Archive for December, 2005

Will the real Friday Funnies please stand up?

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

A real Friday Funnies post! However, today’s will be shorter than yesterday because it took more time and you’ll see why … but I’m saving it for the end!

So World AIDS day was yesterday and some people held vigils, some released balloons and some turned condoms into balloons. But none of that was good enough for Buenos Aires. Nope. They picked the largest phallic symbol they could find and “sheathed their dagger.”

Thank goodness Washington didn’t have the same idea! And really, did it HAVE to be pink? I’m surprised it stayed standing with such an unmanly jimmy cap! I think my favorit part of this is that someone’s tax dollars might have paid for it. We thought “pork”-spending was bad in the US?

Ever wanted to feed your inner Dahmer? Don’t want the label of cannibal? Are you not a meatatarian, but wonder what your boyfriend really tastes like? Try Hufu(tm)! Human Flavored Tofu! I imagine this is brought to us by the same folks who brought us Bonsai Kitten. I think I’ll take a page from Snopes here and assume the finger-tasting-goodness is a hell of a good hoax.

Have yourself a laughy little Christmas. Looks like every holiday forward I’ve ever received is here. Click and enjoy!

Sometimes I’m deluded into thinking I’m a fun, funny and original Dad. Then some jamoke with a killer sense of humour and a completely original idea comes along and rips the ground right out from under me. “viktor_57 is an amazon.com reviewer. viktor_57 is a big fan of many of his son’s and daughter’s toys. We discovered him while doing some field research for Santa Claus. Genius that he is, vik rewired and animated said dolly and set it loose to wreak havoc on the world. Thankfully, he got it under control, but it sounds like it was a near thing indeed. He stopped her just after she attained consciousness thanks to Google and destroyed the AI. Just in time too.

Read all of his reviews, and do it quickly because the review that I mentioned earlier has already been taken down. What a shame, too; it was brilliant. If viktor_57 see this and wants to post the review, he’s welcome to send it to me and I’ll post it here.

And last, but certainly not least, a first for Friday Funnies. I gadly present the first non-intarweb Friday Funny. I think I am still registered as a Democrat because I like voting in their Primaries and you have to declare in Illinois. However, over the last two years, I have somehow started to receive Republican Party information (flyers, brochures, voting guides, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Commemorative Coffee Mugs ™, etc.) and I got one in the mail yesterday for Kathy Salvi who is running for the House of Representatives seat currently occupied by young Democratic upstart Melissa Bean (remember this). Bean defeated Phil Crane in 2004 to take over his long-held seat in the 8th District of Illinois, so Bean is just finishing up her Freshman year. Salvi is already on the move for the ’06 election.

I received a card about 8 1/2″ by 11″ (Landscape oriented). Looking at the back of it, you can see that she has some very good things to say for herself (click for large image):

  • Make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent – OK Cool. I’m down with that
  • Battle Wasteful Government Spending. – OK, I’m way cool with that, but it will be a neat trick since you also promise to “Direct more dollars into classrooms.”
  • Protect the Second Amendment – Damn Straight!
  • Support the War on Terror – Gonna have to go with my previous comment: Damn Straight!

But see, I don’t really know anything about Kathy Salvi, so I don’t know if I support her or not. However, that is not why I’m posting this in Friday Funnies and not Politics. You see, the card she sent, not only has a back. No Sir! It has a front too! On this front, we have a collage of some politically-opposite officeholders, the LEAST recognizable portion of the Chicago Skyline, some faked-up protest placards and … well, see for yourself (click to make with the biggy biggy):

And so we see an abhorrent picture of Hillary Clinton, Chubby post-whacko-beard Al GoreA real Al Gore-ish looking picture of Dick Durbin, Chicago Rod Blagojevich and…
What could that be in the bottom center? Let’s take a closer look shall we?

Some hippie dude in a $15 store-that-only-shows-up-within-a-month-of-Halloween-bought costume? I swear I saw that costume in a flyer this past Halloween and spent the morning scouring Google images in search of that costume so I could share it with you. The closest I came was this:
originally from here.

You’re kidding me. Right? You have got to be joking. You’re going to send out promotional material for your campaign with a bad photoshopped postcard blown up to full paper size, then you include a non-Illinois politician and not only is she not your opponent, she doesn’t represent your state and she’s IN THE SENATE then you’ll include only ONE Illinois politician AND IT ISN’T YOUR OPPONENT!!! Fine, Al Gore and Fine, Hillary Clinton stirs the emotions of the Kool-Aid drinkers on the right. I get that, it makes sense. Blago has had some controversy lately and tends to piss of Republicans. OK. Jesse Jackson, maybe? How about you include Melissa Bean in your shot though since you are running against her! Or maybe she doesn’t fit your Loose Liberals motif you got going, ok, how about Dick Durbin? He’s certainly put his foot in his mouth over the last 6 months. You could have included him (and I don’t understand why you didn’t). (ed: it took 5 looks at the image to realize that she DID, in fact, include Dick Durbin, but this puffy-faced squinty-eyed shot is the least recognizable I’ve ever seen him. My apologies to Ms. Salvi for the Gore/Durbin-related portion of this rant, since struck-out. The rest stands.)

