Eternal Questions

Hi, folks, and welcome to Eternal Questions. Today’s question is this: “Are they trying to alienate their audience on purpose?” Up first: best-selling author Steven King!

If you don’t learn to read, then you’ll be sent to die in the desert in Iraq because the only job you can get is as a mercenary soldier fighting an illegal, unpopular war. But you’ll deserve that wretched death in the desert, you fascist pig. So there's my commercial for that.

With a thought process like that, it’s amazing that he’s not had more of his stories turned into crappy movies. Up next: Political candidate Barack Obama!

I am so tired of these gun-toting, inbred hicks who stand against our Progressive Revolution and keep us from shearing them like the sheep they are. I wish they’d just shut up and vote Obama.

Gee, I hope those gap-toothed rednecks don’t do something crazy like vote for the other guy come November! Last, but by no means least: hot-headed crank and suspected Republican John McCain!

If there’s one thing I learned from the immigration debate, it’s that my party is full of bigoted morons who refuse to do as I tell them. Secure the borders, pfft! When has that ever worked in the history of the world?

At least he didn’t call GOP members the c-word, so maybe he’s learning to tame that wild temper. Be sure to tune in next time, when we’ll ask the eternal question: “If anti-war movies hemorrhage money, then why are there so many of them?”

(All quotes are from memory and may not be verbatim, but pretty accurately reflect the sentiment)

[I originally posted this at Real Debate Wisconsin about a week ago; I've now put it here for those of you who don't read that blog]

Chester the Molester

Imagine that you’re coming out of the little “Adult” alcove in the video store, and when you step out you see your daughter’s preschool class on a field trip led by your mother-in-law and the boss’ wife, all staring at you as you hold “Heaving Jugs 3: The Suckening” in your hands.

That’s exactly what I felt like this morning.

Today I dropped off “the sample” that will tell us whether or not my vasectomy took. There simply is no way to do this without feeling like a pervert, on the order of an old man in a raincoat waiting to flash some lady getting off the bus.

First of all, once you get the sample, you have to rush it over there like it’s a liver dedicated to Larry Hagman. And just forget about me giving you the details on how the sample was obtained: this isn’t that kind of blog.

So you’re walking to the lab with your little baggie with a sample jar of jizz inside. This is not something I do every day. Yes, I know, it’s beautiful and natural, like breastfeeding. Only if you masturbate in public then you have to register as a sex offender.

When you finally get to the lab, the woman who logs it in is always the same: a perky-breasted eighteen-year-old blond with a cherubic face who giggles a lot and manages to make you feel like a filthy old pervert. Oh, and she’s also hard of hearing, so you have to yell:

“I HAVE A SAMPLE OF MAN-JAM HERE FOR A POST-VASECTOMY ANALYSIS!”

Then you have to shout your name, so everybody in the ward knows you just got your testicles cut on and that you’re walking around with a spoog cup and they better not shake your hand.

Then you get to slink out of there like you’re leaving a really seedy adult bookstore located just off a busy interstate.

After a morning like that, it’s pretty much all downhill from there, don’t you think?

Mental Exercises

Here are a few mental exercises to help warm up your brain. Answers are at the end.

1. What do you call someone who provides work for which another party benefits, yet who receives no payment?
A Slave
B Thrall
C Wikipedia Contributor

2. Someone who is utterly deluded about their chances to be successful can be said to be acting like:
A Mike Gravel
B Ron Paul
C Hillary Clinton
D All of the above

3. How is the Nobel Peace Prize like toilet paper?
A They’re both covered in crap.
B Both make you think of Jimmy Carter.
C You can flush either one.
D It’s not; toilet paper has value.

4. When is a Baptist minister not a minister?
A When he’s using the C-word in public.
B When he’s debating evolution at the GOP debate.
C When he does something noteworthy or charitable.

5. If a tree falls in the forest and crushes a hunter just before he shoots a baby deer, then:
A He can read from his bitterly-clutched bible as the final darkness descends upon him.
B The tree makes no sound, but his death rattle does.
C PETA will be very happy. Very happy, indeed.
D Al Gore will blame it on global warming.

6. Shame is:
A Only for the little people.
B The emotion you must conquer to be a successful celebrity.
C Now being vaccinated against for all reality-show contestants, apparently.
D Passé.

