You make me feel like a natural Hutt

As in "Jabba the."

Poor Aretha. I believe this photo of Ms. Franklin is un-doctored , but if any eagle-eyed readers detect some Industrial Light & Magic level of photoshop trickery, lemme know.

This is just stupid

Here's a terrifying product I recently stumbled upon while wasting valuable company time. This is what you get when you give internet access to people who live south of Illinois:


That's right. Biblical-themed pajamas. The website says that these putrid items are supposedly "inspired by Ephesians 6:10-18", which for those of you who aren't bible scholars apparently reads, "Lo, go forth and bilk the stupid out of their coin by presenting unto them cheap, gold-flecked sleeping garments."

It's about time someone made something like this. Because everyone knows that the Devil is most active at night, when you are slumbering peacefully in your bed. That's when he appears in a flash of brimstone, twirling his moustache and poking you with his pitchfork as he dances about in his red hoodie jumpsuit (although sometimes he chooses to look like George Burns).

But no more will your precious bag of puke and snot (read: child) be subjected to possible demonic possession, because he/she will be wearing the "helmet of salvation", woven from only the finest cheap shiny fabrics. Because if it's one thing Satan fears, it's silver lame'. He thinks it's just the tackiest stuff on earth, and he shrieks and runs away in a mincing fashion when he sees it. The set also comes with a sword. And a coloring book.

The website was considerate enough to include a handy "salvation" link that you can click on in order to save yourself from being eternally consigned to the fires of perdition. Start clicking, sinners! I'm praying for all of you.

Caveman wins math prize

Grigori Perelman, a Russian genius and UCLA math professor, has recently been announced as the winner of the Fields Medal, the math world's highest honor. The Fields Medal is like the Noble Prize, but for Mathematics, and is awarded every 4 years. Perelman (pictured at left), who is super hairy and weird-looking, won the award by solving a key piece in a century-old problem in his 600-page paper about three-dimensional space called the Poincare Conjecture. Ah, the things you can accomplish when you don't waste time on petty and inconsequential things like bathing or grooming yourself.

But something is amiss: apparently Perelman is refusing to accept the award, which on this occasion is going to be awarded by the King of Spain at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid Spain from August 22-30th (in case you want to go).

To me this is all pretty obvious. It's not that Perelman doesn't want to go. It's just that his schedule is packed that week. He's going to be pretty busy discovering fire, creating the wheel, and bludgeoning the leader of a rival tribe to death with the femur of a tapir.

Craigslist is a gateway website

I'm assuming that most of you probably know about Craigslist.com, as market research (ie; I personally know all 36
of you) indicates that blogfoot readers are an erudite and web-savvy lot. If not, here goes: Craigslist is a classified advertising web site that is popular with 20-30 somethings seeking apartments, jobs and for-sale items. Each city has it's own listings, so if I were a weirdo, I might go on to Craigslistmn and search for comics books, and find people locally who were selling them for cheap. That is, if I were a weirdo.

But apparently the weed of crime has taken root on Craigslist. Or more accurately, the weed of weed. The Seattle Times is reporting that the website has recently become popular with pot dealers, who peddle their wares under clever code names such as "Mary Jane," "MJ," "the sticky icky," and "the chronic." What's more, a seller named Eric recently posted an ad on craigslist indicating he was willing to trade marijuana for sexual favors from women or money from men. Men who offered up a woman for sex would get a discount. "It's not prostitution," he said, noting he had completed a few transactions in response to the ad. "It's like a date, just weed instead of dinner."

Cheap bastard. How hard would it be to throw in a Jack's frozen pizza, Doritos, Ding Dongs and Mountain Dew?

This on-line pot supply thing is not surprising at all. Pot smokers are notoriously lazy. And the only thing lazier than a high person is a high person with a computer. Who do you think is reading all those celebrity gossip webistes (besides me)? That's right. High people. Who do you think is buying all that junk on ebay (besides me)? That's right. High people. Just think: you can now track down weed and buy a ferret and some juggling sticks without even leaving your home. In the old days you'd have to get your buddy to drive you around creation (or Milwaukee) in his beat-up Ford Pinto to track down all that stuff. And even then you might fall prey to the dreaded "drought." But no more. And once someone posts an on-line frisbee golf video game ( or "frolf", as it's known to the weed cogniscenti), these people will never see the light of day again. Unless of course the H.O.R.D.E. Festival rolls through town.

The story also references another pot-supplying website that allows visitors to locate dealers in certain cities acroos the globe. This one, however, disdains cowardly subtlety (they must smoke the non-paranioa inducing stuff) and lets its freak flag fly. Its called, elegantly enough, WeBeHigh.com, and you can visit it here. Nicely done, internet dudes.

Helicopters are terrifying

If you're looking to ruin a pair of pants, say for instance by shitting them in terror, then I recommend nothing more than a ride in a helicopter.

Today the wife and I took a 10-minute ride in a one, and it was terrifying. And I mean terrifying in that "Oh God I'm going to die, please forgive me for that time I set that sleeping hobo on fire, I'll be good from now on" kind of way.

