Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Free Again

While you can still download Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog from iTunes, you can also view it for free online on Hulu.

I can't describe how much I enjoy this or why, but I watch it at least once a day...and bought the t-shirt.

The Cake is a Lie Hideous Abomination

Anyone who has decorated a cake knows it's harder than it looks but when you pay a professional to decorate a cake for you, you don't expect Cake Wrecks.

I'm Invincible!

Something Other Than Basketball

This time of year in Kentucky we don't usually acknowledge that there is anything other than basketball but...

The Elite Eight

The final match approaches! Be sure to cast your vote in each of these match-ups!

Hyrule Conference

T-1000 vs. Batman
Morpheus vs. Captain James T. Kirk

Paragon City Conference

Wolverine vs. Optimus Prime
Luke Skywalker vs. Legolas

Unfortunately for the nerds wanting to vote, if you click their link it says, "This survey is currently closed." My choices are T-1000, Kirk, Optimus Prime, and Legolas (but only because I like Tolkien better than Lucas.)

Update: I got every pick wrong.

The Night Before Christmas

moar funny pictures

I'm Not Feeling the Love

Recently Amazon has included t-shirts that say "I do whatever my rice crispies tell me to do" and "I did not escape...they gave me a day pass" in the list of "recommended for you". Funny? Yes. Flattering? No.

I know I'm perfectly sane. My cats told me so.

Better Living Through Parody

There is something about the way drug companies market to consumers - commercials on TV and ads in magazines - that I find disturbing. While I like the idea of information about drugs being easily available, the marketing of the drugs to potential patients seems to be as much selling the disease as it is selling the cure.

This parody site for Havidol sums it all up perfectly.

HAVIDOL is for the treatment of Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD). It is the only known medication available for this newly recognized disorder.

You're Not the Only One With Issues

QWERTY Warriors (Word Shot)

A typing game - you're in the center of the field and you need to type the words next to your enemies as they enter the play area. If you type the words quickly and correctly, they are eliminated and you score points. You can set the difficulty level from easy to impossible.

Heh

More here.

Playing With Sand

Draw lines with your mouse to redirect the falling sand. Erase lines (click one "eraser" at the bottom) or burn them ("fire") or try the "???".

Soap Soufflé

Can you watch it without wanting to do it too?

Nuked Soap - video powered by Metacafe

Note That Down

Tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you're not sure how, try this educational video.

Like Most of the 14 Above It...

It wasn't what I had started out looking for but I ended up clicking on a video of Country Joe & the Fish at Woodstock. I'm not linking to it because of the video but because of one of the comments that I found amusing - "(insert cliche anti-Bush comment here so the ppl on the internets will know I'm l33t)"

(Audio NSFW at beginning)

10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed

There's only 2040 reasons now (and not really that many, MTV is listed at least two times and there may be other duplications.) I don't think any of them foretell the doom of our civilization although some do highlight individual/group stupidity. Some are signs (to me) that our civilization is strong and vital.

You can submit your own harbinger of doom if you want.

Wanted!!!!

I could use $3,000,000. I'm going to begin by checking small town diners....

I just retried the link and got a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" message. I better get busy, it looks as though I'm going to have some competition! Or maybe Elvis has learned some hacking skills and done this to try to keep from being found!

(Crazy Interesting theories always make me use more exclamation points!!)

You can read an article about the site here.

More Fauxtography

See the 2006 Photo(shop) Journalism Awards at Banterist. I'm surprised the middle one hasn't made the cover of Newsweek.

Brand Name Generator

My company should be named "iuro" and my "brand will be unique because this denotes: the art of listening"

It sounded too much like the name of a urology clinic to me so I tried it again and got "sperma" (lasting yet fresh). Suddenly "iuro" sounds much better.

One more time... "werld" denoting "don’t trust anyone". Now, there's one that has potential.

The Best Part is No Litterbox Worries

(Clicking on the "more" button lets you feed or play with the kitty.)

