Condition: Strange!

How To Turn Your Car Into an Unstoppable Killing Machine in 8 Easy Steps!

2008-11-23T13:16:00.001-08:00

Step 1. Fill The Trunk With Live Bees
Pop the trunk and surprise your enemies with a deadly bee attack!

Step 2. Attach A Pair of AK-47's To The Windshield Wipers
Be sure to have twine attached to the triggers. That way when you turn on the wipers the gunfire will activate and and spray outward!

Step 3. Tie Angry Grizzly Bears To The Front, Rear, and Sides Of Your Car*
Keep a water bottle handy. If the bears become docile, roll down the windows and squirt them in the eyes to keep them angry!

Step 4. Put A Boombox On The Roof and Play A "Scary Sounds of Halloween" Cassette Tape
Fear is the ultimate weapon!

Step 5. Soak The Tires In Yak's Blood
(For luck)

Step 6. Tape Several Dozen Steak Knives Together Into A Ball. Attach A Car Battery To Your "Knife Ball."
If an enemy approaches, deploy the : ROLLING LIGHTNING ATTACK!

Step 7. Keep A Running Chainsaw In Your Lap While You Drive
(For close encounters)

Step 8. Put On Your Best War Face
If your war face needs work, practice in the rear view mirror

Some things to consider

2008-08-30T22:28:00.003-07:00

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
"screeched."

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters
"mt".

Almonds are members of the peach family.

The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the
English language.

"Underground" is the only word in the English language that
begins and ends with the letters "und."

There are only four words in the English language which end
in"-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

The longest word in the English language, according to the
Oxford English Dictionary,
is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
The only other word with the same amount of letters is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimau
ngahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la
Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be
abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

In most advertisments, including newspapers, the time displayed
on a watch is 10:10.

Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.It was eliminated
when he was sewn up after surgery.

Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have
the same pattern of whiskers.

Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the
book 'The Naked Lunch'.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses
II who fathered over 160 children.

There is a seven letter word in the English language that
contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters,
"therein" the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are
registered blood donors.

John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette
Show" was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after
Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in
Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw
up.The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of
it's mouth.Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the
stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully
ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth
from 1.8 miles away.

The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the
creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z,
hence "Oz."

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar
tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the
left hand.

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a
statement made by swearing on their testicles.

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different
ways.The following sentence contains them all "A rough-coated,
dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough;
after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
letter is uncopyrightable.

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct
order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the
Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have
about ten.

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase
"Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days
of lore when the engines were pulled by horses.The horses were stabled
on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight
staircases.

Shh...Every Taxi in Beijing Bugged With GPS-Tagging Microphone For Instant Surveillance

2008-08-07T16:19:00.001-07:00

If you're in Beijing for the Olympics kick starting this weekend, don't be spilling any beans (state secrets or otherwise) in your cab back to the hotel, because you're being listened to. As the WSJ is reporting, on your taxi's dash is a microphone that can be activated remotely, at any time and without the driver's knowledge, for a live listen into any one of Beijing's estimated 70,000 cabs. And then, if the folks on the other end don't like what they hear, they can take things even further.

The GPS-equipped devices also allow for remote disabling by "cutting off the oil or electric supply," effectively shutting down the engine and keeping it from being restarted. Yikes.

Beijing police tow the general "it's for the driver's safety" line:

Whether these microphones are used to spy on riders is unclear. Asked if police could listen in on conversations in taxis, a Beijing police official declined to comment, saying that such matters were "confidential" and that they were "not supposed to release such details to the public."

As the State Department has warned, you can expect to be monitored in just about every other place, public or private. It's doubtful that every cab is being recorded at all times, but the tech is there if necessary. Comforting.

Several Beijing taxi companies declined to comment on the security aspect but said that the GPS helps track taxis and that the microphones will be used for translating services. About a dozen taxi drivers said the microphones were installed about three years ago, when newer cabs were built without protective metal cages around the drivers. Cabbies can turn on the system and alert their dispatch centers by touching a discreet button near the steering wheel.

Activists say they are concerned about the ability to listen to conversations with the devices, which appear unique to China. "This seems to suggest an effort by the police or other security forces to eavesdrop on conversations of passengers, rather than for the immediate safety and security of the taxi driver," said Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch.

Wal-Mart Intercom Pranks

2008-07-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart stores can be so big and the workers seem so bored and the customers seem so harried and annoying. It seems like the perfect fertile ground to have a little fun at Walt's expense. Sometimes I just want to jump on the intercom and say something. But how does one get access?

I've found the answer. You can use the intercom from any one of the many telephones Wal-Mart provides around the sales floor. Even better, I've found the codes! Here is how you use the intercom at Wal-Mart:

• Pick up the phone
• Dial #96

You're now on the store intercom!

The proper way to use the store intercom, I mean, apart from the fact it is only supposed to be used by Wal-Mart employees, is to declare the code and the location. For instance, "Code White in Automotive". Here are a few helpful/hilarious things you can do with the Intercom.

