You'd think that the Miss Teen USA pageant would be a total whack-fest for me, but it isn't. I don't even follow or watch this shit, but still manage to hear about it in one way or another. Apparently, bitching about this pageant is becoming a yearly tradition. This year's crop was less than stellar once again. Yeah, there were some who were okay and a couple that were genuinely hot, that's about it. Like John Kerry says: America can do better. Except that we can't, because we're stupid.

What the fuck is up with this? Is it just some kind of bullshit guilt complex? The people in charge of this shit must have had a meeting where someone said "Ummm, ah, you know, maybe we shouldn't be putting teenage girls on display in bathing suits and stuff, so, uhhhhh, we can make up for it by putting up mostly unattractive ones."

Of course, that doesn't excuse all the other pageants out there that never get it right, not just the Underage Poon Pageant. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have sex with a lot of the contestants in these pageants since, frankly, I am not in a position where it's practical to be all that choosy (that doesn't mean I have no standards, mind you, EE or not). Still, it's not like many of them are what we'd call top-tier, at least in the superficiality department. When it comes to non-superficialities, though, they're all winners - I know that each and every one is really smart.

If by some miracle there are a few hotties in any of these contests, they're pretty much guaranteed not to win. I know, I know, this is all coming down to my personal tastes and preferences, but fuck that: I have good, nay, the best, taste in everything.

Things are so bad that when it comes to U.S. pageants I had to come up with my own scheme for picking a winner: give it to Miss New Jersey. Even if she's not the hottest or even hot to begin with (although MNJ from Miss America a couple of years ago was very hot; naturally she didn't win), just give it to her since everyone from New Jersey hates themselves, their lives, and their state, and they deserve to have at least one thing go right for them in their miserable existences. Except for that chick from That 70's Show, because she fucking loves her home state for some reason.

But yeah, none of the women/girls in these shows are ever all that hot. Damn near all of them are too fucking tall, goddammit. And for Chirst's sake, give them some fucking food. Of course, I came up with ideas upon ideas for better contests, and I'll be getting to those real soon now (RSN).

Yes, of course, these pageants are sexist and shallow and blah blah blah. We're a shallow society, and we all like looking at pretty people, men and women alike. When we're going to go shallow - as we so often do - we should at least get it right. I know what you're saying: "But these pageants are evil! They make ugly people feel bad about themselves!" When it comes to that, all I can say is to just to what I do: get used to it. And besides, some of you out there may very well be attractive, so shut the fuck up!

"The Garden State? Yeah, sure. If you're growing smokestacks yes."
- Carlin

The Colorado Rockies find the cure for cancer.

I don't know what the most pathetic aspect of this is: that "lez" was such a big deal, that we actually have a Scrabble championship, that there's a National Scrabble Association, or that anyone had an actual "emergency meeting" over a game of Scrabble. There are probably about a billion more things I could list, but I don't have time since I have to hurry and get my ass to the Rock, Paper, Scissors Championship.

It is the year 2000. But where are the flying cars? I was PROMISED flying cars. I don't see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why?

MSN search:

Prosilon

For anyone not in the know (meaning, anyone who hasn't been subjected to about a billion of these fucking commercials), Prosilon is one of those stupid products for "natural" "male enhancement." Some herbal shit that supposedly allows you to (finally) get your monster wang on.

This, in and of itself, does not make for an amusing search. The search becomes amusing, however, as its origin was nasa.gov. Look, I know you guys occasionally have trouble "getting it up," but the things you need to get up aren't what Prosilon is targeting.

The end of the (crap) line.

For once, I'm thinking maybe he didn't mis-speak. At best, this is a Freudian slip.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's misstatement "just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."

"Straightforward"? "Plainspoken"? I think the word phrase you're looking for is RETARDED. Or, if you prefer, FUCKING RETARDED.

"But the American people know this president speaks with clarity..."

Is McClellan trying to write our jokes for us? It's always fucking irritating to see (apparently) educated people saying shit they know to be patently false. Bush speaks with the "clarity" of Porky Pig in all his stuttering glory. Coupled with some kind of learning disability.

We'll take the Central.... Next year.

