Gasp

Suggestions for future team-building exercises: water-boarding.

"When New York banned smoking in the workplace, I quit working"

Given my reputation as a strident non-smoker, it was funny how quickly I took to cigarettes. It was as if my life were a play, and the prop mistress had finally showed up. Suddenly there were packs to unwrap, matches to strike, ashtrays to fill and then empty. My hands were at one with their labor, the way a cook’s might be, or a knitter’s.

“Well, that’s a hell of a reason to poison yourself,” my father said.

My mother, however, looked at the bright side. “Now I’ll know what to put in your Christmas stocking!” She put them in my Easter basket as well, entire cartons. Today, it might seem trashy to see a young man accepting a light from his mom, but a cigarette wasn’t always a statement. Back when I started, you could still smoke at work, even if you worked in a hospital where kids with no legs were hooked up to machines. If a character smoked on a TV show, it did not necessarily mean that he was weak or evil. It was like seeing someone who wore a striped tie or parted his hair on the left—a detail, but not a telling one.

-- David Sedaris

Less pricks than kicks

I suspect there won't be Eric Idle singalongs in Congo any time soon. This sort of theft would make Arsene Lupin blush:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

Other suggested blog-post titles: The Congolese Job, The Congo Dong Affair, Cock Day Afternoon, National Treasure or Lock, Stock & Dozen Shrunk Penises.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

Poor chaps, I think I should forward them my spam.

Hey, at least it's not Comic Sans

McCain campaign chose Optima typeface for their campaign logo. If you ask me, it looks like a logo of a wholesale food distributor or a car dealership. Plus, I find that five-pointed star at the top a bit unnerving. Designers, design curators and critics weigh in with their assessment:

With a mix of Roman dignity and a subtle military presence, the typeface communicates the qualities seemingly most important to the candidate; honor and virtue.

But also

For some reason, almost every dentist and orthodontist seems to use Optima for their letterhead. Therefore, while Optima is a great typeface I tend to associate with getting teeth drilled.

A mixed reception then. (Hat tip: GvZ)

But apart from the graphic designers, what do other professions think? What do the nation’s adult entertainers think about the campaign so far? And what about the dentists? Who has better teeth for the job? Inquiring electorate wants to know. I hope folks at NY Times are up to the challenge. After all we didn’t learn that rappers aren’t so hot about Obama from them, did we?

Stupid by design

I hear there is a new movie called Expelled in which some religious nutters are complaining that their ridiculous attempts to force creationism under the mantle of scientificity (is that a word? it is now!) haven't succeeded so far.

And here is a wonderful parody that helps demolish the aforementioned movie (and by proxy the Intelligent Design "theory") in less than 2 minutes:



"Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed tells of how Sex Theory has thrived unchallenged in the ivory towers of academia, as the explanation for how new babies are created. Proponents of Stork Theory claim that "Big Sex" has been suppressing their claim that babies are delivered by storks. Furthermore, Stork Theory proponents warn of the serious moral dangers posed by teaching children that sex has a function. They point out that evil dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao all believed in Sex Theory, and they may have even had sex themselves.

There is also a late-breaking new development in the controversy, a new theory called Avian Transportation Theory.

Unlike the original Stork Theory, the modern, sophisticated "Avian Transportation Theory" (ATT) merely points out that there are gaps in the orthodox Sex Theory, and that current sonogram imaging is unreliable. Moreover ATT does not specify that babies are necessarily brought by storks but by "large birds unspecified" (although many individual ATT theorists PRIVATELY believe it is a stork)."

The People's Poet

Rik Mayall reads some of his poetry:

"Ask Vanessa Vedgwave!"

Olympic Games are decadent and depraved

The Olympic Games in Peking are still some 3 or 4 months away (I really don’t care to look it up) and already I am fed up with them. Irritated by the constant media attention this utterly stupid enterprise is getting. So what does one do in this day and age if he is unhappy about something? That’s right, he starts a Facebook group. Here is mine:

Olympic Games Are Decadent And Depraved

This group is for those who are thoroughly annoyed by this global circus in which a bunch of drug takers from all corners of the world compete in some ridiculous, pointless and bizarre activities while supposedly representing their country and thus helping to perpetuate some silly jingoistic notions of national supremacy.

This group is for those who really are not interested, not involved, not curious about who won what, where and how and couldn’t care less if someone, say, extinguished the Olympic torch with pee.

Pierre de Coubertin should have been garrotted upon suggesting this travesty.

It doesn’t really matter where the Games are held, they would still suck. But this year (2008) there is an added bonus of opprobrium since the disgusting Chinese communist regime known for killing, imprisoning and silencing all dissent within its realm is hosting the Games not only for fun and profit, but also for the opportunity to reassert itself on the world stage. I say they can stick it up their collectivist asses.