7. Machiavelli is to Howard Dean as:
A Pavoratti is to David Hasselhoff
B Peyton Manning is to Ryan Leaf
C Donald Duck is to Howard the Duck
D George Washington is to Tarzan

8. The success of Iron Man proves that:
A Hollywood is finally trying to make movies that appeal to a mass audience.
B Robert Downey Jr. is a mega-star who has put his troubled past behind him.
C Marvel is better off when it controls its own properties.
D Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

9. Who gains the most from Pacman Jones playing in Dallas?
A The Dallas Defense.
B Jessica Simpson, because he will distract from Tony Romo honking away the postseason.
C Fans, for the upcoming re-enactment of the shootout at the OK Corral between Jerry Jones and Pacman’s entourage.
D Strippers and lawyers, both of whom will see billable hours greatly increase.

10. At the next Yahoo! board meeting, expect:
A Lots of tar and feathers.
B A round of congratulations for fending off the Microsoft bid.
C Mass resignations.
D Google stock to go up.

Answers:
1: C, because slaves and thralls get room and board, whereas all Wikipedia Contributors get is the shaft.

2: A or B; Hillary Clinton actually has a chance.

3: D, even including the resale value of the award.

4: A, in honor of the Dr. Cosmo Kramer of Baptist Ministers.

5: C. Only one death isn’t enough for Al Gore to grandstand over.

6: D, unfortunately.

7: B, but only because Hasselhoff had two television hits.

8: C, because a blind squirrel is trying to succeed, whereas Hollywood doesn’t seem to care that it’s failing.

9: D, for obvious reasons.

10: A, with perhaps a rail out of town on the side.

The Curse of the Simpsons

It’s time to acknowledge that the Simpsons isn’t just a funny cartoon about some yellow doofuses. It is, in fact, responsible for tearing apart the fabric of our national pastime.

Just check out the lineup of the famous “Homer at the Bat” episode, where Mr. Burns hired a group of professional ringers to win his company softball tournament:

Ken Griffey
Paralyzed with injury, the man thought in the early 90’s to be the one most likely to break the home run record saw his body gradually decline until he’s become just a shadow of his former self. This paved the way for the rise of Barry Bonds, who is either a sensitive man poorly treated by the media or a steroid-swilling misanthrope who deserves to be imprisoned for his churlishness, depending on your point of view.

Steve Sax
I don’t know what happened to this guy, but I’ll bet it was bad.

Ozzie Smith
Shortly after this episode Ozzie was replaced and left baseball a bitter, angry man. I heard he joined the NRA and became a minister and now gives crazy sermons about how the government infects computer keyboards with scabies, but I could be misremembering that.

Darryl Strawberry
If there’s a modern-day Oedipus, it’s Strawberry. No, not in an incestuous way. In the sense that he had so much, but was so troubled by personal demons and health problems that it’s all just kind of slipped away.

Jose Canseco
If you ever see Bud Selig on the beach, just yell “Cansco!” and he’ll bury his head in the sand so fast the tide will go out.

Mike Scioscia
Okay, it’s true that he managed the California Angels of the Western United States to a World Series title, but what has he done lately? Nothing.

Wade Boggs
During his appearance Wade Boggs was viciously attacked by a drunk, who gave him a concussion which ultimately forced him to retire from baseball.

Don Mattingly
Did you know that an anagram of “Don Mattingly” is Tiny Malt Dong? Only Mrs. Mattingly could tell us if that was true. Given the rancorousness of their divorce, it may just be.

Roger Clemens
Despite some steroid allegations, he appears to be the only one with any chance to escape the curse. Unless those lurid allegations turn out to be true, in which case he's pretty much screwed. Which is what Boston wanted all along, anyways, so it's all good.

Rosie’s Wright Prose

when the usg implodes the wtc
so bush can bomb iraq
and the surgeon general makes diseases
to target left-handed gays
so bush can bomb iraq
and white people design schools
so black children fail
so bush can draft them into the army to bomb iraq
god damn america indeed

the rev is totally correct
hil and mccain and rush are all in on it
only obama can stand against
the giant forces trying to sweep us
up into a place where
nobody can see the sunlight
that sparkles in their soul

i can see that u
feel his truth too
vote for hope

Roger Clemens is Screwed

And I don’t mean in a good, country-music-star way. I mean in a bad, “your legacy is tarnished and everyone will hate you forever” way.

The predictable calls for him to “come clean and confess” have begun to appear. Then, we are assured, all will be forgiven.

Sure. And the Spanish Inquisition asked for the accused to bring kindling, but that was only to heat the courtroom.

