Saturday, February 3, 2001
Groundhog Day predictions, my ass...
I've always found it pretty ludicrous how somebody back in time thought "Hey, if it's cloudy on February 2 and a groundhog is around to notice, spring's here!" Um, riiiiight, like that snow all over the ground is just going to disappear next week because of that, I thought. It's going to be six more weeks of winter (literally and weatherly) no matter what the guy says.

In this 1997 article, the conspiracy is brought to light: "Groundhogs from New York to Georgia agreed on the weather for the next six weeks, but suspicions of a groundhog conspiracy cast doubts over the 111-year-old tradition of weather prognostication by rodent.
In Pennsylvania, Phil's prediction is written out long before he's dragged from his burrow. The General in Georgia is visibly forced out from his groundhog-sized antebellum mansion. And at the Staten Island Zoo, Chuck is revealed to be making his first prediction.
This year, the groundhog bit back, chomping the gloved thumb of his handler. Then they turned out a lights that illuminated the stage ... and read from the scroll prepared long before Phil involuntarily emerged and made his prediction. Phil did not see his shadow.
How accurate is Phil? Phil supposedly saw his shadow last year. But the shadow came from fireworks, as Punxsutawney was covered in clouds. Groundhog Club President Bud Dunkel says Phil communicates his prediction to the Inner Circle "telepathically."
And get this ... the folks who paid to learn how to predict the weather say Phil's on a 50-50 tear in the last six years -- about as accurate as the average weather forecaster -- but other sources say the rodents get it right far less often, about 28 percent of the time.
Phil -- or perhaps more accurately, the Inner Circle -- was wrong in 1991, 1992, and 1995. But Groundhog Club members say Phil is NEVER wrong.
"Weather is in the eye of the beholder," Dunkel says." Er, what???

I also think it's a conspiracy that Phil has seen his shadow 101 times in the last 155 years. It's not THAT sunny in winter usually...hmmmmmmmm.

And to top that all off, someone did online what I did in my head after watching it: counting the "days" in the movie Groundhog Day.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Guy loses a ton of weight on nothing but Subway food
Scary thought, isn't it? Especially since I'm not that impressed with their food.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Celebrity Top Ten (or so) Lists:
Recommended: Mark Cuban, NBA team owner, on the best things about being an owner: "14.Get to say things like "I'm looking for a guy with good ball-handling skills" without getting your ass kicked.
13.Not that you would, but if you wanted to you could rename them the Dallas Binky-Bonky-Boinky-Bunnies.
12.Your friends may have Picassos and Rembrandts hanging in their drawing rooms; but YOU have a 6'8" purple-haired tattoo-covered ex-rebound champ serving cocktail wienies.
10.Forget to buy your girlfriend a birthday gift? No sweat -- have Rodman spot you a fur coat and some jewelry.

Scott Adams, Dilbert cartoonist, on comic strip character pet peeves: "14.Try as you might to swear, all that comes out is a string of unintelligible symbols.
12.Getting stuck between Hagar and Broom-Hilda -- neither of whom is familiar with the word "bath."
9.Let's just say that a certain someone's tie seems to have a slight Viagra addiction.
8.Mental health benefits limited to consultations from "Dr." Van Pelt.
5.Ever since Billy hit puberty, "Not Me" has been borrowing the Hustlers from Daddy's sock drawer.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Geek porn
Oooh, that hard drive!