USB Teddy Bear

The first commenter to this Engadget post calls it "the creepiest, funniest thing i've seen today" which sums it up pretty well.

Chocolate City

What does it say when satire makes more sense than real life?

A port city would have easy access to cocoa bean imports. It already has a sugar industry. Sounds like a good place for a chocolate factory. It makes more sense than anything I've ever heard Ray Nagin say.

Perhaps the real question is, why should I be surprised that Scott Ott makes more sense than the person he's satirizing? His insight and humor are the reasons I like the site. My only Scrappleface-related complaint is that my oldest son, Trevor, "liberated" my copy of The Axis of Weasels shortly after I bought it. Of course, that's not Scott's fault. I blame Bush.

So Accurate It's Uncanny

Sometimes you hear a song that speaks to you, that could be your own personal theme song....

2006 New Year's Resolution Generator

Hold That Tiger

I want to play what they're playing.

It's supposed to be a banned Xbox 360 ad but the game it shows looks like more fun than any console game.

Go Read a Joke

Funny.

Geek Humor

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

We evaluated the performance of three different helmet designs, commonly referred to as the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion. These designs are portrayed in Figure 1. The helmets were made of Reynolds aluminium foil. As per best practices, all three designs were constructed with the double layering technique described elsewhere.

A radio-frequency test signal sweeping the ranges from 10 Khz to 3 Ghz was generated using an omnidirectional antenna attached to the Agilent 8714ET's signal generator.

A network analyser (Agilent 8714ET) and a directional antenna measured and plotted the signals.

...The receiver antenna was placed at various places on the cranium of 4 different subjects: the frontal, occipital and parietal lobes. Once with the helmet off and once with the helmet on. The network analyzer plotted the attenuation betwen the signals in these two settings at different frequencies, from 10Khz to 3 Ghz.

Results
For all helmets, we noticed a 30 db amplification at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz, regardless of the position of the antenna on the cranium. In addition, all helmets exhibited a marked 20 db attenuation at around 1.5 Ghz, with no significant attenuation beyond 10 db anywhere else.

Conclusion
The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ''radio location'' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites (see, for example, [3]). The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.
It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.

That Time of Year

I've heard that every child is a miracle but when the mother of three shows up as the first search result for this, I have to wonder.

(Found in my referral stats)

No Christmas for You

A rant against the "yuppie scum" who don't like Christmas. ("'Tis the season to STFU.")
Warning- strong language

A Way With Words

Complaint letter of the year

New Vancouver

Now this is a plan!

I've Worked With Worse

I don't usually watch reality shows. I know people who love them and watch as many as possible but I just haven't seen the attraction. Until tonight. I was watching NCIS (what I call "the Mark Harmon hour") and was too lazy to change the channel when it was over. A new show called Fire Me...Please! came on. The premise of the show is that the contestants need to get fired from their jobs as close to 3:00 as possible. If both get fired, the one that's closest to 3:00 without going past that time gets $25,000.

A couple of the contestants were working (?) at local businesses, one at a barbecue restaurant in Louisville and one at a copy shop in southern Indiana. The woman working at the copy shop was hilarious. Or at least it was funny to see her doing the same things at work that my kids do at home to drive me crazy. (Dropping pretzels on the floor, complaining that someone else was mean, and lying on the floor singing about being bored.)

I don't know if I'll watch it again but it did remind me of one more reason I'm happy to be self-employed, no crazy co-workers!

No Naked Chicks

When I saw this, my first thought was that it was part of this.

(It wasn't listed.)

SlashNOT

You've heard of Slashdot, or at least the nerds among you have. Now there's SlashNOT. It looks similar in a Twilight Zone sort of way. It has a poll - the current one is "What do you think about the iPod?" (Possible answers - It's my favorite type of pod; it r0x0rs; it's a mind control plot; Still doesn't make Apple cool; Journalists seem to like it; waiting for lower priced ePod; Is there a superbowl shuffle?; Albatross)

It has articles.

