Sad McMahon

With the death of demi-god Billy Mays this weekend, the past several days have been perhaps the most dangerous time for celebrities since Hollywood Squares first aired.

His passing will be prominently remembered because not only was he awesome, but he was the only celebrity with enough balls to out-die Michael Jackson. The man is born a month before the King of Pop and dies only days after him, even copping MJ's style with a heart attack - that takes cajones.

Of course, it's easy to conclude that the real loser from this past week is Ed McMahon. To wit:

Farrah Fawcett: dead at 62 years old (anal cancer)...was hot in the '7os...still kinda hot until her passing

Billy Mays: dead at 50 years old (heart attack)...made me want to pry open my miserly billfold for products I didn't need, though they did clean really well

Michael Jackson: dead at 50 years old (heart attack)...ruled world of music for a generation...ruled People magazine for the next generation

Ed McMahon: dead at 86 years old (oldness)...made Johnny Carson look better in comparison...delivered giant checks


Yeah, sorry Ed. Farrah's death right after yours was almost enough to cloud the memory of your passing, but Michael Jackson really put your mourning next to the baking soda at the back of our nation's fridge. To rub it in, all-around kingpin of culture Billy Mays passed away after all this, cementing your irrelevant status as the dead guy that only dead people care about.

the transition lenses go silent...Ed McMahon, 1827 - 2009

No suspenseful heart attack or stigma-defying cancer of hilarious body parts for Ed - just "a multitude of health issues," as the doctors put it, medical speak for "we don't care". Dying at 62? Tragic. Dying at 50? Shocking. Dying at 86? Well...why didn't you die at 62? Fact: ironic celebrities have an exponential chance of being remembered the closer they die to the age of 55 (and vice versa the farther away - see Brad Renfro).

I never really paid much attention to him. He seemed like a decent guy, though, and Phil Hartman (R.I.P.) did a great job of mocking him on national television. Ed McMahon, you're about to be forgotten, so here's my permanent e-memorial to you, barring me deleting this entry.

I Link, Therefore I Am

Just in case you were wondering, searching Google News for "pudding" isn't nearly as funny as searching for "puddin". Also, this.


Google News results for "squeegee"

Don't ask.


JACKO HAS GONE TO 'NEVERLAND' - NY Post

I knew the Post would find a way to be hilariously callous about this.


TOUGHY by Karl Ackermann

Not news, but the embodiment of everything that is good about Flash animation. I could watch this all day.

Ring a Ding

Dumb ringtones are the worst. People seem to forget that a ring tone is something that can be heard by everyone, not just the phone's owner. And nowhere is this more true than in a location where cell phones are decidedly unwelcome.

One person in my office used to have the creepy whistle theme from Kill Bill as their ringtone. Of course, they were never around, so several times a day my echoey, poorly soundproofed office would reverberate with a disturbing whistle.

Another person, from Jamaica, has a Caribbean-themed ring. Yes, you are from the Caribbean. Every time I think I'll forget that fact, the repeated echo of a three-second-long steel drum tune rings in my skull, ensuring that I will never, ever misplace your cultural identity.

I think we just enjoy pissing others off with our cell phone rings. Hell, now they even do it in Iraq, proof that we did our best to eff up what's become an ethnic Frankenstein. Unless I'm mistaken, someone's cell phone went off in Iraqi parliament a few years ago, prompting everyone to storm out. Not because their phone went off in a parliament session, mind you, but because the little song on it pissed people off.

Maybe I should just join the boat on this one and start using Steve Urkel's laugh on my phone, though maybe that's already claimed by the Kurds.

Lazy Days

Perhaps you came across the adorable/fawning-press story a couple weeks back about Obama handing an absence note to a kid attending one of his speeches.

Take note that the kid wasn't sick, at a family funeral/wedding, or off looking at colleges - she was skipping school to hang out with the president.

Instead of chastising this blatant abuse of presidential authority (do they even have the authority to write an absence note?), I'm going to take inspiration. Every day at 2pm, I'll check out of the office and return the next morning with a special absence note, written by some figure of authority.