Saturday, February 3, 2001
We'd rather reduce class sizes than make the year longer, poll sez
"A majority of Californians support Gov. Gray Davis' proposal to extend the school year for middle school students by six weeks, but more would prefer spending the money on reducing class sizes for the same students, according to a Field Poll released Monday.
The survey found that 58 percent of Californians back the idea of a longer school year for middle school students, with 33 percent opposed and 9 percent undecided.
However, given the option of spending the money on a longer school year or smaller class sizes for those grades, 72 percent of those surveyed backed smaller classes, while 24 percent chose a longer school year and 4 percent were undecided.
Davis is not considering a class size reduction proposal for middle grades because of a lack of both facilities and teachers, an administration spokeswoman said Monday.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Interviewing the "Parachute" guy
With additional job-hunting tips.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Super Bowl of Commercials
"It's gotten so that there's an excessively hip contingent that watches the game just for the commercials.
Now, maybe it's just me, but that seems like the mark of a consumerist culture run amok. And while I'm normally in favor of things running amok, I still have trouble understanding what's happening here. Commercials are basically carnival hucksters screaming at you, trying to get you to buy Preparation H, and Kleenex, and Schwab Investments. They're on the midway, but they're not why you came to the carnival. They're something you're supposed to hurry past on your way to the cotton candy stand and the disappointing fun house.
The big selling point for the commercials -- which are themselves supposed to be selling points for something else -- is that the advertisers spend millions of dollars to make special "Super Bowl Commercials." The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of commercials! People in the advertising business still talk in reverent, hushed tones about the Apple's 1984 Macintosh ad, which only aired once, if you don't count the thousands of "World's Best Commercials" shows that have shown it since. For some advertisers, the Super Bowl is the start of the season; it's when they debut their new talking lizards that they'll be shoving down the throat of the viewing public for the next year.
And at any other time than the Super Bowl, the viewing public seems resentful. Commercials are the time when you can walk away from your TV, secure in the knowledge that Ross and Rachel won't be getting back together for at least the next two minutes. But for four hours a year, families gather together in front of the flickering box, anxious to see how they'll be bilked out of their money.

I think I can take a swing at this one...People only care about commercials during the Super Bowl because this is the one time of year when the commercials are mostly guaranteed to (a) not be the same damn annoying repeated jingle thing they play 25 times a day, every day, for 364 days a year, and (b) actually funny because they paid the big buck ad guys to do the creative work. (And in my case, I hate watching team sports on television, so the commercials are the only bit interesting for me if the 49ers aren't playing.) It's much the same reason as anyone would watch the Clio Award ad show on television: because you're guaranteed to get an hour of ads that are funny and aren't mind-numbingly stupid for a change. No matter where you go or what you do you get an ad shoved in your face: at least on one day they're not completely bad ones.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Word Perhect
It's kinda like the handwriting version of Word. You just have to see it.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
A First Lady's place is bonding with the Easter eggs.
"One of Hillary's first disasters as First Lady is now mostly forgotten, but I think it neatly symbolises the problem. The annual White House Easter egg hunt has been managed by the First Lady for decades. Hillary took no interest in such events - back then, she had her hopes set on nationalising the country's health care. The result was that the first egg hunt of the Clinton years was so poorly and hastily organised that hundreds of mothers and their children were left standing in line outside the White House for hours, shivering in rain and cold."

This is a huge tragedy to you, madam? Why can't some other frigging staffers organize the egg hunt? I'm sure there are plenty there who do it every year and would know more than Hill would about it anyway...and why the HELL are you people going on an egg hunt when it's RAINING????

Really snotty article about why Hillary is so horrible because she didn't want to do the traditional First Lady homemaker of the land crap. The nation's over 200 years old, hasn't it grown out of needing a mommy yet? Why can't we accept that a 40something intelligent woman might want to do something else besides stand by her man?

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Most Destructive Comic Book Characters
Pretty self-explanatory...

Saturday, February 3, 2001
In which the Catholic church are jerks once again...
How stupid is this? A little Catholic girl is allergic to the communion wafers (basically) and the Church refuses to let her use non-allergy-causing ones, causing the family to quit the Church period. Like the mom said, "I believe Jesus would have made an exception."

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Making pants that fit
"But then the bigger question: the oxymoron. The realization that in order to take an important step to self-empowerment I have to perform a traditionally female task. Become a stereotype. Where is the justice in this? I have fought to be educated, free, and informed. I am embracing feminism with a new-found vigor so strong I almost ache to shout out words of justice to the man in his sportscar and suit across the road, purely because of his visual arrogance and power. But in order to find my beauty and power I have to SEW? Become the domesticated woman? And tomorrow, when I'm darning my husband's socks and rocking his male heir to sleep, will I ever forgive myself?
Okay, so revving up the sewing machine does not immediately condemn me to a life of servitude. But it still makes things harder. Making - creating - should be a beautiful exercise. But stereotypes and gender roles have destroyed this.
"A man creates with tools." / "A woman's place is in the home". These messages make me stare at my new hobby with a feeling of betrayal and guilt. I tried to look beautiful in a body that society does not support. In return, they sent me back to the home where I belong. In order to break out, I'm going to have to sew myself in."

