It's A Mad House!

Humankind is doomed. Check out this video:



Not only is that gorilla walking on his hind legs, he's carrying something in his hand--something that could be the first step toward apes using tools.

Somebody, anybody, double up the security on the Statue of Liberty--quick!

New Blogroll Link: Self-Petting Zoo

Self-Petting Zoo: Animals, um, taking care of business. By themselves. In the unlikely event that the nutjobs over at the Westboro Baptist Church are right, and God really does "hate fags", then I'm REALLY scared to see what He thinks about anyone who looks at this site. (Hat tip to Bill Schulz of Fox News's Red Eye.)

Mixed Messages

I haven't personally seen these two commercials back to back here in the Philadelphia TV market, but I'm sure if it hasn't happened already, it's just a matter of time.

Witness first, a State Farm insurance commercial, wherein our intrepid heroes use State Farm to turn a broken pane of glass into a hot tub in their living room:

Now check out this one, telling you NOT to use State Farm to turn your old Magnetbox tube set into a 46" plasma:

Although the second commercial isn't directly produced by the insurance companies themselves, it sure seems like the industry is talking out both sides of their mouth on this one.

New Blogroll Link: This Is Why You're Huge

I love me some food porn. As a fan of the popular site "This Is Why You're Fat", I've been disappointed the last couple of months by the lack of updates, and as of this writing, the writers of the site appear to called it quits altogether. That's why I'm pleased to have found its successor-in-waiting, "This Is Why You're Huge". From the delicious to the excessive to the just-plain-bizarre, this site provides the appetite stimulation that dangerously underweight individuals such as myself need on a daily basis. I'm pleased to make it the newest recommended read on my blogroll.

Maher-on

Apologies in advance for the long video, but watch the 30 seconds or so beginning at about 3:05.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but did I just hear Bill Maher call the Second Amendment "bullshit" and the exercise of one of our most basic freedoms "a vice"? Hey Bill, the Constitution is not an a la carte menu that you get to pick and choose from. I wonder how you'd react if I said the 4th Amendment was "bullshit" and endangered innocents by hampering police investigations. You'd probably call me a hypocritical windbag--which is pretty much the same way I'm reacting to what you said.

Christmas Greetings

Wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and many sandwiches.

Put To Sleep

FX Cancels Terriers

My curse strikes again--it seems like every time I really like a show, it gets canceled, with very few exceptions. This was one of the truly unique shows on TV--half comedy, half hard-boiled P.I. noir drama. It got off to a slow start, but in hindsight, that was extremely deliberate; many seemingly innocuous events in the early episodes turn out to be crucial as the season reaches its end, and those who stuck with it are rewarded with a GREAT finale episode.

I still recommend it when it gets released on DVD/NetFlix/RokU/Boxee/whatever. Unlike a lot of shows, the season was totally self-contained and doesn't leave a lot of "wait 'till next season" loose ends hanging around. I'm always disappointed to see something that's different from the standard homogenized crap go down like this, but it was a fun watch while it lasted.

Truck You

Yesterday I wrote about flying during the Thanksgiving holiday. Today I have another pet peeve that relates to driving. Look what I get to deal with after work tonight, on the "busiest travel day of the year":

Truck crash closes I-95

I realize that the accident hasn't been thoroughly investigated yet, but really, who else is going to be at fault in a single-vehicle accident? And this is the second single-vehicle big rig accident in two weeks in my area that's closed a stretch of major highway.

Let's compare the trucker for just a moment to a medical doctor--just two gentlemen (or ladies) of a similar ilk. If a doctor makes a mistake as egregious as some of the moving violations the truckers who cause these accidents get cited for, he loses his license for a long time--sometimes forever. Now consider this: a doctor has considerably more complex safety considerations to remember than a trucker does, and a doctor's mistake endangers only one person at a time. A trucker's error endangers everyone around them and can kill many people in one fell swoop. Why aren't truck drivers held to the same safety standards as other professionals, so that we can get the bad ones off the roads? I wonder if it has anything to do with the millions of dollars that the Teamsters Union "donates" to politicians every year.

