An observation

I've noticed something at work recently that I don't think I've seen before. When I'm in the bathroom, I see guys wash their hands after they use the facilities. But, if it's the end of the shift, I've noticed quite a few don't wash their hands after using the toilet. Even after taking a dump. (And who the hell waits until quitting time to take a dump? Don't they have a bathroom at home? But I digress.)

When in Rome

When you walk in the front door of Spacely Sprockets, the first thing you see are an American flag and a Virginia state flag. A few days ago while passing close to the Virginia flag I contemplated once again the strange image that appears in the middle. It's the Seal of Virginia, which shows a toga-clad woman standing over a prostrate man dressed sort of like a gladiator. What ancient Romans have to do with Virginia is anyone's guess, but it's an interesting image for two reasons. One, it has a dead guy, and, two, it's got a boob. Viginia may very well be the only state out of fifty with a dead guy or a boob on its flag. Truthfully, what I noticed that day when I walked past the flag was the boob. I don't think I'd ever really paid that much attention to it before because I was looking at the dead guy. Anyway, I made a helpful graphic.



Incidentally, the woman with the boob is the Roman goddess Virtus. And, again, what the hell any of this has to do with Virginia is anyone's guess.

What?

Yesterday at Spacely Sprockets, my supervisor told me to do some deburring. (Don't ask.) He picked up the strange-looking deburring tool and said, "I wasn't ready for you to cut yourself with this last week, but now I am." I nodded and then thought, "What, he wasn't ready for me to cut myself last week, but now he's ready for me to cut myself?" Anyway, I didn't cut myself.

My brain isn't what it used to be

Yesterday during lunch, I was sitting in the breakroom when a woman came through a nearby door. Out of the corner of my eye it looked as if she was holding a ventriloquist dummy. I quickly glanced up at her and saw she was actually holding a child. Now I ask you, what the hell's wrong with my brain that the first thing it thinks of is ventriloquist dummy rather than child when it sees someone walking by holding a small humanoid?

Tasteful

A few days ago I remembered something a classmate gave me when I was in elementary school. I thought I still had it tucked away in a box of old drawings, so I looked and found it. Yes, that's it below: a page from a notepad featuring a cartoon of an angry man coming in from what was presumably a very bad game of golf and punching his wife in the face as she tries to hand him a drink. Nothing says comedy like domestic violence.



I don't know quite what's more appalling about this image, that a company thought it was appropriate as a background for their notepads, or that the image is credited to "Kimberly-Clark". Is that this Kimberly-Clark? No, it can't be. Also, I don't think Byrd Business Forms, Inc. exists anymore since I couldn't find them in the Danville phone book.

The Internet's Leading Authority on Fake Coffee

Something weird happened while I was on blogging hiatus. For reasons that now escape me, back in May I wrote a post on Postum. Then in December, Kraft Foods discontinued Postum. And then somewhere along the line I became one of the internet's leading authorities on Postum. Anyway, I've added a very long addendum to the original entry.

WWJD?

Hey, it's time for a new post. Things have been deadly dull around here (except for the double murder that happened down the street a couple of days ago), so I haven't felt like posting anything. Nothing inspired me the way it used to. I was drifting along in a sea of goo. Actually, now that I think about it, a sea of goo would be interesting. Maybe. Gooey, anyway. But I digress.

In years past what I'd do when I was going to put up a new post was to simply poke around on the internet until I found something funny, weird, inexplicable, etc. that I wanted to share with the three of four people who actually read this blog. These days all I do is plod around online, but I rarely find anything that inspires me. That is until today. When I was scanning comments over at The Comics Curmudgeon (one of my daily reads), I found the ad below.