Saturday, February 3, 2001
More Bush crap, or
"A new breeze is blowing," said George W. Bush in his inaugural address to the nation, "and the old bipartisanship must be made new again."
Funny, it smells just like the breeze from 12 years ago. So far, the only old things we've seen dusted off are the Cabinet and the policy agenda. If they smell less than fresh, it's probably because they've spent the past eight years in a forgotten crypt, stewing... Only 10 days into the Bush regime, '80s nostalgia is finally hitting its stride.
But even if the president were inclined to represent the will of the people in 2001, how would he know what it is? He is known to be averse to books, television, movies, travel, culture, public policy, work and staying awake for extended periods of time. Indeed, some have wondered what it is exactly that the president does with all his spare time. Could "napping" be a euphemism for "protracted coma"? Are we in fact living in the early days of the van Winkle administration?"

"Doctors are figuring out how to utilize stem cells to make organs healthy again -- like a Parkinson's-impaired brain or a failing pancreas.
Last week as expected, Bush said he would forbid funding for research using tissue from aborted fetuses. The question about the use of days-old discarded embryos, not fetuses per se, appeared to be up in the air. But a Bush spokesman implied Bush would prevent that as well.
That's hard to understand -- how America can forfeit away medicine so important -- except that a political viewpoint far outside the mainstream has its clamps on American policy. Bush got to the White House by appealing to the middle. Since his election he has made several gestures that looked right past the middle, such as nominating John Ashcroft for attorney general and re-invoking a rule that will sacrifice international family planning efforts to anti-abortion politics.
Now because of a minority's concerns about destroying a "live embryo," stem-cell research risks going into the deep freeze on these shores. Then again, maybe we can confront Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal chord injuries et al. with charm."

But forget all the other things that he's doing, here's what we should REALLY be worrying about: Bush can't dance. Who the hell came up with THIS? How hokey (pokey).

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Columnist Survivor
Four Contra Costa Times columnists. One mountain. A whole lotta griping.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Screwed-up people are the successful ones in life!
"[Ben] Stein says he's found a common thread among celebrities. "All the guests felt they had something to live up to and some kind of deficit in their lives that they had to make up by being successful," he says. "I had on this woman boxer who said her father had been abusive. I said: 'Well, now you're successful, you've done really well in life. What would you say if you saw your father now?' She said: 'I wouldn't say anything. I'd kill him.'"I thought: 'Wow, this in a nutshell is what all these people faced.' They all had some serious caring and attention deficit to make up from their childhood, and they're making it up now by being who they are. What I'm getting is a revelation that maybe there aren't any happy childhoods, and that those people who do have happy childhoods wind up as letter-carriers."

Saturday, February 3, 2001
20 minutes of SNL, Survivor-style!
Lucky me, still living in that "early prime time" area, I got to watch both Survivor, Friends and SNL in a row. In all honesty, the 20 minute version was pretty dang good. "13 cast members, 20 minutes, one frightened network."

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Even more Temptation Island!
Even before they do a sequel, the producers would like to run a seventh episode--which doesn't even exist!

Incidentally, according to this article Mandy and Billy are still together. But this one says everyone split but Shannon and Andy. Also, the singles hooked up with each other a lot and Heather left because of the hidden child debacle.

Saturday, February 3, 2001
Those slacker professors!
This article makes me rather glad that I didn't go to a big shot school. Apparently the poor students can't ever find their profs to talk to them even during office hours, so the new policy is to make them all come in four days a week. The professors are pissed off at having to work among the hoi polloi ("I want my nice quiet desk at home!"), and snipe that students never come in for office hours except to bitch about their grades. Well, duh. I've never understood the concept of "Hi, you don't know me, but I'm in your huge history of whatever class, and I just um, came by to introduce myself, I have nothing more to say" during office hours anyway. Isn't the point of office hours to go in and get help and/or talk about your grades?

Saturday, February 3, 2001
More Survivor crap abounds!
This week just astonished me, with the total utter jerkiness of virtually everyone in the game. "This episode on Survivor: Drama! Action! Scandal! Conspiracy! You've heard of Watergate - but that's child's play compared to Jerkygate©! Even though we believe that it was all quite exciting, if you're going to get busted for a stash of grass, there are more interesting ways to go."

