Happy Eastover!

Or Passeaster, as with which your preference may lie.

Last evening my family celebrated both, as the lapsed Jews gathered with the lapsed gentiles and the never-were, and faked a quick seder under my direction to tell the story of passover and then eat a meal before digressing into drunken therapy complaining about how awful the people we didn't invite are and always have been.

This is that story:

"Okay, so Moses is a Jew, but he's adopted by the queen. He's basically the pharaoh's little brother. Until one day God's like, "You're Jewish," and he's like, "Damn." So he goes out and sees what it's like to be Jewish, except he's still rich and powerful and not a slave. So God says, "No, you gotta free them now," which he's cool about, figuring his brother will be down ince their dad was about to do that anyway. But it turns out since Moses left to learn about being Jewish his brother became kind of a dick and didn't free the slaves at his dad's death like he was supposed to. It's a free laboring class. Come on.

"So Moses is all "Dude," and his brother is like, "Yeah, I know," but God 'turns his heart' so he'll refuse to let the Jewish slaves go, so effectively nothing from this point out is really his fault and God's a huge dick.

"So Moses performs some miracles, which also happen to be horrible, horrible plagues upon the Egyptian people for something their king did because he was being Jedi Mind Tricked.

"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader.
"Your sad devotion to this contemporary religion hasn't given you
clairvoyance enough to- wait, yeah, actually no. Go ahead."

"First Moses made his staff into a cobra, which killed and ate the cobra-staff of an Egyptian magician, just to prove out God was stronger than his god. The the real plagues started: the Nile turned to blood, frogs rained from the sky–which is pretty cool, actually–lice, "wild beasts"–so, like Egyptian antelope or whatever were running through the streets, so that was cool–pestilence–which destroyed the entirety of the nation's crops and food stores–boils on the face and all over, giants, painful hail hitting people in their heads, locusts–eating what little of the crops remained–darkness just blotting out the sky–which should have been the end of it, but the Lord still kept Pharaoh from letting the Jews go–and finally the killing of all first-born Egyptian children, essentially committing genocide against an entire people for the fun of it.

"Dude, I am way too high for this right now."
"Shut up, Ezakiah! My mom'll totally hear you!"

"Finally, God let Pharaoh let the Jews go, but they had to get out quickly, so they baked their bread before it had risen, so it was all chewy and gross–basically a Cliff Bar. Then for some reason Pharaoh changed his mind again and some generals chased after them, but the Jews walked through the Red Sea in that really cool animated scene that's all anyone remembers from Disney's The Prince of Egypt. Then all the Egyptians chasing them died, and the Jews wandered in circles for 40 years until Moses died to punish him for breaking some tablets when we got bored and started worshiping a golden cow statue while waiting for God to finish dictating some laws.

"And somewhere in there, God also "passed judgement" on the Egyptian gods, apparently, so they were real but pussies."


Luckily, I'll be spending all day today working, despite it being Sunday and Easter, so I won't have to deal with the Jews telling me I'm a bad Jew (Passover is officially over), or the Christians telling m I'm going to hell (they're all fighting with their own families over plastic eggs).

But God willing we'll all meet again in Exodus II: The Search For More Money.

Merry Easter-Eve

"Mother F-CKER. Whelp, I'm out six pieces of silver."

Ah, the day before Easter. Easter Eve, Holy Saturday, or–as I like to call it–St. Thomas' Day.

This marks the day when Jesus of Nazareth lay in his tomb, dead the day before, but before the day when his followers started seeing apparitions of him, checked his tomb, and said, "Oh crap he's gone."

Now, no one would have said anything the first day, because that's just bad form and comforting was required, but I figure today was the day someone, St. Thomas because why the hell not, first hit on Mary Magdalene.

"Ah, Mary, I know your grief, I too feel it. Surely, I was not his wife, but he was like unto a brother to me. And … it is a brother's duty to care for his widow, so I shall be here for you and your needs. I shall take you into my family and you shall want for noth–

"OH HEY JESUS DIDN'T SEE YOU THERE fuckshitass WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE DEAD? WHAT'S THE JOKE HERE? Cock-blocking asshole!"

