Assorted Thoughts 37: I Have To Look Up The Volume Number Every Damn Time Edition

• Christmas Eve 2010: I watched The Exorcist.  Christmas Eve 2011: I watched the X-Files.  Christmas Eve 2012: I plan to watch… the apocalypse?
• A lamprey who writes mystery novels: Agnatha Christie.
• As far as I can tell, you could basically write Christmas thank you notes entirely in lorem ipsum and it'd be okay, because the substance is so much less important than the fact you actually sent something.  I plan to test this on my mother.  If you don't hear from me anytime soon, it's possible I was killed and dumped by the side of the road.
• I hate the faux Old English suffixed E.  Besides the fact it's inaccurate and obnoxiously pretentious, it is quite capable of detracting from the ambiance, rather than adding to it.  I certainly wouldn't want to eat at Ye Olde Downe-Towne Brewe Pube.
• "Waiter!  There's a hair in my soueeeurrrgh."
• "Did you read the name over the door?"
• My grandfather, who retired after over half a century practicing medicine, shared with me an aphorism he created which I think deserves passing on: The rungs of the ladder of advancement in academia are the handles of the knives in the backs of your associates.
• While it certainly has some noble effects in helping the poor get the things they need to survive, I can't help but be struck by the idea that dollar stores are the ultimate expression of American capitalism.  Endless amounts of cheap plastic crap, with some good deals buried amongst the rest, entombed upon bleak shelves in drab strip malls under dim fluorescent lighting.
• Some artists produce work so distinctive it can't be mistaken for anyone else.  When you see a painting of melting breasts draped over a country landscape, you know you're looking at the work of Salvador Dali Parton.

The Bowls of Bowl Season

I realize that of the three people two people, a ball of lint, and my imaginary friend who regularly read this blog, approximately none of them pay even the slightest attention to sports, so nobody will either read or be amused by this.  That being said, it is indeed "bowl season," and I feel it is worth my while to point out a few of my current favorites in the grossly bloated slate of bowl games to cap off this college football season.

• The Inequality Bowl, with an SEC practice squad facing off against the best team in Conference USA.  While CUSA's side loses every time by an average of 42 points, all analysts agree they did their very best and deserve a gold star for effort.
• The Disappointment Bowl, with Boise State and whoever they end up playing outside a BCS bowl.
• The Sponsor Us For The Love Of God Bowl, where a locality decided to host a bowl and never thought about how to pay for it.
• The Corporate Whore Bowl, which is to say, all of them.
• The Underachievers Bowl, where the best teams with losing records meet to determine who is the mediocrest.
• The Alleged Bowl, which does not actually exist.  It is merely a convenient fiction on the part of ESPN.  Of course, since ESPN is the only way most people know of the various bowl games, we then have to question whether any of them at all are real.
• The Unnecessary Bowl, the most recent addition to the pack, which is the result of some jackass seeing 70 teams going to a bowl each year and thinking, "You know, that's really just not enough."
• The Ha Ha Suckers We've Got Ours Bowl, which is no longer affiliated with anything but a roving horde of corporate sponsors who charge into a different town each year, hold the mayor hostage, and play a football game before vanishing into the hills with the loot.
• The Rules Committee Bowl, where the two teams with the worst NCAA rules violations of the year play to determine who takes home the coveted title of Most Scandalous.  The exciting matchup this year features the Penn State Molesters versus the University of Miami Payolas.
• The Subpar Bowl, which pits the two worst teams in the nation together for the mockery of the rest of the country.  The winners never play football again; the losers are fed to SEC linemen to fatten them up for market.
• The "BCS" "National Title" "Game," which in theory matches the two best teams in the nation in order to I can't even type this with a straight face.

Assorted Thoughts 36: Random Arrangements Of Characters Counts As A Post Title, Right?