For those who don't know what I'm talking about with this paste, Kel, ironically the only member of Ogakor who actually tried to GET food, was (probably falsely) identified by Jerri as secretly eating beef jerky. The Ogawhores, famished and stupid, immediately rifled through his stuff looking for food in all the wrong places, (Riiiiight, like Burnett didn't go through everyone's luggage already?), then refused to apologize for doing so. They also went so far as to follow Kel into the woods (not shown on TV) and well... Remember last week when Kimmi was shrieking about wherever is she going to masturbate? Too bad she couldn't ask Kel, though his example might have made her want to swear off the activity altogether...Poor Kel then was forced to bribe them with razors, fat lot of good that did him. His "alliance" members--Mad Dog and Tina--even voted him off. Maybe it was a good thing they eliminated the honest, hardworking one right off the bat :P

Now I've heard theories that those two were just going with the flow so they wouldn't make themselves stand out, but I don't think so at least in Mad Dog's case. Did she really need to imply that Kel wouldn't give anyone water if she liked him? Her tribemates weren't even going to hear that while on the "island." For that matter, I'm not too sure I believe the rumor that my roommate heard--that Kel was really eating his own crap-- either.

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
Some of the most fucked video games
Custer's Revenge: "Custer's Revenge was the first "adult" video game. In it, you control General Custer, nude except for his hat and sporting an enormous boner. On the right side of the screen an Indian woman stands tied to a pole. The goal of the game is to walk Gen. Custer from the left side of the screen to the right, dodging cactuses and arrows. Upon doing so, the game plays a bit of music, the Indian woman lifts her legs around Custer's waist, and you score one point. Repeat until satisfied." (I'm serious, look at the screenshot.)

Toilet Kids: "Basically, the only rule of the game is: if it looks like poop, shoot it. You'll be shooting farting flies, pre-pube urine-spraying penises, monkeys that pull poop out of their butts and throw it at you, spiders with giant asses that spin webs, an elephant with a big pile of poop on his head, and, at the end of the game, UHPI, the King of Underpants."

Kato and Ken: "You can choose to play as either Kato, who has a pompadour and resembles a game show host, or Ken, who looks charmingly like a child molester. You'll come across the one you didn't choose pissing up against lampposts, hanging out in public restrooms dressed as vampires or women, and hunkering down behind bushes suffering from what appears to be a severe case of constipation."

Photograph Boy: I'm sure this is just what it's like to work as a photographer, really...

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
So the Onion folks wanna do a movie...
which will involve "a lot of authority figures falling into pools." Hmmmmmmm.

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
Revealing myself to be a heartless bitch here, but...
You know, I'm really sick of hearing about "oh, we were going to do this show with kids with guns, but we had to tone it down because of Columbine." Between stuff like canceling the finale of Buffy and this flick, it's gotten ridiculous that stuff having nothing to do with killing your classmates gets dumbed down to utter ridiculousness: " Instead of toting machine guns during an armed robbery, the cheerleaders now carry harmless fake weapons constructed of spare gun parts, colored tape, and glitter." How lame is that gonna look, come on!

And then there's the whole kid in jail for writing a story thing.

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
Hour Lost Explaining Computer Terms to Mom
Not that I'm exactly knowledgeable myself and am not as stupid as this in my own way (tonight's activity will feature me staring baffledly as it's repeated to me why I should do three bizarre things to fix my computer), but I sympathize with this too: " "It was pretty sad, really. When I heard him start to explain 56K, it was like watching someone try to explain quantum physics to a goat. At that point, though, he had no choice it was like the Titanic after the iceberg, just a matter of time until the people started screaming."
The situation ended with Josh screaming "Shut up, shut up, shut up" and then installing the "damn" family tree maker, while his mother cried in the family room."
On a similar note, here's the Post Technical Support Disorder test, another rant on being tech support, and Dead Hard Drive saved, "just in case."
"A self-admitted pack rat, Ty has accumulated an awesome selection of obsolete and non-functioning hardware from 386 SX motherboards to acoustic coupler modems. The pile, which Ty calls his 'Stack of Wonder', occupies a large portion of his bedroom in his parents' basement."

On another techie-related note, Seattle folks can check out the one man show known as 21 Dog Years: doing time@amazon.com."