Intercom Codes:

INTERCOM HOLD: Sometimes silence is golden. So if you pick up the phone, dial #96 and then hit hold, nobody can use the intercom until they figure out which phone is on hold.

CODE 1: This code is used for SHOPLIFTING!

CODE 10: Dry Spill.

CODE 20: Wet Spill.

CODE 90: Management Needed. That sounds useless.

CODE 99: This code implies that there is an emergency and all male employees are to immediately stop what they are doing and move to the announced location.

CODE 300: Security Needed. For grins, call Code 300 to the location you are currently at.

CODE ADAM: Code Adam is used to report a lost child. Technically, the store is supposed to shut all doors until the lost child is found. This sounds like fun until you realize that you are going to be trapped in a Wal-Mart for hours while they attempt to locate a missing child.

CODE BLACK: This code is used for severe weather. It's only used if something severe is happening such as tornadoes are bearing down on the store. All employees are supposed to immediately head to the fitting rooms at the center of the store. Wal-Mart doesn't like to use this code because it quite frankly, when the employees all leave, it leads to looting.

CODE BLUE A bomb scare.

CODE C: Customer service. A customer needs help in a location like housewares.

CODE GREEN: This code is used when there is a hostage in the store. Ask yourself, do you really want to shop at a store that needs to have a special code for a hostage situation?

CODE ORANGE: This is for a chemical spill. Water is a chemical.

CODE RED: This is used in case of a fire!

CODE WHITE: is used for an injury.

With knowledge comes power and responsibility. Use it wisely.

Shit Box: the solution to your festival/toilet-based worries

2008-07-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

A portable toilet that folds back into your bag. Yuck.

It folds back into your bag and doubles as a stool (erm, nice wordplay).

McDonald's Makes Jesus Cry

2008-07-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

There are billions and billions of reasons to hate McDonald's. They took the McRib away, for one, and that burns. (Sometimes I almost wish I'd never loved it at all.) There's at least one good reason to like McDonald's: They're being boycotted by the American Family Association.

What did McDonald's do to cross the AFA, its president, Donald Wildmon, and -- by extension -- Jesus (R-Nz.)? They donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. McDonald's' revenue runs about five billion dollars a quarter, so you can see their profound commitment to destroying the family through sodomy.

The AFA says that by donating one thousandth of one percent of its 2007 earnings,

"McDonald's has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda."

Which seems like a kind of shrill definition of "full weight," but maybe it's like the Quarter Pounder®, and it's the weight before cooking that counts.

It feels a little like the American Family Association was looking for someone to boycott and it was just McDonald's' turn. They've already boycotted Sears, Kohl's, Kmart, Target, Old Navy and IKEA. As a result, they're naked and don't have anywhere to sit. The McDonald's boycott follows boycotts of Burger King, Carl's Jr., 7-11, Proctor & Gamble and Kraft, which means Donald Wildmon hasn't eaten anything for sale in America since the late '70s. You'd think he'd be dead, but no.

(He's a good guy. I'll bet he loads up on locusts, beetles and grasshoppers, like it says in Leviticus. The same book that -- there's no getting around it -- says homosexuality is an abomination, absolutely as heinous in G*d's eyes as strong drink.)

Does the AFA hate homosexuals? Absolutely not! It says so, right on their website, under the heading and sub-head: "Does AFA Hate Homosexuals? Absolutely Not!"

Should McDonald's take the boycott seriously? The customer is always right, I guess. (I think that's from Deuteronomy.) But McDonald's might want to think about the kind of customers they're losing. They appear to be lunatics.

Oh look, here are some of their thoughts:

"YOU DID NOT BILD YOUR COMPANY ON HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE! IT WAS BUILD ON FAMILY VALUES! MAN,WIFE.CHILDREN!MOSTLTY CHILDREN! THEY DON'T COME FROM HOMO PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"What next, Adam & Steve in the children's happy meals? i WILL not condone the Corp. of Mc Donalds to force me to shop where it is not in lign with my believe in God and HIS scripture..."

"I have stopped at my last McDonald. If you support homos, that is fine with me. I do not have to eat your burgers. Maybe there are enough homos around to keep your arches open."

"I suppose next the playground will be open for pedifiles in order to not offend them."

"You have joined God's list of enemies!"

"What's next? Support for the Man-Boy Love Association! This shall not stand!"

"The McFaddin Family will vote with our Money and Feet and take our business elsewhere! You can stuff your Happy Gay Meal and Happy Gay Agenda where the Sun don't Shine!"

"If the McDonald's heirarchy thinks we'll buy their burgers and support deranged homosexual activists who force their lifestyle on innocent children in the public schools, they had better think again. Their burgers now have a smelly odor to them."

"You advertise straight to children (Happy Meals). Can anyone say pederasty? This lifestyle' you embolden is really a deathstyle!"