It started innocently enough. We went with some friends in the morning to the yearly pancake breakfast that our sleepy hamlet of St. Anthony Village has as part of "Village Fest", a raucous, no-holds-barred weekend festival comprised of 2 tents and a terrible cover band. We noticed the day before that we seemed to be hearing a lot of helicopter noise, but since there are a lot of old people in our neighborhood, I figured the heat was causing them to drop like flies and the flight for life copter was putting in some overtime to keep up. But then after breakfast, we saw confirmation in the shape of a somewhat shabbily-painted sign that read, innocently enough, "helicopter rides."

Having never been in a helicopter before, and having no fear of flying, I decided to do it. The wife agreed, and we plunked down our coin. And then we spent the next 10 minutes sucking from the teat of terror.

I guess I thought the ride would be somewhat smooth. Fluid. You know, like the way T.C on "Magnum P.I." coaxed that bird around the Hawaiian shoreline. Instead, we were buffeted to and fro by the wind, and we seemed forever on the verge of being sent spiraling to the ground below. The take-off was fine, and rather enjoyable, I thought. But then came the wind. And the feeling that the vehicle I was in was somewhat light and insubstantial. I had originally thought of pretending to be on "MASH" or that I was a Minneapolis superhero patroling my adopted city, but all these thoughts were quickly replaced by prayer. Oh, and picture-taking. Thus, here are some candids from the event.

The hellish vehicle in question

Approaching downtown, wracked with fear.

The Mississippi river

Our humble abode as viewed from above. The open space in the center is my backyard, where our dogs like to poop.

I realize that there are those among you that would brand me a coward. All I can say is this: I've been in rickety 2-seater airplanes and enjoyed it. And there's no ride at an amusement park I won't go on. But this...this pretty much freaked me out.

More proof that the internet rules

Push-button / DIY publishing (like this fine blog), instant news and rapid-fire communication, tax-free goods, finding people to have sex with via myspace...yes, dear friends, the internet makes all of these wonderful things possible. It also allows someone to instantly capitalize on something with the speed of a striking cobra. Or a mongoose dodging a cobra strike. Take your pick. To whit: barely a week ago, formerly-handsome-now-rubber-faced movie star Mel Gibson gets super drunk, races his car around Malibu, gets arrested and slurs some anti-semitic slurs, then says "What are you looking at, sugar tits?" to a female officer. Then, a mere 5 days later, this is for sale on the internet.



Does that not rule? Poor grammar aside (it should read "what are you looking at" not "what you looking at." If the shirt pictured Gary Coleman, the phrasing would make sense), the speed
to which this thing got to market is impressive, to say the least. Five days to get from concept to execution to sale. Maybe even sooner, as I saw it on Wednesday, but it may have conceivably been unleashed upon an unsuspecting public as soon as Monday. The shirt in and of itself is only mildly amusing, but you've got to tip your hat to its makers for leaping forth to fill a niche that didn't even exist 120 hours prior.

But all is not sweetness and light on the internet front, oh my brothers. There are those who would seek to fuck with us and limit our access to high-speed internet service, keeping it for themselves and dooming the rest of us to troll about on a "slow lane"-thereby altering the way many small businesses operate, making our porn blurry, and conceivably causing our Mel Gibson sugar tits t-shirts to reach the market in a ludicrous 10 or more days.

And who is behind this fiendish scheme? Why, who else but the people who cause the cost of everything to soar? Who else but the people who ruin everything? That's right: rich pricks.

A rich prick, as pictured in
Encyclopedia Brittanica

What's going down is this (the following is taken from a letter by Meg Whitman President and CEO of eBay Inc, who I admit has a vested interest in this, but summed up the problem succintly and nicely): "The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would allow them to divide the Internet into a two-tiered system. The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net. The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today's Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can't give that up. A two-lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies -- the companies that can't afford the high fees -- will be unable to succeed, and we'll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them."

Rich pricks are interesting in that they are obviously sociopaths. I can only assume that wealth is as addictive (if not more) than booze, gambling or heroin, and that once wealthy, the thought of your lifestyle dipping one iota and not being able to hunt quail or use champagne for mouthwash until the day you die must be the most terrifying thing on earth, because people engage in a lot of not-so-subtle manuevering in order to preserve their status quos.

But you can make your opinion known, you lazy sods. Those reigistered to ebay can simply click here for more info. Those who are not registered ebay users are what's known as "politically disinfranchised." In other words, find the info on your own.

By the way, you can purchase the Mel sugar tits tee here.

Emil Faber said it best: "Knowledge is good."

Since my illustration degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on (example: I write for a living), I've decided to go back to school. I thought about getting a second high school diploma (nobody else has two, think of what an edge that would give me in the job market!), but after viewing this college recruitment video for Appalachian State University, they are clearly the only choice. I haven't completely decided on a major yet, but it's probably between playing the saxophone or grabbing a metal globe so that my hair stands on end.