Reagan-era sense of entitlement not included

Hell, I could make up figures of authority to sign notes. But why do that when there's plenty of opportunities in New York? What if I hit up a Mayor Bloomberg event - can't refuse an excuse from him. Or maybe I should stake out some overrated restaurant until a celebrity showed up. No way my boss would refuse a hand-written note from Tim Gunn, though he would probably chastise my poor color coordination.

Of course, there are more everyday, simple solutions; just get an absence note from a New York City firefighter. Unless your boss/principal/overlord wants to be labeled as an unpatriotic hater of heroes, there's no way that note could be denied. Easy as pie.

There's just no reason not to play hooky. And you can thank President Obama for that.

No.

For some reason, this evokes anti-pity in me.



BTW, next time I'm getting assaulted I'm going to tweet about it, since this will incur the quickest response.

And should tweet be capitalized?

Manlinka Warrior

For boredom's posterity.


'The Proposal' likely to jilt awards bridesmaid Sandra Bullock - Los Angeles Times

Ho ho! I love bitchy reviews and this has so many!! Man. So bitchy.


MTA RIDERSHIP IN $LIDERSHIP - NY Post

I desperately wish I had some kind of portable device that made the "wah wah" noise of a trumpet after a bad joke.


Peter Pan saves the Earth by giving you less peanut butter - The Consumerist

The math is dubious, but I can't argue with this comment:

"NerdBurger _GitEmSteveDave 11:56 AM
The answer is simple. By removing the salmonella from their peanut butter, they reduced the total amount."

Heyo!


BTW, get a Orange Julius smoothie or A&W Root Beer Float for free today. Because I won't. Blurg.

Back from the Suture

I saw David Carradine's clone coming out of the subway yesterday, which got me thinking about the original David Carradine's death.

The summary from basically all of the obituaries about him start with, "The star of 'Kung Fu' and 'Kill Bill'," which kinda sucks for the rest of his career.

To be honest, I only remembered who he was after I thought of those Yellow Book commercials:

A Serious Pair of Ball

In the aftermath of the NHL playoffs, a handful of ridiculous played-through-the-injury stories come out. When your playoff season is two months long, I guess it's inevitable.

This normally means stuff like torn ligaments, broken bones, or effed up critical organs. But this year is different and Nick Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings has earned my eternal respect. Why? After getting speared in the testicle in the last playoff round, he practiced for a couple days, had surgery, then played in the finals.

Needless to say, he called it the most painful injury he's ever received in hockey.

Nick Lidstrom (artist's conception)

This has spawned many e-articles on the matter and, of course, the best part of e-articles are the comments they result in. I leave you with this two-hit combo from the LA Times (link).

"Interesting that when Bobbit's penis was unsurgically removed they found it in a ditch and reattached it in a marathon operation. When an athlete has a testicle (his gonad) removed, he becomes a hero for persevering. But when a woman's uterus and ovaries (the female gonads) are removed 621,000 times each year for benign conditions, no one notices or calls her a hero for continuing to raise her family in the aftermath. Hail to the tough athlete, but don't forget about all those tough soccer moms out there who are enduring much worse.....
Posted by: Denise Cleveland Junes 15, 2009 at 07:08 AM "


"[Re: female gonad removal...] If one of them went out and played a hockey game less than a week after having her goodies removed, then I'd give some accolade. Until then, said woman is just another chick that's tough to be around.
Posted by: john June 15, 2009 at 01:12 PM "

I suppose I could ask why Denise feels the need to drag Mr. Bobbitt into this, but I'll leave that for another commenter who, like John, will most likely not be getting laid tonight.

A Modern-Day Mystery

So I was poking around on the internet, as I am wont to do, and stumbled across this poorly-constructed logo:


At first glance, there is only one possible thing that acronym could be. At second glance I was proven wrong, but that doesn't mean that the well-intentioned people who run this organization haven't chosen a horribly comic acronym. One wonders how they had the foresight to not name themselves the Massachusetts Illiteracy Foundation.

Anyways, the story should've ended there, but I decided to take action.

First, a Google search for MLF. This was just confusing and I'm baffled at the number of misspelled acronyms and obscure scientific terms this search encompasses.

Second, just what is our literacy rate? For the U.S., it's supposedly 99% but there's no actual data to back that up. Just to confuse things, Wikianswers provides this solution:

"Q. What is the literacy rate in the U.S.?
A. The Literacy Rate Of The United States Is About 99.0%. no it's not that's incorrect"

Oh, okay.

