Saturday, March 24, 2007

Good Times and Good Friends

They say most accidents happen at home...

...that's probably because home is where your friends are.

This clip demonstrates my point:




More to come. No, seriously I mean it this time.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Hot Amateur Action

Well, maybe not that hot, but I figured I'd give it a title that would get your attention...and probably bring in some very disappointed web-surfers.

First, there's the misadventures of a squirrel that got into someone's pumpkins - fermented pumpkins. Starts funny, then gets slightly sad, then gets very funny. According to a comment on the YouTube page, the squirrel was fine the next day (like you cared).



Next, there's a hilarious amateur music video, from a guy with great writing and timing, about his family's suspicions - "not that there's anything wrong with that."



What, you want more funny videos? Well, you can click here for a whole page of 'em.

Or, for original content, just click here.

Monday, March 05, 2007

I'd Rather be Blogging

I may have recently heard one of the most optimistic phrases since "Mission Accomplished."

Someone was reading one of those lists of things that people should do instead of doing drugs.

Now, there are undoubtedly a lot of reasons not to do drugs, and there are probably a lot more pleasurable things to do with your time, but one suggestion in particular stood out.

Ready?

Here it is:

"Read a book."

All I can figure is that the most optimistic librarian in the world somehow got on the panel to decide what activities are more fun than getting high...

...or that the panel was high when they made up the list.

Oh, books are good things -- heck, they're great things. We should all read more books, and we should all do less drugs -- but I don't think that's exactly the decision process most people make. It's not like there are hordes of heroin users who are only shooting up because the next Harry Potter book hasn't come out yet.

And I don't think if Stephen King stopped publishing novels that crack use would suddenly explode. If so, it's ironic that one man's addiction to creating novels of hellish worlds is what's saving us from a hellish world of addicts.

In fact, I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. I guess I can't be sure that I've seen someone read a book while getting high, but I'm pretty sure it could happen. Who knows, it might even make reading some books better (Ann Coulter comes to mind).

I'm just saying that if you're trying to give people alternatives to lure them away from drugs, you better make 'em good.

I don't think the internal debate "Should I get high? Well, if I don't get high I could read a book..." is gonna get very far.

The only way this might work is if...

(1) the person contemplating drugs is very gullible and
(2) they've never tried drugs before and
(3) they've already tried reading

In this case, they might think "Why go to the trouble using drugs if it's even less fun than reading a book. Hell, the library is free..."

If you want to teach kids the downside of using drugs, try something a little more direct. Maybe have'em watch COPS, or check out "Faces of Meth" - you know, something that kinda reinforces the right image.

Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. I think I'm gonna call it a night.

Maybe I'll read a little...

..unless I can think of something better to do.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Newbery Nutcases

Look, I know this may be a little outdated, but, hey I have a life (well, sort of...) so don't kill me, just read on.

So, I read a post from Women Behaving Badly (shameless plug) about a book...

...A book that won the Newbery Medal for children's literature
...A book that Blogcritics.org called "an amazing story."
...A book that had the gaul to use the word (please make sure you're seated)...

...scrotum.

Yep, that's right, we're now banning books for using the word "scrotum." In case your confused, I don't mean it uses a slang for scrotum - it doesn't use the term "nutsack" or "thigh tonsils," just the good old Merriam-Webster approved term "scrotum."

Now, I know -- the whole world is trying to protect our youth, innocence of childhood, yada yada yada, but let me put this into perspective:

This book won the Newbery Medal, which is given to children's literature - so we're not talking about a picture book. This is not Norton Nears a Nutsack or Scrotes the Magic Dragon. This is a book to be read by children of an older age: 14, 13, maybe 12.

So, what these paranoid book banners are attempting to do is prevent 12 and 13 year olds from seeing the medical term for something that half of them already have.

These are the same thirteen year olds who went to second grade in the fall of 2001, settled down to hear a story about a goat, and came home that day to learn a whole bunch of new vocabulary words: hi-jacking, terrorist, and jihad ...just to name a few.

They got to learn new geography, too. Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and, for more than a few of them, Dover, Delaware.

I don't mean to bring the room down - and I'm not advocating taking the plastic wrap off the "top shelf" magazines, but seriously, I think any 13 year old that has the gumption to actually read some literature ought to have the chance.

As Lisa put it, anyone who's afraid it might lead to an uncomfortable vocab lesson should,
you know,
grow a pair.

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