SCRaTCH writes: Leading music distributors have announced that they have joined forces in the latest attempt to rid the internet of the parasitic plague dubbed "File Sharing".

In an astonishingly original report published today, it has been revealed that they are going to destroy File-Sharing by the end of next month by only releasing music that is of such poor quality, no-one would want to download it in the first place.

Satire or just an accurate observation of the music industry?

Zoom Zoom Zoom

Zoomquilt

Tall or Not (I'm Not)

Compare your height to the heights of famous people.

I'm 5'2", the same height as Ann Blyth, Danielle Steel, Debbie Allen, Erma Bombeck, Eva Gabor, Irene Ryan, Joan Rivers, Marsha Clark, Paula Abdul, and Susan Lucci.

Some others I found interesting:
Alan Ladd - 5'4"
Barry Manilow - 6'
Czar Peter the Great - 6'7"
Henry VIII - 6'1"
James Dean - 5'8"
James Madison - 5'4"
Josef Stalin - 5'6"
Ghandi - 5'3"
Mao Tse Tung - 5'11"
Mary Queen of Scots - 6'
Rod Serling - 5'4"
Vladimir Lenon (sic) - 5'5"
Wyatt Earp - 6'4"

Magical Name Acronym Generator

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Paris and I have nothing in common (no surprise there). A list of 510 contacts and there's a couple that I saw that I could imagine having any desire to call (Southwest Airlines and United Airlines).

Punny Stuff

A guy and his pet newt walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "What's that thing on your shoulder?" The guy says, "Oh, well he's my pet. His name is Tiny." The bartender replies, "Why'd you name him that?" And the guy replies, "Because he's my newt!"

While walking to a bar, a rope sees another rope being thrown out of the bar. The rope warns the other rope not to go in there, as they hate ropes. This rope tells him not to worry, he has an idea. He rolls himself into a ball, then fluffs up his ends. As he walks up to the bar, the bartender asks him, "Are you a rope?"

"Nope," he replies, "I'm a frayed knot."

In what way are a dodecahedron and a missing macaw alike?

In both cases you have a polygon.

What did Mr. and Mrs. Buffalo say to their boy as he left for college?...
"Bye son."

Pretty Good Jokes from A Prairie Home Companion

Monk Returns

Monk begins new episodes tonight with Mr. Monk and the Red Herring at 10:00. USA is showing reruns of the last four shows beginning at 6:00: Mr. Monk & the Girl Who Cries Wolf, Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month, Mr. Monk and the Game Show, and Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine. (Episode Guide)

I've read comments that the mysteries on Monk aren't very challenging or complicated. How in-depth can a mystery be in a one-hour format? If I want complicated mysteries, I'll read a novel. I don't really want to have to stay riveted to the TV so that I don't miss anything. I want TV shows to be entertaining and this one is.

I haven't seen it yet (duh), but plan on watching tonight. I have read some synpsis/reviews and have posted some of the information in the extended entry.

In tonight's show, Monk's nurse Sharona has remarried her ex-husband and moved to New Jersey.

No, the question of why she would leave San Francisco for New Jersey and her ex isn't the mystery...although why the actress who plays Sharona, Bitty Schram, decided to leave the show hasn't been explained - although there have been rumors of a salary dispute. It also isn't how he's managed to survive for the three months she's been gone. From what I've read about it, it doesn't sound as though he's coping well...but if you're familiar with the show you have to wonder how he was able to even function alone after three months. Monk even got on an airplane (major anxiety for a man who gets anxious over everything) to fly to New York with Sharona rather than be left alone for a week in one episode.

In tonight's show, Monk is busy conducting unsuccessful interviews for Sharona's replacement when he is asked to help solve a case where a woman (Natalie Teeger played by Traylor Howard) has killed a man in self-defense. The man has burglarized her house twice even though she doesn't know of anything she has that's worth stealing. Spoiler -highlight here with mouse to see what they were after -> The target of the burglaries was Julie's (Natalie's daughter) fish tank. It turns out some people were after a moon rock they had stolen from a science museum and had hidden in an aquarium kit.

