Pancake City

Zombie Jason…needs more turkey. With stuffing. And graaaaaavy. Only Ramen at home. Turkey-flavored noodles…not same thing.

I had an eventful week. Last Tuesday, I went to a meeting of a sketch comedy group that arose from the primordial comedic ooze a few weeks ago. I am usually uncomfortable around new people, so I was forcing myself to chat and ask questions. Everyone was friendly. A good time was being had.

So it’s near the end of the meeting. They had a show this upcoming Sunday and were doing group readings of the scripts so the director could cast the show. The last script had eight people in it, and everyone was tired of reading, so I thought: “I’ll help out with the reading. I have a severe stutter, so it’s not like the director is actually going to cast me.”

I picked a small part, read it. On the second go around, I picked another small part no one wanted to read.

The next thing I know, the director says to me, “Okay, you’re Swami. Meeting adjourned. Everyone, see you this Saturday at rehearsal.”

What the f—? Hey, crazy director. I don’t like performing. During periods, like the past few weeks, when my stuttering is very severe, I don’t even like speaking. I hide under the covers when the phone rings and let my roommates answer it. Read my alpha waves: cast someone else. Like a monkey. Monkeys are funny. Everyone loves monkeys. Monkey monkey monkey monkey….

Alas, as it has been the fate so many times in my life, there was no monkey to be found.

I’ll compress the rest of the week. In short, having to perform turns out to be very good motivation to work on one’s speech. Confronting some of the avoidances I let develop in the past few months helped my feel better than I have in a long time.

The performance was yesterday, and it went very well. I made stuttering part of my character and made it part of the joke. We filmed the performance and ran it twice, asking the kindly audience to be a laugh track if they had to.

I got almost no laughs the first time around because, to both my pleasure and disappointment, few people laughed at my stuttering. After the first show, we introduced ourselves and I said I’m a real-life person who stutters. I think that made it okay for people to laugh because I got a much better response the second time around.

Overall, it was worth the stress and I’m happy that I got drafted into doing it. I might even do it again, if I can come up with a character who stutters.

Of course, this is assuming the circus still won’t loan me the monkey.

Several years ago, a design class I took in college convinced me underlining words for emphasis is a horrible idea. I turned off underlining of links in my web browser, and after a short adjustment period, found it made web pages more aesthetic and eye-pleasing.

I rarely use other people’s computers, but when I do (and links are underlined) the difference is shocking. Link-heavy sites like The Washington Post are now almost unreadable.

So I have a few questions and a suggestion. Do you have your web browser set to underline links? If not, what prompted you to switch? If you do, try turning the feature off and go sans-undies for a day. Give yourself time to adjust and let me know if you like it better.

You can find the setting in most broswers by going to Tools->Options and then selecting “Fonts & Colors” (in Firefox, the best broswer out there) and Advanced->Browsing in IE.

This site is awesome. Very funny and original.

Hopkins Update: BoingBoing has background info on Hopkin’s Journey.

$28,000. The winning bid came from Golden Palace, an online casino that is developing a reputation for unusual publicity events. They paid someone to streak at (last year’s?) Superbowl with their web site address tattooed on his back (link warning: this guy’s butt almost turned me straight).

If you’re sad that you’re bid wasn’t high enough, you can always visit their web site and get your own Virgin Mary Cheese Sandwich Commenatorive T-shirt for $19.95.

The runner-up bid was from Rabbi Harry Halpern, whose plan was to threaten to eat the sandwich if the Christians didn’t limit their singing of Jingle Bells to 100 times a week per public space. When told of Halpern’s plan, Governor Schwarzenegger said: “No! We will never reduce the singing of Jingle Bells. We will jingle all the way!”

Jesus is like that guy at work who’s friendly and pleasant to be around, but you don’t really know what he does, and he keeps on getting promoted. When there’s a screw-up, somehow he’s never involved but he arrives a few minutes afterwards with a few pats on the back and consoling words. “There, there. We’ll get another client.”

Everyone brightens in his presence and forgets about their problems for a moment, and you do too, but there’s this tingly feeling in the back of your head and makes you think, “Wait a minute. Wasn’t Mertzsky Jesus’s client?”

Or people say things like, “I have a potato. Thanks Jesus!” But no one ever stubs his or her toe and says, “Ouch! Damn it, Jesus, what the hell is your problem?”

There are plenty of bumper stickers printed with “Jesus Loves” or “Jesus Saves.” What about, “Hey, Jesus. What’s up with that Packers game last week?”

I’m all for being saved, but I want the whole package. That includes not leaving my house. It seems like all the people being saved by Jesus are the ones that have to do the leg work. Jesus, I’m so lazy that I’ll go out in cold weather in a T-shirt and thin jacket so I don’t have to remove as many layers when I get back inside. You want to save me, start by turning off my snooze alarm. The snooze button is like a rectangular Satan. Turn it into a duck or something. Then, after lunch, and a hot cocoa, we’ll talk.

