did you know?

internet commerce accounts for 8% the entire market! i did a study on it!

Spam Filter, Schmam Schmilter Redux

in honor of my slightly earlier post (see below), please enjoy this gibberish post.

weight-lift matzo balls? the mormon galaxy postulates rim-job exponentials. intrepid gaston merry lou whitaker and the deli contestants. spin back gramophone lightly, and sprinkler system force-fed william tell. bingo dally toil fill more at what expense. scar tissue back stabber cotton gin and suicide squeeze make three. filibuster donovan sang the hit song mellow yellow to great applause. infinitesimal weight loss at the drop of a bean hat? it is tomorrow today in snap times two. look here for great deals. tripple sinister protein milkshake vagabond silversmith and the frangipani development console. simply fear worthy in ramshackle conduit spans force lightspeed travel cruisers to aim mixture rinse for oil barrel jim. you're welcome.

Spam Filter, Schmam Schmilter

at work today, i kept hitting the "next blog" button on the blogger bar, and found some interesting blogs. and by interesting i mean nonsensical spam gibberish. such as:

Do the numbers add up when freight is taken into account? Our research on many products, including what is arthritis, has revealed that many suppliers are now offering what is arthritis freight free. This will change the numbers in your favour.

Looking for everything laser fromlaser printers to laser surgery?

american association marathon stroke

Maio 26

alright, that last one was actually spanish. but the other ones? it's a pretty fun way to waste a few hours, to be honest. brought to you by blogger and everybody's favorite internet side effect, spammers.

People Get Around

PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET

The sentence is funny on its own, but listen to a two and a half year old kid sing and dance whole-heartedly to it and you'll realize you knew nothing about the effect of these words.

The other day, a kid in the day care where I work, whom we shall call Little Pip, came in. Little Pip's entire two-and-a-half-year-old body wanted to dance. The dance was the standard toddler torso shake that we all know and love. The melody was simple and could probably be described as lacking, but Little Pip couldn't sit down for more than two minutes before breaking out the lyrics, "People get around. People get around." These words were repeated continuously until Little Pip

a.) danced harder than his range of balance would allow
-or-
b.) found himself led to something shiny by his short attention span.

If distracted, though, it was for mere seconds as Little Pip found his hips even taking part in this uncontrollable dance-although his feet stayed firmly planted in the floor, as if they knew this dance would only get out of hand if something wasn't done. I, myself, was thoroughly amused. Little Pip was possessed. Possessed by "People get around". At the same time, I found myself mulling over these lyrics. "People get around. People get around." Was it a hip-hop song about promiscuity or a Sesame Street song about transportation? I may never know, but I will tell you this. The song flooded my mind and became the soundtrack of my entire day. So, thanks Little Pip, and wherever you are, I hope you found a comfortable spot to rock it out until the break of dawn. Keep dancing, Little Pip. Keep dancing.

PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET AROUND PEOPLE GET

personally blogging you from these parts, these burgh parts

hey ho, fools.

i'm in pittsburgh celebratin' some jesus risin' with my family. a high school reunion of sorts happened on easter saturday, featuring two of the four people i can say i enojy seeing from my academic high school. (long story. see, i went to two high schools everyday. academics in the morning, acting in the afternoon. oh. that wasn't that long after all). for the record, those people are:

1. amy mariaskin (aka baba, or tardy)
2. chris meaner (aka firepoker)
3. thomas baker (aka chugger)
4. why YOU of course! (aka remember that awesome nickname i had for you?! ha ha ha!)

anyway, #'s 2 and 3 and i met up and we played some texas hold 'em while smoking a hookah and playing tunes on my new ipod in what has to have been the single trendiest night of my recent life. i have to mention that #3 did not smoke the hookah because he probably doesn't want me dragging his name through the mud while he's running for the republican* nomination for pittsburgh public school board member

*for the record, i'm a member of the green party and have been since 2001, so i can't vote for him in the primaries. conflict of interest postponed!**

