The Tempest

Us East Coasters got ourselves a big fancy tropical storm motorin' up to meet us this weekend. Fortunately, it's striking at the precise moment at which it could never possibly result in us getting any time off work. Awesome.

After having no snow days for the past 5 years, this isn't terribly surprising: the DC Council did pass the No Fun Act of 2003 followed by the Sucks To Be You Amendment in 2004. In addition to diverting or stalling potentially fun-inducing major weather phenomena, this legislation is responsible for allowing Mayor Fenty's recent questionable behavior. Apparently he's been seen knocking cigarettes out of smoker's fingers hands followed by that walking-backwards double-middle-finger move, and aggressively enforcing parking laws by torching offenders' cars with molotov cocktails.

Anyway, we're all looking forward to this squall. Last time we had one everyone just drank their faces off and partied. Seems like a rational and adult way to approach severe weather to me.

It's Been Awhile

No, I haven't posted anything since June 12, that's right. I got married on June 22 and then had 3 weeks of vacation following, but I haven't yet determined if that's related.

Since you've all waited so patiently, here's a gem from Wired Magazine's coverage of Comic-Con 2008. A 38-year old self-styled Los Angeles superhero who I've dubbed The Blue Bulge.

The Blue Bulge is: Repulsive.

This is another mark against humanity's survival, I think.

I've got a busy weekend ahead rooting for losing DC sports teams (DC United and the Nationals), so I'll add stories and pictures from our wedding and honeymoon in Greece sometime in next week-ish.

Perhaps a rain dance next time?

I'm sure the atheist "blogosphere" is proudly abuzz with Georgia Governor George Ervin "Sonny" Perdue III praying for rain, but I'm guessing the old coot thought it worked since Georgia was hit with a violent thunderstorm a day later. Never mind that the same storm blew the roof off of a Baptist Church in Tennessee and injured three school children with flying glass, and that it delivered an inconsequential amount of precipitation. No matter. If I were him, I'd probably plan to pray for rain next Wednesday and again next Friday. Just a hunch.

Anyone ever read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by the way?

Pillowfight '07: Michigan vs. Notre Dame

As a devoted Michigan fan, I've naturally been de-testacled this season after successive losses to unranked opponents, one of which shall remain nameless for the rest of my life, to open the season 0-2. This is the first time Michigan opened its season with two straight losses at home since 1959. That's almost 50 years. It's truly a season of historic ignominy for my favorite teams. Michigan sucks as bad as it has for a half-century, the Orioles lost a game by 27 runs, the first time in 110 years, and the Ravens can't seem to beat the perennial cross-town underachievers (Redskins) nor the perennial convicted criminals (Bengals).

Some idiot UM fan made this tshirt before the season started (obviously). Now we all know where to point those fingers.

This weekend Michigan faces one of its archrivals, Notre Dame. Thankfully, Notre Dame is equally awful, having lost their first two games this season as well. Of course, it'll be the first time in history that's ever happened. Lucky me. Watching this game should be like watching blind, retarded sumo wrestlers play checkers in space.

There's a lot of talk this time around about which team is worse rather than the usual "which team is better" madness. For some reason Notre Dame fans think their quarterback's extra 6 quarters of gametime experience over Michigan's freshman QB (our senior got hurt last week) will make the difference somehow. Oh, and thanks to the Big 10 for filling our bye week with an out-of-conference game; that should really give the injured players the respite they need midseason. But, for some reason Michigan fans think that this is a fluke and we'll turn it around all the sudden against the hated Irish. I'd love to believe that, but as far as I can tell this fluke is less the gastrointestinal variety and more the Dune Sandworms variety.

This is not a fluke.

No matter what happens on Saturday, what I am absolutely 100% sure of is that everyone can look forward to watching a 4.5-hour football game, compliments of the ABC network, Doritos, Carmax, and Cialis.

And that's why it's called Pillowfight 2007*. But hey, Go Blue.

* I didn't come up with this.

The Baltimore Orioles make history again!

110 years is a long time.

In the past 110 years, the Ottoman Empire and its Muslim Caliphate were dissolved, two World Wars involving over 100 nations in toto were fought and decided, 20 U.S. Presidents have passed through the White House, six of whom were shot and two of whom were killed (the West Wing was not built until ~1909), the first production automobiles were sold (590 million now exist globally), powered flight and the escalator were invented, man harnessed the atom, narcotics were stigmatized internationally, world population increased four-fold, and humankind stepped foot on an astronomical body 240,000 miles away---the Moon---six times.