Tuesday, January 30, 2001
Life with a funny name
Today I feel that Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post and his hilarious "Below the Beltway" column should get some promotion. I linked to one of his columns about PR people a few logs back, but here's more of his work:

"Mary Dork of Rhinelander, Wis., also married into her name. ("The first time I met my husband," she said, "I thought, 'I sure feel sorry for whoever marries this guy.'")
The trick to dealing with an inherited bad name, said Gail Boob of Wapato, Wash., is keeping a sense of humor. "My husband wasn't even born a Boob," she noted. "He was adopted by his stepfather and took the name. So I tell people that we are not even biological Boobs. We're falsies."

Other great columns include the politics of Adlai Stevenson (I know this doesn't sound like a fun article, but the man "said things no smart politician would ever say, like this: "I don't know yet whether one can win an election with hard, distasteful truths, but this is the only way I want to win it." Good for you, Chuckles! Don't let the door whack you in the keister on your way out!", and what really happens when you put a rabbi, priest and minister together.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Who Would Buy That?
Hah! If you loved Disturbing Auctions, you'll love this one.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Chinese New Year with the McNamaras
" I’d really rather not know about people’s flirtations with racism. Is it best to let people know about my secret identity straight off? Should I let my co-workers know as soon as I start a job? Should I announce it upon my arrival at every party I go to? Do I get a tattoo? Not a Chinese symbol for “courage” or “strength” that’s so popular with the kids today, but something in English that’d really hit home, like those “Yes, I am a Model” T-shirts: “Yes, I am Eurasian”? Maybe branded across my forehead?"

Sunday, January 28, 2001
The Britney Spears Chatroom
Oh dear God. I can't believe this guy actually tried to ask serious questions in here.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Ban Breast Feeding!
"Women who breast-feed enjoy an erotic experience that offensively imposes oral gratification on innocent infants. This reprehensible act teaches children illicit sex that subsequently manifests promiscuity, homosexuality and addiction to cybersex.."

Sunday, January 28, 2001
The tale of the Conch Republic
I'd never heard this before, but I read Callahan's Key today and was amused at the story. Here's a more detailed explanation of secession from the U.S.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Coming Out As An Alien
Odd but interesting article, one point in it is what has prompted me to link to it: "Klass relates the story of Christy Dennis, a young housewife who claimed in 1981 to have been abducted by aliens and transferred to their home planet. Featured in the December 15, 1981 National Enquirer and encouraged to write a book about her experiences, Dennis admitted in 1983 that her story was a hoax. Klass explains that in several letters and phone calls Dennis expressed that "she was very much concerned about the nuclear arms race and the possible destruction of the human race in a thermonuclear war. But when she voiced such concerns to friends and neighbors, their typical response was: 'What makes you think that you are so much smarter than our government leaders in Washington'". Thus, she constructed a tale of wise extra-terrestrials whose words would be taken seriously." DAMN.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
The supercommuters
This just seems insane to me, somehow. I understand housing costs are godawful, but what's the point of getting a cheap nice house if you're never there to enjoy it? I did a commuting article over the summer, and man, that's hard on people. I'm lucky now that my commutes are approximately fifteen minutes. I know a guy who once insisted that wherever he move to be like, across the street from wherever he worked. I thought that was pretty silly at the time (he commutes out of town now, in case you're wondering), but maybe he had a point (especially since he's a workaholic).

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Crotch crotch crotch crotch crotch
Bleeeeech. Not only tacky, but overdone to boot.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
You've Got Blog
I don't exactly do the whole "blogging community" thing as yet, but for some reason went through some links along those lines today and was all "Awww, how romantic" at the above entry. Then I was amused by the Anti-Bloggies.

This one, however, made me think. I try to do number 10 a lot, at least.

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Homosexual Recruitment Drive Nearing Goal
"When I grow up, I want to be gay," said Christopher Linn, 8, a second-grader at Philadelphia's Lakeside Elementary School, one of thousands of public schools nationwide that actively promote the homosexual agenda. "I don't want to have a family or go to church."

"Straight people don't have any fun," said Teddy Nance, 11, after watching Breeders Are Boring!, an anti-heterosexual filmstrip, in his fifth-grade class at Crestwood Elementary School in Roanoke, VA. "Gay people get to do whatever they want."

"The gay lifestyle is for me," said James Miller, an Oklahoma City father of four who recently moved to Provincetown, MA, to pursue a career in bath-house management. "When I was a family man, I constantly had to worry about things like taking the kids to Little League practice, paying for their braces, and remembering my wife's birthday. But now that I'm gay, I'm finally free to focus all my energy on having non-stop, mind-blowing anal sex."