**i did the fist-pumpy thing- like the thing kirk douglas did when he hit the home run off dennis eckersley in the world series- when i wrote "postponed". FYI.

so were those the only trendy things i did? hell no. on easter sunday i watched "indiana jones and the temple of doom" on two televisions. then i ate a bunch of chocolate, and couldn't fall asleep, so i blogged at 3:46 AM eastern. now we all know blogging is tres trendy, and the two televisions thing? that's about to catch on. trust me.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Of all the holidays, the commercialization of this one, makes it one of the hardest to understand. Somewhere, some time ago, some one decided to promote Easter as the day a large bunny visits with eggs, confusing all Christian children henceforth. Do bunnies lay eggs? Do they steal them from chickens and just paint them? Is there an egg factory in the South Pole? Where does chocolate play into all this? The questions about Easter are easy to find. The answers, I'm afraid, are not.


But, even with all the questions, there's still something special about having a special day to share with your friends and kin. So, whether you believe in Jesus' rising or not, I hope you're cracking some hard boiled eggs open with loved ones. And here's a hug coming to you from Chicago.

A DAY TO REMEMBER

Some people will remember March 22nd as the day US naval hero Stephen Decatur was killed in a duel with former Navy Commodore James Barron. But, as for me, from this day forward I shall always remember March 22nd as the date that I first heard that Punky Brewster is pregnant with a Punky Jr!!!

While the world struggles with the question of whether Punky is too young to have a baby, I have successfully seperated the actress, 28 year old Soleil Moon Frye, from the character, 6 year old Punky Brewster. Turns out it's Soleil who is pregnant, not Punky. See if you can pick each one out of this lineup:

A.)

B.)

C.)

D.)

E.)

F.)

The winner maybe gets a candy bar.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, please check out www.punkybrewster.com and tell me WHERE THE HELL PUNKY BREWSTER IS?!

own a piece of balzer history

alright. i have had it up to here with my g.i. joe power wheels tank. i totally decided to sell it. it's not what you think, though. i love my tank. i love it the way a pittsburger loves the steelers, or the way a construction worker loves his hard hat, or better yet, the way a g.i. joe loves his fucking tank. but it's just too awesome for any one person to own for more than fifteen years.

i mean, look at it! how badass is that?! here's what you do with it:

• step 1: plug it into the wall socket
• step 2: wait 15 hours
• step 3: use the "power" lever to move
• step 4: blow shit up with the laser
• step 5: repeat as necessary

this thing is a steal for $250 (or best offer). Throw in another hundred bucks, and i'll drive it to you. not put it on a flatbed truck and drive the flatbed truck, i mean drive the tank itself. the further away you are, the better. here's some spec's:

year: 1982
model: gi joe APRV
engine: 9.6v battery
horsepower: yeah, more like tankpower
miles: 1.6
tires: 6.5" plastic. original tread
asking price: $250.00

any takers?

An Incidental Question

Just wondering-

What's the difference between casserole and salad?

Is a casserole just a cooked salad?

Here's an interesting situation to ponder-

A family finishes their dinner, a casserole. There is some left over, which they put in the refrigerator. After a night in the refrigerator, it gets cold. Is it now salad? If so, than why go through all the fuss of making up a word for each? Shouldn't hot salad or cold casserole suffice? How do linguists sleep at night?

dumfounded (sic)

i'm not sure how long this will be up, but cnn's latest article on the terri schiavo right-to-die/right-to-keep-alive poppycock had one item of interest for me:



awesome.

THIS JUST IN....

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

The verdict is finally in. After years of deliberation, historians have finally emerged with a solution that they can all agree upon:

In the Alamo, the best place to stand would have been surounded by Davey Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Daniel Boone.*

*The phrase 'best place' shouldn't be confused with 'safest place'.


Wait a minute. Here's some...