At first I naturally thought, "Ooh, nice rack." But then I noticed it was an ad for a Christian dating site. I don't get it. It's a Christian dating site, but yet they're appealing to the basest instincts of the straight male. How is this supposed to work? A guy sees the ad and thinks, "Damn, look at the rack on her." And then what? Is he supposed to wonder if she's a good Christian girl to start a wholesome family with? For crying out loud, she's standing sideways and wearing a flimsy camisole that would instantly be rendered transparent with a surprisingly small amount of water. (Not that I've spent a lot of time thinking about such a scenario. Really, I haven't.)

How is this ad different than one for Online Booty Call or whatever? Maybe they could rename the site Christian Booty Call. (I should buy that domain as an investment.) It's kind of like when hunters put out duck decoys. This ad gets you all excited about boobs and then when you least expect it you're blindsided by a schoolmarm with a bad perm who wants ten kids. By then it's too late. (And, yes, I know this has nothing at all to do with my duck hunting analogy.)

I had something profound to say about all of this, but I'm just too distracted by boobs to think clearly. Sorry.

Still on hiatus

No, I'm not suddenly back into blogging again. I just wanted to note the fact that I'd passed my fifth blogging anniversary. I was thinking that it was on the 19th or 20th, but it was actually on the 10th. But do I get to have a five year blogging anniversary if I'm not actually blogging? Probably not. Never mind.

In other useless news, I finally got a broadband internet connection. Now I spend all my time at YouTube digging up obscure clips of bands. The one below by the MC5 is particularly good if you like black and white garage band hippie freak out stuff.

Goodnight

I really hate blogging these days. There's virtually no fun in it at all anymore, so I'm mothballing Volume 22 for the time being. I have no idea if I'll post anything new anytime soon.

Meanwhile, I have a Flickr account where I post fairly regularly, if you care about such things.

I don't think he's cured

While poking through the sad contents of my Yahoo inbox, I noticed an email with the subject line, "Please help me." Naturally I was curious about who needed my help this time; no doubt it involved getting a large sum of money out of a bank in Burkina Faso or some damn place. My curiosity was peaked further when I saw the name of the person sending the email: "Jennifer Aniston goes bra-less." It's an usual name, but they suddenly had my undivided attention. Much to my surprise, the email wasn't the typical email scam I'd grown so tired of. Nope. They're getting creative now.

I was a schizophrenic patients from China because of the need to take long-term anti - schizophrenia drug, the family has been difficult to bear drugs fees, Without medication, I would crazy .I hope that the people who see the e-mail in the United States to help me, sent money to my paypal account. My PayPal account is jinfaniu@hotmail.com

I'm sorry, Mr. Jennifer Aniston goes bra-less, all of my spare cash is earmarked to keep me sane. Without it I would crazy.

Cacahuate Japones

A few days ago I wrote about some Japanese peanuts I'd gotten at a grocery store. They were quite good and I wanted more. So this morning while in the parking lot of Dollar Tree, I noticed that in the next shopping center over there was a Mexican store. It was actually called something like "Mexican General Store". So, after I was done ogling the cleavage of the 19 year old in the inappropriate-for-work top ringing up my sad purchases at Dollar Tree, I went over to the Mexican store.

The food selection wasn't anything radically different than what I'd seen in the little Mexican sections of local grocery stores, but the ambiance was totally foreign. The store was also empty of people except a woman and two small children, a boy and girl. The boy, I noticed, was holding rather long stick.

As I walked through the food aisles, I kept noticing random things on the floor: bottles of water, bags of tortillas, etc. I guessed the brat with the stick was going around batting things off the shelves while his sister followed closely behind.

In addition to food, they had shoes (Reeboks and cowboy boots), soccer jerseys, big western-style belt buckles, Virgin Mary candles, loads of CDs by people I'd never heard of, and a wall full of DVDs and videotapes.