Feel free to join. Or whatever.

Obituarist, obit thyself!

Excuse me, but I found this sad little note at the end of this Robbe-Grillet Guardian obituary very funny and somehow very fitting:

"This obituary has been revised and updated since the obituary writer's own death."

Ouch. Un Obit Nouveau, oui?

Will you be my Wahhabtine?

Even though I am a cranky curmudgeon with a heart of scold, whose thoroughly unsentimental nature relegates him to the state of perpetual bachelorhood, and even though I find the St Valentine's day festivities a tad irritating, if not downright repulsive, I must say that these Saudi chaps got carried away a little bit. You know, just a trifle teeny-weeny bit.

Carry on.

(Via)

quote for the day

this damfool twilight threshing in the brake
bleating to be bloodied
this crapulent hush
tear its heart out

-- Samuel Beckett, Serena II (Echo's Bones)


- Is this awesome or what?

Rivers of Babylon

I was very pleased to learn that my favourite Slovak novel has been finally translated into English. This wicked post-communist satire is probably the best thing that has happened in Slovak literature in the past 25, if not 50, years. If you are lucky enough to come across it, don't hesitate, buy it! (and preferably read it as well, although that's optional).
(via Samuso)

You got soup? Why didn't I get any soup?

Well, it’s mostly just piss, really.

But it’s called Soup. And now I have my own. And for some reason I was reminded of this dialog from Black Books:

Bernard: What is it?
Fran: It's a thing.
Bernard: Is it?
Fran: Yes.
Bernard: What does it do?
Fran (after considering): It's very in.
Bernard: You don't know what it is, do you?
Fran: I-it's very now!

The US Primaries - The Candidate Rundown

Anyway, Super Tuesday, what? Yeah, yeah, I really haven’t paid much attention to US politics in a while, to busy marvelling about our own mess. So the rundown, courtesy of moi.

On the Republican side you have the usual assortment of mehs, huhs and WTFs.

First off, the current Republican front-runner, the highly decorative war hero, John McCain. Yeah, the guy responsible for the infamous McCain-Feingold Stuff the 1st Amendment Act. Among other things. I don’t like him one bit. Have to agree with Matt Welch’s prescient article on McCain. Anyway, he seems like a sure ticket to a Republican loss in November.

I don’t know anything about Mitt Romney except that he is a Mormon. I always felt that the second letter "m" was highly redundant.

Huckabee? WTF?

And Ron Paul? Well, Ron Paul is just so darn cute and nice and warm and fuzzy. You don’t want to vote for him, you want to take him home, put him on pillows and let him cuddle with your children, or something. Oh, yes, terrorist blowback, yes, cancel the IRS, gold standard, who’s my little libertarian, cootie-coo.

And the Democrats? Hillary vs Obama? Oh god, yes the Democrats. Some of them really seem to think that the wife of a former president is the best possible candidate out of 300 million citizens. How Latin-American. If only she were pretty or could sing. But she is just a mean bitch. But I understand that the mean old hags are a powerful voting bloc in the Democratic Party. So there.

But wait, how about finding someone even less electable? Oh yes, enter the son of a black Muslim, that’s the right ticket. Let him be charismatic and verbose but also vague and superficial. And let empty-headed morons fawn over him and make him look even less electable. Oh, Yes We Can! (Be Even Bigger Douchebags!) Oh, but he looks sooo presidential, just like Harding.

Christ.

Quote for the day

'Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.' -- Philip Larkin

Face the Facebook

It looks like Facebook is poised to become the premier community portal among Slovak netizens, since a cursory glance shows that among its users are Slovak celebrities, writers, actors, managers, popular media faces, i.e. the ones that are the trend-setters and should attract the hoi-polloi.

When I joined Facebook back in early October 2007, the Slovakia network boasted some 8000 members. As of writing this there are more than 16000 members in this network. There probably are more Slovaks in other networks as well. That’s not that many when you consider the estimated 60 million Facebook users, but still quite an impressive number, which was doubled in less than 4 months. And I consider my joining to be that proverbial tipping point that started the trend. Yes, its all thanks to me, it doesn’t matter that I have less 'friends' than Pol Pot, I am a blogger, dammit, and I demand some recognition!

Ahem, sorry about that.

I am just saying that, much like this blog-post, Facebook has no fucking point whatsoever and that’s probably also the main reason why it’s here to stay. So get on with the program and get the fuck in. Pay no attention to the spoil-sport conspiracy freaks, but if Facebook really is a "a social experiment, an expression of a particular kind of neoconservative libertarianism" (As if that was a bad thing!), then sign me up again please!

(Yes, a cheque would be fine, Mr. Zuckerberg.)