So I've all but given up on getting my shit together and adding new links to 'blogs that are kind enough to link me. This is partly out of laziness, and partly because fucking Technorati now shows not only the links other people make to my 'blog, but also the links my blog makes to my 'blog. Namely, all the archive links on the front page. That makes it a pain in the ass to sift through and find actual incoming links. Now, I could switch to "archive monthly" to try and bring the signal-to-noise ratio up, but fuck that. Technorati's the one that sucks; why should I have to change?

Now that I think about it, not wanting to sift though the self-links also counts as laziness. Earth to short bitch: What is your fault? This is!

Anyway, maybe someday I'll get back on it and add to that list of links. Until then, this 'blog gets special mention. If for no other reason, I'm linking on the strength of this post about her cat, who she refers to as "Arthur, King of the Kittons." That's... Quite possibly the funniest thing ever. "Do not taunt happy fun blog" is a great line. And there seems to be a decent amount of drinking involved just on the front page, which we always like to see. Alas, the 'blogmaster is a Cards fan, so that ends that romance.

The joys of broad generalizations

Google search:

imitation crab california rolls pregnancy

Okay, so this is the second time I've gotten this search hit, and I still don't know what the fuck it's about. I really don't care enough beyond then initial amusement factor to actually find out. I presume that it's either some kind of craving thing, or you can somehow get knocked up from California rolls made with imitation crab. If it's the former, then all you preggo bitches can head my way, because I make a mean California roll, the not-anywhere-near-famous "Horse Cock" roll (patent pending).

Nice. It's not every day that I get a reasonable excuse to use the word "preggo" in normal conversation. Even though this is neither.

While spending six seconds trying to find out what the hell this is about, I came across this messageboard. Okay, so I can understand pregnant women wanting someplace to go for support and shit like that. But the need to share sonograms and how far along you are and what kind of cretin you're having and blah blah blah is nothing but sick, self-important shit.

Oh, and while we're at it, like Bill Maher says: pregnant women aren't sexy. There's nothing wrong with being pregnant, unless of course if you're stupid and/or about to give birth to yet another stupid child. But if a guy says pregnant women are sexy, he's probably bullshitting.

As far as I'm concerned, Get Smart is, like, the best TV show ever. So they had better not fuck this up. I can't decide yet if Steve Carell works or not, but he does work better than Wil Ferrell who, while a fucking genius, is not Maxwell Smart.

"Magic Kingdom" indeed

Ignoring the usual reasons why I'd post something of this nature, checking out this story is worth it just for the picture of the defense attorney.

Today's Penny Arcade is one of those strips that's so good you have to close your office door for a few minutes to laugh it off and wipe the tears from your eyes. Quite possibly the best PA ever.

So... Is this something to be worried about? Maybe not, if most people have already made up their minds who they're going to vote for. The thing I see as worrisome is that part of the aim of the convention was to give undecided voters some exposure to Kerry. The ultimate goal being, of course, to try and swing them to the Kerry camp. If there are many voters out there who are still ambivalent (and I, of course, have no real idea as to whether or not there are), the convention and Kerry's speech, in all their lackluster, didn't seem to do much to convince these people.

Newsweek found that voters are deadlocked at 46% over who they would trust more to handle the situation in Iraq. In March, Mr Bush had a 15-point lead.

I don't understand how Bush ever had much of a significant lead in this category once we were, like, two weeks past the fall of Baghdad (and I'm even being kind of generous giving him two weeks). Yeah, Iraq hasn't completely gone up in flames (yet), but it hasn't exactly been a pretty picture. There's been one fuck-up after another and nothing but -- as my former friend and girlfriend impregnator Trent Reznor would say -- lies, lies, lies.

Bush seems to get way too much credit for shit just because he's already there. He hasn't done a particularly stunning job on many things; indeed, he's done a right shit job on a lot of things. But people seem to think "I don't care if it might do some good, I don't want to go through the hassle of changing over." Basically, what a lot of it comes down to for many is that Bush has experience being president, and Kerry does not. Kind of a shitty catch-22. I would argue, of course, that Bush had no experience when he was given the job, and he still doesn't seeing as how Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and Rove and Asscroft and everyone else actually run the show. In the end, Bush has more experience pretending to be president, and that's about it.

