Hehehehe. It's says...

I pass this building on my way home from work each night. The light in the sign has been out for at least a month now, and I'm surprised no one's bothered to fix it yet. I chuckle every time I see it:

The things people will do for "The Beast"...

The chase scene for this must have been amusing to watch:

Man gets DUI riding lawnmower for beer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
08/04/2009

BELLEVILLE— With a revoked license because of a previous drunken-driving conviction, Dennis Cretton shouldn't drive.

But authorities say that didn't stop the 49-year-old Belleville-area man from drunkenly driving up to a gas station for more beer --on his yellow riding lawnmower.

Cretton has been charged with felony aggravated driving under the influence after neighbors reported he was weaving in and out of traffic on his lawnmower Friday night.

When deputies tried to stop him, authorities say Bretton drove the mower into his home's front yard, his 12-pack of Milwaukee's Best spilling onto the ground along the way.

Cretton is free on $10,000 bond. Calls to his home went unanswered Tuesday.

Somehow, buying anything by the kilo in white powder form seems like a bad idea...

Something about this seems very illegal.

The things we should have done after drinking all that beer...

I watched this video and for some reason kept thinking of that collection of empty Milwaukee's Best cans W.M. Scratch had in his college dorm room:

We're all still alive. For now...

The Large Hadron Collider, the gigantic particle accelerator in Switzerland that has the potential (very minute potential) to create a black hole and suck all life as we know it into oblivion, went online yesterday.  They're only in the "warm-up" phase at this point, running protons around the 17 mile underground circuit, and haven't put them on collision courses just yet.  It looks like we have until at least late fall to eat Cheetos, pancakes, bacon, and beer until the end of times.

Anywho, looking through some of The New York Times about the Collider reminded me of why I love their website so much.  Not only are the articles diverse in topics and well written, their graphical illustrations that accompany many of their stories are worth a few minutes each day to look at.  Peruse the graphics from an earlier story about the LHC and you can get a somewhat clear understanding of what they're doing in those tunnels in Switzerland in less than a couple of minutes.

Spies among us...

Just to make sure Firecracker George didn't think I was dogging him about being a dork and taking pictures of hand dryers in the bathroom, here's a picture I took of a trash bin in the bathroom from a place called The London Tea Room back in St. Louis. Hey, when you see something cool, might as well share:

"A heartwarming story" from my e-mail inbox today...

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through th e Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed his stupid ass against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

I guess this is one way to get rid of your children...

No one quite knows how this kid got into this claw machine, but me thinks if he actually figures out how to get out of these types of predicaments, he might have a bright future as a cat burglar in the future. That, or this may be the new way of putting up orphan kids for adoption--give wanting parents a few tokens, and hope they can grab the one they want before he/she drops back in the pile:

It's like Firecracker George speaking Willie-ese...

I think I'll pass on this one next week...

$20 bucks says the obligatory "chick flick feel good moment sing-a-long scene" will take place in this movie.  Perhaps with a stack of cash in hand as the faux-microphone as they break out in spontaneous song singing the words to Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For The Money."  I can imagine the grand finale of their performance will end with them throwing up piles of cash in the air like confetti as Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes laugh and giggle hysterically.

Actually, I had to think long and hard about songs with the word "money" prominently in them.  Dire Straits "Money For Nothing" and Pink Floyd's "Money" just didn't seem right for these ladies.  Then again, if they worked those two songs in, I might just be tempted to break out my own faux-microphone and sing-a-long myself.  

Insomnia is a terrible thing to waste...

A rare known fact: The director's cut of Way of the Dragon actually included this version of the famous showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris before the director figured out that the choice language used wasn't for artistic purposes but because the musical supervisor had Tourette's.

Big NSFW warning for much profanity that had me laughing hysterically (of course, it's 2:00 AM and I'm feeling hysterical about now):


[from Best Week Ever]

On a side note, I'm always amazed in this fight sequence by how slow Chuck Norris, who I seem to think is a respectable martial artist, looks compared to Bruce Lee.

Latest revelation from reviewing visits from Sitemeter...

We're the first result when you Google the word "synechdochy?" Get outta here! To think Firecracker George has lifted our blog to haute academic levels. And all I can come up with is bad David Hasselhoff videos and stories about poop.

Pour some kerosene on top, light it up, and suddenly you're Ghost Rider...

In case you were looking to put together that Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Chaplain costume, or if you just plain want to scare the heck out of passers-by while running down the road on your motorcycle, this helmet might just fit the bill.