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Babies are Stupid!
"According to Institute president Molly Bentley, in an effort to determine infant survival instincts when attacked, the babies were prodded in an aggressive manner with a broken broom handle. Over 90 percent of them, when poked, failed to make even rudimentary attempts to defend themselves. The remaining 10 percent responded by vacating their bowels.

"It is unlikely that the presence of the babies' fecal matter, however foul-smelling, would have a measurable defensive effect against an attacker in a real-world situation," Bentley said."

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Survivor analysis
Richard's getting himself some employment during the next installment, I see. I think I'd rather read his analysis than Kelly's very profound analysis of Jerri ("I don't think she won"). Nice Susan dig there, honey. Meanwhile, here's a quote from Colleen: "A studio medic actually doused a tiny scratch on her leg with iodine. Not so on ''Survivor,'' where her insect devoured gams blistered for CBS' ratings. ''When my bites got really bad,'' she recalls, ''I asked the senior doctor what he could do and he said, 'Tomorrow I'll bring a camera.'''

Okay, back to the new show: The three I'm going to discuss are mentioned here, and to restrain myself from registering for yet another forum, I'll just say what I feel like over here.

Kucha/Cootchies: Um, yeah. Nice way to keep screwing up the immunity challenge big time, Pagonganites. That was embarrassing. Kimmi: Stupid name, bitched about Debb the whole episode, obviously voted her off out of sheer hate. Incidentally, I think it was stupid of all of them to vote Debb off instead of Kimmi (or maybe Rodger for the old thing, but at least he can build stuff). Kimmi kept sniping about Debb's book-larnin', but come on, at least she tried to prepare and do a good job around there. You guys aren't doing so well-- frankly, I think y'all needed to keep someone around with SOME knowledge, at least for awhile. What does Kimmi know, dare I ask? And as for Jeff, while he seems a bit sleazy game player/Richard wannabe (probably a good idea, so long as he stops puking), he's the one guy I thought was cute on the show. Colby, I know you love your state and this was filmed before the election, but right now I hate Texas and therefore, ugh. Elizabeth: Bad hair. And what the HELL is with the bongo drum crap?!

Follow-up reviews: this guy seemed to like the dialogue. This one comments on the beautification of this crop of contestants. Jeff Probst takes credit for everything, including his lack of shorts (what was he thinking? You're in Australia, bucko! It's likely to be warm and stuff!).

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Now this is really surviving
This flick sounds downright terrifying. And "The Mole" thought it was scary to "execute" players...

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Talk Soup for reality TV
Now this one sounds like one to watch. Damn, I miss free cable!

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Dang, Temptation Island was tacky last week!
Read all about first date nipple licking here. A local fella makes a good point about this kinda TV. And I just adore these ripoff ideas. And Elizabeth Wurtzel's review has some great descriptions. "Somehow, they've managed to populate the island with people named Maceo, Ace, Kaya, Lawonna, Lola, Venus, Dago, Taheed, Ytossie and Britt. If nothing else keeps you intrigued by Temptation Island, you can sit there like me and wonder why on earth there are no Jessicas or Jennifers, no Michaels or Johns on this show; you can wonder if any of these people really have mothers, or were they simply sprung from Zeus' forehead and told to invent themselves?"

Update: According to this article, Ytossie and Taheed weren't necessarily really, really good at hiding their child so much as the producers MUST not have tried very hard! "However, a simple Lexis database search uncovered public documents dealing with the paternity suit filed against Watson in 1999 and subsequent pleadings pertaining to financial support for the child, who, according to those documents, lives with Patterson and was born in December 1998. That search and others--using only the Southern California couple's first names, which were all that the show revealed--found a host of other data."

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Bush Hatred Here
My apologies (such as they are) to any Republicans reading this, but the man PISSES ME OFF BIG TIME. Damn, I wish McCain had gotten the Republican nomination- at least I could respect him. And he has more than one brain cell to rub together, if you get my drift.

There are so many reasons to be pissy at the guy, and trying to keep them all straight over the last week has been difficult at best. I'm just gonna smack these links up as best I can.

Protest stories: "Standing with rubberneckers across the street, we learn that all of the Bush Street signs this morning have been changed to say "Puppet." "The fact is," one conservative-looking tourist says aloud, "none of this is going to change the fact that George W. Bush is now the president." "Yes, we know," I say, simplifying, "but it makes us all feel better."