Natalie is a Navy widow with a eleven-year-old daughter (Emmy Clarke). It's no surprise that after Monk solves the mystery, Natalie becomes his new assistant.

Save the Cephalopod!

Read all about the sad, sad condition of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. What few that make it to the Canal are further hampered in their reproduction by the growing problem of pollution from farming and residential run-off. Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory.

If saving the tree octopus sounds like something you could support, you might want to check out this page of the site too.

Twins

If I don't get much done this morning today, it will be because of this. (Found via The Cheese Stands Alone.)

My best score after a few tries is 29,329. I'm just happy right now to be out of the negative range....

Kookin' Kids, Good With Gravy

Found via the blog québécois, the Kookin' Kidz game.

I enjoyed it. I don't want to think about what that says about me.

Cuddle Up With the Common Cold

The link to a site selling plush microbes in an old post goes to a page that says the product is no longer available through them. The good news (?) is that they are still available elsewhere.

The Common Cold (Rhinovirus)

Dear Dan

Slings & Arrows has a must read message for Dan Rather.

Turtle TV

I like turtles. I can't explain why...they're not furry and cute like a kitten or a puppy, but I like them anyway. Now when I need a turtle fix I can go to Turtle TV.

They have turtle games, turtle movies, and turtle wallpaper. Make sure you visit with Granny while you're there.

New Strategy

Bush Campaign Shift: Now, It's a One-Man Race - sounds like a good plan to me!

What's My Line?

According to this, my ideal job is trained assassin.

It said my husband's ideal job is "Office numpty".

I'd Like Ninjas for $1000, Alex

I like Jeopardy. It wasn't until today that I found out how much better more interesting different it could be with Ninjas.

How to Win an Argument

One of the tips for winning arguments is, You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D.," "e.g.," and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you do not."

I've read online arguments where it looked like one person was following the advice given here.

Signs

From the blogger of The Art of Politics comes a new Bush/Cheney campaign sign. There are a few other choices there...this is one that I think is a real possiblity, especially after Gore's recent speech.

Make an Avatar

Portrait Illustrator Maker

Ok, so my portrait looks nothing like me but it's the best I'm going to be able to do at 4:40 in the morning.

Painting Online

A Paint-like program lets visitors create pictures and save them to share with others. Some of the shared pictures show real talent and some are just scribblings. (I didn't save any of my attempts, they would definitely come under the "scribblings" category.) Caution: some of the images or language in them may be considered offensive. You can use the draw section without viewing the archived images.

Update: Here's another site if you like to color but don't have the imagination or talent to come up with your own designs. SegPlay lets you paint-by-numbers. You can select pictures by category, popularity, theme (there's one for chocolate!), and degree of difficulty.

The paint-by-number page opens in a smaller window. You can enlarge the image but you will have to scroll to see all of it. Once you have filled in all of the areas for a given color, that color disappears from your palette.

Damn Skippy

I first read this a couple of days ago but have been too busy waiting on sick kids to do much blogging.

From Avalanche Company: 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army

7. Not allowed to add 'In accordance with the prophesy' to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me.

10. Not allowed to purchase anyone's soul on Government time.

18. May no longer perform my now (in)famous 'Barbie Girl Dance' while on duty.

29. The Irish MPs are not after 'Me frosted lucky charms'.

That's what they want you to think!

38. Our supply Sgt is 'Sgt Watkins' not 'Sugar Daddy'.

43. Camouflage body paint is not a uniform.

77. The MP checkpoint is not an Imperial Stormtrooper roadblock, so I should not tell them "You don't need to see my identification, these are not the droids you are looking for."

79. I am neither the king nor queen of cheese.

But we know who is.

84. Must not use military vehicles to ‘Squish' things.

87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

That's some advice that I plan on passing on to my children.

