Thanksgiving? Oh, That Reminds Me, Time to Start Thinking About Christmas!

So today was Black Friday in the good ‘ol US of A. Black Friday? What kind of a name is that for the day after Thanksgiving? Or for that matter, for the traditional first day of the Christmas shopping season? After a great deal of searching through the Encyclopedia Britannica (you might be more familiar with it as “Wikipedia”), I discovered that the term Black Friday originated as term of disdain leveled at the day by Philadelphia city police officers that had to deal with the traffic jams full of morons swarming downtown in search of discounted white patent leather platform boots and pinstripe bell bottom pants among other must-have Christmas gift items. What? No, I’m not talking about the ‘70s, it’s Philadelphia for Christ’s sake! Come to think of it, why the hell is Thanksgiving so bloody late down there anyway? We have ours here in Canada in October, which is the time of year that Canadian statisticians roughly estimate the season of Fall to occur. It’s a little tough to tell what with Spring being from about March 1st to 15th, and Summer being from approximately March 16th to April 1st or so. Basically the leaves start to turn any time after that. If they’ve been able to burst forth through the permafrost, that is. Depends on the year. Hopefully this year the Slack-Jawed Friday shoppers left most of their guns at home so you didn’t have too many more incidents like last year when two men in Palm Desert, California shot each other to death after arguing over a toy in a local Toys “R” Us store. That reminds me of a funny Weird Al Yankovic song parody of Green Day’s “American Idiot” called “Canadian Idiot” in which Weird Al sneers that Canadians go to the mall and don’t even pack heat. It’s not quite as funny in real life for the traumatized tots and pants-pissing parents that had to witness that psychotic bullshit go down in Palm Desert, I would imagine. What a fucking nuthouse. Well, all that being said, there is definitely a chill in the air, and I don’t think it’s only from the amassed glacial intellects lined up all over the US for Sarah Palin book signings (Make your X, Sarah!).

I guess it is time to start thinking about Shitmas Christmas, as much as we don’t want to. It’s not like it’s been a great year for everyone, and times are tough all over, with the possible exception of the C-Suite dickheads, who seem to have weathered the storm on boats constructed of wads of government stimulus cash. I guess I shouldn’t be so cynical, I mean if we didn’t have monster salaries and bonuses for shittily performing CEOs, what would the guy who cleans the toilets for minimum wage have to aspire to? I mean really, would anyone want a job in the Big Office if they had to go to work in a Cadillac instead of a Bentley? How embarrassing. That’s not the attitude our countries were built on, people! So in that spirit, I have amassed a short list of Christmas gift suggestions for the person who wants everything, from the person who has nothing:

How about a wacky European General Motors Division?

“Do you have any idea what my shirt says? Fuck no, I don’t have a goddamn clue.”

For some reason, the bright lights at General Motards decided at the last minute that it was a bad idea to sell Opel to Canadian autoparts giant Magna International. Apparently they have decided they know how to make money now (Hint: go broke through stupidity, get government bailout, start to tell everyone you know what you’re doing again). Well, Magna’s loss is your gain! Obviously GM will go tits-up again soon, probably well before Christmas so here’s your chance to give someone a very unique gift at a bargain-basement price. It’s not every day you can buy a lazy, overstuffed, heavily unionized, 35 hour per week working matchbox-car making company with the money left on your Visa’s credit limit. And just think, next year you can give everyone in your family an Opel in their stocking!

Or Maybe Dubai!

“I’m a little teapot, short and stout…”

I know what you’re thinking. How can I afford Dubai? Well, at this price, how can you afford not to buy it? I mean even for the friend who has everything, I bet they don’t own a pie-in-the-sky wannabe Arab Las Vegas (minus the tits, ass, booze, and fun). I hear it’s going up on Ebay early next week so it can sell in time for Christmas and get this: no reserve! Better get your sniping hand ready though, because rumour has it that Herbert Walker Bush himself has his sights set on it for Sonny-Boy for Christmas. It’s also rumoured he plans to change the name to Dubya, just to rub Iran and the Taliban’s face in it. Don’t waste any time, you’d better get practicing on some other in-demand Ebay items like Lindsay Lohan’s pride (why she ever sold it in the first place, we’ll never know, she badly needs it now), and that Yankee World Series home-run ball the Phillies fan threw back on the field (priceless!).

Or Even…H1N1!

Health: 1, Dignity: 0

Okay, maybe giving someone a dread set of the sniffles isn’t the nicest thing a person could do at Christmas, but let’s face it, the person who has everything is probably also insulated from all of the grubby peasants and their infections and pestilence. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them! They were probably too stupid to even go and get vaccinated, thinking that their rarified Country Club air is unlikely to carry the bugs of the unwashed masses. Some great people to think of for this heartfelt gift are say, your rich condescending neighbours, or even your boss (and his boss!). The best part is, it’s all but free! You probably haven’t been able to get a shot yet anyway due to silly obligations like working two jobs and caring for flu-ridden relatives. All you have to do is head down to your local hospital, lick a few doorknobs and elevator buttons and you should be in business. As you sit in your cubicle trying to do your work through your fevered haze, your boss will probably come around with everyone’s Christmas bonus of a month’s free parking in the company lot or a voucher for two free coffees in the break room or something. Make sure you give him a big hug to thank him, and Oops! cough right in his stupid face! Oh, and those neighbours? Make sure the next time you take their mail to them from the mailbox at the end of their driveway that you slobber all over it, real thorough-like.

Hopefully some of these thrifty, yet unique gift ideas help you with the difficult task of Christmas shopping this year! What’s that? Christ no, I do not want a hug you goddamned Typhoid Mary wannabe! Sorry Mom, I guess that was a little harsh. Maybe we could hug next year?

Apple © Brand-y

“Yes, folks, this baby can make large numbers of dollar bills disappear from your wallet at speeds darn near the speed of light!”

Know who this guy is? You don’t? Seriously? Well, for the six people out in the world who don’t know, the man in the picture above is none other than Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, all around nice guy, and the free will-sucking Dark Lord of Branding Vampires. Steverino has posed in a similar position to the one above at countless media-blitz new product launches and annual general meetings for Apple shareholders, exuberantly extolling the virtues of the newest must-have Apple product. He’s been there for the launch of the iPod, iPod Nano, the Macintosh, the Macbook, the iPhone, and others. He’ll probably be there for the launch of the iPod Nano-Nano (sorry Mork) and the iPerfectSpouse as well. It isn’t Steve’s ebullient personality and deep commitment to the Apple product line that sets him apart from other pocket-lining corporate head honchos. No, the thing that sets him apart has been his ability to brand the Apple products in a fashion not seen since Coke became an all around word for a cola soft drink. Mmm. A nice fresh Coke would taste great about now. I think I’ll go get one…I’m back, and boy was that Coke refreshing! What!? I’ve got to pay the bills too, you know. Anyway, back to Steve. When was the last time you saw a movie in which an actor opened a laptop that wasn’t a Macbook? Yeah, yeah, I saw 2012 too. That must have cost Sony one pretty penny to outbid Jobs. How about the last time you heard some moron call any kind of MP3 player an “iPod?” Hell, after all those Lame PC Guy vs. Cool Mac Dude commercials, I sometimes feel like committing suicide when I switch on my PC to check my email or write a blog post. At the very least, I feel like I should try to be a little more like Justin Long or maybe get the same haircut. That way people could just assume I was a cool Mac user as long as I never let them enter my home.