Regardless of whether or not Kerry's flaccid bounce has any meaning, I can already hear Sean Hannity ranting and raving about it. It'll go nice with some of the shit he's been repeating ad nauseam as of late, such as:

1. "John Edwards was a trial lawyer." (Yup, 'cause we've never had any lawyer politicians before.)
2. "John Edwards was never the lead sponsor on any piece of legislation that became law." (So clearly, he hasn't done anything with his time in the Senate. Out of curiosity, how common is it for Senators to manage this feat in their first term? Especially when they're out-gunned by the opposition? I'm asking since I honestly don't know.)
3. "John Kerry is the #1 liberal in the Senate and John Edwards is #4." (That doesn't mean ANYTHING.)

To borrow a joke from Steve Marmel (even though he was talking about Al Sharpton in a different sense), Sean Hannity is like the conservative See-and-Say. Just pull his string, and some stupid bullshit that the right has adopted as one of its anti-left mantras will come spewing out of his mouth.

The Vatican, that bastion of enlightenment, has come out with a statement against feminism. Now, we can sit down and have an actual discussion on the pros and cons of the feminist movement, but I don't think this is it.

Being the skeptical, untrusting asshole that I am -- not to mention having seen some of the Church's earlier work -- I can't help but see all their "reasoning" as being a bullshit smokescreen for what they really want to say: that they're anti-woman. You can dress it up with all the compliments you like, but I just don't see how a 37-page statement could be anything but the cry of someone with an ax to grind.

As such, I see this as a not-so-clever ruse just like that infuriating stance they took where they said that condoms actually help the spread of AIDS (in case you missed that episode, yes, they really did that). That instance, of course, wasn't about AIDS since the Church could give less than a shit about people dying in Africa. They were more concerned then with finding a "rationale" for their anti-contraception stance, and they're more concerned now with trying to put women in the place they think they belong.

Well, okay, this situation isn't quite like the condoms and AIDS matter. I do think the underlying principle is that the Church is anti-woman. I mean, no female priests? What kind of fucking stupid shit is that? Oh yeah, misogynistic shit. The only reason to keep women from being priests is because you think they're somehow inferior. Period. Anyway, in addition to the misogyny, they probably really are pissed off over that erosion of the "Christian family" bullshit. That's the kind of nonsense that the Church really goes for. It's always some dumb crap about families and children with these people, or at least it is when they're not badmouthing women or ignoring the Holocaust or something.

"While most people in the U.S. think in psychological and sociological terms, the Vatican thinks and talks in philosophical and theological terms which most Americans find difficult to understand."

Yeah, difficult to understand, or, stupid.

Hey, you know what? Fuck the Christian family. I've had just about enough of them. If feminism really is seriously damaging the "traditional" family -- which it isn't -- then I'm all for it. How exactly in the hell is feminism causing problems with the family structure? By causing men and women to be "adversaries" and encouraging women to make "demands"? Men and women have been fighting since the dawn of time, and women have been making demands since slightly before that. With regards to those notions feminism is bringing nothing new to the table, so tell me, what is feminism doing to destroy families?

The drive for equality makes "homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality," the Vatican said.

What the fuck? We were talking about feminism, and now homosexuality and heterosexuality are the same thing? How did... Where... Huh?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right - this is also an excuse for the Church to do a little gay-bashing. Hey, gotta give them credit for efficiency in hitting misogyny and homophobia all in one fell swoop. All while trying to sound all smart and shit by using big -- yet meaningless -- words like "polymorphous."

I don't see how striving towards men and woman being equals in our society has nothing to do with making a huge statement on sexual orientation. There's no logic train to follow there, something that's totally unsurprising since religion never relies upon logic for ANYTHING. What, are they trying to say that if we let women think for themselves that they'll decide to abandon their marriages so that they can start chowing down on box instead of not sucking their husbands' dicks? That's really about all that I can come up with. Whatever the case: puuuure bullshit. It's like the fucking underpants gnomes, for chrissakes:

Phase 1: Feminism
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Fag city!

Again... Huh? Like I said -- it's all about bullshit excuses to tangentially get into what they really want to talk about. But if they must, so be it.

