Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Stuff I Found On The Sidewalk. A Participatory Thread.

Item, the first:

I ran across this nifty little pair of sunglasses a month or so ago.  They're utterly useless and but I couldn't resist picking them up and I couldn't get myself to throw them away.  Then I decided to show them to you guys.  Obviously, they needed to be shown with something to provide a bit of scale.

Which brings up this question:  When you give these two guys the right accessories, it's obvious that they were total badasses; Name the currently-living hottie each would be dating. (Note: If you choose to go there, feel free, but any votes for Bieber will get you tossed out of the family; remember - badass!)



Item, the second:

Sadly for them, but fortuitous for us, preadolescent girls' tradecraft isn't very well developed, so I was able to intercept this dead drop clandestine communication. (Note to aspiring spies: If the wind is blowing your secret missive around, you're doing it wrong.)  Anyway, take a look.

The front of the little envelope with obvious code names.


The rear of the little envelope with cryptic notation







One side of the enclosed note. Is it a map?  Who are the mysterious characters and where are they being sent? 

 And finally, the meat of the issue.

What, pray tell, is G.R.O.S.S.?*   

Ginormous Ruminants Of the South Seas?
Girls Romping On Sudanese Sofas?
Giraffes Raiding Opthalmic Super Stores?

I WANT ANSWERS!

P.S. Do you think I should call this in?

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*I tried scraping off the White-Out, and I tried holding the note up to a light, but the obliterated part of the note is pretty effectively obliterated. I'm assuming G.R.O.S.S. stands for Getting Rid Of So-and-So (initials S.S.), but that's not all that much fun.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Prepare To Be Assimilated. Resistance Is...Hey! Come Back Here!

On Sunday, we paid one of our infrequent visits to The Brooklyn Flea.  I gotta be honest; there are only so many times you can look at the nifty "repurposed stuff" over and over again. And I'll admit to a fairly low threshold for artisinal, locally made things -- especially when you find out that the only thing local about it is that it's designed in some woman's Brooklyn apartment, but manufactured for her in India.

On the other hand, there's always good stuff to eat.  Anon GF and I shared a lobster roll and a shrimp roll -- both of them really yummy.  And we scored some homemade donuts!

 Then we left to go get a beer. 
Not only a great label - "Tempered over burning witches"! - but it truly didn't suck.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  I did witness this near luring-over-to-the-dark-side of a little girl.

Oooh, look!  Dinosaurs!

A whole wagon-load of dinosaurs!

Our test subject is drawn in.  Dreams of paleontology are being hatched!

Aaaaand, the jewelry display wins.

Ah well. she may be back.  And this is totally apocryphal, but I've heard that some little girls who've gotten Lego's new girl-centric version are having no trouble figuring out how to build little pink trebuchets to storm the walls of Cinderella's Castle!

Besides that, did I mention there was seafood and beer?  Followed by napping?  All in all, a highly successful Sunday!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

We'd Like A Word With You, Please, Mr. Nugent.


Last week, a week that was already pretty eventful for the U.S. Secret Service, got even eventfuller when Ted Nugent exercised his First Amendment Right to scream, THERE'S A FIRE IN THAT THEATER AND I LIT IT AND IF I DIDN'T LIGHT IT, I'M GONNA LIGHT IT AND MAYBE I'M JUST BEIN' METAPHORICAL (WINK, WINK, NUDGE, NUDGE), BUT IF I'M NOT, IT'S YER OWN DAMN FAULT. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YA!

Ted can get a bit breathless sometimes.

As a result, the Secret Service was forced to take time off from vetting South American Entertainers to interview Mr. Nugent.  It's since been reported that they have deemed Mr. Nugent to be no threat to the President, but I found myself intensely curious about what the contents of that conversation might have been.  Fortuitously, my cabal of International spooks, spies, moles, undercover operatives, intelligence agents, sleepers, infiltrators, espionage experts, sleuths and snoops were able to get me a synopsis of  Mr. Nugents audience with The Man.

The conversation began with Agents Brobdingnagian and Behemoth getting right to the point and asking Ted for a clarification of his statement, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year”.

Mr. Nugent explained that although he had begun by speculating about any results from an Obama reelection, he had immediately lost his train of thought and moved on to considering the possible ramifications of crossing a busy street or hunting pandas out of season; possibilities that might leave him deceased or incarcerated.  "It was more in the way of a non sequitur", he concluded.