Steve has certainly gotten the Apple brand out there, that’s for sure. His latest endeavour, however, might raise a few eyebrows. After a generous donation to Stanford University and a rumoured tidying up of the remaining relatives of Alfred Binet, Jobs has acquired the rights to the Stanford-Binet IQ Test. Through deep subterfuge and fabrication, in an operation that cost the lives of several undercover operatives and a half-dozen jelly doughnuts, Oh, For ****’s Sake! has managed to obtain a copy of the first page of the new IQ test, renamed, innocently enough the iQ Test. Although the questions seem vaguely familiar to anyone who has previously taken a standardized intelligence test, there are subtle differences, which are apparent to the trained eye:

iQ Test

Question 1:

If all Windows users are losers, and all losers are Windows users, how many loser Windows users are actually loser users?

A. All of them.

B. Every one of them.

C. The whole sorry goddamn lot.

D. Especially that Lame PC Guy from the commercial.

Question 2:

Rearrange the following words and letters to make a phrase:

YUB NA DOPi

When you have rearranged the phrase to the correct form, what does the phrase say?

A. The best darn thing I’ve heard all day.

B. A truly great idea.

C. Something wonderful.

D. The solution to blissful happiness.

Question 3:

STEVE JOBS is to GOD as GOD is to:

A. STEVE JOBS

B. STEVE JOBS

C. STEVE JOBS

D. The guy who runs Apple. Yep. STEVE JOBS

Question 4:

What number logically comes next in this sequence of new Apple product price points?:

$199, $299, $399, $499, …

A. All numbers above $499 in $100 multiples.

B. Whatever the market will bear.

C. I have to have it! Who gives a shit what it costs!?

D. The sky’s the limit, and even that isn’t a given.

Question 5:

What human emotion is the equivalent of the following symbol?:

A. Joyous happiness and joy.

B. Loving loveness.

C. Joyful Loving

D. All consuming envy and greed, much like the apple in the Garden of Eden.

As you can see folks, Steve has once again done a great job of insinuating the Apple brand into another facet of our daily lives. Heck, I only ever take one bite out of an apple before I throw it away now, it just seems so aesthetically pleasing at that point that it would be a shame to keep eating it. Even though I have blown the whistle on Jobs’ latest branding project, I still hope to one day be cool enough to own an Apple product. I’ve been practicing my disaffected, hands-in-pocket poser stance and air of repugnant superiority, so I’m at least half way there.

Nazis in Our Midst, No Really, RIGHT in Our Midst!

I guess if I had to be totally honest, I would say that I have been accused of suffering from the odd delusion here and there throughout my lifetime. Like there was that one time, when I thought I actually had a shot at asking one of the popular girls in high school to go to a school dance with me. Delusional? Yep. Thank God for handwritten notes. That conversation would have really, really sucked face to face. Or that other time I thought I had been abducted by aliens and taken in a spaceship to a far off galaxy and then mercilessly anal probed for no apparent reason. Another delusion? You got it, homey. Turns out it was just a homeless guy wearing one of those Ronald Reagan masks from the movie Point Break, and the spaceship was just the back alley at Patty O’Drunkigan’s neighbourhood pub and adult video rental store where I had apparently passed out after closing time. I think it’s fair to say my imagination has gotten the best of me at times, but in my own defence, it was probably for the best given the bleak nature of the real situations.

Over time these random delusionary personality sniglets have led to a fair amount of amusement for my friends and family and myself. “University Degree?” laughter erupts! “Going to be anything other than a wage slave the rest of my life?” Hilarity ensues! “Goals?” “Dreams?” Oh, the snickering we would enjoy. There goes that Brent again, head in the clouds and ass in the gutter! This time, though, I really believe that I am on to something that others don’t seem to be aware of, even though the evidence is all around them, practically goose-stepping them right in their stupid, disbelieving faces. Sorry, that last part was a little bitter. I am going to present the evidence to you and let you be the judge. I can’t be the only one who sees it. It seems like everywhere I look, I see Nazis! That’s right, those guys they don’t teach you about in Canadian schools so maybe you could grow up to become one. Sorry, that part was a little bitter too. Can you explain the following pictures?

This woman is apparently someone named Sarah Palin and she is supposedly a politician of some sort. I don’t believe it for a minute. I saw her performance during the last election in the U.S., and I am convinced that she is actually a clone of Eva Braun that has been created by some nefarious Shadow-Reich conspiracy group that didn’t do a good job splicing the genes responsible for brains. Inflammatory hand gestures aside, only someone cloned into present day from the 1940’s could have fucked that campaign up as badly as she did. Case closed.

Okay, can someone tell me what the hell is going on here? I thought the goose-stepping crowd was limited to Stalinist throwbacks and Little Communist Dictatorships That Could, like Cuba. These people are plainly putting on some sort of goose-stepping clinic, with none other than “USA” emblazoned across their backs. The website said something about some martial art called Tae Kwon Do, whatever the screw that is. Sounds like something a Nazi would make up. I’ve only heard of Kung Fu before, I don’t know about you.

As if these public displays of blatant Naziism weren’t enough, I was out on a day parole walk in the park the other day and I witnessed this disturbing sight, which I was lucky to be able to capture in time with my Kodak Instamatic before the little bugger saw me looking and went back to walking normally:

It’s all around us, people, it’s all around us. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your child comes home with a permission slip to join his school’s “After School Aryan Club” or gets picked up in a school bus with a swastika on the side. The time to act is now, before it’s too late. Let me know how the battle is going, I’ve got a date tonight on a spaceship in a galaxy far, far away. Ready to go Ron?

Undeserved? I Think not, Sir!

I’ve spent the last few days thinking about the recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Best African American American President Ever and Don’t Even Think About Saying He’s Not, You Racist, Barack Obama. The flurry of criticism, eye-rolling, and unabashed outrage after the announcement made me nostalgic about the similar reactions I faced after an ill-fated grade school audition for the lead role in our little school’s production of “The Flying Nun.” Good times. I can’t recall another time in my life when my direction seemed so clear cut and obvious: “Exit stage left, MORON!” But I digress. When all of the doubters and naysayers started to come out of the woodwork to question B.A.A.A.President Ever Obama’s Nobel salute, I thought to myself: “Self, why is everyone so upset? Surely this isn’t the first award of distinction given to a man as great as B.A.A.A.P.E. Obama?” I decided to use my awesome skills of investigative research and outright fabrication to get to the bottom of and uncover, or invent, the real, or not so real story of his past achievements and awards. Let’s face it, the man deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for showing enough restraint to not round up all the Universal Health Care protesting oldsters and put them out to sea on a goddamned ice floe. Get your head out of your ass, people!

The first example I found of President Obama’s award worthiness was when he was awarded the White Crane/James White Poetry Prize which is a biennial manuscript prize for “excellence in Gay men’s poetry.” The award consists of a $1000.00 cash prize and publication of the winning manuscript. Obama won the award after submitting a manuscript of love poems written to Bill Clinton during a rocky period in the Obama’s fake marriage. The poetry collection was entitled “You Complete Me, Bubba,” and featured such notable poems as “Redneck Soliloquy” and “The Forbidden Highway Less Traveled.” Sure, at the time there were also criticisms leveled at Obama’s win. Complaints of “He’s not gay!” and “He never wrote that!” were heard, but history has looked fondly on his winning of the prize since to this day he is still the only Future B.A.A.A.P.E. to have ever won the award.

The second example I found or made up to convince you of President Obama’s award worthiness was his deserving win of the Employee of the Month Award at Chase Bank. As a measure of how valuable an employee Obama is to the bank, they have made him Employee of the Month for not only the last half of 2008, but for all the months of 2009, and into the foreseeable future, as long as in the words of Chase Bank CEO Jamie “Diamond Jim” Dimon “He keeps the revenue flowing.” He must be one heck of a valuable employee to be keeping the business afloat all by himself. Obviously he is very deserving of this award!

