Lines. When to Draw Them.
My boss asked me this week what a dirty sanchez is. Is this better or worse than the time he asked me if I thought he was a douche bag? Discuss.
My boss asked me this week what a dirty sanchez is. Is this better or worse than the time he asked me if I thought he was a douche bag? Discuss.
The National Review has tried to parlay the success of Conservative Rock List I into a sequel by publishing a list of the Greatest Conservative Rock Songs of All Time: #51-#100 (thanks to Hot 97 for the link). It's more of a Police Academy a sequel than a Godfather but with some good choices on there (not that they couldn't use the hilarious antics of Tackleberry to make it even more Police Academy). Charlie Daniels gets his due as the Confederate flag wrapped stereotype that he aspires to be. The Dead Kennedys are on there, though totally for the wrong song. "Kill the Poor" should have been a mortal lock for the Top 10, but listing "Holiday in Cambodia" simply reveals list compiler John J. Miller as little more than a conservative rock poseur. He's so getting beaten up at the next Focus on the Family picnic. I will say that I cracked a smile to see that he even co-opted The Smiths ("This Night Has Opened My Eyes"). Take heart gentle reader, before you buy that gun to defend Morrissey's honor, please consider the source, a source that wrote the sentence, "An expression of Christian faith by a super-hip band" about P.O.D.'s "Alive."
As part of my half-assed attempts at self-betterment, which have included such efforts as a detox diet which a friend of mine basically made up on his own and purchasing running shoes (for display only), I figured I'd outline some stuff that I should do to make the most of the Summer of '06.
At first I thought this story was a bit of satire. The National Review, the preferred rag of every trickle-down hipster looking to be part of the vanguard, published its list of the Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs of All Time.
There is no problem more prominent or vexing to the average consumer today than high gas prices. We all know that something has to be done before this escalates from annoyance to crisis and then on to cataclysm. At that point we may have to all walk or ride bicycles to places we need to be, which could then, in turn, compromise our national heritage of morbid obesity. Our sense of self will be shattered. But no solution seems to work. What to do? Well, thank goodness we have General Motors to pull our heads out of The Box and bury them in the sand. Sand, incidentally, that has collected so far up our asses that we can taste it. Mmmmm. Ass sand.
DETROIT - Aiming to capitalize on consumer angst about the high cost of gasoline, General Motors Corp. on Tuesday said it would cap pump prices at $1.99 for customers in California and Florida who buy certain vehicles by July 5. The offer is good for 2006 and 2007 model year vehicles.
In California, eligible vehicles are the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban sport utility vehicles and Impala and Monte Carlo. In Florida, eligible vehicles are the Impala, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix and LaCrosse.sedans; the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL SUVs; the Hummer H2 and H3 SUVs; the Cadillac SRX SUV; and the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick LaCrosse sedans. In GM will credit drivers the difference between the average price per gallon in their state and the $1.99 cap. The credits can be used through December 2007. Consumers wouldn't get any credits if gas prices fall below $1.99.
GM said a California resident who buys a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe and drives 1,000 miles per month would get an estimated $103.75 monthly credit, based on the current average premium fuel price of $3.65 per gallon, GM said. A Florida resident who drives a 2006 Buick LaCrosse about 1,000 miles per month would get an estimated monthly credit of $60 based on the current premium fuel price of $3.19.
The genius behind this should be self-evident because, as everyone knows, reverse psychology works best on (1) small children and (2) commodity markets. Damn they're good. It should be noted that GM is not doing this purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. Customers will have to enroll in the OnStar Diagnostics program to qualify.
There seems little point in actually debating whether or not this is a prudent or responsible strategy on the part of GM in the context of the current and forecast oil shortage. The whole thing belies a corporation so ravenously greedy to unload their environmental hazard of a product and assumes a collective consumer retardation so catastrophic that it's kind of absurd to point it out. Still, there it is. Behold its moronic magnificence!