Agents Brobdingnagian and Behemoth allowed as how that made a certain kind of sense and moved on to other topics of interest.  Behemoth asked about another Nugent statement to the effect of, "...I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good. I hope they're doin' it for free" and followed up by querying about Mr. Nugent's success with locating those who were "doing it for free".  Nugent acknowledged that he had, in fact, had great success in those endeavors during his more youthful days, but attributed much of it to loud music, and substance abuse among his fans.  Brain trauma was another factor that was posited.

Behemoth moved on to a discussion of what Mr. Nugent might consider desirable when selecting travel companionship which Mr. Nugent summed up by saying, "All you pretty woman,  you're so far and in between. I don't need no fancy tarts; I need the ones that's clean".  When questioned about the specific steps of the Wango Tango, Nugent demurred, explaining that he was no longer as agile as he once had been.

The interview was concluded when the Agents sought out Mr. Nugent's wisdom on types he chose to avoid.  Nugent responded:


"She's big
Thunder Thighs
She got a big leg
Thunder Thighs
Big lady
Thunder Thighs
No, no, wait a minute darling
Wait, wait a minute baby
Don't sit on me
Don't sit on me
You can do anything,
But don't sit on me
Bitch!"


Agents Brobdingnagian and Behemoth thanked Mr. Nugent for his time and requested that he avoid discussing the President, difficulties with negotiating traffic and outdoor sports in the same sentences to avoid any future misunderstandings.  Mr. Nugent thanked them for their devoted non-partisan service and expressed his sincere hope that the Agency would find his pointers beneficial.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Secret Service: On It's Own Time, On It's Own Dime!





There's a lot of hand wringing going on because apparently some Secret Service Agents and other members of the President's advance team may* have spent an evening with some prostitutes while getting ready for Obama's trip to Columbia. Do I think they did?  Of course they did.

Am I upset about it?  Think its some kind of big deal?  Au contraire mon freres!  Those guys are paragons of frugal government.

Look...the General Services Administration is in a heap of shit because they spent nearly a million bucks on a convention.  They had clowns and fortune tellers and shit.  They had cheese platters.

THEY GOT RIPPED OFF!  I mean, c'mon; the guys who are supposed to save the government money couldn't get a fucking clown for a couple hundred bucks?  Pikers! And that was your money!

The Secret Service, on the other hand were hooking up with Trollops-For-Less™.  I've heard these girls were going for $47 a pop! And the only reason they got caught is because one guy thought it was too much! (That's what I heard anyway.  You can SnopesThatShit.)

Another comparison?  You can bet those GSA pukes were expensing every damned thing!  Nobody's accusing the Secret Service of trying to put the girls on Petty Cash.  Talk about living within your Per Diem!

Those guys are my heroes. I couldn't be prouder.

Update:  I'm now seeing a report that says the guy who wouldn't pay had originally agreed to shell out $800!  This does not alter my premise.  It only backs up the idea that these courageous gentlemen are even more thrifty than I first imagined.  A GSA twerp would have paid the $800 and forked over a $300 tip!

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*I've italicized "may" to give the appearance of fairness.  Feel free to sprinkle some "alleged"s liberally around this post too if you're so inclined.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

It's The Day After National Beer Day!

Sorry folks.  I'm just not ready to move on yet.


Saturday, April 7, 2012

It's National Beer Day!





Today marks the effective end of Prohibition -- April 7, 1933, when beer was once again permitted to be sold in the U.S. Even without all those Depression Era recovery programs and WWII and stuff like that, this would have guaranteed FDR's place as one of the great Presidents! 

A true hero of his era.

Two unfortunate notes:  1.)  I wasn't paying enough attention, so I missed notifying you of New Beer's Eve yesterday, so you may have gotten a late start celebrating.  And 2.) Beer, since it's made from fermented grains is not Kosher for Passover.  This inauspicious confluence of the Solar and Lunar Calendars means that observant Jews will have to delay marking the occasion. (I'm a heathen backslider, so I intend to celebrate both for myself and to exercise my tribe's proxy.)

W00t!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Adorable Baby Stuff Is Adorable! (Now with Additional Adorable!)

We had a new nephew born about a week ago, so, in preparation, Anon GF has been knitting like a Banshee!  (Banshee's do too knit!)