"The only thing you'll be cooking is yourselves, for eternity."

"the next thing you know RONALD will be molesting our children. No big macks for this family."

"Are you also going to support open activity between man and beast? You are helping to open the door to bestiality, sex with children, plural homosexual marriages and the list goes on!"

"Dear, McDonald's. Last week I ate a cheeseburger at your restaurant. If I would've known it was created by gay loving hands, I wouldn't have purchased it. Don't you guys know gays were behind the holocaust? First Jews, and now the family. What is next, McDonald's? Are you going to help gays eradicate sand? WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT SAND!?!?"

"I recently saw two young teenagers making out. I figure McDonalds is no longer my kind of place. I think the sixteen year old worked there."

I just had a thought -- honest to God, I swear this wasn't where I was heading with this thing; I was just going to make a lot of snotty remarks about reductio ad absurdum and the McFaddin Family's feet -- but it occurs to me that McDonald's has done something brilliant: They've deliberately offended a demographic they don't want.

For just $20,000, they've chased off all the crazy people who hang around McDonald's sputtering and ranting and making me not want to eat there.

It's genius.

Now, if they'd just bring back the McRib.

Crowd-Controlling MEDUSA Ray Gun Puts Voices Inside Your Head

2008-07-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Sierra Nevada Corporation claimed this week that it is ready to begin production on the MEDUSA, a damned scary ray gun that uses the "microwave audio effect" to implant sounds and perhaps even specific messages inside people's heads. Short for Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio, MEDUSA creates the audio effect with short microwave pulses. The pulses create a shockwave inside the skull that's detected by the ears, and basically makes you think you're going balls-to-the-wall batshit insane. The MEDUSA can also "produce recognizable sounds" and is aimed primarily at military uses, but New Scientist revealed there are other uses in the works, too.

And if you're thinking ear plugs are this thing's Kryptonite, think again. Lee Sadovnik of Sierra Nevada Corp. said normal audio safety limits are off the table since the sound bypasses the eardrums and emanates from within the skull. "The repel effect is a combination of loudness and the irritation factor," he said. "You can’t block it out."

Wet blanket James Lin of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois in Chicago wants more testing done, however, because of the perceived health ramifications of such a device. Lin said lower, whisper-level intensities work fine, but the higher incapacitating levels expected by the military could fry more than a few brains out on the battlefield. "I would worry about what other health effects it is having," Lin said. "You might see neural damage."

And those "other uses" hinted at above? Try subliminal advertising; or suggestive subconscious comments that you don't really "hear" but can influence decision-making anyway. Or, alternatively, the beam can be ramped up to 11 and just kill you outright. WIN!

Fun Gizmodo Fact: The MEDUSA is useless against a raging pack of schizophrenics.

Picking on the dead guy: Tim Russert

2008-06-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

I know this is insensitive and crass, but before we all rush to canonize Tim Russert as a modern-
day media saint, am I allowed to point out that during the months leading up to the war in Iraq he presided over the worst failure of journalism in American history?

It's hard to imagine how someone could retain a reputation for being good at their job, when their complete failure to do their job enabled not only an illegal war in Iraq, but also systematic torture, a foreign policy that has made every American less safe, the destruction of the U.S. economy, and the attempted cancellation of our Constitution.

The biggest hit parade of Bush administration lies

-- Cheney's claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met an Iraq official in Prague, Rice's claim that the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud -- all happened across the desk from Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Those lies were that much more dangerous because they were broadcast, without being questioned, on a show with an inexplicable reputation for hard-headed journalism.

In fact, during the Scooter Libby trial, Cheney's former communications director testified that Meet the Press was their best forum for giving interviews because they were allowed to control their own message without being questioned.
And Russert's right-wing bias isn't limited to these past mistakes. In just the last couple months, he has:

• complained on MSNBC about viewers who were demanding some critical news coverage of John McCain, and told Don Imus that the media were giving McCain a "grace period" where they wouldn't cover his lies, mistakes, and corruption.

• smeared Barack Obama during a debate by reading some outrageous statements by Louis Farrakhan out loud to Obama, even after Obama interrupted him to renounce Farrakhan.

• forced MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to cancel an interview with Arianna Huffington about her new book.

I'm not glad that the man is dead or anything, and by all accounts he was been a decent person in many ways. But sentimentality is no excuse for rewriting history, and eulogizing Russert as a tough and serious journalist just isn't borne out by his history.

These steps could lower oil prices, but nobody'll take them

2008-06-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

As gasoline prices soar to new records, America's president — and the two men who hope to succeed him — are offering only partial or long-term solutions and ignoring three steps that many experts say could bring some relief now.

Americans began this workweek by crossing a dismal threshold, paying a once-unthinkable nationwide record average of $4.02 per gallon Monday for unleaded gasoline, with the prospect of even higher prices in months ahead.