95. I am not in need of a more suitable host body.

100. Claymore mines are not filled with yummy candy, and it is wrong to tell new soldiers that they are.

108. Should not taunt members of the press, even if they are really fat, exceptionally stupid, and working for UPI.

How about ones who work for Reuters?

141. Not allowed to use a broadsword to disprove ‘The Pen is Mightier than the sword’.

175. We do not 'charge into battle, naked, like the Celts'.

189. Do not dare SERE graduates to eat bugs. They will always do it.

200. My chain of command is not interested in why I 'just happen' to have a kilt, an inflatable sheep, and a box of rubber bands in the back of my car.

207. The Chicken and Rice MRE is *not* a personal lubricant. (Skippy wanted this noted for the record that this is not something he has ever attempted or considered! It was something we heard at dinner on 22 September 2001 and it was just so obscene it had to go here.)

Read the whole list.

Dmitri and Will, This is for You

Ant City, another time waster. (Found thanks to LeeAnn.)

Biohazards

Shopping for something different? How about ebola, anthrax, TB, cholera, and other diseases.

Doodling

Trevor is having one of those teenage moody days weeks months years decades and being a general pain in the ass to everyone around him. Conor (as usual) found something to complain about (mostly about Trevor). Emma just wanted to talk. Constantly.

She didn't want to have conversations, she just likes to chatter. I feel perfectly comfortable with long silences. She doesn't. I hope it's just a seven-going-on-eight-year-old-girl-thing.

All of this, along with my having to run a bunch of errands, was starting to cause imput overload. Imagination let me doodle and zone out for a while.

Kill the Terrorists!

My husband told me about this one. Bush Shoot Out at Addicting Games.com.

More Penguin Whacking

The Gory Version plays the same way as the original except that the penguin's head comes off (gushing a trail of blood on the snow) and may bounce down on land mines, making it go even farther.

The Day After

Sometimes Valentine's Day makes you think, "This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with." Other times it's, "What am I doing with this loser?". If the second one is how you feel you can send a break up e-card.

[Note: Some of the language/images in the cards may offend those with delicate sensibilities...but you wouldn't be looking at something as impersonal as break up e-cards anyway, would you?]

A Bit of Pi

You can search the first 100 million digits of Pi for any string of numbers (up to 120 digits.)

My birthday (mmddyy) is at postition 1246500. My social security number isn't there but both my home phone number and cell phone number are (as long as I leave out the area code.)

Number Length Chance of Finding
1-5.....100%
6.....Nearly 100%
7.....99.995%
8.....63%
9.....9.5%
10.....0.995%%
11.....0.09995%

The Race

According to a Knight Ridder article, President Bush will be going to the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

That's not why I put this post in the "Amusing" category, this is: Imagine John Kerry at a NASCAR race.

PETA Meat- A Tasty Treat!

PECA, the People Encouraging Carnivorous Appetites, rolled out a new campaign aimed at informing our nation's carnivorous creatures that members of PETA (People for the Ethical treatment of Animals), are a tasty and nourishing dietary alternative to other forms of wildlife. The new organization, comprised primarily of livestock producers, meat processors, fur ranchers, and hunters, has been passing out informational literature and posting billboards encouraging bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes, and birds of prey to stop eating their fellow creatures and to give animal rights activists a try.

Read the rest at Broken Newz. Just because it's humor doesn't mean it's not a good idea....

Family Ties

Famous cousins of John Kerry and George W. Bush. See how each is related to famous people including Bette Davis, Brigham Young, General Robert E. Lee, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (as we saw earlier, neither got the gene for poetry), Napoleon, Princess Diana, Walt Disney and many others along with a list of U.S. Presidents and Vice Presidents.

Miserable Failure

The number one ranked result in Google for "miserable failure" is Michael Moore.com. Number one for "miserable failure" on AlltheWeb is Dean for America. Dean's biography page also makes the first page of "miserable failure" results on Google.