After being reprimanded by the House ethics committee three times in the past few months, Tom Delay, the Republican House leader, is currently being investigated by a Texas district attorney. The investigation is focused on his fundraising efforts for a redistricting effort in Texas he led that redrew the districts to knock five Democrats in Texas out of Congress. A Texas grand jury has already indicted three of his associates and is now focusing on him.

In light of this potential scandal, the Republican House members did what any self-respecting party would do. They rewrote their party rules so if Delay is indicted, he can still retain his leadership position.

Take a note, Bloods and Crips. That’s how we do it, Washington-style.

Now, some would call the Republican’s move an example of the unbridled corruption that comes when a party is in power for too long. An abandonment of the ethical principles they once professed to hold.

I love The Washington Post. The paper isn’t perfect by any means, but overall I think it’s the best in the nation. They do a lot of thoughtful, original reporting and have the best online site in the business.

Most recently, I was impressed with their “debate referee” feature after the presidential debates, where they examined the veracity of the statements made by the two candidates. I read similar fact-check features by the other major newspapers, and the Post creamed them in terms of breadth and detail.

So it really disturbs me to read that their Executive Editor Leonard Downie is planning on dumbing down the newspaper.

The Post just wrapped up its annual self-evaluation meeting, an offsite event that includes top editors and executives from the paper’s business side. This year’s meeting focused on the paper’s declining circulation — now at 709,500 daily copies, down 10 percent over the past two years — and the results of an extensive readership survey taken last summer.

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper’s design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

The paper will undergo a redesign to make it easier for readers to find stories. It is considering filling the left-hand column of the front page with keys to stories elsewhere in the paper and other information readers say they want from the paper, which they often consider “too often too dull,” Downie said.

“Newspapers should be fun and it should be fun to work at one,” [No. 2 editor] Bennett said.

Someone needs to make a Washington Post Barbie.

• “Working at a newspaper is hard. Tee hee hee!”
• “Newspapers should be fun!”
• “Words are boring. I want to see pictures that mooooove!”

I welcome any change to make information easier to find and understand. But not at the expense of content. In many news articles on political issues, the reporter is bound by the requirements of the pyramid structure and even handedness. The interesting details tend to be buried later in the story, and I worry that they will one of the many things that will be sacrified in the name of new readers, who, evidentially, don’t read newspapers because they have too many words and not enough pretty pictures.

Coincidence?

Last February, DJ Dangermouse mixed music from the Beatles’ White album with beats and lyrics of Jay-Z’s Black album. The resulting Grey album was a brilliant meld of their two styles. It also drew the ire of the company that owns the Beatles music and was forced to be distributed on file-sharing networks and a few brave web site owners.

The video for one of Dangermouse’s songs, Encore, was just released. It’s well done and fun to watch. Catch it before it gets taken down.

The most popular bumper sticker today is a ribbon, usually yellow or red, white, and blue. with the inscription “Support our troops.” Occasionally, someone will mix things up with a “Support President Bush and our troops” sticker, but the strain this Venn diagram puts on the minds of patriotic souls everywhere has limited its popularity.

I admire these people for taking a stand against the strong anti-troop movement that has arisen in our country and threatens to tear apart the fabric of our nation. Our troops need to know that we support them, and if putting a bumper sticker expressing this sentiment on our cars isn’t the best way to let them know, then we might as well rename America “Terrorist Land” and get it over with.

I fear, though, that having become ubiquitous the message will get stale and lose its effectiveness in supporting our troops and combating dissent. So I made up several alternative messages that will soon be appearing in The Pancake City Troop Power Pack (9 stickers, $69.95. Five percent of profits will go towards a fundraiser to buy the troops a $14 million MX-140 missile. If we don’t raise enough money, I will instead send the troops a dozen Hostess cupcakes, laid out in the box in the shape of a giant thumbs up.)

Alternative Slogans

• Support our troops…our drama troupes!
• Do you support our troops…or are you a child molester?
• Something NAMBLA and the NRA can agree on: supporting our troops!
• It’s not enough to support our troops. Support supporting our troops!
• Support our girdles.
• Vote Yes on Prop. 182. What’s Prop. 182? Supporting our troops!
• Say no to the sewer people who are recruiting a zombie army to attack the surface dwellers that have lorded over them for so long. Say yes to supporting troops!
• Do troops eat babies? No! So why don’t you support our troops?
  
• Stützen unsere Truppen!
  

Practical jokes to play on your co-workers (link from LYD).

Iraq is trying to build a nuclear bomb!

I mean, Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb!

This time, it’s for real!

Dogs are the culinary cowboys and cowgirls of the animal kingdom. They eat first, ask questions later.