There's a pretty good reason to call him "Doubting Thomas," then. Brother could not believe he could get his game smacked down by a dead man.

Rules of "The Game"

Aaaaand I just lost it.

Until I was 18 I refused to have a "favorite band." It was stupid. You say you like The Beatles and somebody nearby shouts out, "Man … fuck the Beatles!" and you're expected to defend them or conversationally concede that the surviving Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr deserve to be forcibly copulated.

Then I stopped being afraid of what other people thought. Then I found a band so embarrassing to like, but loved so wholeheartedly that it stopped mattering. My favorite band is Long Island alternative quintet and former pop-punk losers Brand New. I don't even really like their last two albums, more the first for sadly ironic lyrics and the second for being AMAZING, and you kind of have to fold in the 2005 demo album that was semi-abandoned after early recordings of it leaked online. But fuck it, I love Brand New. What they did in the beginning, and how it fit into my life, that justifies in my eyes everything they crap out forever.

I'm 26, and I just realized why I loved them, and why I loved the train wreck that was Jersey Shore, and Joss Whedon's final failed TV series Dollhouse, and books about journalists touring with rock bands and wrestlers and emotionally damaged pick-up artists.

I checked a copy of Neil Strauss' "The Game" out of my local library. I walked in and got a library card just to read this. This beautiful piece of trash laid out on a canvas and dyed beautiful colors has clearly been checked out previously by just truly sad, sad people, an average of three times a month since the new year. It's fun to read about horrible people being absolutely brilliant at what at best can be described as psychologically fascinating, at worst as morally … evil, I guess. Vile, maybe.

But it's also fun to see where pages were once dogeared, despite the handy built-in red string bookmark; where an idle pencil mark wasn't completely erased, what on that page must have been a wise pointer meritorious of being jotted down.

And who am I to judge a single one of the losers to read this book before me. I very proudly sauntered up to the librarian in my post-business finest and checked out not a single other book to mitigate the social miasma that follows this tome. She even asked me, "You want to check this out?" as if she were confused. And I avoided a panic attack by a respectably not-so-slim margin as I did so.

Yes, I'm curious as to what's in this book on a blatant level. As confident and not self-depricating as I try to be, I have fear of rejections issues. The best way to overcome this is to fail. A whole lot. Spectacularly, if possible. In public. Have other people see it and walk away without having a damn heart attack over it. This book, I think may actually have some cogent points in between the horrifying mistakes that ultimately lead to the situation introduced on page 1.

I don't discount a priest's wisdom simply because I hate organized religion. Conversely, I don't discount brainless reality programming if I learn something from it unintended by the producers. [Note: I am not sure there is anything to be learned from Honey Boo-Boo except how to be terrible parents and/or give yourselves and your children early-onset diabetes.]

Just someone punch my in the sternum if I start wearing a feather boa and calling myself "Midnight" or something.

Photoshop You Are Making My Life Too Difficult

Maybe I just need to buy a gazillion more petabytes of RAM, but some days all I want is to be able to take a photo, maybe mess with the levels a little bit, and slap some centered text over that bitch.

Yes, sometimes I also want to Photoshop a man's head onto a famous celebrity Olympian for the purpose of impressing his friends and winning a bet, and sometimes I paint a former college President to highlight her uncanny resemblance to the puppet from Saw. And sometimes I'm even asked by my family to crop the girlfriend out of a photo of some guy who looks like my deceased great-uncle-in-law so his surviving fiance can have a picture of him but no one wants to even copy an original.

But some days you just gotta slap text on a bitch and "Innitializing Type tool" is about fifteen seconds of "What the shit was Adobe been doing the five solid minutes this mother was starting up?"

On Facebook Activism

This week the United States Supreme Court has heard–back-to-back–two landmark cases in the gay and non-hetero cis-gendered civil rights movements. The first yesterday regarded California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state by referendum, and today the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act which labels marriage for the purpose of federal benefits as exclusively between one man and one woman, and has already been overturned 6 times on its way to the Supreme Court.

This is the precipice over which we as a nation may fall or off which we may launch great heights. This is so important, it calls for incredibly flowery, corny language, because one day someone is going to write all of this down, and you damn sure want to make sure your argument isn't the one that keeps parents from using your name when they have kids.