On Monday, President Bush said one answer is to increase oil drilling in Alaska and offshore. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain's chief economic adviser renewed McCain's call to suspend the 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax. Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Independent experts, however, said that government could take at least three other steps that could force oil and gasoline prices down immediately. Neither Bush nor McCain nor Obama endorse any of them.

Perhaps the quickest action, the experts said, would be ordering curbs on financial speculation. Financial industry heavyweights have acknowledged in recent testimony before Congress that such speculation is driving oil prices higher.

Pension funds, endowments and other big institutional investors are pumping big money into index funds linked to commodities, including oil, driving up demand — and prices. The popular Goldman Sachs Commodities Index attracted $260 billion in investment last year, compared to $13 billion five years earlier.

Complicating any effort to harness that, about 30 percent of the trading in crude oil is done in "dark areas" — markets in London and Dubai — that aren't regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

President Bush could order the CFTC to regulate U.S. investments in those markets with a snap of his fingers, said Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and a former director of trading for the CFTC.

"Essentially this could be ended this afternoon if the Bush administration had the stomach to do it," he said. "Those abdications of responsibility and allowing these exchanges to trade in 'dark' markets ... provides an environment for speculators to thrive."

The CFTC is investigating the link between speculation and oil prices but hasn't scheduled any action.

A second partial solution would be to boost the supply of oil available on the market by releasing as much as 1 million barrels a day of oil now held in the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That step is being pushed by, among others, the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank run by several former Clinton administration officials.

Do that for 90 days — through the summer driving season when consumer demand for gasoline is highest — and the reserve would lose less than 15 percent of the oil held in case of national emergency.

"Put that on the market, and the price of oil will fall," said Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow at the center.

It's not entirely clear that U.S. refineries could handle all that extra oil, but it would signal to traders of oil contracts that the U.S. market is adequately supplied.

Finally, the Federal Reserve could act to boost the weak dollar, which has led oil producers to demand higher prices for oil, because oil generally is traded in dollars. Oil producers want higher prices to offset the cost of converting dollars into euros and other currencies that have grown stronger against the dollar.

The best way to bolster a currency is to boost interest rates, but the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to do that with America teetering on the brink of recession. The central bank in Europe, where growth is more robust, is poised to raise rates, however. That could weaken the dollar further, and drive oil prices even higher.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday will try to muster 60 votes to allow a vote on legislation that could significantly affect the oil industry and oil prices. The legislation would, among other things, instruct CFTC regulators to require investors to plunk down more of their own money if they want to speculate in oil markets.

Instead, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic adviser, told McClatchy that a "holiday from the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gasoline tax has lowered prices every time it's been tried "and it is felt all through the economy."

The idea of a gas-tax holiday has little traction in the Democratic Congress, however, and many economists oppose it as likely to spur consumption and make things worse.

Speaking in Raleigh, N.C., Obama on Monday repeated his call for a tax on high oil company profits to fund aid programs for the poorest Americans.

"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills," he said.

Longer term though, Obama said, the only answers are to increase use of alternative energy — solar, wind, biodiesel, clean-coal technology — and to increase fuel-mileage standards for vehicles and develop hybrid-electric cars, which will take time.

McCain's longer-term answers turn more toward increasing production of oil from offshore and from oil-shale deposits in the mountain West.

Pentagon Audit Finds $15 Billion in Iraq Funds Unaccounted For

2008-06-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

In a stunning accountability failure, out of $8.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer funded defense contracts for Iraq, $7.7 billion seems to be missing.

The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a "shocking" accountability failure.

Of 8.2 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the Defense Department's inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars.

The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report.

"We estimated that the army made 1.4 billion dollars in commercial payments that lacked the minimum documentation for a valid payment, such as properly prepared receiving reports, invoices, and certified vouchers," Deputy Inspector General Mary Ugone told a Congressional committee Thursday.

"We also estimated that the army made an additional 6.3 billion dollars of commercial payments that met the 27 criteria for payments but did not comply with other statutory and regulatory requirements."

The Pentagon also was found to have given away another 1.8 billion in Iraqi assets "with absolutely no accountability," said Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Investigators examined 53 payment vouchers and couldn't find even one that adequately explained where the money went."

Another five billion dollars spent on supporting the Iraqi security forces could not be properly traced, according to a November 2007 inspector general report.

"Taken together, the inspector general found that the Defense Department did not properly account for almost 15 billion dollars," Waxman said.

The disclosures sparked outrage among legislators and concern that U.S. taxpayers are deeply vulnerable to massive waste and fraud in the Pentagon's contracting system.

"The report has new shocking details of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money unaccounted for and likely wasted, which should be a wake-up call to Congress and the (President George W.) Bush administration that the status quo is unacceptable," Democratic senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

"American taxpayers are picking up the tab for Iraqi ministries, coalition governments, U.S. and foreign contractors, Iraqi security forces, and Blackwater and other U.S. security companies," Waxman said.

"In one remarkable instance, a 320-million-dollar payment in cash was handed over with little more than a signature in exchange."

