Fun 'n Frolic

An open letter to Kaddafi's former personal guards

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:55:48 +0000

Dear Kaddafi's former bodyguards,

It's been a good handful of weeks since Kaddafi was 'removed from office'. Most of us, if not openly pleased by the death of a tyrant, were at least happy for the Libyan people to finally have this deeply symbolic victory over the harsh oppression of a cruel regime.

But it's not all cheering and celebration in Tripoli. In any conflict there is going to be collateral damage. Those who, caught in the crossfire, are caused to suffer. I refer, of course, to you - Kaddafi's all-female compliment of hundreds of highly-trained, nubile, sweet-smelling bodyguards.

With Kaddafi out of the picture, you poor young ladies are out of a job, and you don't even have a good reference to put on your resumes. Worse still, you completely dropped the ball in the defense of your previous employer. Not to rub salt in the wound, but keeping him alive was basically your entire job description.

I just want to reach out to you ladies, and tell you "Hey, we've all been there before". It pains me to admit it, but one time I was a few days late with an important report at work, and it completely messed up several people's schedules costing the company hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in wasted time. Mind you, it's time that would have been wasted after the meeting anyway, so the actual impact was negligible. Also, my boss is still alive, and that wasn't even part of my job description. What I'm trying to say is that I understand how hard it can be to recover from a workplace blunder like that.

I'll be honest with you: There's not a lot of people who are going to want to hire you. To use an American figure of speech that probably translates well in any language: You guys really screwed the pooch. You are hated in your own country as a symbol of past oppression. The remnants of the old guard are be given to certain, shall we say, 'abuses'. Through no fault of your own, you're out of places to go. You have no one to turn to.

However, I believe in second chances, because America is the land of second chances (no matter what that bitch Helen from HR says).

And that's why I want to offer you ladies a job as my personal guard. Part-Time.

Now, I won't be able to pay you right away, but I figure we can probably set you up with a ghost writer and we should be able to live off the proceeds quite comfortably. Do the talk show circuit, maybe some college lectures. Some modelling and stunt gigs. Maybe even some coyote work down on the border. I dunno - we'll brainstorm something when you get here. Speaking of which, you'll have to pay your own way over. Better still, you should all gang up and steal a military transport plane from the transitional government - that would be so cool.

Don't let the pay thing dissuade you. Salary is so 2001. These days, it's all about Total Compensation - a phrase that means counting your benefits as part of your pay (even if they're the exact same benefits you used to get when you were paid a lot more) so it looks like you're getting more money. It's the new trend here in the States.

You'll find that you get a lot of the same benefits that you had in your previous position. Like Kaddafi I will allow you to continue wearing western hairstyles, makeup, and high heels if you so choose. But you will find my benefits package is superior to the one you've had all these years. For example:

No one is trying to kill me, so your job will involve significantly fewer incoming bullets
Flexible workweek means your free to pursue your other interests - like finding a side-job!
No more pesky chastity oath
You will almost never be called upon to murder rebels as a sign of loyalty
Rape-free work environment
Casual Friday

The entire job will mostly consist of walking around with me and looking badass wherever I go. Since I only leave the house for a few hours a few times a month, you will find that it's a laid back pace compared to what you are used to.

Now I know some people out there are going to read some kind of perversion into this. They'll accuse me of trying to fulfill some kind of bawdy man-fantasy involving 200 or more fit, lethal women oiling me down in my romper room in a figurative orgy of hedonism and literal orgies. To them I say: That is absurd. I don't even HAVE a romper room! Here I am, reaching out to these brave young women in their hour of fragility, at a time when everyone else has done nothing, and you have the nerve to accuse me of impropriety?

Detractors aside, I can assure you the thought of licentious misconduct hasn't even entered my mind. To me, the thought of having hundreds of beautiful bodyguards seems like a completely utilitarian thing. As my personal lethal entourage you'll help me accomplish common everyday tasks. Things like:

Helping me get to the front row of 'Festival Seating' shows
Convincing the bouncer to let me into the club
Slashing the tires of every person who ever cuts me off in traffic. Every day. For a year.
Flash mobbing
Waiting on hold for me when I have to call tech support
Serving as my armada of 'Wingmen' at the bar, to help me pick up chicks
Tasting foods likely to be poisoned (e.g. bananas, Popsicles, ice cream cones, foot long hot dogs, tapioca pudding, lollipops, et al.)

I hope you ladies will consider this exciting employment opportunity. I'll admit, its not great work, but it's better than your last job, and a lot less dangerous. With your help, I will one day be able to say "I've got 99 problems, but 200 bitches ain't one"

Your only friend,

Generalissimo Avery

P.S. Please include a headshot with your resume

Lion7718's New Dog

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:00:17 +0000

Dead Duck

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:49:56 +0000

Your Duck is Dead--

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away."
The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead," replied the vet..

"How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck."
The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.
The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$500!" she cried, "$500 just to tell me my duck is dead!" The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $50, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $500."

A message from the most hated typeface, Comic Sans

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:16:24 +0000

I’M COMIC SANS, ASSHOLE.

By Mike Lacher
McSweeneys.net

Listen up. I know the shit you’ve been saying behind my back. You think I’m stupid. You think I’m immature. You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

You don’t like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don’t like that I’m all over your sister-in-law’s blog? You don’t like that I’m on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I’m pedestrian and tacky?

Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don’t all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can’t all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I’m standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest. Maybe sometime you should take off your black turtleneck, stop compulsively adjusting your Tumblr theme, and lighten the fuck up for once.

Full story here...

Do we have any bowlers in the house?

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:04:29 +0000

We got any 10 pin bowlers here?

epic 11 state road trip

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:31:39 +0000

Fuck... I've got to get cracking. I haven't done a damn useful thing on the internet for a year now.
Just got back from an epic geek pilgrimage. Short version, DEFCON has gotten all commercial, so we bailed early and hit the road. How epic could it be, you ask?

Our route took us through the following locations:

Starting from Seattle, Washington
Twin Falls, Idaho
Ely, Nevada
Took the extraterrestrial highway past AREA 51
Las Vegas, for the DEFCON hacking convention - which is full of posers now and sucks
Flagstaff, AZ via Route 66
Lowell observatory, where Pluto and the Big Bang were discovered
Los Alamos National Laboratory
El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico (a lava field covered in trees and shit, but in the middle of nowhere where you'd never find it)
Socorro, New Mexico to visit the Very Large Array (imagine a field of huge radio telescopes extending in each direction for 20 miles... it's huge)
Albuquerque - just passing through, but worth mentioning
Santa Fe, where even the McDonalds are required to be built in the Pueblo style - it's very nice.
Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado
Pike National Forest
Up past 10,000 feet in the mountains of northern colorado (warning, there's no fucking air at 10K feet)
Denver, colorado
Castle Grayskull (the FBI's retardedly secure mega-fortress in denver)
A "legitimate medical dispensary" called "Kushism" which claims to offer - and this is a quote - "the finest Kush in Denver"
Red Rocks Park
Boulder, Colorado to see the building where NIST keeps the atomic clock (and to get shaken down by the cops for taking pictures)
A quick run through the corners of Nebraska and Wyoming, and then back to colorado
And finally to Provo where I spent a week with my grandparents - via grand junction (we could just make out the canyon lands to the south of us).

Perhaps just as important as the places we went, is the fact that we took about every alternate route we could find on the way because that's where the cool hidden shit is at (El Malpais, is a prime example of this).

While I was on the road, I got a call from my wife, who has informed me that we've been given a singlewide in Tucson, Arizona. This is welcome news, on many fronts.

First of all I've been living with my buddy for the last 6 months, and I'd like to move on before I wear out my welcome (mind you, he stayed with me for a few years, but I'd still rather have my own domain and leave on good terms rather than try holding something over his head - it's just not my style). Second, I've been saying for a few years now that I'd rather shoot myself in the face than go through another Pacific Northwest winter (think gray skies, constant drizzle, for 10-11 months every year). Third, I've been specifically wanting to Tucson Arizona, where summers aren't bullshit and Christmas has been as warm as 82. Where it doesn't drizzle all the damn time, but when it does rain, people fucking die. And when it doesn't rain, people fucking die. And if the wind picks up, and a dust storm gets going, you'd better get inside or else you just might fucking die. It keeps you on your toes, and makes life worth living when just sitting outside at the wrong time and unprepared will kill you. You start to take an interest in the plants and animals when all of them are pointy and poisonous.

So now I'm heading down on the first with the wife, to visit her dad (who gave us the mobile home), and to inspect the thing to make sure it's not some kind of unspeakable shithole. Then I have to figure out how to move 1 bed, 5 boxes, 4 bowling balls and 3 cats 1200 miles without spending a dollar a mile doing it.

Sure it's a trailer, but it's MY trailer. and I could care less, as long as I can get out of the northwest before I saw my own fucking head off just to see some color.

I've got a feeling good about this move. I'm not one to put any stock in fate or luck or supernatural forces or invisible men in the sky, but for as long as I've been wanting to move to the most desert-y part of the southwest, an opportunity like this is most fortuitous. In the mean time, I've got some videos to make.

Fig1: The building where the NIST keeps the atomic clock.

Fig2: That blue light in the mirror off to the right is the cop who's shaking us down for taking pictures of the NIST at night.

Anyone going to Defcon?

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:41:05 +0000

This will be my third year in a row. I guess it never gets old. Drop me a line if you want to grab a beer or something while I'm in Vegas.

The Germans are at it Again!

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:25:07 +0000

THE GERMAN ARTISTS ARE AT IT AGAIN...

Here are 7 pictures of European trucks whose trailers are decorated to look like the sides are missing and the products they are hauling are painted on the sides and back. The first one is of a bottle of beer and looks so real, like it is coming out the side of the trailer..

The second is of canvas tote bag.

The third is of Pepsi cases and they are all stacked on the ceiling, and the bottom of the trailer is empty.

The fourth is of another truck with the windshield facing the back and there has been a driver painted in the driver's seat looking back over his shoulder to appear like he is driving backwards. (Now this one is just plain scary, even when the German reads 'On the wrong way?')

The fifth one is of an aquarium with fish swimming in it.

The sixth one is of a bookshelf with books lined up in it and a post-it-note with an advertisement on it, probably for the company that sells the books.

Coolio comment from an animator

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:10:58 +0000

http://www.demonoid.me/files/details/2514417/?load_bal=4579057&show_files=&page=2#comments

thats pretty coolio

University of Oregon Power Ballad

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:04:45 +0000

This song gets me so fuckin' pumped!