However, popular opinion is a queer animal right now.

Voting-wise, conservativism  has had a sizable upswing resultant from economic woes and political fear mongering. This of course only polls those old enough to vote, with the time to do so in the middle of a week day, and angry enough about something to back a party rather over a single political issue.

The Internet is decidedly left-leaning, even if you take out the insane "hacktivists" and techno-anarchists, and advocating for a technological utopia ruled from the highest seats of T1 lines by Linux-based programming gurus who probably failed gym. Kidding aside, the Internet is the domain of the young and the idealistic, and the geniuses too stupid to know they can't just make something work, so who do. Daily.

Which unfortunately is also something true of the truly stupid. "Like this page to support breast cancer." Fuck you, I hate breast cancer. What are you even doing? Liking a Facebook page or sharing a photo, does absolutely nothing. It changes a couple 0s to 1s in a box in a room in a server farm in Kansas. That's what Facebook activism does.

Recently the White House had to up the number of e-signatures required for an official response to any petition created on its special website. Because nerds wanted to know why we haven't built a Death Star yet. Then the Library of Congress, not understanding technology in the slightest, made it a felony to unlock your phone. The Internet wrote a petition, raised the newly required number of e-signatures, and the White House responded in favor of rewriting the stupid immediately.

That is political action taking place on the Internet. Online petitions. That's it. And yes, also Anonymous DDoSing certain websites and WikiLeaks publishing damning data hidden by our government for the set purpose of maintaining political supremacy by keeping the population ignorant of vicious mistakes and terrible crimes. Those count, though they remain illegal maneuvers themselves.

Changing your profile photo to a picture of a cat does not save kittens. It might make Sarah McLachlan a few dollars in some roundabout way with all the YouTube clicks, but it does not save a abused kitten. It does negative good. Effort that could have gone into something useful is wasted on showing off to all your friends that you care about issues.

If every time someone feels the need to "support" anything on Facebook, they instead donated $1 to said cause, we'd probably have developed a functional artificial pancreas by now. We'd have afforded pricier lobbyists years ago. We'd have funded cheap gene therapy. The tax write-offs alone could help rebound the economy. But instead we make in-app purchases to refill out digital Mazerati's tank a little faster.

The only thing I can imagine Facebook sharing and photo trends affecting is if some of the Chief Justices go to check their Inbox at the end of the day, they become as confused and furiously annoyed as I was when I woke up one morning to discover 3,000 new updates of people all changing their profile pictures to the same hot-pink image and linking the same three newswire pieces over and over and over again.

Maybe then they'll just sanction looser definitions of marriage just to shut us the hell up.

On Unleavened Bread

This is probably the last thing I will say about being Jewish until Chanukah.

That's a bold-faced lie. I'll have to make a Jew joke before then. But it would not be a lie to say this is probably the last thing I will say about Jewish Holidays until then. Hell, I can only name three others off the top of my head, so odds are pretty good, I'd imagine.

"Let me tell you what it was like before the Dark Times, before the Empire…."

In any event, it is now officially Passover, and that means Jewish lkids the world over are going to school having to explain their peanut butter and jelly matzo sandwiches to everyone else at the lunch table. I don't have a terrible problem with matzo. It's actually quite delicious under cream cheese or jelly or both, or yes even peanut butter. It's no more terrible than Wheat Thins or an unsalted Ritz cracker.

However it occurs to me that matzo has no relation to the unleavened bread it supposedly symbolizes.

Matzo is made without leavening agents of any kind. Though it probably fails other "Kosher for Passover"/Parve tests, Wonder Bread even qualifies as it is puffed up with blasts of air and not yeast for the sake of expediency. Matzo is a ban on carbs that take time to rise.

"… this bitter Herb-" "Why are you saying it like that?" "Like what?"
"Putting so much emphasis on the H."

Yet in the story of Passover, the Jews in exile baked cakes of unleavened bread because they were in a rush to get out while the getting was good. (Considering an army chased after them because pharaoh changed his mind, not altogether a bad decision.) Consider that: they baked the unleavened bread. It does not say, "They prepared bread without leavening," it says they "baked [the] unleavened bread."