I am a dog walker, and during almost every walk, my charge and I will pass several items that fall along the spectrum of food to trash: discarded napkin, candy wrapper, pizza crust, mud-caked paper, and so on.

One would think that I would just have to keep Sophie, a golden retriever I walk, away from the pizza crust and maybe from the candy wrapper if there is still traces of chocolate smeared on it. Just to be safe, since chocolate makes dogs sick.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

In the world of dogs, there is no trash. There is only food, food?, and “probably not food, but why take a chance?”

When I pass a balled-up napkin, Sophie will try to eat it. Sure, it could be a napkin. Or…it could be a napkin dipped in barbeque sauce! Or a napkin someone dropped after robbing the gravy store and fleeing the police. Or a delicious dog biscuit cleverly disguised in napkin form, a reward for any dog brave enough to challenge the orthodoxy of molecular structure and one’s lying eyes.

A bloodhound can identify your scales of skin that you shed three days ago. Dogs have 40 times the number of scent receptors in their noses than humans. So does Sophie sniff the napkin for 1.5 seconds before deciding whether to eat it?

Of course not. Maybe that’s what dogs used to do, but today’s modern dogs don’t have the time. I’ve seen Sophie scoop up a wad of paper, scan for grease and chocolate, and spit it out while my tongue is still lifting upwards to make an “S”.

Sophie and I have a different reaction when she pulls off a successful eating. I feel guilty and frustrated, having failed to stop her from eating something that will either give her diarrhea or an upset stomach. She feels like she just pulled off the most amazing feat, like the con in The Sting or a bank shot off three walls.

I used to lunge to pull the offending substance from her mouth until I realized she was interpreting that as a lesson in the stupidity of chewing. Our current agreement is that if my attention slips and she eats something yucky, I won’t flip out, unless it’s extremely disgusting. A piece of bread with jelly on it: okay. If the jelly has ants on it, I’m doing what I can to swat it from her mouth.

She gets enough protein as it is from the ants on the pizza crusts.

And it’s just in time for Chrisanukah.

The 38-city Virgin Mary 2004 tour is nearing an end, but she’s ending with a bang. After appearing on a potato, fence post, side of a llama, and a oak tree (a perennial stalwart), her latest appearance is one of her best ever: a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich.

The money quote (CNN, link from Trash Talkin’ Rodeo): “Duyser, 52, said she took a bite after making it 10 years ago and saw a face staring back at her from the bread.”

There have been times when, in a fit of laziness and hunger, I’ve eaten sandwich meat or bread whose freshness was borderline at best. The food, 1-2 weeks old, was hesitantly downed. I was worried about getting sick and argued the decision internally for several minutes, sometimes even consulting friends about the life expectancy of a tuna fish melt left on the counter overnight.

Unless the reporter’s editor removed the following sentence: “After considering the decision for over a year while consulting nutritionists, health professionals, and the International Nuclear Agency, she decided it was safe to eat the sandwich” then we have a much bigger issue than another appearance of the visage of the Virgin Mary. This woman, Duyser, is either going to die an agonizing death or mutate into a super-human monster. If it’s the latter, we need to clear her neighbors out of the area and bring in the bomb because fools and madmen take chances with decade-old Velveeta.

The sandwich, of course, was put on EBay, where the bidding reaches $22,000 before they removed the listing. EBay’s justification for taking Mary down was that it doesn’t allow listings intended to be jokes.

Oh, no. This isn’t a joke. The woman completely believes there is an image of the Virgin Mary on the sandwich. She also believes there are pelicans in tutus twirling on her bed while squirrels fly out of Robert Goulet’s mouth spelling mid-air the words to “My Love is a Sofa” or whatever song he sings. You see, Ebay isn’t accounting for a critical detail in her story, namely SHE JUST ATE PART OF A TEN-YEAR OLD SANDWICH. DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S LESS LOONY THAN EATING A TEN-YEAR OLD SANDWICH? EATING AN ACTUAL TEN-YEAR OLD. ON THE CRAZINESS SCALE, TEN-YEAR OLD SANDWICH CRUSHES EATING A SIDE OF BILLY.

Screw bidding on the sandwich. We need to start a fundraiser for this woman. Mental health professionals, pills, detox–these services are expensive and I don’t think her HMO has a religious food clause in their policy.

Update: Damn it. I spent half an hour writing this post and just realized I misread the article. She took a bite of the sandwich when she made it ten years ago, and then stored it. I suppose this says something of my opinion of certain religious people when my first reaction is to assume that she was storing the sandwich for a late-night snack. I should have gone with my first idea: I’ll renounce my athiesm and join the Catholic church if the Virgin Mary will appear on the cover of a gay bondage video.

Update 2: The cheese is back! (Thanks Evan). Although you would think with a $99,999,999.00 top bid, she would throw in the shipping for free.