What ever happened to...

Daily updates?

Sorry blog. I have been busy.

Here is something to keep you entertained for a while till I get some more free time.

Another example of hella-fine cinema, this fight scene is virtually unparralled.

Nothing says smackdown like pretending to be batman and trying on hats in between breaking candyasses off while your sidekick gets busy playing "let's induce seizures" with the lights.

BTW that is pretty much the best movie ever.

What ever happened to...

The Jukka Brothers?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5524349327011110552

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad2g4jCaf4w

It's gonna be a random friday like that.

Grimlock loves fridays!

He really does.

That's all I am going to say about that, cause that's how I roll.

They were really pushing it with the shamrock shake...

but this plain crosses the line.

I really wanted to wait unti St. Patricks day for this post, but I am not a patient man and the world must know the truth.

I think I am maybe 10% irish, but I find this 100% offensive.

First of all, whoever came up with the brilliant idea of a cool plastic bag hand puppet to give away to kids, should be shot. Hey kid, here's something to keep you entertained...a plastic bag.

Nevermind, decorating it with a borderline offensive "irish grimace" complete with shamrock vest and shelayle. I can only imagine the reaction to a Kwanza version, baby-daddy Grimace.

It's like chaser 2000 for procrastinators...

Who need bother interupt their excessive drinking habit with periodic breaks to chew on pills and drink water?

Not me.

In true, let's burn the bridge when we come to it fashion, I only deal with hangovers far too late to avoid them.

Well not anymore.

Introducing Alka-Seltzer Morning Relief, a product who's tagline (according to a coworker) is "feel better than you deserve to"

Who wouldn't support a product that has the following information listed on its website?


Hangover Cures and Interesting Info
Money down the drain. Productivity losses in the workplace due to hangovers are $148 billion.

Residents from the State of Nevada consume the most beer - 367 bottles a year. Maybe it should be called the "Beer State", not the "Silver State."

Americans are lucky to have Alka-Seltzer® Morning Relief™ as their hangover cure.

Other countries have their own unique hangover cures:
a. In Germany, some folks eat marinated fish to cure hangovers
b. To cure hangovers in Holland, many eat raw baby herring covered in onions
c. Popular hangover cures in Puerto Rico involve rubbing lemons or limes on the underarms

Why America was really discovered.
The pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, rather than continuing sailing because they were running out of supplies, especially alcoholic beverages.

In Bavaria Germany, alcohol is not considered a drink. It is legally defined as a staple food.

Corks or Kegs?
In 1998, the United States population consumed an estimated 549,494 gallons of wine. That's the equivalent of 35,451 kegs of beer.

Light to moderate drinkers (0-3 drinks for men; 0-1 drinks for women), not heavy drinkers account for 87% of alcohol related problems at work. Maybe companies should include Alka-Seltzer® Morning Relief™ as part of their benefits package.

The average man buys 2.2 gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday.

The average 30 year old consumes 4.5 drinks at one sitting

Don't quit your day job...

I finished a book this weekend.

Big one too.

Over 300 pages.

No Pictures.

Anyhow, I'm certainly no book lubber, but I got hooked into grabbing a copy of Killer Instinct after reading a little snippet in a periodical while travelling.

I figured it would give me something to do on my recent trip to denver.

SO I was in the middle of getting my read on when the stewardess says, "Oh! Great book! I just finished it. You will never believe the end! It has such a twist. I was shocked when I read it."

Let me tell you a little bit about how shocking the ending really was...

It wasn't.

Or maybe it was...if you would consider it a suprise to go see the new Robert De Niro movie and are shocked when he says "Look at me" or if you are floored when Samuel Jackson says "Get these muthaF'n snakes off my motherF'n plane" or if you are surprised when sitting in your car at a railroad crossing that after he lights start flashing and the crossing gate comes down that a train rumbles through a few moments later...or after the sun goes down it comes back up again the very next day...the ending was shocking in that sort of way.

I guess, then, it should come at no surprise how that lady was a stewardess and not a book critic.

This weekend...

I am flying solo and melady is out of town, thus I will probably spend part of the weekend like this.

Booya!

It's a balls, balls world...

So I am in Denver at the moment, and let me tell you, if you ever wondered what it would be like to be a pinball, you should have been on my flight.

Bumpier that Seal's cheeks and a stewardess call system on the fritz, resulting in random beeping every few seconds, the flight out was not that unlike being a pinball in a pinball machine located in PizzaHut circa 1982.

In other balls news, I read in a magazine that the upcoming video game rendition of Scarface will feature a Balls meature. Yup. Balls meature. The more ballsy, your antics, the more your balls meature fills. When it is ball saturated, you can go all ballistic.

In some anti-balls happenings, Advantage rent-a-car was all out of Sebrings/Stratuses. So what kind of whip did they saddle me up with? The escalade? The 300? The Magnum? Nope. The minivan. Sigh.

Well I better go make some practice runs to the soccer field and applebees.

Dang! Do you ever take it off any sweet jumps?

Me ladyfriend's birthday recently passed and as I present I treated her (and me) to a walking tour of DC, but not just any ole walking tour.

Only the craftiest of pimps can go on a walking tour without having to be bothered with the actual walking portion. In true baller style, we took segways.

The first portion of the tour was dedicated to training and instant karma. They say riding a segway is intuitive. "They" also panned the movie E.T.

The first few minutes is like have a few irish car bombs and they riding a skateboard on ice. But you tend to pick it up quick. Except this one old lady, who ran headstrong into a tree.

And me.

After seeing the old bird totally wipe out, I couldn't control my evil thoughts and laughter. I then ran into a fence and broke my fender.

shitballs.