The Jews made their dough as per usual, but then baked it right away instead of waiting for it to rise. If we're being historically accurate about this, we should be eating bread that was prepared as if it were to be set aside to rise, and then baking the hell out of it immediately.

We should be chewing yeasty, gross, chewy-ass bread roughly akin to the pre-buttered breadsticks my mom finds in the back of the freezer aisle at her local Discount Food Plus.

"Let my babies go!"

On Passover | 2013

When we visited my grandmother for her 87th birthday luncheon of foot-long hotdogs, strawberry shortcake, and champagne, I found my old alphabet puzzle.

You will notice that is in Hebrew. The letters are, as the Aleph-Bet song refuses to allow me to forget:

Aleph -Silent, used for words that begin with a vowel sound
Bet - B
[Vet - V (Not considered its own letter for official/numerical/crossword purposes, predominantly used in the middle of a word)]
Gimel - G
Dalet - D
He (hay) - H
Vav - V (official V)
Zayin - Z
Chet - CH (phonographic X or Kh like in German, or the Scottish "loch")
Tet - T
Yod - Y (silent unless at the front of a word)
Kaf - K
[Khaf - (CH again. Second, long-Daled version only used as last letter of a word, no vowel)]
Lamed - L
Mem - M (Square-looking second version used only at end of word, no vowel)
Nūn - N (Long nūn only at end of word, no vowel)
Samekh - S
Ayin - ANOTHER TOTALLY SILENT LETTER
Pey - P (Has the dot in the middle.) Long version only at end of word
[Fey - F (Pey without the dot.) Also has a long version!]
Tsadi - Ts (And a long version…)
Kuf - K
Reish - R
Shin - Sh
[Sin - S (Not a full letter, just a different pronunciation of Shin, denoted by dot on the LEFT branch)]
Tav - T again (May or may not have a dot on the center!)

While I was nostalgia-ing out at work yesterday, trying deserately to remember what Samekh looks like because for some reason it always escapes me, I magically remembered an episode of Sesame Street showed to my class way back in Hebrew School, the first one I went to that was way too conservative and somehow simultaneously lawless and a livid nightmare of child-on-child torment and abuse.

But the show.

My god, it was terrible. So dumb. So dumb it's one of those train wrecks that comes back to haunt you years later so you ca show it to someone else like the Ring tape and say "See? SEE??"

It took me maybe 10 minutes of off-and-on searching at work between customers to find what it really was: "Shalom Sesame" a multi-part series produced between 1986 and 1990, and again recently as an Israeli version of Sesame Street, containing half-translated classic Street bits, and original segments with original cast and puppets.

What I saw was episode 9, "Aleph-Bet Telethon" in which Jerry Stiller runs a telethon to get people to donate Hebrew letters, because somehow I guess they all started vanishing from the Shalom Sesame street sign. Yup.

Anyway, Oscar the Grouch calls in between segmentsfor some reason, and realizes his berating call was answered by his cousin Moishe Oofnik ("oofnik" being Hebrew for "grouch"). He guilts his cousin about being a shitty grouch since he's helping, and concocts a plan to screw up the telethon by introducing a fake letter called "Yuchalechale," in which the hide a Yod they find. Ben Stiller's dad isn't buying it, and discover the hidden Yod, completing their Aleph-Bet.

Then Moishe tries to sell his fake letter on the cheap. Yup.

Now I want you to remember, this was a show produced to be pro-Judaism.

I also learned The Count is Jewish, which is actually a horrible stereotype of Romanian Jews when you see him wearing a yarmulke and little side curls. "One, ha-ha! One pound of flesh for the money lender! Ha-ha-ha!"

Phoenix Rising: The Most Offensive Book I've Ever Seen

I want it on the record that this officially bumps Glenn Beck's thinly-veiled masturbatory Obama murder fantasies as the most offensive, jingoistic horse shit to be sold as actual printed words.

Phoenix Rising: Fire Base Freedom by William W. Johnstone (with J. A. Johnstone).

The back jacket reads as follows. Note the quotes around "peace." (Vocal inflection has also been added to approximate tone.)


In the interest of full disclosure, this is put out by Kensington Books, purveyors of fine "Urban" (read: low-income African American) fiction such as Somebody's Got to Be on Top.