And here's another. "I’m told President George W. Bush’s weak inaugural address centered on civility and unity, and I have to wonder if he’s witnessing what I am. This is in fact the breakdown of civility, and the only people uniting here do so when the presidential limousine rolls by and they chant “Not my president!” A gang of four dressed in black from head to toe has taken to a flagpole. The group strips every flag and re-hangs the American banners upside down to the approving cheers of the audience, which chants “peace-ful, peace-ful” when the riot squad is called in."

Meanwhile, the Chimp-in-Charge ignores it all.

The items destroyed and vandalized by departing staffers gets more and more elaborate each day.

While Snopes says the pranks are unconfirmed as yet, this article seems to smell a hoax, or at least a lot of hype. "But there's nothing unprecedented about the old administration pranking the new administration, as subsequent reports indicated. When Clinton-Gore staffers showed up for work in 1993, they found offices in disarray, computers disabled, and office furniture helpfully decorated with numerous Bush-Quayle bumper stickers. It appears that in this transition, the White House press corps took a similar situation and hyped it into a full-bore scandal without requiring one White House staffer to go on the record about specific vandalism or to provide any physical evidence.
In the absence of proof, why did the White House press corps advance the sabotage claims? 1) The Bushies insist on talking on a not-for-attribution basis if they talk at all, and this allowed them to embellish the scope of Prankgate's "destruction" without suffering any blowback. 2) For all the pomp and pageantry of inauguration week, there wasn't much news for the press corps to report. So, mindful of who their masters will be for the next four years, they accepted the Bushies' blind accounts. 3) Reporters are suckers for stories that conform to their prejudices: It stood to reason that the Clinton crew would make a graceless exit and that the grown-ups from Texas would rise above it. 4) By Jan. 20 the ultra-efficient Clinton spin machine had been unplugged and there was nobody to provide an alternative account.
The story here wasn't Clintonite shenanigans. It was the new White House's smearing of their predecessors and Fleischer's refusal to put up or shut up when it came time to start giving details."

Gotta love the made up ones too, though. Interestingly enough, "Bush, Pigfucker" is in the keywords in the source page, or so I was told.

And according to Google, Bush is a dumb motherfucker.

Then there's his whole "slowly getting rid of the right to choose, wherever I can" thing. I wonder who's going to end up worse off: women in need of birth control or gays. Women may just have to result to the stuff mentioned here (in "I'm Just A Bill" style, no less--it's hilarious, read this one if you read nothing else in here). I'm already getting sick of the whole God's Christian thing.

"Uniter, not a divider", MY ASS! "Even Barbara Walters could see that. A few days before Bush inherited his father's old position, Walters asked him, "Did you really expect [Ashcroft] to be as much of a lightening rod?" Bush replied, "Yes, I did." Ka-runch! Walters had him in her trap: "You really did? And you did it anyway, even though you talk about wanting to unite?"
A snared Bush could only say, "That doesn't mean we can't unite the nation once we put somebody in place who can do the job as [AG]." He looked foolish, for would-be uniters do not shove lightening rods up the backsides of their opponents." (I told you this was crap.) I can't believe that Democrats are going to let him get away with this!

On another topic, Bush seems to have forgotten about that whole separation of church and state thing to boot. "Everyone who believes that certain religious groups will be getting significantly more of this money than others, say, "Amen."
Bush has already shown that he won't fund groups that don't adhere to his particular set of moral beliefs. In his first full workday as president, he announced he was yanking funds to overseas organizations that use their own money to provide abortions or abortion counseling. These countries or of ours. Bush's decision was based solely on his own particular brand of morality."

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Ebert's Wedding Planner review
"While Mary and Steve wander in a sculpture garden, they accidentally knock over a statue, and the statue's male hardware gets broken off. Mary has some crazy glue in her purse, and they try to glue the frank and beans back in place, but alas the broken part becomes stuck to Steve's palm. If he had gone through the rest of the movie like that, it might have added some interest. But no: Mary also has some solvent in her purse. When you have seen Jennifer Lopez ungluing marble genitals from the hand of the man she loves, you have more or less seen everything."

Saturday, January 27, 2001
What Would Lois Do?
I just love that Malcolm in the Middle mom, let me tell you. Best part of this article: the bottom section (as you may figure out from what I named the link).

