them. It's the other groups (Nickelback, the library system, whomever bakes for Starbucks) that you have to watch out for. Nothing is going to make me paranoid, mind you. Just keep an eye on Maple Valley. If I go back for my 20th reunion and the water flows upwards, the kids have oversized eyeballs and only one lip, and I only see half-hearted stripmalls and white people, I shall relievedly wipe my brow to see things are normal.

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This Heart Is A Reservoir, pt. 2

The amount of smarts, maturity, intensity, and wine it must take to run at Killorn's pace, I would stand in amazement were it piled high in a room. She is a friend of the highest order. If you let her, she can make you feel as though you've known her forever. If you can hang, your life will be enriched. If you can't, you are really missing out.

One of the first times I ever hung out with Killorn and ended up getting flaptardedly drunk with her, the next day she drove me to my car. Which had been impounded. And like a good friend, Killorn did the right thing. She laughed about it. If she thought I was truly some nozzle, just a twit, she would have said "Sorry dude, grab a cab. CLICK." But no. She laughed about it like I had just been the victim of a prank by the Universe, and not only was I starting the day off hanging like Grover, but I was already $130 in the hole, and wasn't even on my way to work. In my face. Ha. That's one reason I love her. She knew it was a "eh, tow happens" moment, so laugh it off, weirdo.

I have seen the genius in Killorn's writing come to life. I have seen her mind at work and at play. They are each humbling and inspiring, equally. If you give her a reason, and your defenses are down, she will DESTROY you. Then she will apologize, and usually mean it. She is great when under pressure. She is terrible when under-utilized. She will not sit and stare, unless Joel McHale is involved. Her engine runs hot. That's another reason I love her. She wants in the game. She ain't wearing a cup for nothing, even if it is on her face.

If Killorn wanted to, she could be President. Considering the travel, however, it pays for shit, so consider her "out." She will, one day, run the kind of company you wish you worked for. It may just be her, me, my Wife From The Near Future, and a pugnacious pug named Mort, but everyone will want in. Probably for the riches. Probably for the respect in the community. Likely for the philanthropy, not to mention the three-story high-rise offices. She won't say this to anybody, because she is truly humble, but she already has it figured out.

She GETS Tenacious D.

She's the cousin I never got to grow up with. Killorn encourages by giving you reminders of your accomplishments, not by cheering. She's had that moment. Over it. Whatever you know about pop culture, she forgot about it last week. Do not talk to her about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Kevin Federline. She knows already. Lindsay LoLo isn't worth the breath. She is a cheerleader of freaks and goons, wanting to see them blossom into full gooniness. That's why I love her. Between a rocket launch and a train wreck, she'll go with Train Wreck at least 7 times out of 10, but she will ALWAYS hope for survivors.

Never cross me about Killorn. Killorn is Family. If you don't like her, keep it to yourself until you're out of my space. And MySpace. She has been told by other people that I would one day leave her behind as a friend. I have had a number of moments to do that. And I'm sure I have laid a few steamers on her doorstep that would warrant a firebombing. Yet as my wedding day draws nigh (check THAT off my list of "jaunty phrases to use"), I know I picked the right person to stand in the position of my Best Man. She is traditionally unconventional. She is my KillornsMan. She is my dearest friend.

I love you, Killorn, you stress-causing, Wynn promenade-tirading, Visionary of Self Realization, Life-Long Friendship, and Flow Charts. Thank you for introducing me to Alicia. I will forever be grateful, for that, for HAX, for Vegas, for Mexico, for Fremont. And many more. You ass.


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