• My usual tactic when picking what forum topics to read is to look for those most likely to contain flamewars and amusing conflicts.  This probably a warning sign about my personality.
• I would like to write a book called "My Faults Are Your Fault: An Introduction to Inheritance Patterns for Rebellious Teens."
• During some serious political debate, I want to see someone rebut a point by saying "[Opponent], I want to bear your children.  By which I mean I want to capture them and feed them to bears."
• The concept of a "gag gift" becomes rather more disconcerting when you have friends who are into bondage.
• While sitting at the gate waiting for a flight, I noticed a dot-matrix printer at one of the agents' counters spewing out a constant stream of pages.  It was like listening to history.  I'm strangely glad that there are still these dinosaurian relics of the age of green-on-black screen computers and 5" floppy disks living amongst us and howling like mechanical banshees while they print.
• Also, tearing the strips off each side of the page is still great fun.
• Dear lady sitting across from me in the airport lounge: bouncing your crying kid on your knee is not shutting him up.  It is merely adding a weird vibrato effect to the cries.  While this is appreciated as a change of pace, I'd still prefer you sedating the damn creature for the duration of forever.
• Your child is also very ugly.  Just thought you should know.
• Traveling over the holidays is an exercise in being punched in the dick by all the worst aspects of humanity.
• When taking a Greyhound-esque bus for an extended period, it's almost worse to have wifi that's really slow than no wifi at all.

Assorted Thoughts 35: NO MORE CLASSES YAAAAY But Still An Ungodly Amount To Do Edition

• I hate to say it, but although I loved my undergraduate institution very much, when it comes to a choice between throwing a few hundred bucks on top of the two hundred million or so already in the endowment or making rent, my choice is pretty clear.
• There are three basic outcomes for the people who graduated within a year or two of me: they heard the call of more school, heard the call of work in the real world, or heard the call of the job search, which breathed heavily into the phone and then hung up.
• I've decided that the best part about cooking for myself is that I can eat straight out of the pan/bowl/whatever and not have to worry about serving it into more containers I will then have to clean.
• At this point, I'm so afraid of misusing the word "ironic" that I try to avoid it, so I don't slip up and lose my right to be pedantic.
• Movie proposal: "JESUS II: Our Vampire and Savior."  You've eaten his body and blood… now he wants it back!
• Another movie pitch centers around a bunch of Colorado mountain men who are under attack by a band of werewolves.  They eventually manage to hunt down the werewolves and defeat them by shooting them with Silver Bullets, namely, Coors Light cans.
• I know someone who made an elaborate automated Excel spreadsheet to generate things to make for dinner.  Were I to attempt something similar, it'd be much more along the lines of flipping a coin to decide between frozen pizza and a quesadilla.
• Actually, let's be honest.  Even if it was just those two choices, I'd still probably roll a d12, simply because I can.
• I just realized that the worst part about being a grad student is that when you finish your last exam of the semester, you can't really just turn your brain off and sleep and vegetate forever.  You have work to do.  Of course, now you actually have time to do said work, unlike the rest of the semester.
• It kind of sucks when this is the thought you have while walking out of your last final.

Music For An Internet Age

I've taken the liberty of updating some of the songs on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time for a more internet-filled time.

• "Like a Trolling Stone," Bob Dylan
• "Smells Like 1337 Spirit," Nirvana
• "London Skyping," The Clash
• "In My Second Life," The Beatles'
• "Sympathy for the Furry," The Rolling Stones
• "Anarchy in the Wiki," The Sex Pixels
• "Califorum Girls," The Beach Boys
• "Porn to be Wild," Steppenwolf
• "Won't Get Trolled Again," The Who
• "I Wanna Be Aggravated," The Ramones
• "Information Superhighway to Hell," AC/DC
• "We Will Shock You (And/Or Your Parents)," Queen
• "Don't Fear the Griefer," Blue Öyster Cult
• "Enter Goatman," Metallica
• "Loli," The Kinks
• "White Man in Mommy's Basement," The Clash
• "I'm Eighteen (No, Really, I Swear),"Alice Cooper
• "Goldland," Ron Paul Simon