Lastly, but certainly not leastliest, it took some deep investigative research and fabrication to unearth what is possibly Obama’s most impressive award win of all. That’s right folks, the Holy Grail of awards, the coveted Penthouse Forum “Letter of the Month.” As if we needed any more evidence of the man’s award-worthy abilities than his cure of world peace or whatever, his melting of Gay men’s poetry hearts, or his ability to cure a bank’s stupidity-driven insolvency with a simple 25 Billion dollar injection of taxpayer cash. As it so happens, he can also write a mean piece of (semi)erotic fiction. Since this is a family friendly blog (assuming all members of your family over the age of four routinely use the word “fuck”), I will only provide a brief excerpt of his award-winning prose here, but be forewarned, it might get a little tepid steamy!:

Dear Penthouse Forum,

I am a duly elected President of a semi-large country located in the Midwest to Mid North-South Region of a continent somewhere North of South America, but West of Asia and East of Europe. I never thought I would ever have a reason to be writing to Penthouse Forum until today. I have been going through a rough patch lately as I am pretty sure that my wife has been seeing some white guy behind my back (just because I pointed out he was a white guy does not mean you should assume that I am a person of colour, why don’t we just say I am a white person of colour). Apparently this white guy writes some awesome blog that nobody reads, and has a massive johnson, but that is beside my point. I decided today that I was going to fight to get her back. I spent the afternoon tidying up my sock drawer and put on my sexiest pair of Dockers and, impulsively, a v-neck sweater (I know! I’m such a slut!). When my wife, let’s call her Mochelle, walked through the door, I had my plan of seduction waiting for her. I had our living room decked out with all of her favourite things: a case of Diet Pepsi, the new issue of Better Hos and Gardens, and a fresh tube of Lanacane foot cream…

Whoa Nelly! We’d better stop it right there folks! Things are getting a lit-tle bit racy! I don’t think you need to see anymore to realize that the man truly deserved this accolade as well. I guess the point I am trying to get at is that he is a very talented fella, and we should look forward to him receiving many awards, merited and otherwise, in the years to come.

Has Anyone Told Them Yet?

I think we can all agree that it has happened to us a time or two. You know what I’m talking about. Those times when you were blissfully going through life completely unaware that there was some disastrous wardrobe malfunction happening to you or that you had a stain of some kind on your shirt. I think we have all experienced these things, and wondered why the hell no one had taken the opportunity to warn us or bring the problem to our attention so we could correct it.

What’s that? It’s never happened to you? Come on. You mean to tell me that you have never, and I mean never, not even once, given a speech at a Toastmasters meeting with a gigantic booger stuck to the side of your face? Or perhaps put on a seminar on personal motivation or life improvement in front of thousands of people without realizing you had sprung an enormous boner the whole time (fucking Cialis)? Seriously? How about teaching an entire Sunday School class with one testicle wafting in the breeze out the leghole of your Jimmy Connors Special Edition Tennis Shorts? No? Well then turn the page, my friend, this post is not for you.

Now, back to my point, now that the “real world stuff has never happened to me” losers have left the room. There are people out there today who are living the whole life equivalent of the “booger stuck to the side of the face” scenario, and they may not even be aware of it. I feel it is my mission to help point out that nasty ol’ booger on these people’s faces so that they may have some chance of regaining some of their dignity:

Miley Cyrus in human form, taking a break from her true existence as a ginormous pile of money.

Poor Miley. I mean, she is really living the good life on the surface of it. In fact, I heard they might be considering changing the saying “Life of Riley” to “Life of Miley.” Let’s face it, she has more money than God, millions of adoring fans, and two of the two teenage boys living in my house would sell both kidneys to go on a date with her. Unfortunately, no one appears to have ever told her that the Billy Ray Cyrus that claims to be her father (pending conclusion of the orphanage baby-snatching investigation), is also the same Billy Ray Cyrus that stained our psyches and lowered the collective IQ of the world with the super awesome country ditty “Achy Breaky Heart." Does this poor child realize the suffering her so-called father’s past has wreaked upon the world? And the mullet, don’t get me started on the fucking mullet. I swear to God, there was an episode of Dr. Phil the other day in which “survivors” detailed how they had managed to keep from committing suicide after realizing they had been deflowered in the rusty box of an old Ford pickup truck to Billy’s caterwauling of “Achy Breaky Heart.” Somebody help this child.

“Hey, I know you. I’m gonna kiiilll youuu!”

Well Hillary, you’ve done pretty well for yourself. From First Lady to Secretary of State. Not bad. I just feel like right now would be a good time to point out a little booger on the side of your face. Your husband is a philandering dickhead! And a liar! Believe it or not, even in Washington, you don’t have to put up with that bullshit. You could kick his ass to the curb tomorrow and no one would give a shit. Hell, your approval rating would probably even rise from like one, to three or four percent. Just a little suggestion to help you out should you choose to decide to not live the life of the spurned wife. Please tell me you haven’t gotten back at him in kind though. It bothers me to think of some skinny Latino pool boy rocking on a toilet in your ensuite, reciting the Rosary to himself, waiting for you to call him into your boudoir.

“Hey, hoser! Have you seen our careers?”

Finally, we have the plucky little nation of Canada. It’s about time somebody let you know that your balls are hanging out. Long story short, the world does not give a shit what you think. Americans don’t want to hear about your awesome healthcare system and it’s ever shortening list of people who have died waiting for life saving surgeries. Europeans don’t give a flying fart that your ridiculously insulated, money grubbing, overcharging, fat and lazy chartered banks weathered the world recession on the back of increasing ATM usage fees. People in Iran don’t care that you walked out on their Supreme Leader’s speech at the UN. They don’t care because they are making nukes to bomb your smug ass. Oddly enough, the opinions of a nation of thirty some million overprivileged crackers just don’t matter to most of the world with problems a little more important than what to do about that darn Quebec thing. I am afraid, Canada, that your inflated self-importance has become the on-stage boner shame of a nation.

A Short Guide to Politics, North American Style

Wow, it’s hard to believe it has been three whole weeks since I last posted! Time flies when you are confined to a mental institution against your will busy! It’s so nice to finally sit down after escaping zipped into a body bag with your suicidal roommate’s corpse a long day’s work and jot down whatever flight of fancy is on my mind these days. Lately, during my long days of confinement work, I have found myself thinking a lot about politics, and North American style politics in particular. It saddens me that our children don’t seem to much care for the exciting world of politics anymore, in fact they hardly know anything about our political system at all! When I start talking politics, the kid’s eyes glaze over like a Wannabe Rastafarian Hophead at a Snoop Dogg concert. With another national election possibly looming here in CanadIsrael (only the third in five years! Cool!), it seems like the perfect time to put a nice, easy to understand guide to the world of politics out there for my three.5 readers to show to any young people who might be interested in this exciting, dynamic world of corruption, scandal, and greed dedicated and tireless civil service.

Let’s say a young person has decided to vote. Let’s also say that same young person might one day be sitting around playing XBox and puffing on the sticky-icky waiting for their welfare cheque to arrive in the mail, when a (rare to be sure) thought strikes them: “Like, yeah, dude, I would like to vote, but who would I vote for? What do I believe in, totally?” Well, I’m glad you asked, stoner. In a nutshell, the political system in North America is divided along differing ideologies and belief systems, but there are two main ideologies that capture the hearts and minds of the majority of North American voters. The two main ideologies are the conservative ideology and the liberal ideology (no more ideologies, I swear). In Canada, they are called the Conservatives and the Liberals (smart!), while in the United States, the conservative politicians call themselves the Repukelicans or something, and the liberal gang is known as the Dumb-ocrats. Just gotta be different eh Americans? There are also occasional third-party anomalies in each system which we will discuss later. For the purposes of this commentary, we will briefly acknowledge the one-party political system of Mexico, that is to say the party of death, corruption, and roadside hits performed by a Colombian kid being doubled on a moped.