Of course all of this happened in full view of one of the tour guides, who immediately rolled over to check on the segway, (not me). I continued to turn in circles in attempt to hide the broken fender. It worked. Sort of. While he noticed it, I managed to escape without paying the $60 broken fender fee.

Happy birthday baby!

The winds of change are ablowin'

Which means only one thing...

Time to gas up the fear machine, naturally.

Now, I generally steer clear of anything political on ye olde blog, but gawdamn do I ever love a good conspiracy theory!

Most of this information is secondary and/or anecdotal, but why bother looking into anything, no one else seems to.


Anyhow let's get on with it shall we?

Point1: I overheard a coworker discussing congressional elections yesterday and she stated that 3 out of the 4 that were just held resulted in the incumbent losing (that's the dude who's currently in office). This comment was suggestive of a desire for change and a call for new leadership.

Point2: According to ORC vis-a-vis CNN.com A majority of Americans say they will vote for Democratic candidates in the midterm again signaling a call for change.

Point3: Substantial terror plot foiled, reminding us that we are still at war will terrorists and they will stop at nothing until we stop playing favorites and/or bring back that Britney/ K-fed reality series. You know those terrorists and their love for really bad tv shows.

Am I saying the plot was a sham?

No of course not.

I don't even know exactly what the word sham is. I am saying that the order of events is rather interesting all things considered.

And despite the fact that I didn't even consider all things, it is still pretty damn interesting.


PS on an unrelated side note...

Will Ferrell, you owe me for that nacho cheese fountain at the wedding idea....bigtime...

Theory of unrelativity

Some say everything's relative, right?

Well, I challenge that proclamation with my latest video.

It's a mess of old WWII propaganda posters played over a schitty mash-up I made which combines elements of the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" with a bit of the ole "Insomnia" thanks to Faithless and a splash of "Nightmare" from Brainbug just for good measure.

A fair amount of folks have mashed the first two tracks in that equation, but as far as I know, I am the only one to throw in the third.

Consider yourself warned...

I bought some steak house peanuts recently...


and the manufacturer was kind enough to inform me that my bag of peanuts contained peanuts



Thank goodness, I mean people who are deathly allergic to peanuts might have mistakenly purchased the steakhouse peanuts in pure ignorance if not for that warning.

Thanks blantantly obvious package people.

I heart New York

I'm blogging remotely this week on account of being in new york on business.

I decided to do the new york thing and walk from where I was working (27st) to where I am staying (52st) in what is perhaps the hottest day ever.

BAD IDEA JEANS!

Apparently misery loves company cause it seems like half the city was doing the same thing.

I have to admit, my respect for new yorkers went up a notch today. Not because of their love of walking, cursing or tolerance of the heat.

Oh no.

Because while waiting for the green light on a crowded street corner right there on 42st and madison avenue, it was so loud and so stank, I let loose a fart and nobody even noticed. And it wasn't any half-steppin SBDF either. I shared a good 8 second, cheek clapping, check ya draaaz, restaurant quality, gastronomical purge with the fine citizens of the big apple and no one even blinked.

Damn, they really are unshakable.

Old timey psychology Vol. II

Big ups to Philip Zimbardo and his attempts at creating his own version of Real World: Attica.

PZ was a homeboy of Stanley "shocker" Milgram and like his colleague is associated with one of the more notorious experiments in psych 101 text books, the Stanford Prison experiment. Basically, PZ wanted to answer the question of which comes first, the role or the behavior?

Or in other words, are prison security guard pricks because of their job or because the job attracts pricks? Anecdotally, I would say the latter, but this experiment may suggest otherwise.

Let me let wikipedia break it down for you...

Participants were recruited via a newspaper ad and offered $15 a day ($76 adjusted for today's inflation) to participate in a two-week "prison simulation." Of the 70 respondents, Zimbardo and his team selected 24 whom they deemed to be the most psychologically stable and healthy. These participants were predominantly white, middle class young males. All were college undergraduates.

By a flip of a coin,PZ randomly assigned folks into one of two groups, prisoners and guards and sent them on there merry ways. A few hours later the Palo Alto PoPo rolled up and arrested the "prisoners" and took then to a mock jail set up in the basement of the school.

PZ gathered gaurds and gave them simple instructions. Essentially, do what it takes to keep the prisoners in line, take away their individuality, mess with their minds to create a sense of powerlessness, just don't be violent.

Now, here's where it gets interesting.

In order to make prisoners less like people and more like things, they were dressed in matching muu muus and reffered to by numbers. In order to make guards less individual (accountable) and authoritative, they were dressed in militant khaki's, given prick cop sunglasses and a beat down stick.

A few days into the experiment, PZ had no choice but to pull the plug, as rumors of a planned escaped hatched and hunger strikes and riots erupted among prisoners in protest of the gaurds actions which included...

Bathroom rights became privileges which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were made to clean toilets using their bare hands. Mattresses were removed from the "bad" cell, and prisoners were forced to sleep on the concrete floor without clothing. Food was also frequently denied as a means of punishment. Prisoners endured forced nudity and even homosexual acts of humiliation.

Before the experiment, these were peers, probably even friends. In less that a week they were going all Abu. While it doesn't necessarily prove it, it does suggest that in some cases, given the right catalysts, nature can be trumped by nurture.

In other words, perceptions surrounding beliefs and expectations associated with roles can become reality, and cause one to lose sight of one's true self. This is especially relevant when signs of the individual are masked, identity is concealed, and people are less associated with their actions (rather their actions are associated with their roles).