I will say this. Over and over again, I find myself admiring the ingenuity of American marketing. While I sit around debating questions like, "Do you think it's possible to bake a pie inside of a cake?" with my friends while staying poor, corporations are making gajillions off of this shit. When will my indignance pay off?
Have you run out of ways to hate on the government? Do you pine for the days when the fusion of rap and metal was vibrant and angry and rockin' - before Linkin Park left their burning musical bag of dog turds on the doorstep of Rage Against the Machine? Can you think of anyone better than me to recommend a soundtrack for the coming Debaclypse? Well, have I got some music for you. Seriously, I do. It's right here.
Dateline: Last night. Before me a dilemma of dorktastic dimensions. What book to read next? It was down to two non-fiction heavyweights. First, The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors. I've been a little lax in keeping up with the latest in early hominin evolution (for instance, I didn't know that 'hominin' was a term, as opposed to 'hominid') and I've always enjoyed rolling phrases like "Koobi Fora" and "Taung Baby" around on my tongue. Plus, you know, paleoanthro is exactly like rap, with its feuding for old school cred. There's hot shot Donald Johanson on one side comin' and callin' that Kenya scene bullshit; he rolled Ethiopia style and whatnot. And then there are the Leakeys and the Hominid Gang, which is like the G Unit of the Rift Valley. They're badass and they've got lineage. So, that book seemed like it was gonna rock.
Not much happens on my street. I do live in a big ol' bustling metropolis and my street is by no means a tree-lined country lane or a suburban cul-de-sac, but not a whole lot happens. There are these guys next door who are a little odd. They hang out in their garage a lot and can occasionally be seen wandering the sidewalks balancing a soccer ball or, a bit more unconventionally, a broom on their head or shoulders, but other than that I hardly live where the action is. Still, and this is what is superlative and surreal about city dwelling, a guy, even on my street, can take a nap, wake up at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon, and have a parade going on outside their window. Yup. Sleep. Wake. Rub eyes. Boom! Instant parade!
The highlight of the celebration is the Santa Cruzan, the procession on the last day of the festival in honor of Reyna Helena. In the year 326 A.D. she and her son left
It is more a parade than a religious procession. Instead of icons or images, beautiful young women (or gays) with appropriate theatrical costumes, portray biblical and historical characters. Almost all sagalas, the persons in the parade, symbolize queens from the past! Each sagala is dressed beautiful and is looking as the 'real' Reyna (Queen)!
I hate when I stay stupid shit that seems tailor-made to bite me square in the ass, or in this case the sinuses. The dumbass declaration du jour reads as follows: "I've mostly outgrown my allergies. Not nearly as bad as when I was a kid." Oh, have you outgrown them Mr. Bigmouth von Weisenheimer? Clearly not. The mighty power of Loratadine in the form of non-drowsy Wal-itin seems no match for this nasal drip-drip-drip. Viva Pollen Nation!
It may not be a good thing when MTV and my brain are asking the same questions, but it could be telling of something, right? The folks over at the Moonman Network took time out from hyping the thrilling finale of 8th and Ocean to ponder why more protest music isn't taking center stage on the music scene. The article features snippets from a number of politically vocal musicians (e.g., Chuck D, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, Dixie Chick Natalie Maines, and Anti-Flag's Justin Sane) proffering various theories about where all the protest music has gone:
It's been said, or I seem to remember, or rumor has it, that eating certain foods just before bed can affect the tenor of one's dreams. Cheese seems to be one of those foods of not just lore, but the rigor scientific experimentation, well, as much science as can be credited to the British Cheese Board anyhow. The BCB undertook a study of 200 individuals who volunteered to cram their maws with fromage, sleep and then report the results because "A lot of people still believe the old wives [sic] tale that cheese gives you nightmares but this study endorses the scientific facts." The results are nothing short of silly:
On the shopping beat, here's one that the collector of Anachronistic Christ Absurdities in your life will surely cherish. It's the gift that will be adding fuel to the fire that Jesus may have walked around not on water, but on some errant ice in the Sea of Galilee ("Son of God my ass! He's just as bad as those schmucky dogs that end up in the freakin' Lake every February."). Or maybe you need a Guide as you try to figure where to find the Outdoor Life Network so you can actually watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Perhaps you just want to put to the test whether He's way cool enough to score more goals than Wayne Gretzky. For whatever reason, it's the Jesus Hockey Sports Statue.