Okay, kids! Here’s a brief outline of the main political parties in North America (excluding Mexico for obvious reasons: we’re scared shitless of their political system):

The Conservatives (US: Repulsicans):

Here we see two typical Conservative commentators, Bill O’Reilly and his son, Andrew Coulter (post-op).

Believe In: The death penalty for shoplifting; guns; ammo; knives; shooting first and asking questions later; invading (countries); evading (taxes); berating (anyone with the temerity to question their point of view); big business is the kind, caring, older brother that will always be there for you (and your wallet)

Predominant Ethnic Makeup: White; Vanilla; cream-coloured; taupe; beige; cracker; honky; Soccer Moms (homely); greedy capitalists; half-retarded rednecks; Colin Powell

Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Conservative Types: They like sweater vests (I could not make this shit up); they did it with the lights on once after having two MaiTais with dinner on a Carnival GunShip cruise (like a FunShip cruise, but for conservative gun-nuts).

The Liberals (US: Dimbulb-crats):

Just think, long before alternate-fuel hybrid vehicles, this bus was powered by peace, love, and bullshit.

Believe In: A fetus’s right to run a marathon if it darn well wants to; that Patchouli should be exempt from workplace anti-fragrance regulations; acting like they aren’t just frustrated conservatives that didn’t get into Yale and missed out on all that great networking; getting bombed first and asking “What the hell happened?” later; spending like drunken sailors with a terminal case of the clap and only six hours to live; raising taxes to pay for high priced hookers and dry cleaning bills

Predominant Ethnic Makeup: Hippies; Soccer Moms (hot); Actors, Actresses, Musicians, and other stoner types; Stoners; people who like people who are of the same gender as that people; people of colour who have actually experienced discrimination and understand the need to get along; white people from Beverly Hills who think they know what it is like to be a person of colour that has experienced discrimination and understands the need to get along

Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Liberal Types: They don’t inhale when they smoke their pot (?!); they believe in equality, social justice for the oppressed, and Birkenstocks made in Chinese factories populated by tween workers

And Last but not Least (Well actually yes, the least), The Third-Party Anomalies (Also known as vote-splitters/wasters and novelty tickets):

Here in Canada, we have third-party options like the New Democrat Party (the self-proclaimed conscience of the nation), and the Green Party (the self-proclaimed conscience of the little animals and trees of the forest who can’t speak for themselves and also the voice of crustaceans and mollusks). In the US, the third-party option usually consists of a wacky also-ran independent candidate like Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. The independent candidate in the US is generally someone who is so rich that hunting humans on the weekend has lost all appeal and there is nothing left to do but run for President. In Nader’s case, the never-ending run for President has actually been used to make him rich enough to hunt humans on the weekend.

So there you have it kids! Where do you fit in the spectrum of political viewpoints? Are you a flag-waving conservative, a flag-burning liberal, or a making-a-sham-of-everything-the-flag-stands-for campaign money-wasting also-ran? I should point out that laying there smoking pot and playing the XBox is not an option, so get the hell off my couch and get out there and vote, dammit! Oops! I better get going, I think I hear sirens my wife calling me to bed!

Exclusive: Dear Leader to Model Jacket in Fall L.L. Bean Catalog!

We’ve just received some exciting news from across the pond, over a couple of islands, past a demilitarized zone, under some razor wire and on the other side of a Bouncing Betty filled mine field! Our North Korean correspondent Dim Sum-Cok has filed a report from the country’s capital of Poontang that none other than Despot Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il himself is going to be appearing in the Fall L.L. Bean catalog. As a model! In an apparent effort to reach out to the underserviced market for drab yuppie clothing in brutal communist dictator-run countries, L.L. Bean managed to retain the modeling services of perhaps the best loved, best respected, and most desired man in North Korea, if not the whole New Millenium Axis of Evil ©. *Did I say that last part right? I did? Good. Do you think maybe you could put the gun down now? Oh, you can’t? Alrighty, let’s just go with that then.*

Despite a rumoured battle with cancer and an impromptu visit from globetrotting horndog and admitted aficionado of the Asian Persuasion Bill Clinton, Dear Leader still found the time to work it for the camera. In this exclusive first peek, we are treated to a glimpse of the charisma that until now only members of his inner circle and Facebook friends had ever seen. Soon after the shoot, K-Jill (his username on Facebook) posted on his wall: “Quite a day! I make the money poraroids, bitches! Horraback! ROR!” I think that little wall post tells the whole story folks, the man is such a praya.

The product that was chosen specifically for Dear Leader to model was the Virgin Duck Down Hooded Early Fall Chilly Morning Parkette. The colour of the jacket as modeled by the chosen saviour of the North Korean people was Chernobyl Myst Grey with Purple Asphyxia accents on the pockets:

There is no way the guy in the second row was allowed to have bullets in that gun. The guy with the binoculars? Probably soft foam rubber just in case there was an impromptu bludgeoning attempt.

Ever want to feel like you stand out from the crowd? Ever feel like everyone around you is wearing the same old thing? With the Virgin Duck Down Hooded Early Fall Chilly Morning Parkette from L.L. Bean, you can let your individuality shine through. Here we see Dear Leader setting the tone for cool in his Chernobyl Myst Parkette. You can clearly see the envy on the faces of the fashion slaves surrounding him. As if they needed another reason to look up to Dear Leader. Aren’t his looks and easygoing charm enough?

What are we waiting for? Everyone in North Korea is 189 years old. Steamrolling in should consist of a $1.99 Denny’s Blue Plate Special diversion and cutting off the Metamucil train supply routes and we’ll be running the place by Tuesday.

Here we see Dear Leader making what is obviously a very important point! The point is, when you and your posse roll up in matching Chernobyl Myst Parkettes, accented here with a Mongolian Prairie Dog Fur Campfire Hat, you make a statement. That statement is that you are no slave to trends! No way, sir! Sure, the rest of the world might have decided to feed their populations, and allow free speech and human rights, but you and your Parkette won’t be following the trendies anytime soon. You march to the beat of your own drummer, whether you’re making a choice of a chilly morning parkette, or deciding how many political dissidents to execute on any given day.

“And then I said ‘Lick my boots, Western Pig!’ and sure enough, Clinton did it. Oh, why am I telling you all this, you already read all about it in our one State controlled newspaper or saw the story on our one State controlled television news program.”

As if Dear Leader needed any help on the charisma front, his Parkette is the fashion talk of any get together with sycophantic, execution-wary military minions. One can be sure that it’s not only the snipers on the other side of the camera making these fellows grin in appreciation of Chosen Saviour’s loquacious self deprecating humour. He’s probably regaling them with the story of how he got his jacket by shooting a Capitalist Pig or how Madonna once offered to move to Poontang and be his personal concubine but he rejected her because she was too “used.” My goodness! That hair! Those glasses! That jacket! Truly, men want to be him and women want to be with him.

The Virgin Duck Down Hooded Early Fall Chilly Morning Parkette from L.L. Bean is the perfect complement to the wardrobe of any cubicle-dwelling worker drone with dreams of world domination and little fashion sense. Heck, if real dictators can wear it, you sure can while you’re planning how to depose your boss and move into the totalitarian top spot at your Kinko’s branch.

The Royals: A Lot Like Us, Really.