Effects of the original Google Bombing still linger on, George Bush remains in the list of first page results. Other top finishers are miserable failures Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The other first page results are articles discussing Google results for this search term.

In case you're wondering, Maureen Dowd is (still) a poodle and George Bush is a hero.

Keyboard Practice

There's a game that tests your touch typing skills. Letters appear from the right side of the screen and you need to type that letter to make it explode. It's a good way to practice typing...at least it beats the old typing exercises I did back in high school.

The letters all show as capitals but you can type in caps or lower case.

Mixing Things Up

I am sooooo easily amused. I was playing with Mixmaster. It allows you to enter one URL for layout and another for content, then mixes them together.

I was using my blog URL for the content and first tried Google and JoeAnt for the layouts. Mildly interesting. Then I tried sites from my blogroll as the layout. Here are the results:
Opinion Journal
Instapundit
Arguing With Signposts
Practical Penumbra

[My apologies to the authors of the above sites. These sites were chosen out of admiration and their content is much better than mine. No actual sites were harmed or defaced. The only thing that was endangered was my computer as I nearly spewed my drink all over it when reading some of the mixes.]

Whack the Penguin

Pingu

Co-ordination Test

While sitting in a chair raise your right foot about 6" off the ground and begin making clockwise circles with it. Hold your right finger in the air and make the outline of the number 6. Your foot will change directions and begin going counter clockwise.

10 Questions for Bob Dole

The latest issue of Time Magazine arrived yesterday. In it was a short article with questions and responses by Bob Dole. I like Dole because (all together now) he's funny.

Norma Desmond Stages Comeback

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

State of the Union Drinking Game

One way to liven things up...probably not a good idea if you plan on blogging about it later.

Dates for Dennis

Who Wants To Be First Lady Contest

Our national contest aims to help him find his perfect First Lady. We will post profiles of interested single women, and at some point we'll let our readers pick the best Kucinich running mate. If Congressman Kucinich agrees, PoliticsNH.com and LiberalHearts.com will fly the winner in to meet him and treat the two candidates to dinner.

Eighty women have entered the contest so far....some have pictures (don't you wonder about a middle aged woman who submits what looks like a high school photo?) and all have personal statements:

I can’t imagine my life being complete without a date with Dennis.

I can think of nothing that would give me greater pleasure than having the opportunity to enjoy dinner and an intellectual exchange with the one political figure in this country whom I now most admire and respect and to offer him my solid support in his campaign. As for "other" things, of a more personal nature, who knows what might happen when two kindred passionate souls with similar commitments meet?

When I saw Dennis speak in San Francisco, I am embarrassed to say that I was moved to tears by his speech. I thought "How incredible if someone who believes everything I believe could actually become president. I want to live in his world!

I want to create a Love Nest that is off-the-grid and sustainable (Rose Garden to Organic Vegetable Garden!).

If You Want to Be a Good Democrat

I've seen this on several websites. If anyone knows the original author, please let me know so I can give credit.

1. You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

2. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese communists.

4. You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.

5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.

6. You have to be against capital punishment (putting murderers to death) but support abortion (killing innocent unborn babies) on demand (federally funded of course.)

7. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments and unions create prosperity.

8. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature but loony activists from Seattle do.

9. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

10. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

11. You have to believe that taxes are too low but ATM fees are too high.

12. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.

13. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist but racial quotas are not.

14. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.

15. You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail but a liar and sex offender belongs in the White House.

16. You have to believe that homosexual parades should be constitutionally protected and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

17. You have to believe that illegal Democratic party funding by the Chinese is somehow in the best interest of the U.S.

18. You have to believe that gasoline priced at $1.59 per gallon is too expensive but accept bottled spring water at $1.09 per quart as reasonable.

19. You have to believe the purpose of government is to take money from people who earned it and spend it on people who did not earn it.