Nope, it's not a typo.

Perhaps it's somewhat less consequential, but do you know what else happened 110 years ago? A Major League Baseball team, for the first time in history, scored more than 30 runs in a single game. This rapacious feat was performed by the Chicago Colts against the hapless Louisville Colonels in 1897, with a final score of 36-7. Notice how you've never heard of either of these teams. So, how many teams since have scored 30 or more runs in a single game? Well, as of Wednesday, August 22, 2007, one.

That team would be the Texas Rangers, a team 15 games below .500 and with the 4th worst win percentage in the entire League, when they came back from a three-run deficit to beat my hometown team, the Baltimore Orioles, with a final score of 30-3 in Camden Yards, the O's home field. Loooong sigh. If I had known in advance, by divination or by Biff's anachronistic sports almanac, that an unknown baseball team would lose a game that night by 27 runs, I most certainly would have put my money on that team being my fucking Orioles. For a team that's spent nearly half a billion dollars on player salaries (actual > $400M) in the past decade, this shit will not pass.

It's only natural that the enfeebled, incapable Orioles were on the losing end of such a record. We always manage to outdo our own mediocrity somehow. Like it's not enough to have an entire decade of consecutive losing seasons. Like it's not enough to have an autocratic tyrant for an owner. Like it's not enough for the team to not have even reached the World Series in 24 years. Like it's not enough for the Orioles to hold the record for the most consecutive losses at the beginning of a season (1988). Like it's not enough for the Orioles to have had 6 different managers in the last decade. Sure, if it was opposite year the Orioles would be in great fucking shape. But we don't live in opposite town, and opposite year was 1989 ("Why Not?!"). How could all these comedies of error not be the end of Lord Mephistopheles' (pictured below) artful machinations? How could schadenfreude knows such infinite depths? After this game, I am utterly convinced that the Orioles are damned to persist indefinitely in underachievement or, perhaps by some grace, will finally achieve obsolescence and demise. Truly, for Orioles fans, the end is extremely fucking nigh.

One of Mephistopheles' fiendish doppelganger minions. And he hates steamed crabs.

In case I haven't yet been able to fully evoke the magnitude, rarity, and historic relevance of this defeat, allow me to try to put it in context:

• The Orioles could have scored 27 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, only to tie the game and go into extra innings.


• The last time a baseball team scored this many runs, the Civil War was a more recent event than the Vietnam War is now.


• The first American League no-hitter was pitched in 1902, 5 years later, by the Chicago White Stockings. 234 no-hitters have been pitched in all, and 17 of those were perfect games.


• In 1897, the Cy Young Award would not be awarded for another 59 years.


• 22 years after the Chicago Colts' victory, Jackie Robinson is born in Cairo, Georgia.


• At the time of the 36-run game, the Louisville Colonels had a budding young shortstop on the roster named Hognus Wagner.


• The knuckleball would not debut in the MLB for another 11 years.


• And lastly... the first subatomic particle, the electron, was discovered that same year. It would be 35 years before the neutron was discovered and high school students would need to start worrying about p's, e's, and n's outside of the alphabet.

Sadly, this unfortunately-historic game was the first in a double-header on Wednesday night. If the 30-3 loss wasn't enough---and "loss" doesn't quite convey the true absurdity of the event---the Orioles also lost the second game that night 9-7, meaning that the Rangers put up 39 runs to the Orioles' 10 in a single night. When put in that perspective, the Rangers may as well have beaten the record for all I care.

Kevin Millar has never seen a ball hit that far that many times in so short a time. No one else alive today has either.

So how does this stack up against other baseball records? Well, it's quite difficult to compare these, right? How do you compare batting average with ERA records, or career no-hitters with career RBIs? Well, it seems there is one easy way to do so, and that is rarity. The less likely something is, the more of a feat it becomes. Sure, specific circumstances determine some records, like unassisted triple plays. But not this one. This game represents not only the unmitigated implosion of one team, but also the sudden impulse and collective synergy of the opposing team in response. Indeed, that is a rare thing. And 110 years is a long time.

Hot Chicks with Douchbags

It's not a stretch in any way to say that this is what the world has been waiting for. I've spent easily an hour just now pouring through the pictures and commentaries on Hot Chicks with Douchebags, and I'm still finding myself laugh out loud (yes..."LOL"). I've seen some pretty choady things in my day, but the pictures assembled here are off the scrote charts. It's impossible to read this site for even 5 minutes and not develop a refined hatred of New Jersey.