There's a pea pod (with cap and stem!) to stick the kid in. There's a tomato hat. And there are those little cloths babies puke on -- the ones specially covered with aliens!  And just to give the kid a head start on having class, he'll be resting in a little baby Mondrian blanket!



Updated to add:  I bet you wanted to see some of the other stuff.  And the kid!

The kid wearing the pea pod cap.

The pea pod and cap (sans kid).

A space ship and alien.  To spit up on!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Asshole-Americans Have Rights Too!

Update 4/5/12: The underwhelming response to this post (thanks for at least trying Steve), suggests to me that my usually brilliant wit may have been on hiatus when I wrote it.  On the other hand, it has been pointed out that my premise was faulty from the start. There are already some fine role models for gays aspiring to the dark side -- they're called Log Cabin Republicans.   I can't really argue with that.
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Yesterday, my friend Eric took issue with the Florida Family Association. As usual, I'm too lazy to actually do any background research, but apparently, there's some sort of brouhaha developing about making some characters in a Star Wars game gay.  Eric, much as he pleads self-disgust at stereotyping, declares that C3PO and R2D2 are already gay characters in the Star Wars Universe. You'll have to go read it, but he bases this on the fact that they're devoted to each other; that one is effete and fussy about his appearance while the other is bulky, rugged and stoic.

And they're absolutely adorable together.

Once upon a time, the only gay people you'd see in movies or on TV were dangerous psychopaths and I'll admit it's a good thing they're getting some good press these days, but I honestly think the pendulum has swung too far.  Let's look at some of the gay folks you're likely to see these days.

Mr. Smithers?  Couldn't be cuter!

Mitch and Cameron are simply precious!

Big Gay Al is not without his charms.

Tinky Winky's so fucking cute I could puke!

And then...there's Ellen!




I mean really! These are fine images for gay kids, but who the fuck can live up to any of these images?  It must be exhausting trying to be as endearing as these people.


The fact of the matter is, I know a lot of gay people...and some of them are assholes.  Really!  Gay people have as much right to be jerks as everybody else and take my word for it...some gay folks are  just wired to take the low road.  Who are they supposed to emulate?

Think about it.  When you were a kid, didn't you...just once...want to see Batman and Robin scraped off the side of that building by one of the bad guys? Talk about a pair of Goody Two-Shoes!  And I know I had a weak spot for Catwoman.

There need to be some gay folks on TV who aren't all admirable and shit. You know...to give the slacker gays something to shoot for.

In keeping with that idea, there are plenty of other characters in media who should have their chance at being gay.

Staying with the Star Wars universe for a moment, I would totally accept the possibility that Darth Vader is a big gay closeted Evil Overlord.
He stands out in a crowd and, sure, he's got a son, but I can think of all sorts of reasons for him to be in denial.  If we'd just let Vader be Vader, maybe he'd get over some of his issues and be a nicer guy. Or, barring that, he's a good example for gay folks who aren't ready to come out yet. You can have a whole friggin' army of Darth Vader's in the Gay Pride Parade and maintain anonymity.

Or, who's to say Jabba the Hut isn't all kinds of gay (in a giant space-wormish kinda way)?
Jabba's like the first Project Runway contestant! And he's a bloated evil shitbag!  Everybody wins!

Major Toht could certainly be gay. The guy carries around a folding coat hanger so he doesn't muss his wardrobe.  This is not such a hard example for the evil-leaning contingent of the gay community to aspire toward..

Ms. Barrett, from Lean on Me, probably wouldn't have been such a bitch if she'd only had a nice girlfriend to go home to. But, the truth is, even if it didn't put her on an even keel, don't bitches need role models too? Think about how much easier it is to be Ms. Barrett than it is to be Ms. Degeneres! Imagine how much less pressure there is when nobody expects you to be all nice and shit all the time!

Carmine Lorenzo? Is there anything about him being a dick to John McClane that precludes him being gay?  I think not! And none of those unrelenting expectations to hang out in gyms every day!

What about these guys? Tell me there weren't some gay kids who dreamed of growing up to kick the shit out of Ralph Macchio!

If you're gay and you're an asshole, those guys could be some damn fine role models!

I say it's time we give gay schmucks their own characters to aspire to instead of all these lovable role models we've been foisting off on them recently.  I mean, who can live up to that?