Assorted Thoughts 34: Did You Know That In 1917, Lenin Was Not In Russia Edition

• This is totally the right music to accompany looking at these photos.
• There's something really satisfying about walking past the queue for entry to a fancy-dress concert on your way to a hockey game.  Take that, intellectualism.  I will let my base instincts run wild!
• Children are bloodthirsty monsters.  A young girl sitting behind me at the hockey game was shrieking the whole night hoping for a fight, and when one happened, she started advocating for the use of skate blades as weapons.
• I really need a big red stamp that says OWNED for use annotating political articles I find posted here and there.
• Instead of being able to say "Natural and artificial flavors," when it comes to "blue raspberry" drinks, I'm in favor of only allowing them to be labeled with "unnatural flavors."
• The best way to deflate the people who think socialism is the root of all evil is to ask them why they hate football and the kind of team that makes America great.
• There is a long list of things I hate more than I have any legitimate reason to.  I have recently discovered that one of those is people using hashtags places that aren't Twitter.  For that matter, I hate people using hashtags on Twitter too, and really, Twitter in general.  But hashtags places that aren't Twitter are a much more focused hate.
• One big reason never to give me forum admin powers: I will use them to ban people who grossly abuse (read: use at all, except sparingly in satire) IMspeak.
• For me, sleep is similar to a gas in that it rapidly expands to fill all available space and time. This makes morning and/or afternoon classes a bit of an adventure at times.
• YEAH CARRIE I STOLE YOUR PHRASE.  WHAT NOW.

Assorted Thoughts 33: I Think Cockroaches Should Make SKREEEEEK Noises

• I propose a new rule for international diplomacy: whenever a major world power accuses a smaller nation that can in no way pose any serious danger to the major nation of being an existential threat, the major nation has lost the policy debate and is to be laughed out of the chamber without any action being taken on the policy they recommend.
• That means you, China arguing with Taiwan, and you too, United States curbstomping the Middle East.  Go sit in the corner and think about what you just said.
• Given the quantity of coffee and other caffeinated beverages I consume there, going in to the lab I work in is like giving my kidneys strength and conditioning training.
• Chicken and egg problem for the day (given that it's relatively simple to solve the original problem by applying a little evolutionary biology): does my cynicism help me survive being a Red Sox fan, or did it arise as a result of being a Red Sox fan?
• There is a stationary exercise bike equipped with a Google Earth connection so you can pretend you're riding the Tour de France.  That might be the saddest thing I've ever heard of.
• Depressing pickup lines, volume XXVII: "I'm usually a lone ranger, but I'm looking for a sidekick tonight."
• In totally not at all related I swear news, I have two strategies for dealing with women: PANIC and MORE PANIC.
• I have discovered a truly marvelous joke, which this blog is too narrow to contain.
• Chock Full o' Rabies is simultaneously the best and worst coffee.
• There is an ecological phenomenon known as an Alternative Stable State (ask me and I can tell you about it!  Really!  I like these things!).  Unfortunately, every time you want to talk about them, you have to write the full thing out.  Way to think about acronyms when you named it, guys.

Assorted Thoughts 32: I Think This One Is Actually A Pretty Good Post Edition

• I'm pretty sure my ability to drink 48 ounces of Mountain Dew in an hour and a half and remain living counts as a superpower.
• Granted, that superpower might also be known as "Dying of an unprecedented caffeine overdose/diabetes cocktail at age 34," but still.
• Bumper sticker I have seen: "My kid beat up your honor student."  Counter-sticker I'd like to add: "Too bad the honor student grew up to be the public defender."
• There really ought to be a club dancing-themed video game called "Personal Space Invaders."
• My strategy for avoiding awkwardness due to misreading social signals is to simply not read social signals.
• The Republican presidential debates: Alternate reality television shows.
• There has been some speculation by those who care about such things that certain legendary cryptid animals are actually aliens.  In light of this, I suggest renaming the chupacabra to the Chubaccacabra.
• In recent years, the airship has seen a resurgence of interest due to its potential for use as a long-endurance surveillance platform.  I have to wonder if DARPA is really just a big, absurdly well-funded steampunk convention.
• The university credit union has an ATM in the university center that operates off scanning fingerprints for ID.  I think I might start withdrawing money regularly just to experience the future.
• Ticking time bomb, noun: the world's most depressing form of biological warfare, involving a delayed-release capsule full of deer ticks carrying Lyme disease.
• While I'd rather have the NBA playing a season, I think it's an improvement when instead of endless rounds of mindless "analysis" 24/7, the NBA TV channel is forced to show "Teen Wolf."