First off, they say that feminism calls into question the "natural two-parent structure of mother and father" which gives homosexual couples equal status to heterosexual couples. I'm all for that equality coming about, but feminism, by their "logic," isn't what's doing it. Feminism, at least the way I view it, isn't trying to say that men and women are exactly the same. It's just trying to say that men and women should be equal socially, not biologically. As such, a mother and father are still mother and father. That paradigm isn't broken down by feminism.

Okay, I guess I helped answer my own question there. The Church and I have a fundamental difference in how we view feminism. Which is strange since we usually find ourselves in agreement. Since they see feminism as trying to make women and men the same in every way, then I suppose I can see how they arrive at their false conclusion about homosexuality. It's still stupid since they're either working off of a bad premise, or they're purposely putting forth a false assumption so that they can rip on gays

So in the end, maybe the family shit is just a smokescreen for woman-bashing, and the woman-bashing is just a smokescreen for the gay-bashing. Man, that is fucking efficient.

Continuing with the gay theme, no one has ever said that homosexuality and heterosexuality are "virtually equivalent." No more than anyone with a brain has ever said that men and women are exactly the same. "Man and woman are different." Thanks, Church. We already knew that, and no one is trying to say otherwise. But just because people are different -- whether they be man or woman, gay or straight, star-bellied or plain-bellied -- doesn't mean they should be treated any differently.

But, of course, the Church doesn't like any of this equality talk. They want subordinate women and eternally damned homosexuals. All so they can keep their boring, ignorant Christian family. Which, by the way, isn't threatened by any of what they're complaining about.

Dirty birdie

Is there anything more corrupt than the Olympics? From IOC officials being bribed in city selection to judges being bribed in competition to athletes getting juiced up for medals, the games are fucking dirty. And not the good Onegai Twins kind of dirty, either.

Google search:

"seventeen"+"winger"+"disgusting"

Yeah, Winger is pretty awful, but still my heroes because of that song. This Google searcher, on the other hand, is not my hero. I'm sick and tired of dumbass searchers who put single words in quotes. That doesn't do anything, dipshit. I've said it before and I'll say it again: we've had the net in full-force for several years now. It's time to get a grasp of the basics.

I kept hearing this ad tonight for Napster. In it, some kid bemoans that "My girlfriend keeps saying that I'm too... Analog." And to that I say: Fuck you! Analog is where it's at!

Upon going to Napster's site, all I can think of is, man, what a sad state of affairs this is. Remember when Napster used to be about freedom and choice and being a rebel, and now it costs fuckin' money and shit?

Instead of going off on the whole P2P debate, I'm just going to be ultra-lazy and link an old post which I've re-linked before since it still pretty much sums up how I feel.

Well, I will add this: the recording industry's efforts have probably been decently successful. Naziistic tactics often are. Shit, I won't download music or movies off of P2P networks since I'm fucking paranoid, so they've got me beat. Of course, they didn't need to beat me since, like I said, I'm a weirdo fundamentalist. ETP knows where I'm at -- we both like having the "official" release with liner notes and shit since we're obsessive compulsives. But, of course, that's us.

Alright, so the DNC is pretty much over. I saw most of the "big" speeches, except for those on Monday night. That kinda pisses me off, since I would have liked to have seen Al Gore's speech. Al Gore is fucking funny, and I'm not being sarcastic. The guy's a comic's comic, which means that he's hilarious but people just don't get him. You don't need to know why Al Gore is funny, you just need to know that he's funny.

I expected the week's speeches to contain a bunch of empty rhetoric and future broken promises (should they get elected). You know, the stuff campaign speeches - whether from the Rs or the Ds - are made of. Some brief impressions of some of those speeches:

• Bill Clinton: We already know how I feel about Bill Jeff's speech. Man's got skills.
• Barak Obama: We've all heard the phrase "rising star" used to describe this guy so much that we'd kinda like a fucking star to fall on us to get it to stop. That's the media's fault for not being able to come up with anything new, because the tag is clearly not without merit. This guy's got some skills, too. He's articulate (unlike Bush), energetic (unlike Kerry), and passionate (unlike, well, damn near everyone). He had that line about how "There is no Liberal America, and a conservative America, there is the United States of America." Being a liberal, I of course hate America, but that line was fucking slick.
• Teresa Heinz Kerry: The woman is smart, the woman is rich, and the woman damn sure has her own agenda. And you know what? I like that. Such a stark contrast to that dumb bitch Laura Bush, perpetually living in her husband's shadow (and what a pathetic shadow to live in, I might add). I'm -- dare I say it -- rather turned on by Teresa Heinz Kerry. I know what you're saying: "Isn't she a bit old... Especially for you?" While I must admit that she's well past those formative years I'm so fond of, and while I have to say I'm not physically attracted to her (although the accent doesn't hurt), I can't help but go for a woman like that. Sure, docile and non-combative sounds like a good deal in theory, but there's no fun in that racket. Teresa's purpose was, ostensibly, to help us peer into the more personal side of John Kerry, which she really didn't do much of. That's okay -- I'm not expecting much of that at this point. I'm just happy knowing we'll have one, if not two, sets of balls in the White House should Kerry manage to pull this election off.
• Howard Dean: The Democrats need to wheel this guy out a little bit more, because the guy can still get a crowd going. Of course, they have to control his appearances, because we don't want people to think too much about the Scream Heard Round the World seeing as how anger and emotion are some kind of federal offenses nowadays.
• Ronald Reagan, Jr: Ron Reagan was there, of course, because of his name. Even if everyone knows it was a plant, his presence was still a good move on the part of the Ds. My favorite part about that was listening to Michael Reagan later bitching about Ron Jr.'s speech. All I could think during Michael's commentary was COUGH*bitteradoptedchild*COUGH. Oh, and Mike: I am so going to fuck your daughter.
• John Edwards: Every time I see this guy, the first thing out of my mouth is "Goddamn it that guy's good-looking." Seeing as how his oldest daughter is nothing to write home about and the Kerry daughters are, well, let's just leave that one alone, I think the one I'd most want to have sex with out of the two families is John Edwards. All bullshit aside, though, he does add some of the energy that Kerry's campaign desperately needs. His speech was, of course, full of lots of talk and promises and light on substance. Again, expected. Oh, and it included the one thing I hate more than anything, whether it's coming from the left or the right: promises to "destroy" the terrorists. That is nothing but bullshit macho posturing, and I wish everyone would just knock it off. Just say you're going to fight terrorism and then go out and do it, okay? I don't need promises that are pretty much impossible. Still, the speech Edwards gave was pretty good - nothing spectacular, but right about where it needed to be. And hey, have you heard that he was a trial lawyer?
• John Kerry: Much like the speech his running mate gave, it was heavy on promises and light on substance. For the billionth time, that's expected. You could tell he was nervous in the beginning, but he settled in and rode the speech out quite nicely. There was nothing particularly inspiring in the speech, nothing unexpected. Once again, it was what it needed to be. He covered a decent number of bases and got the crowd into it. He made a point to call out the Saudis, which I'm always up for. Also, his handling of religion, by quoting Lincoln who (apparently) said something to the effect of how we should not believe that we have God on our side but instead should hope that we're on the side of God, was pretty smooth. I don't know if the speech will help the Kerry cause at all, but it shouldn't hurt.

One obvious thing, though. Every single speaker? Orders of magnitude better than Bush and his rhetorical skills. Everyone on stage was way smarter and more qualified to be president, and that includes Edwards's two young children.

So yup, that's about it. Blah blah blah blah... Democrats. Speaking of Democrats, you're never going to see as many Democrats and leftists on Fox News as you saw over the past few days. One thing about Fox News is that they normally try to make it look as if they're "Fair & Balanced," whether it's DNC time or not. This, of course, is a full and total scam. Look, Fox, I don't care if you're right-wing, I honestly don't. As I pointed out in that last audio post, I've learned to have a damn good time with that fact. There's bias everywhere, and we just need to be smart enough to realize that and do what we can with it.

When you have people like Gerondo and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly as your main voices, you're fucking right-wing. When you have Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, editors of The Weekly Standard -- described as being a "must read" at the White House seeing as how it's their fucking script -- as two of the panelists for your DNC commentary, you're right-wing to the core. Just own up to it, okay? When I disagree with you, sure, I'm going to get pissed; that's what I do. But I don't get infuriated until you start trying to bullshit about who and what you are. If I wanted someone to lie to me, I'd just get myself a girlfriend.