If it's any consolation, this zero copies and like all Kensington publications, isn't even worth returning to the publisher, and is immediately recycled in bulk.

American Hard Ass Magazine

It's supposed to be "American Hard Assets," but magazines are always stacked with the left half of the next covering the right side of the previous one.

Someone … did not understand how to sell magazines about selling other things. Ironic.

Holloywood Secrets #441

If you party extra hard…

 … one day …

… an enormous washed-up celebrity will be in your wedding party.

Poor Reasons to Continue Dating Someone

• They gave you their Netflix password

• You want her cute friend to like you better so she's extra consoling when you break up later

• He is sterile and your mother feels too awkward to keep asking you when you're giving her grandkids

• You don't feel like having to change all your Internet passwords

• You haven't ripped all his good CDs yet

• It took so long just to get comfortable pooping in front of this person

• Her mom makes amazing cookies

• His dog is cooler than he is

• You don't want to deal with the drama of chaging your Facebook status

American Eagle Sends Outs April Fools Email 11 Days Early

So I jus received and email for American Eagle Outfitters advertising their new "Skinny Skinny," skinny jeans for the discerning, subversive nudist.

The video prominently features butts. Several butts.

Jeans that come packaged in cans, one-size-fits-all two colors though! $50.

No explanation, and the items are listed as out of stock at this time.

SOMEBODY DONE GOOFED.


EDIT: Video!

Alan Tudyk is Dinosaurs Forever

Whenever I see a T-Rex, my mind goes to only one of two places; while others in my demographic typically thing Jurassic Park, I think "Dinosaur Comics" if there's a car, or in any other instance "Firefly."

And then I remember how much I love Alan Tudyk and my heart bursts, as if suddenly and unexpectedly by a harpoon.

More Racist Finds from My Grandmother's House

After the personal stein monogrammed "Slave," I'm starting to become a bit concerned with some of this brickabrack.

This is a painted porcelain figurine made in…




…yup, Occupied Japan.

My mom and aunt swore it was Aunt Jemima and that one just like it was featured on Antiques Roadshow, but according to the Internet this little baby's trade name is "Mammy."

So yeah, I'm not introducing grandma to my black friends from now on.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Heathens!

 

May your glass be ever full, may the roof over your head be ever strong, and may you be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead.
                                                 - Old Irish Drinking Toast

I hope you were all responsible enough yesterday during the festivities that you have survived to see this day, whereby you are entitled once more to imbibe until the fluids coming out of ya are as toxic as the fluids flowing inta ya.

Please make poor choices. Only small ones, little things that lead to fun and perhaps mischief, but never heartache or cruelty. Create wonderful stories and be a part of them, then make up a way better ending for when you tell it to your friends.

And if you see a little red-headed guy with a pot of gold…

Kick him. Because that ginger midget just used his one chance a year to rob a bank and get away with it.

Happy Drinking Day

Furiously, I took vacation time tomorrow and Monday only to find St. Patrick's Day has apparently been moved so the parade and debauchery actually happens today.

Now, I'll accept this on the grounds that bars have limited Sunday hours, but screw the world for not making a huge deal of this so I'd find out an take off different days. Oh, it's no worry, I picked up some Monday hours and the world is alright since I have plans tomorrow anyway, but come on.

Now I'm at work wondering if this Extra Strength 5-Hour Energy lasts longer than 5 hours or if I'm just going to be extra awake for the same length of time.




Anwake+ TM Dave Zucker.

An eCard for Mayor Bloomberg

Hopefully this is the one that goes viral and catapults my into the Big Time.

Save the Muppets

Every year, thousands of Muppets are culled before Easter so Americans can eat their candied heads out of larger, scooped-out Muppet heads.

"Well, it's no Muppet I know. What does it matter to me?





Deal with it.




Now give 50¢ a day to Disney or Big Bird gets it next.

Doctor Haiku?

I work with very intelligent, very nerdy people. So sometimes we challenge each other to write amusing haikus. Since I've already done Nerdy Limericks, I figured why not some Wholiganism?

so complicated.
non-linear time streams are …
If you ask me,

It's wibbly-wobbly
time-y-whimy stuff. It's all
a bit confusing.