Literacy as a social malaise sounds so old school, like this is one of the nation's biggest issues after child labor, cholera epidemics, and shirtwaist factories burning down. Which, surprisingly, are still our greatest problems (see: child labor, epidemics, shirtwaist issues). Oopsies.

In the Parlink of Our Times

Deelish.


City Seeks to Evict Bicycle-Riding Rooster - ZooToo Pet News

The guy who owns this rooster sounds like an annoying douchebag. But hey, anytime an animal is trained to do a meaningless task I support it. See: rat on a cat on a dog.


IRAN'S CHOICE: BALLOTS, NUKES & NUTS - NY Post

Yes, I suppose that is exactly what they are choosing over.


The 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of the Past 40 Years - reasononline

If kids actually looked like that when they saw porn on the internet, we should be feeding it to them 24 hours a day with a live camera on their faces. America's Funniest Home Videos just got a new lease on life.

Spam is Delicious

I've usually scorned junk email but now that the era of effective spam blockers is in full swing, I think I actually like it.

The days of phishing and convincing people to buy impotence medication are long behind us. Now, the attack du jour seems to revolve around random phrases and cultural flashpoints (one subject I received: "On J. Simpson's flash" - I wish!).

One or two weird, misspelled emails a day are just enough to avoid my wrath and pique my curiousity. I've started rifling through all of the messages in my spam folder and constantly stumble across my new favorite.


From: Frances Wong
Subject: Solution for people who can't afford a classy watch

Though I am interested in this solution, the sender-name is always a dead giveaway in spam. I don't know anyone named Frances Wong, silly! Maybe if you followed this guy's lead instead...


From: originaltonyp
Subject: Suck it.

True, tonyp is original, if nothing else. But don't insult me, idiot.


From: damir.s
Subject: Come now pay less! Pilules!

PILULES?!?!?!?? *double-click


I also appreciate those who keep trying the same route, again and again, in the hopes that my spam blocker will be fooled.

From: me
Subject: Sorry, resigning our dinner.
From: me
Subject: Our teacher died.
From: me
Subject: Where is this place?
From: me
Subject: Chief wants you in office.
From: me
Subject: Sending you delivery boy.

I like to pretend this is all just my inner dialogue, though maybe it's just because they sound like they're from a Samuel Beckett play. If any of these subjects end up being my dying words, consider my life a success.

They say that one in every few million or so spam emails actually generate money. When you can send out billions in a day, that must make for a pretty good living. To tell you the truth, I'm slowly becoming more and more tempted to see where exactly all these spam emails lead me to. I'm sure there's a fellowship out there that can pay my way through this.

The Great Debate

One of the first things one can notice when living in New York is the preponderance of food fads. I think asian noodles were a fad a while ago. Now it's Vietnamese sandwiches, though this may be well-deserved.

One fad with some staying power, though, has been cupcakes. Every patisserie and over-priced bakery have a ridiculous, unnecessarily large selection. Cupcakes are good, I admit. As is non-cupped cake. But what about pie??

Pie may be the most versatile of all foods. Delicious breakfast pie? Quiche. Want one for lunch or dinner? Meat pie. And, obviously, the myriad of sweet and/or creamy things you can put in a dessert pie are limitless and only made better with ice or whipped cream.

exhibit (a): proving my point

But cake? Pshh. Cupcakes remain the gourmet asshole's favorite treat. How else is one supposed to treat one's self when they have a night alone at their Gramercy Park mansion? And whenever there's a fancy event, be it corporate or personal, people feel forced to choose cake. Poor form.

I bet if you asked someone if they'd rather have cake or pie at a graduation or company holiday party, they'd choose pie. Cake always suffers from the too-much-icing issue. Pie crust only suffers from the I-could-always-have-more-of-it issue. Think of it this way: what would you rather compete in, a cake-eating contest or a pie-eating contest? That's like asking someone if they'd rather watch Pay It Forward instead of Terminator 2.