20. You have to believe in the Democracy but demand only Democrat victories in elections.

21. You have to believe that people who disagree with you are stupid and backward while believing people who agree with you are "progressive" and "enlightened."

22. You have to believe that a "B" average economics major from Yale University with a MBA from Harvard Business School is too stupid to be President of the United States.

23. You have to believe that a "C" average history major from Harvard University, dropout from Vanderbilt Law School and failure at Vanderbilt Divinity School is brilliant and should be President of the United States.

24. You are proud to have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Bill Clinton in the Democratic Party.

25. You agreed with France's position on the war in Iraq until combat victory was achieved within three weeks.

26. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is really a lady.

Vote Democratic...It's easier than getting a job!

Iowa Caucuses

Like Jury Duty? You'll Love Caucuses
by Joel Stein (Time Magazine January 19, 2004)

...To explain how it all works, Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver is going around the state holding practice caucuses. At his workshop last Tuesday at the library in Clive, a suburb seven miles west of Des Moines, about 50 people showed up, several of them young enough to be my parents. Most of these folks already knew how caucuses work and just wanted a refresher course. Clive needs to get itself a bowling alley.

...Culver had the audience vote on their favorite pets. Debra Salowitz, who gave the pro-cat speech right before the woman in the Christmas sweater gave the bird speech, combatively announced, "If you have a bird problem, cats can take care of that."

...Each candidate was awarded a number of delegates corresponding to the percentage of people standing in its corner. Out of the seven allotted in this fake precinct obsessed with pet hierarchy, four went to the dogs, three went to Uncommitted, and none went to the birds since so many of them got confused during realignment that they strayed from their corner. While much was learned about how caucuses work, more was learned about the intelligence of people who own birds.

Read the whole thing.

Just What I Need

Another way to avoid housework spend time on the computer.

Very Practical

Britney Spears says her marriage was a joke. No, Britney, it was just a stupid thing to do. This is a joke.

Sad to think how much more time, thought, and effort went into a real joke than went into her marriage.

Safe sex is for losers and Republicans

An article by Ashley Nimmo in the University of Maryland's wonderfully named humor newspaper, The Mayland Cow Nipple.

The cow's name is Lulu.

They also have something the world needs more of...reviews of publicly-accessible bathrooms on campus.

Plush Bugs

Magnified 1 million times, these Giant Microbes™ are great learning tools for kids, parents and educators. This set includes: The Flu, The Common Cold, Stomach Ache, and Sore Throat. Each one is accompanied by an image of, and information about, the real microbe it represents. Approximately 4” made of soft poly-filled plush.

They aren't any odder than some of the Pokémon plush toys my kids have but wouldn't you just know it, they're on backorder.

Ninjas!

Yesterday Paul wrote about ninjas in the Congo. They aren't real ninja-ninjas, rather they are self-named ninjas.

If callng oneself a ninja is all it takes to get major media sources to do the same, I'm there. I can be stealthy and I look good in black. Maybe I should add some items from here to my Christmas list.

I took their ninja test, I'm a bad ninja.

LOTR Tips

SpaceKicker has a list of survival tips for people planning on seeing LOTR at the theater. Found via Ipse Dixit.

Number 15 is my favorite.

Nigerian Email Scams

Usually I delete these emails as soon as I see them in my inbox. I was tempted to reply to one (using a throw-away email account). The writer said he got my name from his father's diary so I thought about writing back and telling him that I'm relieved that the truth has finally come out and would he please have his father's estate start sending child support payments? I'm sure the writer, who actually claimed to be the son of Borneo royalty and not Nigerian, would have been thrilled to know that his imaginary father had sired an imaginary child.

According to this article, someone has replied to several scam emails in an effort to waste the scammers time, and if possible, get them to spend some money trying to convince him of their legitimacy. Not only does he annoy the scammers, it looks as though he has had fun doing it. Check out his site. You can even buy a mug or a clock with a picture of a scammer holding a sign that says, "I shag sheep."