This post will have the most relevance to my two readers who happen to be from the colonies. There is much debate in this country over whether or not we should sever all ties with the British Monarchy once and for all. Any Americans (also, Albertans and Quebecers and other quasi-Americans) who might happen to read this will understand all too well the desire to distance themselves from the oppressive British and their Crusades, Viral Exports (see Simon Cowell and the BeckHams), and Fish and Chips (they’re called fries, for Christ’s sake!). Why, the Americans already rode those bloody British out once when they all threw their tampons into the bay and had something called the Boston Vampire Tea Party or whatever the hell it was. I can sort of see why the British left, if someone threw their tampon at me I would probably take the hint too. It would also officially make it my sixth worst date ever (don’t ask).

It is true that Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the Second (or HRH Lizzy Deuce as I like to call her) has visited Canada on 23 occasions, and that’s pretty friggin’ annoying considering all the schoolchildren that have been forever scarred by cyborg nightmares after witnessing her robotic rotating wave-like hand gesture. We are also burdened with the expense and hassle of having something called a Governor General, an appointed person who is supposedly the Queen’s representative in Canada. The Governor General’s main duties appear to consist of ribbon cutting, medal hanging (draping?), Throne Speech reading, hobnobbing with visiting dignitaries (or in Obama’s case, drooling), and wasting vast sums of government money even existing. Thank goodness she is saving the Queen the trouble of having to do all that stuff here!

After all is said and done, however, I don’t think we ever take much time to think about what we all have in common with our Royal Family, and for that matter, other royal families around the world. Let’s look at a few examples of some of the day to day activities and situations Royals find themselves in that might strike a familiar chord with us, the little people:

“Do you ‘ear a rustlin’? I swear I can ‘ear an eerie kind of rustlin’, and it sounds like it’s comin’ from right near me ‘ead.”

Here we see Princess Beatrice of York, daughter of Fergie, Douchess of York, and Randy Andy, Pimp Daddy of York battling an all-too-common childhood problem. Let’s face it, you had head lice in school, your friends had head lice in school, and lots of people you knew had head lice in school. Hell, you probably have lice a little further south these days for all I know.I didn’t have head lice in school mind you, but I never was much of a follower. The only difference between us and the Royals is that they occasionally suffer from an attack of neon butterflies that have escaped from Her Royal Majesty’s Personal Genetic Engineericist. Sadly, in their frantic effort to copulate before dying, they often accidentally lobotomize their Royal Host, explaining the look on Beatrice’s face in the above photo.

“No, really, if the rice looks dry in the buffet, I can totally hook you up. Psst. FYI, it’s in my hat.”

If you had a nickel for all the times you wore that worn out backwards baseball cap on a first date or to meet your future wife’s parents, you would probably be rich. Royals make headwear gaffes, too. Here we can see Queen Beatrix of the Netherworldlands making the poor choice of a rice steamer as a hat at a function that is obviously more suited to a wok or George Foreman grill. Okay, I have to confess. Not even the most retarded peasant would wear a bamboo steamer to a gala ball. That’s nastay, Beeyatchtrix!

“Hello out there in peasant land! Would you like to come for a ride? Of course I’m joking, you filthy serf! Get away from my carriage before I have my Royal Stallions trample you to death. Guards, remove that insolent miscreant’s right hand for my personal collection. A strong message is needed here.”

Royals are also concerned about the environment, and issues such as Climate Change © and Global Warming (tm), just like you. Queen Beatrix hopes to have a Prius one day, but for now she is making do with her jewel and gold encrusted horse drawn carriage, much as you are making do with your doorless ‘76 Impala until your credit improves enough to lease a Prius too. There’s that hat again! In platinum! How trendy! I guess it’s better than the fucking napkin holders the two portly doormen are forced to wear on their noggins. Every time I see that hat I picture Wile E. Coyote smashing her right over the top of the head with a giant cartoon mallet. How else could you make a hat like that?

“Look, Lizzy, that stupid Git crashed ‘is ‘orse, and now they’ll ‘ave to shoot it!” “Oh, goody goody, Phillip. You know how much I love to be startled by the sharp crack of a rifle! Delightful!”

Just like you enjoy watching the UFC on pay-per-view so you can be in awe of the athletes’ abilities and skills as well as their willingness to kick the living shit out of one another for your amusement, the Royals enjoy a lovely morning of carnage at the racetrack. Why the Queen even has a race named after her, the Queen’s Plate, held every year at West Amblyshire Dunston-on-the-Mews By Wembleyford Royal Racetrack and ‘Ouse of Bettin’. It is said that when the Queen’s Plate race was initially proposed, the Queen herself insisted that at each running of the race “No less than one (1) thoroughbred filly or mare, or the other one that isn’t the filly or the mare shall suffer an injury so unsightly and disturbing as to require immediate dispatching upon the mews with the nearest sidearm or long gun at hand and in a fashion that is most pleasing to the gathered throngs of loyal Royal Subjects, including, but not limited to: the British, the Scots, visiting dirty colonial immigrants and the (sigh) Irish.”

As you can plainly see, we have more in common with the Royals than maybe we thought at first blush. Maybe that’s why they call us commoners! Ha Ha. Ha Ha….umm, actually I think it’s a term of disdain. Oh, well, we still love them!

Better Hos and Gardens, August 2009

It was recently brought to our attention that a member of our family was going to be appearing in a popular magazine with a worldwide distribution! Imagine our pride when we found out that our little cousin was going to be appearing in her own feature article in one of the most widely read and respectable home and gardening magazines on the market, Better Homes and Gardens! I mean let’s face it, a day with a new issue of Better Homes and Gardens, a new episode of Martha Stewart Living, and a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond is like the boring white people Holy Grail Trifecta for a Saturday!

We always knew Trixie would someday get the recognition she deserved for all of her hard work in her garden. After weeks of anticipation, her issue finally hit the newsstands, and we all rushed out to buy a copy. Imagine our dismay, when after leafing through the latest issue, her article was nowhere to be found. As I was muttering to my wife about the fickle publishing business, she pointed out another magazine on the rack, it’s cover mostly hidden by a black barrier. Better Hos and Gardens? Uh-Oh. Well, I guess on the upside, one member of our family finally made it, after a fashion. It could have been worse, I guess. I’ve excerpted the article here:

Better Hos and Gardens, Issue 342, August, 2009

“Turning Trixie”

“Hey, Sailor, want to help me in the garden?” “Oh, you’re not a sailor? Have you ever been on a boat? You have? Cool.”

This month’s pinup Trixie hails from the buzzing metropolis of Fort St. John, British Columbia, located smack dab between the North Pole and the North American treeline, or somewhere thereabouts. She likes to joke that “everyone can use more than one “hoe” in the garden!” In this photo Trixie is getting ready to go to work and she always makes sure she has all the essential supplies for an afternoon weeding the flowerbed: A couple of coolers (with a wine glass, quite a lady!), a pack of cigarettes, a gigantic feather duster, and a matching colour-coordinated hairdo and top.

“Look at all the weeds! This garden seriously needs a good Brazilian weeding!”

This action shot shows Trixie at a full gallop, inspecting the flowerbed for weeds! She’s so efficient! Look out, Trixie, that lawn is almost high enough to cover your hooker pumps, and that could cut down on visits from drive-by customers friends! Alternating standing legs in this fashion is highly advisable to ensure a girl is adequately advertising her wares avoiding fatigue.

“Is this shoot almost over? I go on stage at the Fort St. John Autobody Shop and Burlesque All You Can Eat Buffet Grill at four.”

Why so sad, Trixie? Could it be that you’ve just realized how important it is for a girl to always use a glove at work? Not using a glove can lead to all sorts of nasty fungus and molds growing in the garden, and that could keep a girl out of commission for weeks, not to mention the high cost of all those medications fertilizers and pesticides to deal with the problem.

“Oh, my aching morals!”

