I'm not joking nor being metaphorical. My bathroom scale made a loud "SNAP!" this morning, and that's not the household gizmo you want to be giving you snaps.
Oh, well, I guess 10 years is a reasonable amount of time to get use out of such a gadget. Now my only question is, do I go with the WiFi-enabled replacement? Typing numbers into Facebook does get rather wearying.
"Let me put it in terms that golfers would understand. He played the wrong hole, had an errant drive and now he's got to get out of a bad lie."
--George Lopez, on Tiger Woods' alleged infidelity.
This. Is. Beautiful.
From his 1996 book, Picasso’s Sweet Revenge, art critic Ephriam Kishon (who hates modern art and its pretentious flaks with a passion) takes a phrase from a review of a modern art write-up and translates it into what it really is. Kinda like Defense Department lingo...an “entrenching tool” becomes a “shovel,” that kinda thing. Enjoy:
Now that everyone's recovered from the annual insulin overdose that is Halloween, Dan Savage has something to say about the annual parade of kids who are too cool for school:
For these trick-or-treaters—older kids who aren't in costumes—we lay in a few bags of peeled-and-wrapped garlic cloves. We mix 'em into the bowl with the rest of the candy so they're handy, but we're careful to only give 'em to older kids who don't come in costume. The garlic says, "My, you're getting up there," and, "Gee, you could at least make an effort." We think everybody should do it.
The gift just keeps on giving. It's actually an act in three parts. Act I: The Simpsons' 20th Halloween special:
One of the shorts was “Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind,” and it deals with a zombie-creating burger that infects all who eat it. Bart eats a burger and manages to stay safe, though, so he is referred to as the “Chosen One.” They have to take him to the Safe Zone in order to create an antidote.When Marge gets him there, we hear this exchange:
Guard: “Welcome, son. To survive, all we must do is eat your flesh.”
Marge: “Hold it right there, Bub! What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?”
Rev. Lovejoy: [Groans nervously]
Act II: Billy-boy's response:
What kind of uncivilized people work at Fox? Last year, when they poked some gentle fun at the Apostle’s Creed on the Halloween episode, we said nothing. That’s because it didn’t cross the line. This year is different: mocking the heart of any religion always crosses the line, and mocking the Eucharist does it for Catholics. They know this at Fox, which is precisely why they did it.Act III--Hemant Mehta speaks for all of us:
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with mocking the “heart of any religion,” and Holy Communion is perfectly fair game. Let Catholics defend the practice of eating Jesus. The rest of us can call it what it is: absurd.Via Friendly Atheist.
Almost every one, anyway. See how much concentrated crazy you can spot in this one...
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.
Hey, Pastor Grizzard, Fred Phelps called...he wants you to quit stealing his act.
Seriously, do these people have two-headed alien babies with gills? These people have a list of holy-roller enemies that boils down to "everyone but us." They're like atheists, only without the cool kid factor.
Via Pharyngula.
"The Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida, made the news last week when its pastor replaced the megachurch's 10 Pepsi vending machines with 10 Coke machines. The pastor felt that Pepsi was far too supportive of—can you guess?—"the gay lifestyle."What I found most remarkable about this story wasn't the stupidity—more on that in a moment—but the fact that a single church in Florida has 10 soda-pop vending machines. Ten! You would think the good Christians at Bell Shoals could make it through an hour or two on a Sunday without a cold can of corn syrup.
And psst... Bell Shoals? Coke supports gay rights, too. Your best gay-hatin' soda-pop option may be ZamZam Cola. It was a subsidiary of Pepsi, true, but that was before the Islamic Revolution. Made in Iran, ZamZam Cola is the most popular soft drink in Saudi Arabia, and I'm guessing the good folks at ZamZam don't like the gays any more than you do. But if the "soft drink of the Hajj" doesn't appeal to you, Bell Shoals, how about asking your parishioners to go without soda pop for an hour a week?"
I think if your church is so obviously taken over by greed, what's a little gluttony to go along with it?
A "quote" from a Gillette official as it appeared in the Onion, 2004:
"Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades."CNN's Money site, 2009:
"Gillette has escalated the razor wars yet again, unveiling a new line of razors on Wednesday with five blades and a lubricating strip on both the front and back."Have these people never heard of Norelco?
And this headline was guaranteed to get my attention...
"Great tits enjoying the warmer weather -- so far."
C'mon, you know you want to...
Via Pharyngula.
"I will show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma. "
--Bill Maher
Leave it to an Irishman to skewer the ridiculous in such a delightful fashion. NSFW language.