Assorted Thoughts 31: Just Because I Can Update Doesn't Mean I Should, But I Will Anyway

• XXX-Linked Dominant Traits: the genetic counseling porno.
• It seems like it would be fun to set up concealed speakers along some placid river used for rafting day-trips, and have them play banjo music as the rafts pass.
• There's only one place to go for your pop-Goth farmwear: Hot Topeka.
• Apparently, I am completely incapable of making any U-turn in my car without uttering a "wheee!" sound.
• My instinctual reaction of trying to break the fall with my foot after dropping something becomes rather more hazardous when playing darts.
• Tanning salons: you may have spent your whole life in Seattle, but dammit, this is America, and you can still look like you're trolling for cancer in LA.
• Relatedly, I want to start an anti-tanning salon chain that spray-paints its customers white.  Call it "Seattle Sun" and market it to budding Queen Elizabeth I impersonators and those who are just dying to be like Edward Cullen.  The joke's on them, though: they'll literally be dying, since the paint is made of white lead.  Historically accurate, kiddies!
• The phrase "It takes all kinds" is sorely tested when it comes to starting a mosquito breeding colony in your back yard.
• Wish I were making that up.
• The grad student house on Halloween: turn off all the downstairs lights and hope the marauding children don't notice us.  Get off my lawn, you damn kids.

Assorted Thoughts 30: Always More Weird

• I have been known to occasionally visit camwhore sites simply to watch the lunatics in the chats trying to convince themselves that they have a chance of actually getting anywhere with the "women" in the "live" videos.
• Things you see at the DMV:
• Clueless customers.
• Argumentative customers.
• Dead-eyed, hate-filled clerks who wish that the nuclear apocalypse would hurry up and get here so they didn't have to deal with this shit anymore.
• Obese women with skirts entirely too short for my sanity's comfort.
• People having conversations about how the cops didn't actually manage to find the safe with the drugs and money in it, and how the cops did ballistics evidence tests on her hands after she was arrested next to the body of some guy who got shot four times and spent months in a coma.  Also it's unfair when there are issues because your car got stolen while you were in jail and got towed and you can't sort that out easily.
• I didn't make that last one up.
• I have the worst luck in the world when it comes to picking seats at sporting events.  The person sitting behind me is ALWAYS some sort of shrieking idiot.  And sometimes it's a child.  I don't know why this is the case, but a shrieking idiot child is way worse than a shrieking idiot adult.  Is it the high-pitched wailing, or the fact that they have not yet developed the ability to recognize the existence and rights of other humans?  Or is it that they're more likely to kick you in the back repeatedly?  I don't know, but at least they're probably not going to spill beer on you.
• A student asked me recently how harshly I'd be grading something.  I answered "On a scale of one to forty lashes."  The confusion and fear in his eyes was truly beautiful to behold.
• Even after years of playing Starcraft, I'm still amused that the key combo to build a supply depot is B-S.  Fuck off, Adjutant, I don't need any more goddamned supply depots.  This is bullshit.
• I would like for someone to start a BDSM-themed comedy club and name it "Quips & Whips."