The Pentagon to date has been appropriated 492 billion dollars to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Ugone.

X-rated content infiltrates Benicia library's story line for kids

2008-05-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

In most children's fairy tales, romantic relations between characters don't go much further than a kiss.

But a Contra Costa County mother and her daughter unexpectedly heard a raunchier tale on Thursday when they called the Benicia Public Library's story line.

Apparently someone had hacked into the library's dial-a-story service and replaced the fairy tale with a story more appropriate for the pages of a fetish porno magazine.

Geri Engberg said the story explicitly detailed an X-rated relationship between two animals, and laced the tale with various profanities.

Engberg said fortunately her 6-year-old daughter is too young to understand what she heard and she wasn't forced to explain why a dog and a pig were being intimate with each other.

"We call about eight or nine of these story lines and they are usually a short story for kids preschool aged or a little older," Engberg said. "Whoever did this clearly addressed the story to kids."

The story allegedly began with a man's voice telling boys and girls they were going to hear a story about bestiality, she said.

Engberg said she immediately alerted the Benicia Public Library and an employee promptly removed the message.

Library director Diane Smikahl said this is the first time she has heard of someone hacking into the dial-a-story line to change the message. A librarian usually records a new story, such as "The Three Bears," about once a week.

The system is like a voice mail box, requiring a four digit code to change the recording, she said

Benicia Police Sgt. John Daley also said he had not heard of something like this happening before in Benicia.

"Purposefully exposing children to that type of content and profanity is inconceivable," Daley said.

Daley said the incident is under investigation and the person responsible could face serious legal ramifications.

In addition to various misdemeanor offenses for annoying phone calls or obscene behavior directed towards children, the suspect could be charged with altering data on a computer system, which is a felony offense, Daley said.

There are no suspects at this time, he added.

Engberg said she will continue to call the story lines, but will be sure to hear at least the beginning of the story before letting her daughter listen.

"The whole idea is if parents don't have the time to read a story, it is something the kids do on their own," Engberg said. "But I guess this shows parents need to be aware of anything digital that someone could tamper with."

Smikahl said there are only two different librarians who read the stories, and that parents who call the line regularly should listen for a minute if they hear an unfamiliar voice.

"We want people to let us know right away if anything sounds unusual," Smikahl said.

Xbox and hookers on dad's credit card

2008-05-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

A 13-year-old boy from Texas who stole his father's credit card and hired two prostitutes has been convicted of fraud.

Newark teenager Ralph Hardy confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his dad's existing credit card company and taking his pals on a $30,000 spending spree, which culminated in them playing "Halo" on an Xbox with the hookers in a Texas motel.

The $1000-a-night prostitutes were released without charge but Ralph was given a three year community order upon his conviction on May 9.

The prostitutes told police they grew suspicious when the kids said they'd rather play Xbox than play with them.

Authorities were alerted to the motel by a delivery clerk who, after delivering supplies of Dr Pepper, Oreos and Fritos, was asked by the kids where they could hire some escorts.

The young lotharios explained they'd just won big at a "World of Warcraft" tournament and wanted to relax.

The delivery clerk called the police who arrived to find $3,000 in cash, electronic gadgets, an Xbox console and games, plus the two prostitutes.

Ralph reportedly told the oficers his dad wouldn't mind, because he'd turned 13 the previous week and he'd forgot to get him a present.

Ralph and Co. told the working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus.

They added that State law did not allow discrimination against the disabled so they had no right to refuse them.

Explaining why he ordered two escorts, Ralph said he thought it was the thing to do when you win a "World of Warcraft" contest.

The prostitutes ended up playing "Halo" with the kids instead of having sex with them.

Dr Pepper Will Give Everyone* in America a Free Soda If Axl Rose Releases New Guns N' Roses Album, Chinese Democracy, In 2008

2008-03-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

*Guitarists Slash and Buckethead Will Not Be Eligible For Free Soda

PLANO, Texas, March 26 -- Tired of a world in which Americans idolize wannabe singers and musicals about high schoolers pass as rock 'n roll music, Dr Pepper is encouraging (ok, begging) Axl Rose to finally release his 17-year-in-the-making belabored masterpiece, Chinese Democracy, in 2008.

In an unprecedented show of solidarity with Axl, everyone in America, except estranged GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead, will receive a free can of Dr Pepper if the album ships some time -- anytime! -- in 2008. Dr Pepper supports Axl, and fully understands that sometimes you have to make it through the jungle before you get it right.

"It took a little patience to perfect Dr Pepper's special mix of 23 ingredients, which our fans have come to know and love," said Jaxie Alt, director of marketing for Dr Pepper. "So we completely understand and empathize with Axl's quest for perfection -- for something more than the average album. We know once it's released, people will refer to it as "Dr Pepper for the ears" because it will be such a refreshing blend of rich, bold sounds -- an instant classic."