But to instead include some fake hippie is downright stupid. It certainly doesn’t look like you had anyone you knew pose for it in this cheap costume… It looks like you cut it out of the sales flyer and slapped it on your collage! He looks AWFULLY happy to be standing in as your loony left-wing moonbat, when something like this or this would me more appropriate to illustrate your point.

I haven’t decided my vote yet and since I voted against Melissa Bean once, you have a good chance of me voting for you, as long as you promise to never again use a Sunday newspaper flyer to construct your campaign materials. Stick to delivering your ideas and explaining them in terms every voter can understand. Also, since it seems you are just starting out and aren’t quite spoiled by the process yet, we don’t just want to know what you want to do, tell us how you plan to do it. Write up a few bills and post them on your website. Use your blog, and not just during the campaign. Use it throughout your term and turn on commenting. You could be one of the first Representatives to actually use the internet as an effective way of staying in contact with your constituents. Do those things I will not just vote for you, I will campaign for you.

This ends this week’s MisterBixby’s Friday Funnies and Unsolicited Political Advice and Mockery.

Blogging Doldrums

Thursday, December 1st, 2005

I don’t know why I can’t force myself to blog lately. I have been having a very rut-like existence the last few months. I blame being overworked. It’s not as if I don’t have time. Mrs. Bixby (Not Her Real Name) works nights so I have plenty of time to put together thoughtful intelligent blog posts, but I don’t because I just can’t summon the energy. In fact, I want to write one on the president’s speech yesterday (very good, long overdue and an unwelcome surprise to those Dems who have been posturing lately for a drawdown of troops while expecting the Pres to announce one anyway so they could take credit for the “victory”), but I just haven’t been able to summon the will. My apologies to all those visitors I have gotten from Samantha Burns expecting one of her newest Reader Blogs blogroll members to have fun an interesting content. I suck.

Updates on stuff… Da Bears keep winning (I hope they beat the hated Packers Sunday… what an unwelcome black cloud that would be over our otherwise wonderful season). The Sith Taters keep losing. They have been mashed repeatedly losing 5 of the last 6 games with one more game left against the number one Crafty Beavers. What an ignominous end to a season that started so well. Audrey is enjoying being 4 and Madelyn is loving being 2. Quick note on Madelyn that won’t be any fun for non-parents: She pooped in the potty last week. We are all so very proud. I figure over the next 6 months she should be sufficiently potty trained that we will be done with diapers and pull-ups forever.

How bout some funny links to flesh out this post, clear out the ThoughtBucket and make up for some lost Friday Funnies?

Men now have a new Alert System to post in the house to warn others away when a periodic enemy is near.

Just weird stuff: Cat born with two tongues. Does it take him half as long to take a bath? Is he very popular with the lady cats?

Fans of Something*Positive will enjoy this fan movie based on the first year or so of the strip. I don’t think I would have made the same choices in actors that they did, but I would guess that it is a bunch of friends who pitched in and doled out parts where able. Somehow I don’t think there was a big cattle-call audition for this production. It’s quite good and funny though.

Orson Scott Card has a zine! I bought the first issue and it’s pretty good. Definitely worth it if only for the new Enderverse stories in each issue. There is a write-up here. They are also accepting submissions from new authors in the vein of the old Sci-Fi Anthology magazines.

Someone else thinks that Nintendo’s Revolution truly is revolutionary. The article focuses on Genre and the evolution of a genre from easily accessible to all through its entrenchment as a hard-core gamer’s domain only. Nintendo has always been on the cutting edge of new genre formation. The Revolution is no different.

Found a fun little site with some good and (very) bad outtakes of classic shows. The first page is all Star Trek and the next page has some Mork and Mindy and M*A*S*H outtakes among others. The whole site is worth checking out though with clips from some other obscure TV shows including the pilot to the never-picked up M*A*S*H spin-off W*A*L*T*E*R starring everyone’s favorite bespectacled dwarf Radar O’Reilly.

And last, but not least, a good way to get some great deals on eBay is to misspell your search criteria. Check out FatFingers.com. Just type in your search terms and it shifts and doubles letters to find listings from auctioners who can’t use spell-check.

I’m going to see Rent this weekend because it is Mrs. Bixby (Not Her Real Name)’s favorite stage show and she never saw it with the original Broadway cast since we live in Chicago and we can’t afford the airfare. Mean Mr. Mustard quotes a review from Steve Sailer:

The two heterosexual white male characters at the center of “Rent” have all these cool minority friends. Indeed, “Rent” functions as a sensitive liberal man’s wish-fulfillment fantasy about a new and improved form of diversity. Hanging with diverse pals demonstrates your moral superiority over other Caucasians, but, frustratingly for young white social climbers, actual live minorities are seldom content to play their assigned roles as silent props in your fashionable lifestyle. In particular, real black friends might insist on playing their hideous rap music and real gay friends their sissy disco music. In “Rent,” however, the diverse trendsetters all like 1970s white boy guitar rock, thus validating the two straight guys’ hipness quotients.

I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve seen it. I saw the play once about 4 years ago. It was good enough then, but I didn’t get the same emotional punch that Mrs. Bixby (Not Her Real Name) did. Maybe I felt what Steve saw?

A good source for links to while away the time is Linky & Dinky. Subscribe to the newsletter and you’ll see where I crib some of my best links from (shhhh, don’t tell).

This concludes our irregularly scheduled broadcast. Join us next time when we teach poodles how to fly!