Do you ever just want to disappear?

Maybe this will be my new hobby when I get bored...

I think a certain person we know lost a great financial opportunity 'cause it looks like the authors of this book are really set to cash in.

I think it goes without saying that this site is NSFW, but it's hilarious. Or maybe I'm just a bit delusional because I'm up at two in the morning. And no actual photographs if you're worried about a big penis jumping out on your computer screen--just some simple drawn diagrams. There should be some that you recognize (grrrrrr...) and some that look downright painful.

Just don't ask me to do the "Docking" trick with you.

Now I think I should go to bed before I really post something offensive on the blog.

The amazing adventures of my wife, the international fruit smuggler...

The fruit pictured to the right is the longan, a white, fleshy, almost translucent fruit commonly found througout Southeast Asia. If you ever had lychee at a Chinese restaurant, it tastes about the same--very sweet and refreshing, especially when chilled. My wife loves these and will usually get a whole bagful to snack on whenever we're in a big city with a big Chinatown, as they're pretty hard to find outside of a well stocked Asian market. As you can see, there's a thin outer shell you have to peel off before you eat them, and this becomes a problem. You see, she's kind of haphazard about where she tosses these shells, and those peels often end up in other plastic bags we've got with us carrying various knick-knacks we bought while traveling. The last time we went to Vancouver six years ago, a whole bag full of those peels ended up in our luggage when we were crossing back into the U.S. How they got there is still up for debate, but may have had something to do with our rush to pack our bags as we were running late for a bus back to Seattle. MAYBE it was me who tossed them in a suitcase at the last minute, or MAYBE it was her. Anywho, customs spotted the offending contraband in the x-ray scanner, and my wife has since been fined and blacklisted by border control for trying to smuggle in foreign fruit. After coming back from Taiwan a couple of years ago, U.S. customs gave her the evil eye, a stern questioning of what she was importing into the country, and a meticulous hand inspection of all her baggage before letting her through. Meanwhile, I waltzed right through with a friendly wink and a smile to the customs agent, with my luggage only getting a cursory x-ray scan.

Fast forward to last week when we made our most recent trip out of the country to Vancouver. My wife, of course, bought another bag full of longans, but was very careful not to let any stray peels or twigs end up in our bags this time. Going through customs at the Vancouver International Airport on our way home, she proudly exclaimed that she had absolutely no fruits, vegetables, or any part of such produce in her luggage or on her person. She even remembered to toss out the bottle of water she had in her purse before proceeding through the security checkpoint. We returned home to the States without incident and my wife was satisfied that she was now the model citizen.

And what did I happen to find in one of the shopping bags we brought back from Canada full of macadamia brittle and chocolate yesterday? Well, not a longan, but still some fruit--a chocolate-covered strawberry she forgot she left in there. I guess kleptomaniac is the wrong word, but I'm sure there's some word to describe her penchant for inadvertent fruit smuggling. ;-)

This would be an embarrasing way to die...

Where are my priorities?

So I've flown so much over the past couple of months that I earned a free flight on Southwest Airlines.  I know, most of you guys travel so much for work, that you probably earn a free flight once a week.   But does it say something when I'm more jazzed about getting the book full of free booze coupons and not the flight coupon itself?

Then again, Dubya has never been known for his fashion sense...

Alright, if I had any shred of respect left for George W. Bush, I've officially lost it now. Corruption and cronies littering the White House? Bad. Poor management of the whole Iraq War? Horrible. Terrible. But neither made me as disgusted as this. The cycling socks with the Presidential seal I can live with--I actually think they're kind of cool. I mean, can you imagine being able to have your own custom socks? No, it's the footwear over the socks. Ugh. Crocs! Hide your eyes!

OK, OK. It's not that bad. I guess they do sort of coordinate with the rest of his attire. And after a long mountain bike ride, wouldn't you want to relax in some comfortable, well-ventilated footwear? I mean, look at them. They actually look a bit...European...Italian...AW CRAP! STOP ME! I've been infected! Pleeeease! Kill me.

Hopefully, I'll never find out that Lance Armstrong wears Crocs after taking off his cycling cleats--if that happens I won't care if the doping rumors are true or not.

Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island...

After trying to think about Firecracker George's comments below about my use of "synechdochy," and the brain twisters such sorts of associations could entail, looking through this page really made my head hurt. Oy!