Finally, Trixie shows our readers the proper technique for weeding the garden. She knows a true lady never bends at the knee in order to avoid potential knee strain and a decrease in tips. She only did it in the previous picture to demonstrate the improper technique, and you can tell by the look on her face, she wasn’t too happy about it, even for educational purposes. Many thanks for having us along on your afternoon gardening adventure, Trixie. We can’t wait to come back this winter, when she told us she’s going to show us how to put a snowboarding halfpipe in the backyard while wearing a bikini and Mukluks.

(With many, many thanks to my insane cousin from Fort St. John. Yes, my real cousin. No, Trixie is not her real name. Her and her crazy friends were having a burlesque stagette for their girlfriend and decided to take some photos of working around the yard for a laugh. She put them up on Facebook and I asked her permission to use them for this post. Yes, my family is in fact this goofy and fun. Getting together consists pretty much of one thing: laughing.)

Great Moments in Scientific Achievement, Part Un (French for “Uhh…”)

Every once in a while scientists conduct a study that proves to be a watershed moment in the history of scientific achievement. These hard working nerd-people dig deep into the mysteries of our world in their never ending quest for knowledge. They seek to increase our collective understanding of the world through intensive and rigorous testing, study, and experimentation. These people aren’t in it for the glory, or the fame. They don’t care that nobody knows they were the Captain of their college Dungeons and Dragons team, or that they were the only one out of the sixteen people dressed as Klingons at the Science Department Halloween party that could actually speak Klingon.

Why just last night on NOVA: Science Now (yeah, yeah, I know. Paris Hilton’s New BFF wasn’t on yet), I learned from one delightful scientist fellow that Leeches have many roles to play in the medical field, some of them quite helpful. I had previously thought that Leeches’ roles in the medical field were confined to the ambulance-chasing malpractice lawyer and the health-care reform pushing politician. Turns out they have other uses, like sucking pus and blood and rotten shit out of gangrenous wounds. A less glamorous, but eerily similar role to that of the lawyers and politicians. I also learned from some other astronomer-scientist types that the people involved in the SETI search for intelligent life in the universe project are now composed of under 80% Trekkies, a startling achievement on the road to acceptance by the public at large. It was also interesting to learn that in order to set a baseline for the intelligence detecting instrument, the scientists trained it on the US Congress, and were able to calibrate the machine to absolute zero! Good thinking, geeks!

Seeing some of the great work being done out in the world of scientific investigation made it all the more worrisome when I stumbled across the following headline; not exactly one of those watershed moments in scientific history:

“Study Suggests Binge Drinking Affects Memory”

Well I guess this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. If the nerds that conducted this particular study had spent more time at frat parties and less time signing up for Psyc Department studies as guinea pigs, they wouldn’t have needed to conduct this study at all. Those of us who have undertaken “binge drinking” (or as we used to call it “drinking”) could have told anyone that would listen that of course binge drinking affects memory. It is simple mental self preservation. If it didn’t affect memory, how the hell would we have been able to live through this:

Without binge drinking affecting our memory, imagine our embarrassment when people found out our parents had never shown us how to sit properly on a bench? Thank God our friends were nice enough to be respectful about our disability and not point out that we had shown our handicap while under the influence of binge drink.

The memory-affecting qualities of binge drinking cushioned this poor girl from having to remember her sudden bout of narcolepsy at her Grandparents’ garden party. She was probably better off not knowing that she had dozed off in the middle of Grandma’s “Tour of the Tulips.”

Luckily for this happily dozing binge drinker, his lack of memory of the evening’s events should prevent him from having to deal with the triple mental trauma of the memories of pissing himself, wearing a Hulkamania T-Shirt, and being caught on camera drinking a Miller Lite.

Now here’s a perfect example of binge drinking’s ability to take a potentially reputation-smearing, life-altering event and turn it into a hazy, imperceptible, shadowy memory that is almost impossible to recall, if it can be recalled at all. The poor fellow on the left has probably battled car sickness since he was a small child, or perhaps he had a bad prawn at dinner that night. Either way, he can’t be blamed for the action occurring in the photo above. If he had any sense at all, he would have begun binge-drinking immediately after this photo was taken, and not stopped until the incident was buried deeply in his subconscious. It would probably be recommended that his somewhat startled companions might also want to binge-drink this particular memory away as well.

Despite all of the good work being done by scientists around the world, they didn’t exactly hit one out of the park with this study. They could have saved a lot of time and money by just doing a little binge-drinking, blacking out, waking up, looking at their vomit stained shirt and piss-soaked pants, and saying to themselves “Ahhh…I see.”

House, Seasons 1-4 on DVD, the Synopsis Review.

Hello again! Has it been five days since I last posted already? I know I should have been spending more time writing this week, but I’ve been pretty busy. How busy, you ask? Well, I’ve been spending my evenings watching seasons 1 through 4 of House on DVD, and not doing anything else, so pretty frickin’ busy.

While I was watching the show, I kept thinking of how it would be fun to review an episode and act like one of those high falutin’ TV writers. They’ve got a pretty sweet gig, what with spending their days dissecting the minutiae of today’s awesome assortment of quality programming. With shows like The Bachelorette, The Bachelor, The Bachelor’s Gay Buddy: Cruising for Love, and The Bachelorette’s Friend From That One Time She Experimented in College: A Time to Settle Down, the positive glowing reviews practically write themselves!

It looks pretty easy to me. The only problem was, after watching about 267 hours of House, I couldn’t really pick one episode to review, so I decided what the hell, I’ll review the whole series in a tidy little synopsis. We’ll start with a quick introduction to the main characters to get you up to speed. Here we go!:

From left to right: Drs. Foreskin, Crampon, and Gayce (House’s Medical Team or kids, I’m not sure which); Dr. Gregbert House (Main character probably, the show has the same name); Dr. Cunty Sluddy (Oops! Almost lost my NC-17 there! She’s everybody’s boss); Dr. Wimpson (House’s friend or lover or conscience or something).

The show generally opens with an old or young or medium age person having sex, doing something, thinking about doing something or not doing anything or maybe doing a thing. That person twitches or pukes, or convulses, or has a coma, or drops a bowel or swears at, pukes on, or has explosive diarrhea on someone they love or something, indicating, apparently, illness of some sort. After the opening credits which feature neat medical looking pictures of some stuff that looks medical-ish, the series dialogue between the characters is generally as follows:

Post-Credits Opening Scene; House discusses patient’s case with Medical Team/Children:

House: What’s the differential diagnosis for this stupid loser patient guy/girl/man/woman/Thai Ladyboy?

Foreskin: House, every patient is not a loser just because you have leg issues and a cane you handicapable honky racist douchebag!

Crampon: Maybe it’s Lupus. Or a Lupus-like disorder. Or a disorder that acts like Lupus to throw us off. Or maybe a Lupus-like cancer. Did I mention my husband died of a Lupus-like cancer? If only I had thought of the cancer before I treated the Lupus.

Gayce: My hair looks like this when I roll out of bed. No shit, exactly like this. I know you aren’t believing me, but why would I lie about my hair? C’mon Crampon, want to touch it? No? Foreskin? House? No? Well, fuck all of you then.

House: Foreskin, I would make a black joke at your expense, but it would be wasted on you because you are black. Crampon, your husband committed suicide because you can’t say a sentence that doesn’t contain the word “Lupus,” and I totally understand that feeling now. Gayce, I lied. Yes, I would like to touch your hair, my little Australian Barebacker, I mean “Outbacker.” Long story short, you are all goddamned morons, and I am going to cure the patient myself after I cook up an Eight Ball for breakfast, because that’s what brilliant cranky doctors all over America do. That’s right, folks, all over America. The patients overlook the junkieness for the brilliantness.