Show your support for Axl and get on the nightrain of encouragement at www.chinesedemocracywhen.blogspot.com

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

2008-03-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

James M. Kilts
CEO and President,
The Gillette Company

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.

Sure, we could go to four blades next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a thicker aloe strip and call it the Mach3SuperTurbo. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why!

You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the multi-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Gillette is the best a man can get.

What part of this don't you understand? If two blades is good, and three blades is better, obviously five blades would make us the best fucking razor that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the razor game by clinging to the two-blade industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five blades is the biggest chance of all.

Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to invent—I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more blades in there. I don't care how. Make the blades so thin they're invisible. Put some on the handle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth blade in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!

You're taking the "safety" part of "safety razor" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make razor history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that five blades can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. Hey, if I'm the only one who'll take risks, I'm sure as hell happy to hog all the glory when the five-blade razor becomes the shaving tool for the U.S. of "this is how we shave now" A.

People said we couldn't go to three. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Five's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Norelco, working on fucking electrics. Rotary blades, my white ass!

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Bic's wake and make pens. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Bic is the day I leave the razor game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die!

The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, shaving with anything less than five blades is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You'll be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your chin." Try "Your neck is going to be so friggin' soft, someone's gonna walk up and tie a goddamn Cub Scout kerchief under it."

I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which Gillette is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, five blades, sweet Jesus in heaven.

Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your mouth, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler. Here she comes: Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That's right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me—the second strip lathers. It's a whole new way to think about shaving. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edge—the razor's edge—and I feel like dancing.

Just give ME your money!!!

2008-03-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

As my (unbeknownst) three part series on fucked-up-things-I-found-and-observed-on-the-net comes to a close (and I attempt to recall another clever anecdote about my college days) I turn my (completely confused and ultimately irate) eyes to the world of eBay-ing.

I've been a fan of eBay since the moment I heard of it. As a pack rat and collector of (not really) valuable and/or interesting music, books and film (et. al) I equally love and hate the eBeast. There is definitely a small part of me that longs for the days when you actually had to LEAVE HOME to find rare and generally strange (junk) objects, but at the same time, GIVE ME WHAT I WANT NOW!

I generally buy and sell the aforementioned trivial items and have never really ventured into the...uh...exotic. I recalled someone once selling their soul and another their dignity and self respect for the cheap, so I decided to dig a bit deeper. Holy Shit.

All I can say before you see these "items" is this: If any of these appeal to you or put you in the mood to get into a bidding war I can save you the trouble, just send ME the god damned money! You obviously don't need it if you are willing to spend it on this bullshit.

Chicken Finger Shaped like a cock & balls $9.02

Obama Miracle Toast $67.60

The Great State of Nevada Corn Flake $9.99

Pirate Rot or Something Weird or Craft Material for ? $5.00

Bear Grylls “I drink piss” button (Rare)!! $4.99

(Not Pictured) Lucky Salami Slice $50.00

My Broken TOOTH!!! $3.50

Coupon for FROSTED CORN FLAKES, ALL STATES socks $1,250.00

ORANGE DOT....................IMPULSE BUY! $1.00

I can't continue. It's all just so ridiculous. Too much time, too much money...ugh.

Weird-a-pedia

2008-03-02T19:09:00.001-08:00

While working on my previous entry I found that rooting around the
net, and in particular Wikipedia, can be very enlightening.

The real basic stuff; a list of Homer Simpson's Jobs,
a bio on Hunter S.Thompson, information on chaos theory and such was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As time went on and page after page was flipped I began to realize the girth of information and limitless comedy hidden within the site.

What follows is what I came across in 8 to 10 hours of completely
random searching. Odd as they may seem I'm sure (with a few hours to kill) your finds could easily trump my own. But still, enjoy:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
is a grammatically correct sentence. Sentences of this type,
although not in such a refined form, have been known for a long time.
A classic example is the proverb "Don't trouble trouble until
trouble troubles you".

Tomacco is originally a fictional food that is half tomato and half
tobacco, from the 1999 episode "E-I-E-I-Do'h" of the animated
television series The Simpsons. The tomacco became real when it
was produced in 2003. The tomacco is one of the few made-up words in
The Simpsons that resulted in real life application.

Morton's toe is the common term for the second toe (second from
innermost) extending further than the great toe.

Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947) was a Wyandotte rooster (cockerel) that lived for 18 months after its head had been cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.

Logorrhoea is defined as an “excessive flow of words” and, when used medically, refers to incoherent talkativeness that occurs in certain kinds of mental illness, such as mania. The spoken form of logorrhoea is a kind of verbosity that uses superfluous or fancy words to disguise a useless or simple message as useful or intellectual, and is commonly known as “diarrhea of the mouth.”

Dark Side of the Rainbow (also known as Dark Side of Oz or
The Wizard of Floyd) is the name used to refer to the act of
listening to the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon
while watching the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz for moments where
the film and the album appear to correspond with each other.