Do not follow me,
under any circumstance,
Amelia Pond.

A New Horizon In Nerdery

My roommate informed me this morning that there are people on Instagram who role play the Harry Potter universe. Via Instagram.

They cast spells, complain about "Defense Against the Dark Arts" homework, and narrate their actions such as

*puts wand down*

And apparently calling someone a "stupid muggle" is a viable insult.

…

I'm astounded by this. Nerds have finally found a way to top LARPing without ever leaving their computers. I'm pretty sure taking the LA out of "Live Action Role Playing" is just regular online RPGing, but let's not tell these filthy mudbloods or they could start coming outside and stumble upon one of our secret meetings of People Who Have Lives.

Doctor Whoore: An XXX Parody

What that man could do with a sonic screwdriver….

I am told, by a cursory internet search, that such a movie is being produced, though there has been very little mention of it and certainly no post-production materials released, or any news at all for the past year and a half. So I feel it is within my rights to release this plot treatment I dreamt up just before bed for a Who-themed porno, which seem to be the way to make a quick buck off media attention these days.


Firstly, each 15-20 minute scene gets its own "Episode" Title, and prominently features a different companion.


"Playing Doctor"

"Tulip" and the Doctor boink their way out of a voyeuristic future reality show. Getting separated, Tulip is captured by a mysterious, possibly mad woman in leather with elbow gloves and a BDSM bent, who is prone to drumming her fingers rhythmically. The Doctor finds himself on a medical series, where he encounters Marsha Bones. There is a Star Trek "Dammit, Jim," joke somewhere in there.

"Wrath of the Cyber Men"

Marsha begins online flirtations with someone named "Mrs. Saxon" to acquire information on the whereabouts of Tulip for the Doctor. She has a solo scene until her computer and vibrator are taken over remotely and turned into horny androids. While this is happened, the Doctor investigates a lead on an alien planet where he meets loud-mouthed Rhonda Nobbler…


"Ood Company"

Rhonda and the Doctor save an alien species rebelling against its sadistic human masters. They discover the hive race to be overly-trusting, as they all carry their hearts with them. They are led by a giant, intelligent, pulsating phallus that obviously has gross but tender and psychically important tentacle sex with Rhonda. While this is happening, the Doctor is captured by oddly familiar little robots with glowing dildos on their domes…

"Cum Together"

All the companions must work together to rescue the Doctor from Dalek Seks. The Master steps out to reveal herself as the Mysterious Woman and the orchestrator of all the plots against the Doctor and his many buxom companions. While the Master Escapes, the Doctor saves Tulip from certain death, though he takes a certainly mortal caning to the tush in the process. Forced to regenerate (and this is where we blow everything left in the SFX budget during post), the Doctor finds he is now … a woman. And a ginger, finally.

"The Two Doctors"

The newly-regenerated Doctor, finding a newly-fitted three-piece suit, travels back in time to catch the runaway Master, with the help of all her wonderful companions and–at the heart of a paradox–her previous incarnation. After defeating the Master and sending all companions back to there happy endings, the two doctors bump Galifreyan uglies until the paradox wears off and the younger Doctor returns to his original time stream with no memory of his future events.


The male Doctor will be portrayed by James Deen with flippy hair. Running time, approx. 100 minutes. Profitability: excessive.

If I Could Bottle My Subconscious, I Would Sell It Like a Drug Dealer

I dreamnt of a new Presidential race, between John McCain and someone named "Kitth Ped" (Pronounced "Kit"). He was a rising star of a politician, a true polymath, an utter genius. Also, he was twelve years old and British, explaining the funny spelling.

He was also unquestioningly evil. He had a penchant for poisoning his enemies. Though no one could ever prove such a thing, it was common knowledge amongst at least whatever crowd I was a part of in this scenario.

His downfall came when he "killed" a chav dummy. By dummy I mean mannequin, and by killed I mean "partially decapitated with a clean sectioning off on the top of the cranium to expose and bisect the upper brain." By chav, I mean an under-aged English slut partial to the following mode of dress:

Only less intelligent. That girl has an intelligence in her eyes commiserate with someone who has succeeded in earning a living through porn and manages her assets well. Bring her down to "I'm 16 and maybe if I'm slutty enough someone will give me money," and you'll have an idea of the internet-culture exhibitionist trollips this kid was intent to murder for sport.