Next Scene: House meets patient in attempt to figure out mystery ailment:

House: I’m Dr. House, I’ll be curing you today, you loser/homo/lady homo/retard/dipshit/kindly old patient who is probably a child molester or Iraqi insurgent.

Patient: What’s wrong with me?

House: You, your family, and your unborn children are too stupid to understand anything I might say, so I am not going to talk to you. I am however going to drill a hole in your head or do a lumbar puncture/MRI/Ultrasound/Psychiatric profile/Anal probe or take a swab so I can find out your problem, you useless waste of skin and air.

Patient: Golly, you sure aren’t very nice! (Followed immediately by seizure or vomiting of blood, or vomiting of vomit, or vomiting of urine, or vomiting of lung; maybe vomiting up a coma).

Next Scene: Sluddy tears a strip off of House for his unethical actions:

Sluddy: House, I can’t believe you Anal Probed a patient! Without their consent! With an MRI machine! In the library with a candlestick and Colonel Mustard watching! What’s wrong with you? And stop looking down my shirt and at my ass and up my skirt! It’s “Business Casual,” not “Office Slutty,” asshole. If you pull one more stunt like this I will threaten to fire you if you pull one more stunt like this!

House: Would it help if I told you that during the Anal Probing, I was thinking of you?

Sluddy: It might.

Next Scene: Wimpson tells House he is dead on the inside and will never be loved by anyone:

Wimpson: House, you are dead on the inside and will never be loved by anyone.

House: Fuck you. So are we still on for lunch in the cafeteria? Your treat? Remember to bring me a dimebag of Vicodin too, you “Up with people” freak.

Wimpson: Sounds good! Noon ok?

Final Scene: The big cure, or sometimes not. But mostly, yeah:

Foreskin, Crampon, or Gayce: Gee, who would have thought it would have been (insert unpronounceable and possibly nonexistent medical condition here), and that we could cure the patient in time? Or in about one out of five shows, not cure the patient in time?

House: What do you mean we, do you losers have a frog in your pocket? Now get out of my sight, I have a hooker coming in to the office for an Anal Probing MRI.

The End.

As one can obviously see, House is a series filled with tense medical situations, morality tales, and a monstrous, unshaven, talking asshole. What more could you possibly want in your TV viewing? Well, I agree, it’s no Full House, but really, what is?

It’s Sunday, it Must be Sports Gay, I Mean Day!

Ah, Sunday. The traditional day of rest. Once a fellow has made the bleary-eyed, pounding-head walk of shame home from whatever Saturday Night Sweetheart’s place he managed to crash at the night before, it’s time to just relax on the couch for the day and enjoy some good old sports action on the television. Turn the ringer off on your phone, strip down to your skivvies, make a plate of nachos for breakfast, and prepare to enjoy some good old fashioned testosterone fueled entertainment.

First off, let’s start the day with a rousing game of soccer, a sport that is considered manly in many parts of the world. Here in North America, we have a difficult time understanding any sport in which only the feet may touch the ball. I mean, we could understand it if it meant that the hands were meant to be used solely for punching your opponent in his stupid face, but turns out, there are other uses for the hands in soccer:

And a million female readers of People magazine turn livid with envy.

Well, that just dipped the manliness quotient a point or two. There are clearly no impediments in the above picture to Beckham’s teammates patting his back or tousling his hair in a “You done good, boy!” Uncle-type congratulation. It is possible Beckham would get pissy if they touched his thousand dollar haircut, but they have clearly made a choice here about a touching spot, and it is the wrong choice.

Okay, well no luck avoiding creepy ass-fondling with the soccer game. Why don’t we watch a good old fashioned game of baseball? Them good-ol-boys know how to keep their hands out of trouble. Hell, they need them for catchin’, throwin’, and hittin’. We should be safe from inappropriate butt-touching there:

“Look, I’m telling her I’m leaving her tonight, I promise. Now let’s just get through this game. I’ve got a booth reserved for us at Club Salsa for later. We can do your favourite, the Lambada! You know how much you love to Lambada.”

What in Christ’s name is going on here now? Obviously, a manly chest-bump would be ineffective due to the catcher’s chest protector. Ha Ha! I said “catcher!” A friendly shin-kick is also out of the question, but there is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing stopping these fellas from exchanging good natured punches in the shoulder or a manly lean-in, one-arm, back-pat hug. There is no reason to be communicating with any type of bun-huggin’, so why the hell are they doing it?

Professional sports have really gone down the toilet. Our last hope is that testosterone-waving flagship of sport, the bone-crunching, hard-hitting sport of football. We should be able to avoid any awkward, cringe-inducing displays of public affection and concentrate on enjoying the copious amounts of pain and suffering being dished out. We need to salvage this lazy Sunday somehow.

“I hope my Mom isn’t watching.”

Okay, let’s just wait a second here. Maybe there is a good explanation for this. We did just switch the channel and it did go to an advertisement right away so maybe it’s not what it looks like. What it looks like however is a position that has a three beat system attached to it. That is, if they stayed in this position for one beat, no damage done, it’s just an accident. Two beats, well, they can never look each other in the eye again, and they will have to buy their wives a Porsche to help them forget about it. Three beats, they probably have tickets to Fire Island booked for the weekend. We’ll never really know, thankfully, but just to be safe, we’ll assume it was one beat.

Maybe we’ll have better luck checking out some women’s sports, they seem to have a lot more class and know how to act in an appropriate fashion. For safety’s sake though, I think we’ll avoid the LPGA and Women’s Field Hockey. How about a little Beach Volleyball?

“Here, let me give you a hand. Your ass appears to be trying to eat your bikini.”

Jackpot! Finally, some players that can conduct themselves in a professional fashion! In this case, the ass-pat is totally forgivable. To be encouraged, even. Attempting to pat the sand-covered back or shoulder could cause nasty abrasions, traumatic injury, and possible scarring, so the true professional women’s beach volleyball player knows the safest spot to caress lovingly in a congratulatory fashion is the soft and pliable, yet durably toned ass cheek. Well done, ladies!

That was a nice relaxing Sunday. Nothing like getting in a little sports action to make a dude feel like a real man. Now to close out the day with a nice long soak in the tub, the latest issue of Esquire, and a glass of chardonnay and it will be the perfect end to the weekend.

From Beyond the Grave, Part 3

We know it seems a little early to be bothering Billy so soon after his untimely passing, but honestly, we didn’t think anyone else could have a snowball’s chance in Hell of hawking these products. We caught Billy on a busy Sunday afternoon of blowing out discounted souls in Heaven (3 for 1! No hidden shipping charges! Guaranteed to work or a full refund!) and he agreed to help us out. We really appreciate Billy taking the time to come back and put his classic sales spin on these products. He assured us it was no problem, and that “Heaven Can Wait.” Ha Ha! Good one, Billy! Man, we miss this guy.

Thanks for coming in Billy, take it away!:

“Hi folks! Billy Mays here! Have you been finding yourself feeling a little down lately!? Did some sort of affirmative action loving terrorist bust up your favourite lawn jockey!? Can’t seem to find a way to display your latent racism in a public fashion without some bleeding heart taking you to task for it!? You need the Chia Obama! The Chia Obama fits safely on a windowsill inside your home, out of the reach of liberal vandals, and yet still allows you to show the world that you’re not shy to display creepily racist tokens that seem like artifacts from some bygone era!”