Newt was on Hannity and Colmes one night. Colmes doesn't get his name scratched out this week, as he was actually showing some balls for a change, partly since he had some backup (much as I am more of a loudmouth when ETP is close by because I know he'll keep me from getting killed). Gingrich was pushing the idea that the DNC was a "makeover convention," a phrase coined by Republican National Committee chairman and former lobbyist extraordinaire Ed Gillespie. Newt contradicted himself, though, when he went off about how not diverse the DNC was, as opposed to how diverse the Republican convention is going to be. The diversity of the R convention being, naturally, a total sham. As Bill Maher pointed out when he was recently on Larry King, at least the Ds put people up there who represent who they are. Putting up people like Rudy Guilliani and Governor Arnold for the R convention is bullshit. Those guys, while Republicans, are much further left than the ticket that's going to be put on display at the RNC next month.

One thing that was pointed out was that the Democrats were definitely going with a positive convention motif and keeping the Bush bashing to a finite but limited quantity. Was it a mistake to play (relatively) nice instead of going on the offensive? Tough call. The Ds are in a bind. They need to be positive (supposedly; I think that mindless "positivity" is bullshit, but we all know how I am) but at the same time critical of Bush and where we're at. I think Kerry did a good job of tackling this issue in his speech, however briefly, when he said that it was cynical to think that America couldn't do better no matter where we find ourselves at right now. The tactic to run with was a toss-up in many ways, but I can't help but come away unsatisfied. The Ds are doing what they do best, being limp dicks about everything. But I can at least give them some credit since they are stuck with a shitty decision, although they did do quite a bit (or quite a little, depending on your perspective) to put themselves into that position.

All throughout the convention, and especially tonight, all I could think was "Kerry & Edwards, you guys have got to get this done." Yeah, I know, I complain about the Ds being perpetually flaccid, but that sadly seems better than a rock-hard administration that loves nothing more than fucking this country (and not to mention the rest of the world) up the ass. Much like the Ds with the direction to take their convention, Americans are left with a shitty predicament come this November. In the end, I'm less than enthused about a Kerry administration, but I'm fucking stoked compared to when I think about a second Bush term.

Yeah, I know, I've said that over and over again, even moreso than many other things here. But shit, that's all I've got. Besides, I'm trying to be pooooositiiiive. Man, fuck this bullshit.

Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown. More Ghostbusters figures on the NECA website.

MSN search:

fuck my tits

Present them.

New GYWO.

Oh, holy christ. Then there's the picture in this thread. Just scroll down a bit and you'll know what I'm talking about. The look on that guy's face is priceless.

Me Grimlock

Okay, so this here isn't really an adult link per se, but it will probably get you some strange looks at work. Or, depending on where you work, this may get some laughs. Anyway, found this on Galvin's messageboard. Depending on Grimlock's intentions, Prime is either about to feel really good or really bad.

Speaking of Galvin, looks like that ship has sailed. Almost. Bastard wouldn't even write the last post while in Japan, which is actually pretty appropriate. Hopefully that kid's narcissism will win over and he'll keep writing once he's back in the land of Arby's.

Yeah, good point for any of us (myself included) getting a little too excited over the possibility of not having gone after the "right" country, potentially helping give Team Bush the excuse and the support to start yet another war.

Of course, I don't know how the hell they could start another war - I doubt there's anyone out there who can deny that we're stretched thin. But, of course, TB might be willing to give it a try anyway. After all, none of them or any of their loved ones are going to get maimed or killed, and there's always the draft.

16th trimester be damned

I check the messageboard every once in awhile, expecting to find nothing new. Typically, I am not disappointed. For some reason, a couple of random posts showed up for the first time since fucking April. Both on the same day, no less. One post was the following nugget of wisdom:

Obviosly...

It's come to our attn taht tihs board is gei as fuk.

Please desist.

Thanks for that, chief. Hopefully the board will go back to being unused and unwanted once again, and hopefully this kid's mother finally makes good on her threats to have an abortion.