If Clemens is foolish enough to confess, he’ll be crucified for it for the rest of his natural life. After all, Pete Rose was told all he had to do was apologize and all would be forgiven. We were assured that Rose, the all-time hit king, had committed only a minor sin, easily washed away with a simple confession.

You know what? Rose finally confessed and is worse off now than he was before: all his defenders have vanished, and his detractors (of whom I am one) freely malign his name without fear of anyone standing up for him. He’s a pariah in baseball and will forever be one.

So Clemens is doomed. His future in baseball is doubtful. And apparently he’s got troubles on the home front, too.

Good luck getting out of this count, Mr. Clemens. You’re gonna need it.

California Warns on Nether Piercings

The California Department of Health has issued a public-health warning today after a Chinese-imported vaginal ring injured twelve people, three of them seriously, at a swinger’s party in San Francisco. While most of the victims were being treated for metal poisoning, one man was in intensive care with a severely lacerated penis.

Paramedics said that “when we arrived on scene at the ‘Relive the Sixties’ party to respond to the call, nothing had prepared us for such horror. Aging, free-love hippies lay naked everywhere. The smell of unwashed flesh hung in the air like rotting fruit, and thousands of hungry flies alighted on the supine forms. Some of them had gruesome injuries, too.”

Officials say the rings, which were manufactured by the Joy-Joy Happy Fun Company in Xichuan, were coated with gold paint that flakes off when exposed to saline solutions, such as urine. This exposes the inner metal core, an alloy of lead, mercury, and thallium, which then becomes brittle when exposed to moisture.

At the party, during a particularly frenzied copulation the ring woman’s ring fractured, leaving multiple gashes down one man’s penis. An unnamed witness described the wounded appendage as “looking like a frayed rope when he finally got it out of there.”

Authorities have issued a warning that any women who received vaginal piercings over the past month from Kris’s Klassy Piercings may have received one of the tainted rings and should immediately remove it from use.

A spokesman for the CDH said that “We’re trying to get the message to women to take these rings out before they severely traumatize their loved ones. Even more frightening is the possibility that a fracture might occur while a woman is using a personal pleasure device, which represents an electrocution and fire hazard.

"We need to get this message out to the places where woman who get vaginal piercings congregate: strip clubs, raves, and organic grocery stores.”

McCain’s Pastor is Anti-Smurf

The John McCain campaign today was scrambling to explain comments by his personal spiritual advisor, former Air Force Chaplain Phillip “Philly” Hanson. The incendiary comments appeared on a You Tube video over the weekend and have been setting the liberal blogosphere afire with glee.

“The Smurfs are symbolic of everything that’s wrong with the world!” Hanson said to a packed church, with McCain clearly nodding in the front pew. “Cannibalism, sorcery, and public nudity are a staple of these monstrous perversions walking in our midst. UNICEF had the right idea: kill the smurfs, bomb their villages to the ground, and let their blue skin burn in the fires of hell where they belong!”

An editorial at the Huffington Post said that it was “the most horrible language imaginable, and shows that McCain and the GOP are a clear and present danger to everything that America holds dear: wife swapping, children’s cartoons that glorify assless pants, and the right to walk in public without wearing a miniature American flag pin. This is totally different than Barack Obama’s two-faced pastor saying some controversial but understandable things behind his back.”

The progressive blog Daily Kos took a much firmer stance, saying that “everyone in the video should be deported or, failing that, put in some sort of re-education camp until they come to love the smurfs and all that they stand for.”

Exciteable 5-year-olds mean trouble

Today, I have no son. I've been traveling on business, but today's a holiday over here, so I spent today being with my family, like a good father. I actually felt well enough to play some Wii with them, which I'd been laying off of for obvious chafing-related reasons.

We had a good time, until my son, excited by the tennis game, HIT ME IN THE STITCHES WITH THE WII REMOTE!

I’m sure it was an accident, but I will have vengeance nonetheless.

If I could have run, I would have murdered him. Unfortunately, his mother was right there to protect him, and it took me a good ten minutes to recover.

But I’m cutting him out of the will. And someday, his mother won’t be there to protect him, and then I will have my revenge.

Until then, though, we're sticking with bowling. It's much safer.

Sorry, but...

I was traveling on business with my new laptop. Turns out the damn thing doesn't have internet access, so I was unable to keep the Dollop rolling like I usually do.

I sincerely apologize to both my readers.