This site is something every guy can relate to; that is, unless you're one of the douchebags hoisted up in the Hall of Scrote, like "Oopma Prompa" below.

Jesus...

The author of HCwDB writes of Prom Oompa Loompa:

"There's a certain genius to the Prompa, and it's not just the zoot suit or the orange or the hair. It's that nervous moment we can all relate to. That glance around right before going to the prom when you're waiting in line and making sure your tie's on straight. The only difference is that unlike all of us at our prom who just felt like we looked ridiculous, Prompa actually does look absolutely ridiculous."

It's pure gold. Here's a picture of a d'bag he refers to as "Ab Lobster".



Part of the brilliance is that the same asswipes turn up over and over again. Ab Lobster, for instance, is a regular, even though he may not know it.

You're doing yourself a great disservice if you don't check out this site. Many kudos to Douchebag1, the author and proprietor of this site. Respect also to They Promised Us Jetpacks and We Got Blogs for leading me to this site. You've saved me from at least 3 days of work.

BIBLE FIGHT!

While searching for a video of the dancing robot for the dancing robot post (it's always good to start out a post with redundancy), I naturally started out with the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim's website. Something on it caught me eye; it was a game called BIBLE FIGHT.

It's pretty simple. You choose your favorite biblical character (choice of Noah, Moses, Mary, Jesus, Eve, and Satan, plus one secret character) and your opponent from the same list, then you fight Street Fighter II style. There may be no Blanka electricity or Ryu's "shoryuken!", but Noah's "Two of Everything Stampede" and Jesus' "Cross Smash" are noble replacements.

(ABOVE) Me as Jesus putting the hurt on Noah with a sick overheard Cross Smash.

Everyone from the pope on down to my atheist friends should enjoy this game. Also, if you're able to beat Satan in the Arcade option, let me know who the secret character is. I'm guessing it's either God or the game programmer's avatar from Second Life.

Play BIBLE FIGHT, and tell your friends you found it here---as if you have any friends besides me.

Gross

Let this be a lesson on checking your work. So I just found out that some of you who clicked on the Hammer Bros. link in the Pop Quiz #2 post were treated to a nice image of a hairy-old-man threesome. Actually I'm not even sure there were three of them; I just saw fat, hair, penises, and that was enough to close the IE window like I just touched a hot stove.

The link is now fixed and will route you away from www.thewarpzone.co.uk, the perpetrator of the above-given male-on-male crime. The site must be playing really hilarious games with its links. I'm sure as shit laughing my ass off here at work as security is hustling their way up to my cubicle with guns drawn and a red "sex offender" sack to throw me into.

Again, my apologies, I really hope none of you get fired.

Why do these pictures exist?

I've got a pretty good set of hard-to-fathom pictures on my computer, so I thought I'd share a couple. I'll also struggle to understand why these pictures even exist and what they mean for mankind.

(ABOVE) Yeah, that's Wilford Brimley. He's the guy from those Werther's Original butterscotch candy commercials, and who, if you're over the age of 65, has been trying to sell you life insurance. Why somebody bothered to take a picture of a shirtless Mr. Brimley at the beach, and how somebody even recognized him, is way beyond me.

(ABOVE) "Hey, do you want a hot dog or somethi... HOLY SHIT!!!" I'm not sure what this "clown" on Coney Island is supposed to do for business, but I'm sure as shit that it was placed there by Lucifer himself. I mean, look at this kid's face! How can it possibly remind anyone of anything other than someone writhing in agony in the pits of Hell? That cute little sombrero doesn't fool me one fucking bit either, I bet if you touch this thing those flying demons from Ghost will come out of the ground and drag you down to Satan. And look at the demonic little man-face on this kid's t-shirt, it's like a cross between the Joker and The Violator from the Spawn comics. I can't imagine why Coney Island went belly-up. And thank god somebody copyrighted that photo, I'm sure Ms. Dembling got to retire early because of it.

(ABOVE) Pop quiz: Is this a costume party or not?