I had trouble finding the peanuts. Even though I studied Spanish in school, I can't speak it or read it. I wondered if I would even be able to ask if they had them, but the only word I could remember was "Japones". Thankfully I didn't have to do that because I eventually found what I was looking for. They had several varieties of Japanese peanuts, but I couldn't quite get to them. The brat with the stick and his sister were sort of in the way. I said, "Excuse me," and squeezed by. The grinning brat seemed to want to hit me with the stick. The woman, who I guess was his mother, quickly came up and took the stick away. So, stick-whacking averted, I selected three kinds of peanuts and paid. (And at twice the price of Piggly Wiggly.) I don't think gringos come in here that often because the woman behind the counter seemed vaguely unnerved. So unnerved in fact that she went and short-changed me by 76 cents, but I didn't bother to try and correct her. She wanted me out of the store and I just wanted peanuts. I began to wonder if anyone, even Mexicans, ever came into the store.

The peanuts? Well, the variety with the geisha girl on them aren't very good. And as far as ethnic stereotypes go, a geisha is better than a cartoon coolie-hat-wearing peanut-man, I suppose. The type in the bag on the left are pretty good, but nothing special. The chili ones are quite good. So, as far my future purchases of Japanese peanuts go, it's offensive coolie-hat dude and the chili ones.

Psychic Dada Spam

We've all seen the spam with the random gibberish tagged on the end of the message as a way of foiling spam filters. I used to take pleasure in this gibberish, but soon grew tired of it. A few days ago I found myself reading some of this material again and was vaguely entranced by the opening sentence: "America is perhaps, at this moment, the prison country of the whole grease town world..." Can't you just hear someone standing on a street corner screaming this? No? Maybe it's just me.

WTF, Mexico?

I found myself at Piggly Wiggly this morning, killing time while waiting for the neighboring dollar store to open up. Since I love ramen, I drifted over to the ramen section to see what varieties they offered. The ramen was right there with the genuine Mexican stuff local grocery stores are selling more and more of because of the growing Hispanic population. I selected a few packs of ramen and then began poking around in the Mexican food.

I'd seen so-called Japanese peanuts on sale before, but I never really looked at them, but the illustration on these caught my eye. A peanut with a Fu-Manchu mustache wearing a coolie hat? I shudder to think what would be on the package if they were called African peanuts.

Oh, I should probably add that Japanese peanuts are really good.

Oh, blogging

I've come to the conclusion that I hate blogging.

Yo! Bum Rush the Photos

Like I've said once or twice before over the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot of time at Flickr and posting lots of weirdo images at my page. (And mostly I've been ignored buy the other Flickroids.)

Anyway, Flickr changed its interface, and I saw the above button after I'd uploaded some photos. When I first read it, I thought it said, "SAVE THIS BITCH". So now whenever I upload anything I can hear a guy in my head scream, "SAVE THIS BITCH!" The guy in my head may be Flava Flav, but I'm not sure.

Eight random things about me

Gah! I've been tagged for a meme yet again! Grrr! This time it's the scurrilous Jeff who's responsible for this insolence. I'm supposed to list eight random things about me. Eight things?!

1. When I was little I used to love to pick my nose. I won't go into anymore detail.
2. I can't swim. And I don't really care.
3. I love watching cooking shows on TV.
   
4. I rarely cook anything more complicated than heating up ramen in the microwave.
5. I used to want to be a cartoonist. Not being very good at it pretty much cured me. Well, that and the fact that I took a drawing class once and learned to hate drawing. But doodling I love.
6. I hate to use public toilets. And I'm just referring to peeing in them. There's no way in hell I'm sitting down in one of those unless it's life or death.
7. I'm more comfortable around animals than people. Although people smell better. Well, most people.
8. When I was a lot younger, more than anything else, I wanted to be a pilot. I've ridden an airplane exactly once in my life.

There. It's done. I'm supposed to chose several other people, but I think everybody's been chosen, except maybe Sherri, who's probably done it already, and Jammies, who's busy with some dog-related catastrophe. Xolo's leaving the country and has no time for this nonsense. Sara's in parts unknown and only blogs once a year now. Cindy's busy mourning her 20's. And my sister is MIA. So there. No one else can do it.