-BREAKING NEWS-

Upon further research, historians have come to the conclusion that Daniel Boone wasn't and couldn't have been at the Alamo on the grounds that he had died sixteen years beforehand. As a result, the above historians have rescinded their previous statement. They apologize profusely for misleading anyone and have agreed to go back into deliberation until a fool-proof solution can be found.

put that in your Ti-83 and program it!

no longer content with ruining religion, science has turned it's vengeful "not proven 'till it's proven" stubborness on itself. apparently, science doesn't have all the answers. there are thirteen things science doesn't understand, and here they are (in case you ever meet science at a party and want to get a rise out of her).

link from new scientist.com via slashdot

Ahem-

"Let's talk about 'roids."

If you haven't heard that at least three times today, you must not be American. It seems to be on the tip of everyone's tongues. As for me, I find that the people in my company seem to keep it at the tip and prevent the sentence from escaping their mouths. Oh well. I guess they don't need to say anything. It's all over the news. Ballplayers and steroids!! Steroids and ballplayers!! I'm not sure where this sudden concern is coming from. It's not like steroid-use is a new thing-especially in sports. And, if you kick up some history books, you'll find steroids have been around a lot longer and were used by some surprisingly important people in a multitude of occupations. I give you exhibit A:




Ladies and gentlemen, Grover "Big Guns" Cleveland. The only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms-on steroids! You don't get arms like those on just protein shakes, baby! In the picture, even the hat seems to cower in fear and respect. His coat doesn't even fit him anymore and really, what coat could sufficiently protect all his muscles? Rumor has it that he'd walk in on House meetings and just glare at representatives with a look in his eyes that Rep. Badhaldren "Scuffy" Webster from Tennessee (1887-1899) could only describe as an "I-could-put-my-arm-through-your-face-kind-of-look". It goes without saying that you voted for what Grover wanted. It was a vote to stay alive. His roid rage was legendary and left so many holes in the White House that repairmen finally just resorted to placing glass over them and calling them windows.

So, you see, steroids are just as american as ephedra, cocaine, and apple pie. They're a part of our history as well as our future both in baseball and outside of it. Besides, why make such a fuss? Didn't someone just hit 71 home runs in a season? Don't we, in some season soon, want to see 756 home runs hit, shattering the single season record and breaking the career home run total all at once? How in the hell can we do that without steroids? Hard work? Practice? That only got us 61. Get off your high horse, why don't you! You're living in the past!! And by past, I mean before Grover Cleveland's time.

And the nominees are..HILARIOUS!

WARNING! POLITICS AHEAD!

so last week george bush nominated john bolton to the position of united nations ambassador. this is the man who called the UN a "bunch of fucking pussies" (maybe i paraphrased a bit, but that was the gist of it), and today bush nominated paul wolfowitz, an architect of the iraq invasion, to take over as president of the world bank. these two nominations are so nonsensical, they simply can't be anything but an attempt at comedy, and we all know comedy comes in threes. so who's the next wacky nominee? here are my guesses:

supreme court justice: fred gwynn
fred gwynn is best known as the actor who played herman munster, but he's actually pretty qualified. he played a cop in "car 54 where are you?" for like fifty years, and then he played a judge in "my cousin vinny". this lifetime of imaginary public service would rank him above some real supreme court justices. the only problem is he died in 1994, so it would have to be a reanimated fred gwynn, which is ironic considering he used to play a character based on frankenstein's monster.

ambassador to canada: a map of canada
who better to represent america in canada than a map of canada? that way they'll know how close we are if they ever thinking about getting out of line.

senator of rhode island: pennsylvania governor ed rendell
bush'll pull a fast one on us, nominating a perfectly qualified politician, but it's to a position you can't nominate people to, from a state he's not even from. now that's comedy.

links courtesy of sfgate.com and the independant

A Cautionary Note

Yesterday, an article in the New York Times, 'Hazards: Men, Children, and Lost Fingers' by Eric Nagourney, read:
"Children and men of late middle age face a common peril: they share the distinction of having the highest risk of losing part of a finger...In all, the study found, about 28,000 people go to emergency rooms in the United States each year because of fingertip amputations that occur outside the workplace. Among them, the greatest concentration was in children under 5 and men 55 to 64."