And we caught him on camera. Not enough to put him in jail, but enough to ruin his reputation beyond any amount of spin-control. He was done.

Yet what bothered me was that in his attempts to turn the campaign towards inane and ineffectual issues, this Master Ped orchestrated mass debates and social politics out of one's stance on minutiae of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Every candidate was cosplaying and fighting over artistic intent and backstory, and retconning '80s and '90s secondary materials with the prequel trilogy.

And god dammit, McCain gave a huge speech and I loved every minute of the race, except all the hatred I was expected to spew whenever a ballot name misinterpreted a history or couldn't pronounce a name quite right. I'm a nerd, yeah, but my love for Star Wars isn't dependent on everybody else not getting it like I do.

More importantly, it seems like it's neither dependent on waking reality or the ability to process real life in a meaningful or sensical way. This natural state of my brain is again the reason I feel no need to partake of drugs.



Kitth Ped - Brit rising child politician poisons dresses as dr. Kills chav dummy

Star Wars minutiae in race. Everyone codplsys, fights over "issues." McCain speech. Secretly love but also hate all the screw ups.

We're All Gonna Die | Part "I'm Surprised It Hasn't Happened Yet"

The cast of Two and a Half Men just did a public service announcement about all the good emergency service personnel do in cases of natural disasters such as "Superstorm Sandy."

Are we really in the type of post-cultural-singularity society where we can throw around words like "superstorm" like it isn't

A) one of the coolest things in the world, and, causing this,

B) ridiculously sci-fi?


Honestly, I hope the answer is "yes," because that would no one will be able to tell the difference between technology and magic, and you all will have an incredibly short attention span, so as not to notice how terrible this late posting was.

Norman Rockwell Scares Me

Found this at work while doing overnight inventory. Some thoughts:

1. That is a military flag. It has fringe on it, thus, based on the large crowd consisting of multiple families, this is unlikely to be a military tribunal and more likely a parade. Or, that's a veteran, a couple of female spies, and four child soldiers with their handlers.

2. The kid half covered by the flag is having none of this. Based on his scowl and foreign-looking haircut, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest his parents were beatniks with ties to a then-Soviet Bloc country who were investigated and had their reputation ruined by Senator McCarthy.

3. The fat little kid on the left is absolutely terrified of war, but sees it as an inevitability, where he will at least have a chance to prove his manhood, as his grandfather has so often expounded upon the virtues thereof.

4. His slightly older sister is utterly terrified. She sees the violence and civic engineering being implemented by the patriarchal military-industrial complex and fears her deeply heartfelt feminist leanings will be crushed under the weight of this and future administrations as men like her grandfather continue to cleanse the world of difference in thought and appearance, while maintaining and further consolidating their own power.

5. Her grandfather accuses her and constantly reminds her that her parts are filthy, just like the French prostitute his squad mates took turns having their way with so many years ago back in the Ardennes. Filthy, filthy parts.


Norman Rockwell, you subversive little minx, you.

The Best Things At NY's International Restaurant and Foodservice Show 2013

I just spent three days eating food and drinking drinks just to let you know what the most delicious things on the planet are. For the record, the answers are still "beef," "bacon," and "chocolate," but "duck" had a solid run. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the duck feet/tongue. Anyway, while tastes may vary from bud to bud, here's a list of the Best Things overall at the show.



You Own the Floor:

It's the same show floor as New York Comic Con, except you can breath free. Seriously, I could run an 1/8 mile, do a cartwheel, and spin around singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music," without hitting another person. I'm sure I'd get yelled at, but I could do it, is the point.

This iced tea:

Super-clean taste, crisp, nice lemon and honey flavors, but a lighter blend of black and green teas. A++ will drink again. Also forever.

This cake.