Gak!

Monday morning I found myself in Wal-Mart yet again. (I've been getting film developed there because it's so damn cheap.) As I was cutting through the grocery section, I saw the black bag of the new mysterious Doritos X-13D. I'd seen these before and been curious, but this morning I impulsively grabbed a bag. I thought, "How bad can they be?" Well, pretty bad, as it turns out.

When I got home I popped one in my mouth and was immediately hit with a nasty-ass wall of nastiness. What is that, I thought. Pickle? Mustard? It's MUSTARD! It's a thirty yard high wall of mustard! I hate mustard. It took forever to get the taste out of my mouth.

I looked online to see what everyone else was saying about this misguided snack food. The most opinions I saw were in the comments of some kind of gaming blog. Oddly, most of the hundred or so commenters liked this abomination. And most of them said it tasted like a hamburger (specifically a fast food one) with pickles, ketchup, mustard, etc. on it. I didn't grow up eating all that crap on my hamburgers, so it's no surprise that I don't want gobs of toxic mustard stank on my tortilla chips.

Apparently they're having a contest to give these things a name. I suggest Vomitos.

The internet scares me

It's that time again. My file of stupid, scary, and perverted search requests people have actually used to blunder across my tedious blog has grown quite large. So here's the latest batch for you to use as nightmare fodder.

belt spankings for tough guys
A volume that will never be selected for Oprah's book club.

how to shoot downhill
I find this one completely bewildering.

X-ray machine exorcist
I have all of their albums, but the early stuff is best.

big ass blogspot gallery
This is what my next blog will be.

jaunty penis pics
Jaunty? What, are they wearing little hats or something?

little flaky things on your penis
Not on my penis, thank you very much.

root beer barrel nipples
Hey, check out the root beer barrel nipples on that chick!

spanking machine story
Once long ago in a land far away there was a man who owned a spanking machine. He was a very lonely man.

rube porno
So, it's like porno featuring slack-jawed yokels?

illegal Bikini
It's made out of human skin.

goodyear blimp peeing out window from blimps
Are you looking for news stories about peeing out of the window of the Goodyear blimp, porno about peeing out of the window of the Goodyear blimp, or instructions on how to pee out of the window of the Goodyear blimp?

"the gecko" sexual position
Just don't try the Geico sexual position.

sherry and jay porn
You spelled Sherri wrong. Heh-heh.

does getting staples out of scalp hurt
I would have to say yes.

ordering from spam e mail drugs penis account
Penis account?

lizard flim
I have nothing to add to this.

image of a big spammed bird
Hunters using Spam as a method of hunting? Are they firing it out of a cannon?

i wanked in front of my school teacher
And she gave you an F.

japanese extreme porn food
I'm not eating that.

chinese person with stitches in the head
Why specifically Chinese? No, don't tell me, I don't care anymore.

are there any famous people who swear by colon cleansing?
Of course! Didn't you know that one of the best kept secrets to sucess is colon cleansing?

1950's enema photos
Sorry, my vast collection of enema photos doesn't go back that far. Weirdo.

how do porn stars clean their colon
I think I saw a program on the Discovery channel about this.

Romance language

Yesterday I bought some film on Ebay from a seller in Taiwan. (Don't ask.) Anyway, the seller had the note shown below to alert buyers from France:


So that's the problem of mail delivery in France? They're too romantic? My mind wanders. Imagine a French mailman wearing a beret, smoking an unfiltered Gaullois, saying the following in a really cheesy French accent: "Ze mail? Oh, ze mail, she weel be deleevered wan she is deleevered. Bot raht now I weel mek ze lov weeth zis beutifool woooman!"

OK, maybe not.

My tea has a uvula!

No one thought this was funny at Flickr. Jerkasses.

Of course it's not as disquieting as the time I found a face in my pudding, but still, it's at least a little unnerving.