License Plate Bonanza

Virginia offers a truly absurd array of special license plates.  Over 200 at last count, I believe.  The phrase "There is a point at which this needs to stop and we have clearly passed it" springs to mind.  Here are a few of my favorite examples:

• I'd totally get the Harley Owners Group motorcycle plate if I owned a Yamaha bike.
• Sometimes, you need more than just purple sparkles and glitter glue to express how much you love pretty ponies.  Hence the Horse Enthusiast plate. 
• Frankly, if you survived Pearl Harbor and have documented proof of being on Oahu on December 7, 1941, I'm not really sure I want to be driving on the same roads as you.
• Would someone care to explain to me why the Commonwealth of Virginia is issuing license plates for state universities in entirely different states?
• The National Rifle Association plate is a wonderful way to show your support for road rage.
• Oh dear.  Now that I've seen this one, I might have to get it.  Quick, what's the URL of a shock site that ends in .com?
• I'm known as a "friend of coal" most times I open my Christmas stocking, sadly.
• This plate can be found on the horse-drawn buggies the veterans drive.
• I'm somewhat depressed that Jimmy Buffet fans are enough of a force to merit their own plate.
• A car license plate promoting bicycle use.  Go figure.
• Next time you go crashing through a crowded sidewalk market in your car, make sure you've got a bowling-themed license plate.
• This plate brought to you by Philip Morris.
• Firstly, "Clean Special Fuel" doesn't make much grammatical sense.  Secondly, I want to see a car with this on it hunt down and ram a "Friend of Coal" vehicle.   For added amusement, have it be Prius on Suburban crime.
• Choose life and bad font choices.
• I go for kids first, hence the bloody handprints on my bumper.
• To get the Masonic plate, you're required to show license, registration, title, and secret handshake.
• Normally, for the profession/association-themed plates, you need to show proof of membership.  There is one apparent exception, though.  Anyone want to be a Certified Public Accountant?

Assorted Thoughts 29: I Like Big Squids And I Cannot Lie

• If I ever live in Canada, I will keep an English dictionary in a glass-fronted cabinet in my front hall, with a placard reading "Break glass in case of Québécois."
• What with all the upset these days about the greed of big businesses and the fact our economy seems to be made of cotton candy, it's somehow reassuring to remember that once upon a time, grave robbing was a booming industry.
• As a rule, the more fervently your high school teachers try to get you to believe something, the more likely it is that it has no real-world application at all.
• At what point did the things on Laffy Taffy wrappers stop being jokes and start being cruel mockeries of humor?  Seriously, it's like they created these solely for the purpose of twisting children's idea of what's funny into something completely alien and horrific.  Some of the ones I've found in a package I bought today:
• "What do you get when you mix paint together?  A mess."
• "What time was it when the elephant sat on the chair?  Time for a new chair."
• "What has ten letters and starts with gas?  An automobile."
• Does anyone else get the feeling that this is part of a campaign to create a generation of gray-faced proles destined for nothing more than a joyless existence of work until death?
• A good rule for life when having to feed yourself: no matter how many pizzas are already in your freezer, if they are on sale, buy more.
• I went to my first field hockey game the other day.  It was deeply confusing, since as far as I can tell, the sport resulted from a horrible drunken night between soccer and ice hockey, and neither of them wants to think about it.  The sticks are malformed golf clubs, the refereeing decisions are apparently even more arbitrary than they are in most college sports (which is saying something), and the players have to wear skirts.  But hey, the right team won.
• Hands up all who are disappointed that there was nothing in this entry expanding on the title.

Assorted Thoughts 28: And Still I Post

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as told by David Icke: "Yer a lizard, 'Arry!"
• Why I would make a terrible press secretary: "Good morning.  I'd like to open this conference by saying that I can neither confirm nor deny the persistent rumors that the Senator is actually Sir Mix-A-Lot in a very convincing disguise."
• "Were there such rumors?"
• "Well, if not, there certainly are now!"
• When studying for a test on biomes, there is only one choice for pump-up music: "Eye of the Taiga."
• I can't tell whether my lab section is amused or horrified when I explain gel electrophoresis by using disposing of a body as an example.
• I-95: Florida's urethra.
• On a related note, two vanloads of college students driving to the Florida Keys lowered the average age of the state by about two decades.
• Pitch for a new TV series: Doogie Hammer, MC.
• While it was never really a life goal, I'm still kind of glad that I accidentally bitchslapped a jellyfish and came out all right.
• Apparently, one test for being an early-stage independent adult is checking your online bank balance every few hours in hopes that your paycheck has appeared.