This is cheating in the sense that it's a re-post from Always in Transit. Rev. Transit had a really alarming post concerning a movement reported in the New York Times to make contraception impossible to get because it, along with such practices as abortion, devalues sex, making it about pleasure and without consequences:
"Focus on the Family posts a kind of contraceptive warning label on its Web site: 'Modern contraceptive inventions have given many an exaggerated sense of safety and prompted more people than ever before to move sexual expression outside the marriage boundary.' Contraception, by this logic, encourages sexual promiscuity, sexual deviance (like homosexuality) and a preoccupation with sex that is unhealthful even within marriage."
Lovely, eh? So I tried to lampoon this with a bit of satire. Mixed results. Either way, I highly recommend the NYT article. Enjoy. Or not.
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I would like to take this opportunity to present some thoughts about the obesity epidemic in the United States. It is high time that our morally bankrupt society comes to terms with its gluttonous self. We need to realize that Americans have long devalued eating. The act by which we take in the substance that gives us life has been debased to a thrice-daily orgy of flavor sensation. Have we forgotten what it means to be given our daily bread and become a bunch of keen-palated, metrosexual, seasoning-fetishizing, crypto-French, grotesquely obese gastronomes? I’ll answer that! We have and it must stop.
Everyone knows that it is not simply the content of the foods available, but also their variety which is driving this mania of mealtime malfeasance. People, in their state of nature sitting in ersatz bistros and roaming the aisles of organic markets, are greedy. They want it all in its diverse splendor. They will eat more if there is more variety and thus contract diabetes and exhibit sloth. They will eat less and be more regimented in their behaviors if when consume edibles; they do so only by the bland necessities of biological imperative.
So, right here and now, I am proposing that the USDA and FDA ban all flavorful and flavor enhancing substances made popular since the end of the Cold War. Chicago’s foie gras ban is a good start, but I think it must be taken much further if we are to curtail the crippling engorgements of our cosmopolitan tastes. Henceforth there shall be a ban on products not limited to, but especially: cardamom, fruit-flavored vinaigrettes (especially raspberry), pomegranate juice, quinoa, non-peanut nut butters, porcini mushrooms, crème fraiche, bruschetta, artificially de-carbified breads and pastas, coconut milk, and anything inspired by the flavors of Indonesia/Java/Sumatra
I thank you for your support and hope you join me in the fight to reclaim the tongue as a secretor of digestive enzymes and not allow it to be whored out as a taste dildo for yuppies, couture hounds, and creative vegans.I don't care what the Denver Post says, it's true. Sex sells. The reason for this is simple. People either: 1. like to do it, 2. like to think they like to do it, or 3. like to think they don't like to do it and therefore very strongly like to dislike it. Anyway you slice it, for capitalism, sex is an instrument of perfection.
Not only was I met with the news this morning that a project that has been on the brink of disaster for the past two weeks has basically been nipped in the bud, but I also found this headline: "'Knight Rider' coming to big screen." Thank Jeebus! I have been wondering for a long time what kept my favorite transport-centric show as a kid (Sorry, Airworlf) from coming to the big screen. And I'm not kidding either. I loved this stupid show. I wanted to talk to cars through my watch. I felt it was every American's right to have equal access to turbo boost. And when KITT had to face his arch nemesis Goliath, well, that was the shit.
Improv Update
Tales of the City