Standing Pat

Tomorrow's the unofficial "getaway day" for Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm glad as hell that I don't have to fly anywhere. If I did, I'd probably get arrested for kicking the living crap out of one of the snarky little douchebags taking part in the "don't look at my pathetic little genitals" protest that's supposedly going to happen tomorrow. What's the matter, you crybabies--that the TSA is keeping you too safe? Look, there are two ways to ensure that air travel is safe from demented individuals who think nothing of horrifically killing themselves and others to make a political point. One is to keep dangerous people off the planes, and the other is to keep dangerous items off the planes. We've tried to do the former, but that gets the "You-Can't-Say-That-Even-If-It's-True" Gestapo mobilized, so this is what you're left with. I don't care if the monitors are being watched and the pat-down searches are being conducted by Ricky Martin himself (and let's face it, your screener is far more likely to resemble Bruce Vilanch). I'd rather have my junk fondled a million times over than be on the plane where someone managed to slip a weapon through.

Don't Tase Me Bro

Delaware police: Death renews outcry against use of Taser

Attention all felons, miscreants, and members of oppressed minority groups: here's a foolproof method to not get killed by a taser:

OBEY ALL INSTRUCTIONS FROM POLICE OFFICERS.

Simple. Police do a dangerous job, where they're never sure who's going to be the lunatic who pulls a gun, knife, broken bottle, sharpened toothbrush, or whatever, and try to seriously maim or kill them. Their choices are to risk death and dismemberment themselves, put a bullet into the suspect, or drop them with a taser. The taser is a compromise between options 1 and 2. The way to let them know that you're not going to be that maniac who's going to put them in danger? Obey the police. Think you're being singled out for no good reason? Obey the police anyway. The time to redress violations of your civil liberties is with your lawyer, after whatever situation you're part of has passed. You have the benefit of over 200 years of refinement of police procedures and your rights that have put numerous remedies in place for dealing with police misconduct, whether negligent or malicious. Don't fight the cops. Don't get tased. Don't be the guy with an undiagnosed heart condition who gets killed by the taser. It really is that simple.

Why Bother?

From Taco Bell's own website comes the description of their new XXL Chalupa:

An XXL-sized crispy Chalupa shell packed with seasoned ground beef, crispy lettuce, fiesta salsa, a blend of three cheeses–cheddar, pepper jack and mozzarella–and nacho cheese sauce, red strips and topped with reduced-fat sour cream.

The emphasis, of course, is all mine. This bad boy tops out at 650 calories and 39 grams of fat...but just imagine what it could have been if they hadn't used reduced-fat sour cream!

Now We Know Why He Wears #4

I really hope our lawmakers are watching the NFL and Commissioner Goodell very closely right now, because there's a lesson to be learned here on how a good law or policy can go bad if it's pushed too far. Or in this case, too Favre.

The NFL's personal conduct policy was born out of the best intentions. At the time it was conceived, the league and its players had a real image problem. Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones, the Vikings' party boat, the fact that most of the Cincinnati Bengals' starting lineup was standing in police lineups on a regular basis--all of this was giving the image that the NFL's players were out-of-control madmen, and really, some of them were. So Goodell and Co. came up with the idea that if you got in trouble off the field, you'd be suspended from the league for a certain amount of time.

And at first, it worked just as intended. Players who committed crimes and were arrested, charged, and convicted were forced to sit out, hurting their team and costing them real money. And some of these guys were convicted of real crimes--weapons charges, animal cruelty, even manslaughter.

But then there was Roethlisberger. Big Ben was accused of sex crimes not once, but twice. Of course that's a serious accusation, and should be taken seriously. But in both cases, the police investigated and found there was nothing to charge Roethlisberger with, since poor judgment/taste in women isn't against the law. But the league decided that wasn't good enough, and so they slapped a suspension on Ben for a crime with which he was never charged, let alone convicted.

And so here we are, and now here's Brett Favre, sending voice mails and pictures of his junk to a Jets "game hostess" (whatever that is) turned Playboy/Maxim model turned token look-at-my-boobs woman host on the Versus network. IF these embarrassing messages and pictures (the voice mails sound like an eighth-grader asking his hot chemistry lab partner to the harvest dance, and the pictures--well, let's just say there's not a whole lotta junk in the junk) came from Favre, then he's clearly in the wrong, as a married man. But why on earth is the NFL commissioner's office investigating this? This happened two years ago, so if this bimbo didn't complain about it when it happened, that's a pretty clear sign that she didn't consider it to be harassment, and that should be as far as it goes. The NFL isn't the Sex Police, the Marriage Police, or anything in between. And yet somehow here we are, at the bottom of the slippery slope, with Goodell acting like he has a papal appointment as Grand High Inquisitor. This is something that should be between a man and his wife, not man and boss or man and public. That's something we'd all do well to remember.