They had a Cake Boss-esque challenge to sculpt an edible masterpiece reflecting the nature of woman, while integrating a small 12" cake in some capacity. The sheer number of Eve/Snake homages was overwhelming, while the actual cakes were, for the most part, whelming. This one, however, was gorgeous and reflected both a unity of composition and a mastery of technique. We all put it at the top of our picks, and sure enough this beauty one first place on Day 2.

Demon Slayer Saké:

 

Alright, this was actually probably the second or third worst saké I had all day. I tend to like the smoother, fruitier varieties, but this was straight rice-wine liquor, about 12% which is rather high for sake. Heavy kick. This is sippin' saké to keep you warm on cold Honshu nights. However, it's name is so incredibly badass.

About 8 million fancy cheeses.

 

This one in particular was fantastic. Nice and sharp, but with a creamy sweetness too.

Elixer smoothies:

Amazing. Absolutely delicious, ant they were essentially mashed fruit with nothing else. Plus: I learned what a guava looks like!

And while it's also utterly delicious, what the shit is this 'soursop' fruit, anyway??

Looks like a spiny little afro or a lizard testicle.
If lizards had exterior gonads, I bet this is what they'd look like.
Not some scaly furvert interpretation

PreGel Gelato Magic:

 

Aside from the fantastic creme brulee and peach-flavored marshmallow bites, PreGel apparently makes chemicals of the molecularly gastronomic type. They effectively allow you to turn any pre-existing flavored foodstuff into ice cream. Sure, double chocolate fudge and espresso and cookies & cream were good as ever, but do you know what that is on the spoon above?

It's Brooklyn Lager flavor.

Not even, it is Brooklyn Lager. Somehow, I don't know how–and find myself incapable of comprehending the mechanics behind it–PreGel converted straight-up beer, hops and nitrous bubbles included, and whipped it into cream. It tasted exactly like the beer, that beer exactly, and I cannot stress that enough. All I can truly say is it was the sensation of physically consuming ice cream, with the "tastual" experience of drinking a bottled Brooklyn Lager.

Lady Balls:

 

Happy Bitch wines are blushes designed for partying out with your girlfriends while still looking down on ladies who drink Franzia and Arbor Mist. They also put out some decent self-help books for happier, more self-actualized female lives. They also sell little, wrinkled, bedazzled leather testicles.

Meat Glue:

 

Chef Kevin Cottle was supposed to put on a demonstration of cooking with liquid nitrogen, but according to his spiel, the Javits Center security folks got a little riled up when they saw him wheeling in large industrial canisters of super-cooled and hazardous material. So instead, he showed us "meat glue."

Activa®RM Transglutaminase is an enzyme that–among other things–binds amino acids in proteins with strong covalent bonds, linking smaller portions of meat together into a single whole. The enzyme is tasteless, and dissolves away during cooking, leaving no residue and zero taste.

This can be used creatively, linking multiple animals' meats, thickening egg yolks, or infusing flavors from one protein into another. What we witnessed was a money-saving option for restaurants: glue scraps of unused meat together overnight, then slice and cook them as small medallions. The "chain link tenderloin medallions" I had were unreasonably good, considering they were originally much smaller cuttings from a larger steak. Cooked separately, they would have ended up uneven, burnt, and likely blegh. This, this was a tiny little steak.

King Octopus:

Later I got to go to the Lego Store:
 

This is currently the largest and most expensive Lego set available commercially.
$350 for a Star Wars Star Destroyer of 3152 pieces, over 104" long,

There was an ostrich on the roof. And a Spider-Man. And a Batman.
And Thor and Loki were chilling on the 30 Rock sign.
And the little Lego Store had a Lego dragon winding through its walls and windows, just like the real one.

I Promise A Real Blog Tomorrow

It's some type of crazy broccoli, but I prefer to look at it as GODDAM LIVING MATH FRACTAL FRUIT.

And I'm just guessing fractal fruit is delicious.

International Restaurant and Foodservice Show NY | Day 3

"Baconry" is "Bacon + Bakery" according to these promotional materials. I call it a delicious abomination. Like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Chocolate peanut butter bacon cookies? A little burned, actually. But the prospect of "chocolate bacon bacon"?




It's chocolate-covered bacon covered in bacon. Yes, the end must be near. Tell Gozer and Vince Clortho they work dark miracles in that ominous refrigerator of theirs.