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Commentary on yet another "put the man in charge again" book
Yup, here's a local link- I've met the authors because they work with my ex, but nowadays they don't recognize me. They make a lot of sense here.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
No One Lives Forever
I'm not a game person (if I were, I wouldn't have time to do a weblog...or homework...or my job...), but this one sounds interesting.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Dan Savage Gives Cunnilingus Lessons...sort of.
This is one of the funniest things he's written (or, well, his readers have written) in awhile. Could you BE more contradictory?

Saturday, January 27, 2001
A link to a gruesome story I haven't read.
The only reason I'm linking to it is to share this exchange about it on IRC from the other day:
has anyone been cut lately?
this guy has been cut
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/25/sawed.off.hand.ap/index.html
I am so not even reading that
but you'll miss the moral of the story
no pictures, moon, and it's actually kind of amusing
what, that some dummy sawed off his hand and then tried to shoot himself with a nail gun? what's the moral, don't be stupid?
If you accidentally saw off your hand, shooting yourself in the head with a nailgun won't help.
Duuuuuuuuuuh

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Drown the Flash splash
It's just a damn waste of time to make someone go through your silly splash screen for a minute or two. I tend to just hit my back button.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Optical Illusions

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Movie Cliches
Just read the first page to see what it's about.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Why can't we accept that great men aren't moral paragons?
"You rarely find an extraordinary man or woman who is also exemplary." I like how he makes the point that we shouldn't throw someone out of work because he does a good job but whores around or whatever else crap on his off-hours. "To go into public life in this country today, you have to combine the purest possible motives with a willingness to be accused of having the worst. It breaks my heart, but I'd guess that many of the best and the brightest have figured this out and are staying home in droves. I find it hard to imagine the American public tolerating any of the great men of the past should they reappear, or should others like them surface. There's a lot of moaning about the good old days and how we don't have any heroes anymore. What we mean to say is that we don't have any Disney heroes anymore."

And for that matter, most people don't care that the rich and powerful fuck around. ""I bet if you did a survey of very successful male leaders, we would probably find a disproportionate number who sleep around. If we're going to limit leaders to men who can keep their penis in their pants, then we're going to have no leaders. The gene for screwing around must be the same for great leadership."

Here's another take on the punditry of the issue: "The ritual has become utterly predictable. A public figure's extramarital affair is exposed. If he's a conservative, those on the right blame the liberal press and the Democrats for invading his privacy, while those on the left savage the guy for hypocrisy. If he's a liberal, those on the left say there's no real link between sexual misconduct and public policy, and those on the right voice their disgust at liberal values."

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Maybe you don't need those 8 glasses of water after all...
I've never understood why 8. I really don't think nature intended humans to be constantly peeing and drinking (what a waste of time) instead of out killing animals and gathering.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Star Secrets
An astrology advice column. Very interesting.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Communication Breakdown?
There's too many ways to keep in touch in the world.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
The Fat Project
Can two skinny kids gain 30 pounds in 30 days? Find out here!

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Lego Porn
I find it interesting that whenever I leave more than a few college students alone with my Lego collection for a period of time, I return to find scenes like these. Last time my roommate had friends over, I found a 9-member gang bang of Lego people, animals and skeletons, and another one blowing the horse.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Badass girls on film
How the girls kick ass (literally) as opposed to constantly being in jeopardy. Interesting analysis here, though I suspect that the vast majority of women can't really ever do this (we just wish).

Saturday, January 27, 2001
The Ultimate Temple of Charles Kerr Hatred
There's hating your roommate, and then there's doing a web page about it.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
The myth of monogamy
The whole biological aspect thing, and comparison to Jesse Jackson.

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Go Janet!

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Kulturreich
Pop culture snobs are bloody annoying. Particularly musical ones. Now don't get me wrong, it's kinda cool that some people eschew the popular and instead constantly search for the most obscure bands out there that nobody has ever heard of, but in all honesty, I'm not gonna spend that much time doing so. And I get very annoyed when the culture snobs outright yell at me for liking something that people may have actually heard of. Not that I don't have a few semi-obscure tastes myself, but don't act like I've revealed myself to be a boy band groupie around me, please?

Saturday, January 27, 2001
Hometown boy makes bad
To think that a boy from my placid little hometown managed to look at porn in the library. Woo-whee!