Word to the wise

In the spirit of continuing the below post's theme of vile consumables...

...I would strongly recommend that you never, ever try, chew or even handle a piece of "Mad Croc Energy Gum." How would I describe the taste? Hmmm, let's see. Well, the package describes it as "Energy with a wild bite!" But I would have to says it's more akin to "Hey, a rabid werewolf just drank a bunch of Mountain Dew and then pissed in it in your mouth!" If that sounds exhilarating, then by all means buy yourself a pack today.

My God

I went into the agency refrigerator to grab my lunch today and was greeted with this grisly sight:



That's right. A bottle of Mickey's big mouth beer. Holy cow, this stuff is bad. My friends and I used to drink this stuff all the time in high school, primarily because A.) It was cheap, B.) It was strong, and C.) We were fascinated by the grenade shape of the bottle.

I can pretty much pinpoint the last time I ever drank (or ever will drink) this swill: July 1987. Some friends and I made plans to go to a drive-in and not only drank a bunch prior, but naturally snuck some beer in, because that's what drive-ins are for (the fact that a movie is playing is purely incidental). Anyway, once there I furiously chugged a 40-ounce bottle of this crap (we had no weed, and therefore had to drink faster to grab a hold of that all-important "buzz"), threw up all my popcorn, then proceeded to make a crude pillow out of some gravel, curled up and slept through half of "Dragnet" and (mercifully) all of "Born in East L.A.", the Chong-less big screen version of Cheech Marin's Weird Al-esque song parody of Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

Thus endeth my tale of Mickey's-instigated woe.

'yawn'

No, I'm not bored. Just a little sleepy, because I stayed up late last night playing, you guessed it, Halo 3. It's pretty dope. We've had some multi-player killfests here at the agency over the last couple of days, and I must say I find the new 'slayer' maps to be enjoyable. Expansive, but still sized so that there is constant player interaction (ie: me being able to easily find someone to kill). I'm going live as soon as my wireless gaming router arrives in the mail, so Mountain Dew-quaffing people all over the world will be able to sample my special recipe for pain.

Here's a screenshot a friend sent me of him (and I quote) "lasering some poor f*@#er." You see, Halo 3 has a saved game / screen capture feature that lets you preserve your finest moments for all of posterity. Bravo, folks at Bungie.

Color me interested

Here's an attention-getting cover of an old comic book I saw up for grabs on ebay. I must say, the artist did a fine job of piquing my curiosity with this image. How many stories have you read that have an ape running amok on a pirate ship? Not nearly enough, I'd wager. Not to mention the title of the comic is "Airboy", which clearly implies the involvment of an aircraft of some sort. This story literally appears to have it all, or certainly all that a child in 1950 would require to be entertained. Well, all except cowboys, that is. But it's possible they crammed one of those into there too.

I'm thinking this is what goes down: Airboy's plane crashes at sea. He is adrift for a bit, but is then rescued by some modern-day pirates / brigands, who are illegally transporting orangutans from the island of Borneo. One of the apes breaks free and cuts a swath through the crew, leaving only Airboy to deal with the mutinous beast.

Upon further reflection, I'd better go bid on this.

***UPDATE MONDAY, SEPT, 23rd***
And the winner of our unofficial "What's Going On In This Issue of Airboy?" contest is none other than our friend King Mini, who probably used the 1950 publication date shown on the cover to formulate the following two-fisted hypothesis:

"With Hitler and the Japs all but a fading memory, Airboy was reduced to battling the monkey pirate empire over some forgotten French-colonized banana plantation. He also battled a Yeti, a king cobra, and a door-to-door shoe salesman."

The auction ends in 1.5 days and I'm currently the high bidder, so we'll hopefully see soon enough.

Happy Birthday, Batman!

Actor Adam West is 79 years young today. He is truly awesome. Why not head over to his website and send him some kind birthday sentiments via his Batmail? I know I did.