Pie's one "drawback" is its size. Pie is really and truly best served in the standard pie size. Small pies, though adorable, are awkward to eat (do I use a fork? my hands?) and large pies are only good for breaking records. But can't we move past this discrimination? Martin Luther King, Jr. did.

exhibit (b): no amount of icing can hide or save this shitshow

If we all like pie, it seems only logical that we act to give it the place in the national consciousness/plate that it deserves. In an age where Joe the Plumber can become a celebrity, surely giving pie a little social boost can't hurt. Let's leave cake for the Bernie Madoffs of the world and start baking a better world.

Professor Flink

There is no better way to waste the final hours of your day.


OBAMA: THINGS ARE FINE WITH ME AND MERKEL - NY Post

Since when did the Post care about the relationship between an American President and a German Chancellor? Bizaree, un-Post territory.

Let me just add that a close second to this was an article on Obama's recent speech: WAY TO MECCA GOOD IMPRESSION.


Auto-Erotic Asphyxia's Deadly Thrill - ABC News

Aside from the headline that makes this sound like a plague that threatens our youth, I really have to admit that this is the #1 worst possible way of dying. Sure, the actual death part would kinda suck, but it's nothing compared to when they find your body. That kind of shame has to find you in the afterlife.

BTW, between 500 and 1,000 people die of this in America every year??


Chile police find suitcase made of cocaine - AP

Speaks for itself, really. I applaud the ingenuity and wonder how, if any, suitcases have gotten through before. Maybe if they had tried a laptop bag; those are pretty heavy, anyways.

Raw Savagery

Man. Fred Savage. I loved the Wonder Years and everything but we all know he's done jack since then. Hell, Winnie Cooper's not far behind - getting married after becoming a mathematician. Woof.

This guy's career is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. How does someone play a serial rapist in Law & Order while directing two episodes of That's So Raven. Only two, Fred? If you do more than one, you'd think you'd do several. Perhaps his directing was, in fact, not so Raven.

a picture of Fred Savage

Honestly, not much happened after the Kevin Arnold years. No capitalizing on being Fred Savage, no wacky drug stories, no nymphomaniacal years in college. He went to Stanford and majored in English. There were a few odd jobs in TV and film, all forgettable. Just plain ol' Fred Savage. Kind of a dork.

Nowadays he's directing some decent series and has a young family. Fred Savage.

Man, this was the least funny thing I've ever done.

Yeesh.

Not much time available today, so this'll have to be brief.

The Wikipedia article on freckles is pretty benign and starts with this classic freckle picture:

Fair enough.

The Wikipedia article on moles, however, starts with this picture:

Yikes. Unnecessary close-up. Thanks, but no thanks, Jimmy Wales.

Revelation

Maybe it's because the Beatles are in the news due to the newest edition of Rock Band, but I swore I saw Ringo Starr on the street today.

After a second look, I realized this guy actually looked like Ringo Starr if he tried too hard and had let himself go a little.

Which then prompted me to think that maybe, yes, the man I saw was Ringo Starr.

R.I.P.

Well, the decades of suspense are finally over: Archie's getting married! Yep, that Archie - the friend of Jughead, citizen of Riverdale, and embarrassing member of my childhood bookshelf.

I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I'll go ahead and do it anyways. He's gonna marry Veronica. Congratulations.

Why now, Archie? You had such a good thing going - the perfect scenario, really. The rich hottie and...the not-rich hottie. Unless I lost count, that's two hotties. And who doesn't want a coupla hotties engaged in jealous combat over you, especially if "you" is a bushy-eyebrowed coward with a permanent tic-tac-toe board on the side of your head?

this is kinda fucked up, right?

On top of it all, you had a pathetic friend whose misnomer, though not accurately describing his headgear, did capture the je ne seis quoi of a young man who unironically wears something resembling a crown. No matter what shenanigans befell you, this sidekick virtually guaranteed your superiority by comparison - but not anymore. Give this kid 6 Archie-less months and I bet he'll realize the joke you've made of him for the past 68 years. A pie in the face is least of your troubles when you've robbed a man of his pride and assault rifles remain legal.

Evidently the marriage issue will cover Archie's life 5 years after the deed has been done. Let me look into my crystal ball...ah, yes...I see a man tortured by the ennui of an elite he doesn't belong to, crushed by his inability to maintain social graces, and left empty through the scorn of his pampered children. Have fun, big guy.