I can come up with at least three stories as to how the planets aligned for this picture to have been created on our plane of existence, and none of them involve a costume party. The simplest, and therefore probably the correct one (much thanks to Occam and his cutlery), is that the two girls in the prom dresses are getting ready to go to their senior prom taking place somewhere in the middle of South Dakota. They don't have dates so they decided to dress up more than usual. The house, which has more wood paneling than is legal in the 48 contiguous, belongs to the parents of the blue prom dress girl. The lanky guy with the trucker hat and bleach-stained whitewashed jeans (henceforth known as "Stretch") on the right and the girl in the electric blue garbage bag are also on their way to the prom, but are taking it more casually because Stretch has to go back to work at White Castle later that night. That's Stretch's 1980's-era camera on the table. The girl in the translucent red top is the sister of blue garbage bag girl; the guy with the shades and buzz cut behind her is her boyfriend who had to drive both sisters over to blue prom dress girl's house before the big night. The tall guy in the middle is the Estonian exchange student living at the house who had to borrow the father's old gym gear because his luggage was confiscated in Slovenia during his trip to the States. He just got back from the gym in time to say "bye" before the big night. Make sense?

(ABOVE) I dare you to find one square inch of this Kenny Loggins album that isn't bewildering. I'm not really sure where to start, so how about with the title, Return to Pooh Corner. So you're probably thinking, okay, it's probably an album for children. Putting aside his gay anthem "Playing With The Boys" from Top Gun for a minute, do you remember prancing unicorns and robed, bearded men lying around ponds in the Winnie the Pooh series? No, in fact that sounds a lot more the backstory for a To Catch A Predator episode. The next thing you might notice on this cover is Kenny's reflection in the pond. Yep, that's a kid in there. But is it Kenny's reflection minus 45 years and a beard, or just some toddler he's banished to the mirror world with his black magic? All of the sudden the mirror world theory looks pretty compelling doesn't it? Just try and tell me that Kenny's face isn't full of wicked joy and twisted self-accomplishment, and that the kid's eyes don't look soul-less and empty after being driven into the spirit world. I don't think Pooh Bear would approve of this depiction of Pooh Corner, or the 39% discount Loggins is hawking.

VERDICT: Scientology is dumb.

Some may have heard recently that a South Park episode was pulled from Comedy Central and the dude who does Chef's voice quit because the creators of the show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, parodied Scientology in a recent episode.

The Chef's voice actor (Isaac Hayes) quit because he's a Scientologist and refused to be a part of something that poked fun at his own religion, despite a show with 150-odd episodes that has harshly lampooned every conceivable subset of global culture. This is a guy who's first album was entitled "Black Moses" and who was featured on at least one Wu-Tang CD.

Comedy Central pulled the episode from rotation because Tom Cruise, a "renowned" Scientologist and royal fuckass, threatened to not publicize his upcoming third take on Mission Impossible. Maybe this time they'll get it right. Funny that Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount, who is producing Mission Impossible 3. It's also ironic that Hollywood demonizes the cronyism in politics that it inexorably emulates. How hollow the ivory pillars of Hollywood are...

All of this might be understandable if Scientology were itself reputable as a religion or belief. In fact, were it just a belief it would be pathetic enough, but that it's considered a "religion" is simply incomprehensible.

But who am I to derogate another's beliefs without at least understanding them? So let's take a look.

As I am consulting Wikipedia, I have to mention that this is the third time now that I've needed to remind myself of the basic tenants of this religion; the reason for which you may understand by the end of this post.

Scientology was founded about 50 years ago, i.e. after World War II, by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard liked to write about spaceships, aliens, and the spirits of living things. Throughout his life, Hubbard stood in the shadows of good science-fiction writers like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and H. G. Wells (who conceived modern space rocketry). Unlike Wells, he thought he knew what was best for everyone, so he decided to gather all the weak-minded people he could find to believe in his creation story.

[Everything in quotations below refers to Hubbard's own words]

75 million years ago, the Galactic Emperor Xenu (though Hubbard also referred to him as "Xemu" and as "Zenu," perhaps it was a typo), feeling that his Galactic Empire was vastly overpopulated (~76 planets with 178 billion people each) shuttled billions of humans to Earth on intergalactic spacecraft that were exact copies of the modern day Douglas DC-8 aircraft, "except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't." Note that DC-8's have turbine engines, not propellers.

The pretense under which the billions of people were brought to Earth by Xen(m)u was that all of these billions were called for "income tax inspections." Upon arrival for these inspections at their local city hall, Xen(m)u had psychiatrists paralyze every single person with a combination of alcohol and glycol (antifreeze). The populace was then loaded onto the somehow-retrofitted DC-8's and transported to Earth to be stacked around volcanoes and ultimately destroyed by detonating hydrogen bombs within the volcanoes - they were all detonated simultaneously, for dramatic effect, I suppose.