“Imagine the hours of fun you can have with your Chia Obama! You can practice giving him different haircuts or let that sucker grow out until it will hold a pick! Imagine snickering to yourself as you sit him down on the coffee table and force him to watch Bill O’Reilly with you! If you act now, we’ll send you not one, not two, not three, but fifteen Chia Obamas for one low price of $5.99! That’s right, fifteen for the price of one! We’ve got truckloads of these things that aren’t moving, so act now, before you’re the only white supremacist on the block without one! As a final special incentive, if you order before noon today, we’ll send along a voucher for a free Limited Edition Chia Michael Bolton, due to be released as soon as the fine folks at Chia figure out how to get one to grow Shredded Wheat for hair! Don’t delay, folks, order today!”

Wow, nice work, Billy! We’ve just got one more product for you:

“You’re shitting me, right? Oh, well, here goes nothing. Hey, folks, Billy Mays here again! Have you ever found yourself wishing you had an extra hand to help with those everyday tasks around the house!? Ever tried to put the condiments on your hot dog bun, but didn’t have anyone around to hold your wiener while you were doing it!? The Mr. Happy Hand is there for you! Not only will it hold your wiener, when you start up it’s patented Stroke Action ©, it will actually use the awesome power of friction to keep your wiener hot until it’s ready to be put in the bun. Just make sure you don’t start the Stroke Action © motor too soon, because you might find your wiener worn out and limp before it even gets in the bun! It’s that powerful!”

“Use the Mr. Happy Hand to help in the garden, too! It’s patented Stroke Action © is guaranteed to make your hose spray evenly and predictably every time, and unlike your own hands, it will never succumb to carpal tunnel syndrome or bothersome hair growth. Use it around the house to shake the TV remote so you can get those last few clicks out of the batteries! Need both hands to type on your blog!? Use the Mr. Happy Hand to hold onto your kielbasa until it’s lunchtime! The Mr. Happy Hand helps you concentrate on the important tasks at hand, without using your own hands! Order today before midnight and we’ll throw in a free bottle of disinfectant, perfect for cleaning your Mr. Happy Hand after it has completed its various stroking tasks! So order quickly folks, these babies are going fast, some are even going off early, and you sure don’t want to be left holding your own wiener!”

Gee, thanks, Billy! That was great! Say hello to God for us when you get back, I’m sure you guys hang out all the time. Boy, there goes one classy guy. Why do they only take the good ones so young?

B’s Almost True Hollywood Stories, Part 2

Episode 2: The Day the Music, and Everyone Who Made It, Died.

There have been many feuds in Hollywood over the years. Some of those feuds are well known, such as Brangelina vs. JenJohnandVaughn, and Mel Gibson vs. The Jews Who Run Everything And Are Out To Get Him. It was always thought that the world of children’s television, while a consistent cash cow, was immune to the problems plaguing the mainstream entertainment industry. Through in depth research, guesstimation, and a not-too-unliberal amount of fabrication, we here at B’s Almost True Hollywood Stories have uncovered a chilling tale of the behind-the-scenes gang wars that plagued “Toddlerwood” in the 1990’s heyday of tot TV.

The year is 1998. Bill Clinton is President, and he is busy redefining the meaning of the word “blowjob” to the American public. Before the year is out, he will face impeachment, and friends and neighbours around the country will embrace the new “eatin’ ain’t cheatin’” zeitgeist gripping the nation. In this tumultuous climate of consequence-free handjobs and muff-diving between coworkers and random aquaintances, a war is silently raging in the background, all but unnoticed: the gang-war to end all gang-wars.

After taking to the nation’s television screens in 1992, Barney and his Gang had become an almost overnight sensation, delighting scores of children around the nation with their goofy voices, baby talk, and heartwarming songs about love, family, and getting along. It didn’t take long until the pleasantly pudgy purple dinosaur became the go-to-guy for moms all across America that needed a spare moment or two to pay the plumber with a blowjob (Hooray Clinton Economy!) for fixing a leaky sink or snaking a turd-plugged toilet. Children would sit transfixed for hours, watching Barney and his friends do their thing, and singing along with the gang’s inane, yet values-filled simple songs. Everything was coming up roses for Barney and Friends, but a dark cloud loomed on the horizon.

Across the pond in Merry Olde Englishville, competition was brewing. The Teletubbies had been formed from a talent search that had exhaustively combed through thousands of contestants in order to put together a so-called Supergroup of toddler-pleasing talent, led by a tough-talking former East End Enforcer, T(inky) Winky. Boy-band impresario and future convict Lou Perlman was even rumoured to have been retained as a consultant in the selection process. The Teletubbies mission was clear: total and utter domination of the the toddler television market and its lucrative merchandise market. When the Teletubbies first appeared on American television screens, they were an instant success, and immediately grabbed a large audience away from the purpler, more coherent, and almost understandable Barney.

As Barney’s ratings began to drop, his behaviour, always a concern for the show’s producers, began to become more erratic and violent. He is shown here in a police mugshot taken after a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight led to a drunken melee with police officers. Barney was left bloody and bruised after a serious night-sticking and his fellow cast member Riff (known as “Spliff” to show insiders) was shot seventeen times in the incident. It is assumed the duo’s fame was responsible for the LAPD showing such restraint in the situation. It was around this period that Barney began uttering threats in the Teletubbies’ direction, both publicly and privately. In one recently released email, he is quoted as telling Teletubby leader Tinky Winky that if the Tubbies didn’t leave town, Winky would find himself “packing your own head around in that fucking man-purse you flounce around with.”

Never one to back down from a fight, hard luck London East Ender and former Yardie Tinky Winky fanned the flames of war with his own proclamation, on his best-selling rap album, “T Winky Gettin’ Kinky.” In the song “Die, You Purple Dinosaur Fuck,” Winky raps of his disdain for an unknown “Purple Dinosaur Fuck” (assumed now to be Barney) and threatens to “disembowel you with my razor sharp vowel use” before “popping a cap in yo big fuckin’ yap.” In the picture at left, taken by an unknown crew member, the Tubbies are shown in an argument with the producer of the show over demands in their contract rider. This conflict was said to have arisen over the fact that the bitches supplied to wash the Tubbies’ Hummer with their titties were “Crackers,” instead of the rider-specified “Latina Hos” and “Nubian Princesses.” This photo was the last anyone saw of the producer, however T Winky later rapped that the unfortunate fellow could be “found by the pound, all around town, nomasayin?”

In Spring of 2000, things came to a grisly head. After months of private and public mudslinging, the stage had been set for a final confrontation. Barney, always susceptible to the siren call of hard drugs, had reportedly been on a crystal meth binge for over a week, when he and his posse entered the studio where the Teletubbies filmed their show. In what was described later by the sole surviving crewman as being “like that elevator scene from The Shining,” Barney and his dinosaur friends embarked on a blood soaked killing spree that would leave everyone involved with the show in pieces of gore-soaked foam. The surviving crew member, speaking of the incident (on the condition of anonymity) told us: “What the fuck did the Tubbies expect? Did they honestly think a bunch of fat little mental patients with TV screens in their stomachs were any match for a fuckin’ T-Rex?!” The only picture from the day’s events, recovered from a screenshot of Winky’s tummy television, shows a small snapshot of the day’s carnage:

Somehow, an eye patch makes decapitation even scarier, if that’s possible.

Although the truth is now known about the fateful events of that day, an adequate explanation of the Teletubbies’ disappearance was never offered at the time. The studio head of the day, Michael Eisner, flanked by Barney at a press conference, merely announced that the Teletubbies “had probably gone home, stupid limeys.” He refused to offer further explanation at the time, but upon review of the tape of the press conference, Barney’s clap on Eisner’s shoulder and knowing nod as they leave together speaks volumes about the conspiracy of silence around the issue.

Join us next time when B’s Almost True Hollywood Stories examines the rumours surrounding Gilligan’s Island. With two hot chicks on the island, why was Gilligan always sucking up to the Captain? Perhaps he had found a taste for seamen?