Dwarf tossing is a bar attraction in which dwarfs wearing special
padded clothing or Velcro costumes are thrown onto mattresses or at
Velcro-coated walls. Participants compete to throw the dwarf the
farthest. The term "dwarf throwing" is sometimes used.

The Principle of Evil Marksmanship (also known as the Stormtrooper Effect among Star Wars fans) is that enemy marksmen in action films are often very bad shots and almost never harm the main characters. Defined as: “ The bad guys are always lousy shots in the movies. Three villains with Uzis will go after the hero, spraying thousands of rounds which miss him, after which he picks them off with a handgun.

Lewis is the name of a cat from Fairfield, Connecticut who garnered
mass media attention for being placed under house arrest in March 2006.

DISH is a town in Denton County, Texas, United States. The town has
a population of approximately 345. Formerly called Clark, the town
was officially renamed DISH (all capital letters) on November 16,
2005. In exchange for renaming the town, all residents of the town have
received free basic television service for ten years and a free DVR
from DISH Network.

Fan death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners. Fans manufactured and sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.

My Friend's Friends' Friends

2008-02-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are not yet on Friendster (both of you), it’s a website that maps out your personal network, i.e. everyone who you know through five degrees of separation or less. You create a profile of yourself, then create links to your friends’ profiles, who have links to their friends’ profiles, and so on and so on. You can just casually peruse through your network linearly, e.g. I go to my friend Amber's profile and click on her friend Rich and click on his friend Kelly who says in her bio that she’s a die-hard Slayer fan. So now I know that there is someone in my personal network who still listens to Slayer. I would have never guessed.

But that’s boring.

The real beauty of Friendster is the Gallery feature. It’s where you have full access to everyone in your network. In my case I have more than 150,000 people in my network within one to five degrees of separation of the friends I’ve listed. To narrow it down you can search the fields in people’s profiles like where they live, what their interests and hobbies are, what their occupation is, etc.

When I first discovered this feature I was excited to see what kind of interesting people my friends and their friends know. I restricted the Gallery search to people living in the Pittsburgh area, then clicked on the first profile that appeared, a guy named Milton. According to the occupation listed on his profile, Milton is a Straight-up Playa'. His interests include "talkin shit to you and your friends" and "keepin it gangsta." And evidently Milton is not alone in my network. A quick search revealed that next time I am in the mood to keep it gangsta, I can join Milton and 186 other friends of friends who have listed this under their interests.

There is also a feature where you can suggest that two people meet each other if you think they'd make a good match. So I could suggest that Xster, who likes "smoking all types of ill shit," meet Josh, who lists his occupation as Rolling Fatty Bluntz. Perhaps I could even meet these people myself! After all, I am only two degrees of separation from both of them. Though I don't need anyone to roll fatty bluntz or smoke ill shit with, they both also list "sleeping" and "eating" under their interests. Though it would never have occurred to me to list bodily functions as interests, at least it's a start.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was quite surprised to find my network full of people like Milton, Xster, and Josh. After a while it appeared that the collective interests of the people in my network could basically be boiled down to “creepin on hoez,” “Mr. T,” and the “Food Channel.” With a mix of bewilderment and morbid curiosity I continued to search through my network, seeing if there was something so outlandish that nobody I know listed as an interest. I was unsuccessful. In the half day I wasted on this pursuit, here were some of the favorite interests I learned my friends' friends have.

*knife fights

*boozin it up, collecting ded prez

*trying to talk like i'm one sick ass gangsta by saying, " holla like a playa!" and typing LiKe diS 2 gEt cHO aTtenShuN

*creepin on fools

*being a goddamned gangsta and bubblebaths and long walks on the beach

*getting pissed off about stuff

*poetry and porn

*jewish geography

*heroin

*big pimpin

(By the way, I have mentioned that I am a white person, right? And like most white people almost all of the folks I hang out with and such are white. Just wanted to get that out there....)

But more important than the prose of my acquaintances’ bios were their pictures. One of the things that you will quickly realize is that a picture really is worth a thousand words, and this is never more true than on Friendster. Many of the users need not even waste their efforts typing their bios. Their photos speak the loose string of misspelled words and expletives for them. One could guess that PoisonSexy, who chose a photo in which she's wearing a leather bustier that emphasizes the indecipherable tattoo on her chest, lists only "PARTAYing, chillin, porn" under interests. And it's not necessary to read the Relationship Status line to know that the 30-something-year-old man dressed as a robot is "single." The picture of the fat girl kissing her somewhat attractive friend sends the message loud and clear, “I may be obese, but at least I’m bisexual, and that’s hot, right?” And the countless women who post photos of themselves in bikinis that are smaller than an eye patch don’t even need to write the words, “I will do pretty much anything if you’ll just pay attention to me.”

About every five minutes you’re on this site you’ll find yourself thinking, “Who the hell is friends with these freaks?” And that, in a nutshell, is the whole sad sack. The answer is always, “MY friends.”