Assorted Thoughts 27: Sadly I Cannot Make Odd Noises In Text Form

• My style of online gaming is such that I find it is just as easy to respawn as it is to reload.
• Grading speed runs: great for my desire to do other things, great for my students' GPA, bad for my conscience.
• At this stage in my life, I own two near-identical Red Sox caps.  One is nice and new, and reserved for formal occasions, such as baseball games.  The other is grungy and beat-up and used for everything else, like fieldwork, yardwork, and days I can't be bothered trying to contain my hair's anger.
• Until my nearly-new phone decided that a usable 7 key was for the weak, I really hadn't thought about how difficult it is to compose text messages that avoid the letters p, q, r, and s.  Is the answer "circuitous sentence structure"?  Turns out you can't say that either.
• The dead key has made me very glad I have at least a reasonable fluency in 1337.  Or 133t, because that damn key doesn't work.
• It's surprisingly awkward trying to figure out what to do when walking towards a sporting event, while still outside the stadium, and the national anthem is playing.
• After a recent experience at a Target with plenty of howling little monsters, I propose that a group of young children be referred to as an "infestation."  Aren't collective nouns fun?
• While talking to my advisor today, he told me that he was impressed by my willingness to admit that I'd screwed up.  I don't expect anyone who knows me personally to believe this anecdote.

Assorted Thoughts 26: This Counts As A Title, I Swear

• I went to one of my school's club hockey team's games a week or two ago.  After a furious comeback, they won in overtime.  The crowd went crazy cheering, and then one voice yelled, "We won!  LET'S GET WASTED!"
• Apparently someone found this place using the search keyword "rubber mouth."  I'm not sure how I feel about that.
• Hypothesis: if having parents that are DEEEEAAAAAD makes children become vigilantes, then children whose parents are brutally murdered before their very eyes will be significantly more likely to become Batman than children whose parents survive, or die out of sight.
• How many butts could a what butt butt if a what what in the butt?
• Does anyone else feel mildly disconcerted when you have a question about something and can't think of a way to phrase a Google search to find an answer?
• I have to think for a moment when someone asks me how old I am.  That seems like a bad thing.
• I got into the lab earlier than normal recently, before anyone else was in.  That meant I had to get the coffee going, and experienced firsthand the "I need coffee so I can remember how to make the coffee" paradox.  I'm turning into my dad.  Not cool.
• Lessons learned from "The Wizard of Oz": Intercontinental ballistic houses will ruin your whole day, and it's impossible for a lecturer to try to use the movie as an example in class without coming off as a weirdo.
• If I can add a little confusion to the world each day, I think I can be content with my life.
• I really think that all high-class, snooty rich person-targeted ski resorts should be required by law to have at least one yeti for every three ski runs.  It'd cut down on the population of idiots who don't know how to ski and go simply to show off their stylish gear, and really, who wouldn't want to read a news article about some reality show "star" going missing and turning up in fragmentary form in a wampa cave?

What I Have Learned So Far As A Teaching Assistant

I am about one and a third weeks into my teaching assistantship trying to convince people that biology is interesting.  The sad part is that it's nominally a lab for the intro bio course for majors, so one would expect they're interested by default.  That, alas, would be an inaccurate assumption.  A few things I have discovered thus far:

• Assume you are teaching cabbages.  Rowdy, disobedient cabbages.
• Prior knowledge is probably not something you can depend on.  Hint: red blood cells do not attack antibodies.
• Don't show fear.  Undergraduates can sense fear.
• There is always an excuse.
• No matter how explicit you make it, it will be misunderstood or ignored.  For example, large italics saying "COMPLETE SENTENCES" on a slide will not make people realize they have to use complete sentences.
• Don't be afraid to say you don't know.  As in, "I don't know why I gave you a zero.  Can you please put the gun down?"
• When grading, treat misspellings as an adventure.  It's apparently possible to spell "rotten" with a "w."  I had no idea.
• Students write simply to get it over with.  Legibility, space on the page, or any semblance of sense are all secondary to the goal of putting things that might be letters together in assemblages that might be words in sequences that might be phrases that could, if you squint just right during a specific phase of the moon on the fifth Tuesday of the month, almost answer the assigned question.  Maybe.
• Being a good TA is a lot like being a good umpire.  You have to have a thick skin and very, very selective hearing.
• Pretty soon, you're just as eager as your little monsters are to get the hell out of the lab and be done for the afternoon.