Might make a nice rental property

If you've been thinking that it's time to get out of that studio apartment and dip your toes into the waters of home ownership, you're in luck. Because a pretty sweet Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home built in 1951 is for sale (by the original owners) here in Minneapolis, and it's priced to move at a mere $2.6 million.

For those of you that don't have your mortgage calculators handy, your monthly nut would be a more-than-manageable $13,940.00, assuming you're putting 20% down (about $500k). Yearly taxes are $15,647.00, adding another $1303.00 or so to your monthly payment. You can view the listing here.



Me? I'm going to call the realtor and arrange a viewing, then show up wearing my "Rich Guy" disguise in order to fool them into giving me the grand tour. My "Rich Guy" disguise consists me adorned with the following:

*The one suit I own

*A pipe

*A monocle

Happy 8th Anniversary

Back on September 13, 1999, an explosion at a nuclear waste dump on the moon knocked it out of orbit, and subsequently sent it and the denizens of Moon Base Alpha tumbling through space, where they went on to encounter various sentient and often hostile interstellar inhabitants on a weekly basis. This horrific mishap (which was dubbed "Space:1999" by the catch-phrase hungry media) could have been much worse, however. If the explosion had happened on the other side of the moon, it could have conceivably sent that hunk of rock tumbling down upon our planet instead of spiriling off into space, killing most if not all of the earth's inhabitants in the process. A clear case of "better them than us."

Here's hoping that all the crew of Moon Base Alpha, not to mention the moon itself, make it back safely to our orbit someday.

This week's "Nancy"

Actually, no Nancy in sight. Instead, you get a glimpse into the Sluggo lifestyle as artist Ernie Bushmiller boldly kicks down the fourth wall.

Astronaut training

Last month the wife and I went up to Brainerd for the weekend to stay at a resort (and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word), and on the way back we went to Paul Bunyan Land, aka "a tourist trap." It was like $11 apiece to get in, and once in you were rewarded with some shabby rides, many piles of hay, and some super hungry goats (I guess that's the only kind) you could feed with pellets from a vending machine.

However, there was something really cool. This thing (click photos to embiggen):

"America has tossed its cap over the wall of space."
-John F. Kennedy

As you can see, it's a giant silo-type thing. It's also a kick-ass space-themed ride. You see that ball at the bottom, by the ladder?
You crawl into that sphere and strap yourself in, much like an astronaut/cosmonaut, and then the giant fans underneath blow the sphere up the chute. It stops at the top, you hover, you fall back down, the air stops you, blows you back up again, and so on. It was awesome.

A rare glimpse at the mysterious entity behind the
Blogfoot empire peering out from the capsule.

Sadly, no pictures exist of the ride in action. As I courageously entered the sphere, I instructed Mrs. Blogfoot to get some shots, or possibly record a movie on the camera. But when the ride stopped (Like all good things, it was over all too soon), I exited to find her red-faced and convulsed with laughter, claiming that once the ride started, she began laughing uncontrollably and was unable to focus the camera. And you know what? I believe her.

We walked around for a bit, and then I went back to try and touch God again. But it was not to be, as one of the fans was now on the fritz. At 196 lbs, I was 4 lbs under the recommended weight limit of 200, but it appears that my previous joyride broke it. My apologies to all the heartbroken kids who were denied a shot of glory due to my density.

Now how do I go about finding one of these on the secondhand market?

Your "Nancy" strip for the week of September 3, 2007

Monty Capuletti, realtor

Recently while walking my dog around my sleepy hamlet I chanced upon this sign on a bench for a local realtor.



Just another dopey realty ad, thought I. But closer inspection revealed some wheat amongst the chaff.



You see, Marc is a "regular guy." He's not some slick college graduate who is going to use a bunch of fancy words to con you out of your savings. No. Marc will bring over a six-pack of beer (cans) and plop right down on your recliner. Marc likes cars, sawing things and earning an honest buck. He punches the clock just like you. If you handed him a pair of cufflinks, he would say "What the heck are these, "Monopoly" game pieces? Beat it, ya sissy." Then he would watch a rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

But is Marc really a "regular guy"? If he's making the claim in a public forum, then he's opening himself up for the analyzation that such a claim invites. Let's take a closer look at the man see if his self-proclaimed regularity withers under our penetrating gaze.


