Pancake City

My prediction for the next Mark Trail plotline: Mark trashes his house in a drunken rage after poachers replace the bottled water in his fridge with moonshine. Although he only has a sip, the destructive powers of alcohol prove cataclysmic as Mark spears a badger with a fork and sits on it like a whoopee cushion. After he sobers up, he realizes he lost his pictures receipt and spends the next two weeks (36 panels) looking for it before the plot can advance.

[looking under seat cushion] “Is it here? Nope.” [inside sock drawer] “Is it here? Nope.” [under mail] “Is it here? Nope.” Tomorrow: Will it be under the rug???

Enterprise: “We’ll pick you up. Unlike your stinking friends.”

Arby’s: “What are you eating? No, really. What are you eating? We don’t have a clue. Meat?”

Budweiser: “True. False. False. True. Statements: Budweiser tastes like horse urine, Budweiser contains no horse urine, Budweiser contains absolutely no horse urine, you’re drinking horse urine. “

If you post your own ideas, I’ll be happy to steal your slogans and eliminate all traces of your creativity by deleting your comment. I can do that. I have the power.

One reason for the sparse posts lately is that I’m working on a column. It has been more difficult to churn out than I thought it would be. I feel like I’m in college again, distracting myself by web browsing and suddenly urgent tasks like alphabetizing the books on my shelves so it will be easier to find Ray Romano’s memoir “Everybody Loves Me” when I need it.

Hear ye, hear ye. From this moment forth, all posts shall be written using the style guide of The Associated Press. Any editors or neurotics are given free reign to waste time in an attempt to find stylistic flaws in my perfect prose.

In other words, I’m trying to learn AP style and, after the rage dies down, I’ll be grateful for any help pointing out my mistakes.

Dear person who found this site searching for “who+told+you+you+could+eat+my+cookies”:

Arnold, Gray Davis told me I could eat your cookies. And guess what? Davis just passed a 47% cookie tax…on high-faluting, fancy cookies. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Because of you, he’s a man with nothing left to use. Tomorrow: 117% increase on car models with ‘mm’ in its name. Bummer, huh? Also, if you compare tax dollars to cookies beforehand, this would make a great line in a debate: “I have one thing to say to Gray Davis. Who told you you could eat my cookies?”

Dear people who found this site searching for “mo+rocca+pictures”, “pictures+of+mo+rocca”, and “mo+rocca+gay”:

1. I don’t know if he’s gay. Really. I don’t. I checked the guidebook. He’s not listed.

2. Are you sure you’re not looking for porn star Mo Cocca?

3. Well, OK then. If you’re going to come here anyway, you might as well get what you’re looking for.

Dear people(!) who found this site searching for “poop+on+a+pancake”:

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Once, while eating in a crab restaurant, I remarked to a friend how leveling our wooden mallets against these creatures served in caskets of Old Bay was as close as we would come to the caveman. Felling a tiger with a spear has been replaced with bits of shell hitting our bibs and the floor where grass once lied underneath.

An insightful observation, I thought. A few seconds later, almost out of earshot, I heard a man make almost the same comment. He didn’t overhear me. I realized what I said was an obvious observation, one that comes to most people who have eaten crabs and know the caveman archetype.

On that note, I searched for “saruman hamas leader” in Google. Six hundred hits.

I just want to point out that some crazy person left a comment for each post on the front page.

The past two days have been sunny and gorgeous. And the D.C. weather forecasters are going through hurricane withdrawal.

BOB RYAN: “Storm tonight. Will there be high wind gusts? Tune in at 11:00.”

SUE POLKA: [spinning a weather map on a pencil] “Uh-oh. Looks like a hurricane is coming.”

DOUG HILL: [twirling around the studio] “If you were in the Bahamas now, this is what would be happening to your house. [picks up Maureen Bunyan's notes, scatters them across studio. As he stumbles towards the camera, Hurricane Hill crashes to the floor and enters into a tropical depression. The sports reporter makes fun of his tears.]

Update:

Just kidding! Doug’s A-OK! And he’s backlit more than Jesus.

One blogger has a Cute Dead Guy of the Week section that shows portraits of men from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the men looks surprisingly modern. Perhaps it is a coincidence that he was an anarchist. Perhaps not.

When did Saruman join Hamas?

How did that get in there?

One of the most interesting times in politics is the first few weeks of a campaign of a threatening candidate like Clark. The extra media attention reveals early campaign flubs and waffling that go unnoticed in traditional campaigns.

Also, you get to see the miscues of his opponents as they work out the best way to attack him.

I have no opinion of Clark yet, aside that it’s odd that a man who considered running for several months has only started to develop his positions on domestic issues. But this attack on Clark made me smile.

The fun version: Read this opinion piece in The Daily Standard, and then the first paragraph of the Newsweek essay (by conservative Howard Fineman) it links to as a reference. Figure out the logical fallacy. Laugh.

The easy version: Read this summary of what happened on TPM.

I have sunk to a new low.

Since I so publicly called Isabel–what was it, oh yes–a pussy, and bet my Mom five dollars its effect would be no worse than a severe thunderstorm for D.C., I’m due to say that I was absolutely, completely wrong. Many people are still without power, and Fairfax County water was only recently declared safe for drinking. Mom, you win five dollars, and I’m glad my trash-talking mouth didn’t add a ‘ty’ to the amount when we made the bet.

Having said that, you know the idea that you “create your own reality”? I am now a believer. Contrary to houses in surrounding areas, my townhouse never lost power, our water remained untainted, our virgins unspoiled, and few branches fell in thine neighborhood. And perhaps all because I denied the power of this tropical storm in the face of all reasons. In other words, it was worth the $5. And now I know what it feels like to be a creationist.

The “marriage vs. civil union” debate pops up in gay cultural regularly. Should we (we being dem gays) fight for marriage, or for civil unions that have all the rights of marriage, but for some reason are more palatable to certain people. I guess it’s like how I now support The Patriot Act, but not when it was under its original name, “Underskirt Cam” (Details on www.ashcroftspanties.com.)

A few arguments against focusing on civil unions is that it institutionalizes a “separate but equal” status for gay people and legitimatizes the bigotry that fuels gayer hatas in the first place. Good arguments. And the idea that more Americans, when actually faced with the issue of legal recognition for gay couples, would support marriage in effect as long as it wasn’t called marriage sounds specious.

But, nevertheless, this is what I think the gay community should do:

1. We fight for civil unions, or country unions, or The Joining of Al’Kathuzl, with the same legal rights as marriage.
2. We get these rights.
2a. Big party.
3. We say “Gotcha!” and always refer to it as marriage.
3a. And when we talk about straight people getting married, we use air quotes over “married.”

Sample script:

STRAIGHT PERSON: “Barry! I haven’t seen you in a while. What’s new with you?”
GAY PERSON: “Good news. I’m going to get married next month.”
STRAIGHT PERSON: “Married? You mean ‘civil unioned’, right?”
GAY PERSON: “Ha ha ha. Silly breeder.”

I think nomenclature is just a straw symbol of the real reason some people are against gay marriage. But if everything is identical except for the name, I’d rather get a civil union certificate and a bottle of Wite-Out rather than wait a few extra years.

I’m praying to Allah sitting on the shoulders of Vishnu (spotted by God) that this political event comes to pass.