"Enjoy Us Now! We Won't Be Here Next Semester!"

2008-02-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

It's now Sunday.

On Monday I would officially be in college.

At some point I found myself out in the hall in front of my 4th floor room. In front of me was a tall, blond guy who just so happened to be wearing a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt. "That's funny", I thought to myself, "I don't remember him from Gabe's last night." There were only a skant few of us...the song Today wouldn't be released for two more days...

I said something about his shirt, he said something about seeing them in Des Moines the night before I saw them, and then he asked me if I wanted to go get some food at Perkin's with he and his buddies from home. What the hell else was I gonna do?

We hit it off right away and before lunch was over we were pretty much BFF's and gay for each other and etc. Between our common interests (film, music, smoking, drinking, misc) and the fact that we didn't know anyone else and lived across the hall from one another it was decided that we should "hang".

I think we got back to the dorm around 3:30 pm. After wandering around and finding nothing terribly interesting to do we went back up to our rooms to look through each others stuff and continue getting to know one other until we found something better to do.

About 5 minutes into it I found a box that he had brought down from Altoona with him full of Absolut Vodka bottles. Ah ha! Something better to do!

Justin put on some music (probably Faith No More or something of that ilk) and we brainstormed how we might spend our last night before college began. It didn't take very long. I think the conversation went something like this:

Justin: "Whatya wanna do?"
Me: "Hmm...we could do Vodka shots until we pass out..."

And away we went.

Now, chain drinking was a very popular method back in my day for under-aged drinkers to get drunk faster, and that was the method we chose. Basically it's a If You Take a Drink, I Take a Drink and so on and so forth. The afternoon went by in a flash.

I don't know how long it took EXACTLY (didn't seem like a long time) but before we knew it 3 full bottles were empty and we were FUCKED UP. Too fucked up. Too fucked up for Burge, too fucked up for the night before college, and definitely too fucked up for dinner service. So we decided to go to dinner service.

The next half an hour or so is a tad unclear, but I do remember choosing cereal as my dinner and feeling that I had picked wisely. Justin, on the other hand, thought that Spaghetti was the right move. Actually it wasn't JUST spaghetti, but for some reason spaghetti with chocolate milk sounded particularly appetizing to him. Or at least it did until we walked out of the cafeteria and began heading toward the lobby.

Some of what happened after that I remember very clearly, the rest was relayed to us in the days and weeks that followed by new acquaintances.

As we rounded the corner Justin began to make sounds and motions that made me think that perhaps he wasn't feeling well. There's a look that some people get, and maybe you've seen this look, when they just KNOW that they are about to blow chunks where they stand. He was making that look. His pace quickened and, after a cough that became a mouthful of spaghetti and chocolate milk and vodka and Perkin's, he started looking for a bathroom.

Luckily for him there was one just down the hall in the Burge lobby. Unfortunately, it was the ladies room.

I tried to help as best I could. Guiding, giving encouragement, getting people out of the way, but as soon as the bathroom door opened and the first shot sprayed everything in sight like a fire hose trying to put out a blaze, I let him have some personal time.

I can only imagine the experience he had in there. With the sound of my drunken laughter fading as the door closed behind him and the knowledge that it was just beginning, I like to think that he was too wasted to have considered his predicament too much. But you never know. If he CAN remember it, he isn't talking and it's probably for the best.

As for me, I found the nearest couch-back I could and passed out quickly. I awoke hours later with Justin near on the floor and someone nudging me to see if I was alive and alright.

I'm not sure how I got back and into my dorm room that night, but I do know that at 11:30 am the next morning in McBride Hall there was a Philosophy class with an empty seat and my college "experience" had begun...

There's No Accounting for Taste

2008-02-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Iowa City on Friday, August 29th, 1993.

The sum total of people I knew in town was 2. One was my ex-girlfriend, who had left me the previous spring for a Mustang-driving-sweater-tied-around-the-neck assclown. The other was a moderately overweight male Chicagoan who I had gotten loaded with at Rocky Roccoco's in the "pedmall" and who, later that evening, attempted to crawl into bed with me whilst sleepwalking over orientation weekend. I knew what had to be done...find the smokers.

Burge seemed like a silly place to me and after wandering around a bit I couldn't help but notice how many WHITE people there were. White people as far as the eye could see. PRETTY white people too! I told a curious party that I was from Arkansas and they looked at me as if I might be lying. I guess my shoes, overall cleanliness, and similar skin pigment through them off, but not soon after the questions were flying...

"Wow! Where's that?"
"Do you drive cars and stuff?"
"There's an OUR-Kansas?"

It's what I would come to expect from Iowa and I'm From Chicago but Not Really Chicago More Like Downer's Grove or Willamette Chicago folk over my years there. People throw around terms like "Number One in Education" too much I think.

The next night I saw The Smashing Pumpkins alone at Gabe's Oasis with a surprisingly small crowd.

On Sunday I met Justin.