Hmmm. Now that I concentrate on the image of the man himself, I see that only a blind man would describe him as "regular." He is most irregular, in fact. Here are the irregular things I noticed.

1.) He is devoid of color. Other people have colored skin, hair, wear colorful clothes, etc. Marc is, by definition, "black & white." Not regular at all.

2.) His body is completely out-of-proportion. To start, his head is huge. Certainly too large for his body. One would think that walking would be an impossibility for the man, especially when you consider his head in conjunction with his long, stick-like legs and too-small-to-possibly-be-functional feet. His feet are the most worthless appendages earth biology has produced since the Tyrannosaurus Rex's arms / forelegs.

3.) He is two-dimensional, and vanishes when you stand to his left or right side. Viewed from the back he is equally invisible. Most "regular" people exist in 3-dimensions and are visible from all sides.

3.) He has a moustache. Not regular in this day and age.

I'm sorry, Marc. You are not "regular" at all. In fact, you frighten me.
A creature such as yourself should not exist. You live in defiance of all known laws of science. As such, I cannot entrust you with the sale of my home, nor would I purchase one from you.

Strangely, this is not the weirdest or dumbest realtor ad I have ever seen. That honor belongs to one some friends and I saw up in Toronto back in 2005. I think about this ad occassionally, and I still can't understand how or why it was created and unleashed upon the public's unsuspecting eyeballs. Without further ado, here it is:



Whew. Good luck sleeping tonight.

**NOTE** Confused by the title of this post? I'll give you a clue. It's a reference to a 80's movie starring a bug-eyed comedian that is decribed thusly on imdb.com: "To inherit his mother-in-law's colossal fortune, a hard living, gambling addict must change his unhealthy ways before it gets the best of him." Good luck!

It's like the Green Lantern, but with pepper spray

This is pretty sweet. I thought the "Oh, pay me no mind, I'm not armed...POW!" self-defense genre had reached it's nadir back in the early 80's with Chuck Norris Action Jeans (see below), but I was wrong. Because the folks at Protect Yourself Direct have come up with a gorgeous ring that will melt the heart of any gal who's fond of romance yet terrified of the moonlit walks that often accompany it: The Stunning Ring.

The Stunning Ring earns it's name, with a tasteful design that also emits 2/3 bursts of pepper spray up to 12 inches, incapacitating would-be-attackers as well as those who would dare to congratulate you on your engagement. It comes in gold or silver, and is the perfect compliment to that fabulous necklace / garrote that's been handed down through your family for generations.


Now on to the Chuck Norris Action Jeans, which debuted on runways and the back of finer magazines such as "Soldier of Fortune" back in the early 80's. The key to these handsome western-style dungarees is a "hidden gusset" that allows greater freedom of movement. Meaning they allow you to kick someone in the jaw without binding or chaffing. Nice. Why the need for such a product? Well, I like to imagine that Chuck, at various points in the 70's, had been at public events where he probably wanted to kick people who were irritating him, but was confined by his pants ("You're lucky I just got these Hagar slacks, buddy."). After a couple such frustrating occasions, he rushed home and put pen to paper (come to think of it, Chuck probably uses a pencil), called a tailor, threatened them, and voila': a void in the market was filled, and martial arts experts could now kick people in public without the embarrassment of splitting their pants.

If you click to embiggen the ad, you will see that satisfaction is guaranteed. Meaning that if you aren't completely satisfied with how these jeans allow you to kick another human being in the jaw, then you are entitled to a full refund. Century Martial Art Supply stands by its products.

**Blogfoot disclaimer**
I know 'Chuck Norris humor' is a shopworn genre by now, but that ring reminded me of those jeans due to their "commonplace adornment turned deadly" approach to self-defense, and I remember loving the ad when I saw it back in the day, so I wrote about it. Sue me.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the pepper spray ring link.