I'm not sure why Xen(m)u chose a plan with such logistical headaches when he could have just send everyone into a black hole, or a star, or space itself, but I guess Hubbard was just a fucking moron.

Xenu or Xemu

Upon the calamitous explosions on Earth, the souls of the people (now called thetans) were collected by Xen(m)u using a cosmic vacuum cleaner and then place into a movie theater to watch, for 36 days, a "three-D, super colossal motion picture." Huh. Apparently this movie was pretty bad, because it implanted "various misleading data" into the memories of the thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, etcetera." Hubbard also states that the interior design of all movie theaters to be due to this brain-washing (though souls don't have brains). This is particularly interesting, since movie theaters have changed drastically in the 90 years popular cinema has been around. In fact, movies didn't have sound until 1927. Sigh.

Xen(m)u's cosmic vacuum was clearly stolen by Mel Brooks in Spaceballs

What happened between this pointless holocaust 75 million years ago and today is flat-out uninterpretable, due in large part to ridiculous and inconsistent naming, anachronisms, and the total lack of an understanding of how to structure and convey a story in the English language.

I should add that all of this was preceded by the creation of the Universe 4 quadrillion years ago, or 300,000 times older than the current scientific consensus. In this creation myth Hubbard describes what essentially is a generic Dark Ages painting; lots of light, a chariot, and a cherub with a trumpet.

Fuck, this is wearing me out, it's just so godamn stupid.

Strangely, the Church of Scientology denies knowing about the whole Xen(m)u thing, and refrains from speaking about it at all costs. It's either because only the top level acolytes of Scientology (called "OTVII") are ready to learn about Xen(m)u, or that this inane, nonsensical, unorganized science fiction story would embarass the Church and undermine the efforts of recruiting more idiots.

So what do Scientologists actually believe? They believe:

• Mind-altering substances of any kind are prohibited, this includes alcohol and cigarettes. Note that Hubbard assisted his research (I can't imagine what he was actually doing that he called "research") by gorging on rum, uppers, and downers. Hubbard's assistant at the time wrote that he "was existing almost totally on a diet of drugs."
• Psychiatric and psychological treament is forbidden, and psychiatrists and psychologists are evil. I guess this is because Xen(m)u used psychiatrists to paralyze all the humans. What the fuck...
• The souls of humans are immortal. This is brilliant, I wonder if Hubbard had heard of other organized religions?
• People have lived many past lives and will live many future lives. Same point as above.
• A newcomer's mental readiness must be evaluated by a trained Scientologist and an E-Meter, which is the same device as I used in Intro to Electromagnetism in Sophomore year to measure the resistance across two battery nodes. This actually begins the brain-washing of the newcomers.
• Birth must be silent! That's right, no one can speak, because any words spoken at birth may be retained by the newborn baby (who by the way doesn't know any languages yet) and associated to his/her detriment later in life. Hmm....sounds like psychology to me Hubbard. Or maybe he just meant that trained psychologists are evil.
• Newborn babies must not be washed, but rather wrapped up tightly and left alone for an entire day. Read that again.
• Breastfeeding is prohibited! In supplement, Hubbard recommends a mixture of barley water, homogenized milk, and corn syrup or honey. Honey can cause infant botulism - nerve-blocking and respiratory and musculoskeletal paralysis. Of the mixture, Hubbard said he "picked it up in Roman days." Corn syrup, made from maize, was not present outside of the Americas until after colonization by Europeans began.
• Scientology is fully compatible with all religions. This is despite what we learned from the Xen(m)u incident I guess.
• "Fair Game." This idea was introduced by Hubbard, and incites Scientologists to use criminal behavior, deception and exploitation of the legal system to resist "Suppresive Persons", i.e. people or groups that "actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by Suppressive Acts". He defined "Fair Game" as:
  "ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."

Sadly, the last bullet is consistent with the Church's practice, being characterized by fighting numerous extremely long and costly legal battles, and even being implicated in the death of at least one Church member.

An evil psychiatrist and her helpless, misguided patient

I'm not even halfway through the material, but I think I've made my point:

If, by now, you are not convinced that Scientology's underlying principles may qualify not as a legitimate belief structure, but only as an honorable mention 5th grade science fiction contest entry, then I suggest you contact the Church and schedule an E-meter reading.