Now, on one hand (Oh, a pun!!), I find myself relieved that I am one of the lucky ones, one of the boys in this world who has gotten past the age of five with all fingers still intact. Knowing this now, I find myself falling to my knees and thanking anyone I can that these two hands have survived!! They've survived!!!! And while this extreme outburst of joy is overwhelming, I have to take a moment to remember all those tips and knuckles that weren't as fortunate to make it to age six. If not for them, who knows what kind of condition my fingers would be in now.

But, if you're like me and have somehow managed to leave those ugly pre-five years unscathed, you've got to be thinking to yourself, "Yeah, so maybe I've had some good years with these fingers, but what of it? Does it really matter? I'm twenty-four now. In thirty-one years, I could lose them all!!!" And, at that point, the odds are against you for another nine years. Nine years of worrying and praying that you don't wake up some morning to find your index finger lying on the floor all alone. What kind of a life is that?! I DID NOT SURVIVE FLOODS AND FIRES AND VARIOUS CRASHES, NOT TO MENTION SCRAPED KNEES AND HANGNAILS, TO HAVE MY FINGERS FALL OFF IN ME SLEEP!!!!

Please someone pinch me and tell me I'm dreaming. How can we protect our young and our elderly? What's the point of living, if not for our fingers?

Here's the actual article:
Times Article (Subscrition Needed)

Half Man, Half Thing?

CLICK ME

yr kidding, right?

Mansquito- The Aftermath

what's done is done. and what's done is mansquito. it came in like a lion, and went out like a half man, half mosquito. here's the quick stats on mansquito:

• Number of Times Mansquito Called By Name: 1
• Number of unexplainably hot nuclear scientists: 2
• Number of Times the Burger King commercial with Hootie in it ran: 6
• Number of Times the Lamasil commercial starring that guy who looks like Richard Gere and Harrison Ford mixed together ran: 3
• Number of other movies about mutated mosquitos that ran right after mansquito: 1
• Number of actual celebrities cast of Mansquito resembled: 4

for more on mansquito, check out the animal club webpage wednesday morning for a point-counterpoint-counter-counterpoint review from me, mike and shane.

Speaking of Mansquito...

Which part man? Which part mosquito? MANSQUITO!!!!!
-I just thought that'd be a good tag line. I know science has gone and proved that bugs genetically couldn't survive a mutation of largeness. But, that doesn't keep the dreamers from dreaming. God bless you dorks of the world.

I'm a Geek!

not that i'm a movie geek or anything, but there's big news on the wallace and gromit feature length front. apple just put this cute little featurette on the quicktime page with some behind the scenes whoziwhatzits and somesuch. something tells me the w&g movie might be a tad bit better than mansquito.

quicktime.com or something like that

Statuettes? Tuxedos? Joan Rivers?

the staff at the second city training center has bestowed upon us the honor of not one, not two, not three, not five, but FOUR donny award nominations. we were nominated as a group for best sketch show and best technical direction, and ruth and tom each got nods for best actress and best actor. woot!

Link via Second City

Half Man, Half CULTURAL ICON!

the mansquito! madness continues!!!

here's a link to the trailer for the german site of the company that made mansquito (?): click me for hot mansquito action

and here's one of the many witty blog posts you're likely to see over the next week or two, all at poor mansquito's expense: courtesy of paravonia

how far can this mansquito thing go? only time will tell, but my guess is around forty six miles.

Half Man, Half AWESOME

god, to be a fly on the wall when this was pitched...

Mansquito!

another high quality sci-fi channel original movie. for the record, tornetta is completely addicted to these.

tasty tarts for poor children

bloggity blog blog blog. and blog you.

foster's place is now online!

check it out! i am a blogger! i'll blog by blogging another blog:

Foster's Place

how's that for blogging?! i'm lame.

i'm in

like flynn.