I'm adding this last one well after initial publication, but that's because I ran across something way too hilariously depressing to not mention.

•  This one is filed under the "I don't want to live on the same planet as you anymore" heading.  To recap, I am teaching the labs for an intro bio for majors course.  I got to listen to one of my students complain to me about how the professor teaches the course as if the students are bio majors.  Apparently, it's easier for a non-major to gripe about the class being taught for the people the course listing says it's aimed at than it is to, say, register for a course aimed at all the business majors or aspiring Great American Novelists who will actually end up grinding out twice-weekly columns about local minor-league playhouses and their exciting upcoming production of Macbeth as told by Mrs. Smith's fourth grade class.

Now if you don't mind, I have some grading to do, followed by a play date on the nearest railroad crossing.

Assorted Thoughts 25: Howling Like A Monkey With Its Tail Caught In A Vise Edition

• One of the stores in the University Center here on campus sells school-branded bottle opener keychains.  Know your clientele, I guess.
• Listening to "American Idiot" is a great way to prep for some grading.
• I like the lab I'm working in.  I like it especially because of the Neverending Coffeepot.  Caffeine must flow.
• I also keep the fridge stocked with Mountain Dew.  You know, just in case.
• Reminder to self: when going to Target, do try not to wear red shirts and tan shorts or pants.  It's quite possible for strange ladies to mistake you for a Target employee despite the large "RED SOX" written across your chest.
• Ron Paul: the Creature from the Atlas Shrugged Lagoon.
• Brigham Young University's mascot is the cougar, which has unpleasant secondary meanings. Mormons are also legendarily fecund. Therefore, I think I'm going to start calling BYU's teams the MILFs.
• I think I don't have existential doubt so much as existential sulk.
• This is a paragraph from a paper on octopuses I read recently:
• 

"Unusual behavior by the female was noted after one copulation. Five minutes after the termination of mating the female inhaled, raised her mantle straight up for five to eight seconds, then exhaled forcibly while lowering the mantle to its normal position. Two minutes later, while sitting in the head-high position, she furiously curled her her wriggling arms back and forth over the mantle for 30 secs and then continued this behavior every four minutes. In the interim she would place from one to three arms into her mantle cavity for approximately 20 secs then suddenly withdraw them with a contraction of the mantle. This behavior continued for seven hours and the ventilation rate remained high, from 38 to 42/min. Thereafter, her behavior was completely normal. This behavior remains enigmatic."
• 

I think that's a scientific description of an octopus rape victim.

Assorted Thoughts 24: Posts! Posts Everywhere! Or At Least Right Here.

• Left 4 Dead has definitely made too large of an impression on me.  Any time I enter a mall now, I feel naked without automatic weapons, shrieking babies sound uncannily like Hunters, and I'm always surprised at the lack of weapons caches and pipe bombs.
• It makes me happy that there is a scholarly journal entitled "Harmful Algae."  Research will be done on everything we can find and written up in increasingly obscure publications that are absurdly specific!
• Wondering how to make plants exciting?  Offer a class called "Plants of the Bible and Quran."  Clearly.  Goddamn botanists.
• Fun fact: Taco Bell "Fire Sauce" lists soy sauce as one of its ingredients.  Not making this up.  None of their other sauces contain it, though they all have soy in some form.
• I feel I have a right to complain about the local humidity when I step out of a building and my glasses fog up.
• Superheroes do it with masks on.
• Also, with spandex.  Just pointed out to me.
• Amusing rhyming phrase of the day: harpoon a baboon.

Assorted Thoughts 23: Resumption of Attempted Funny Edition

• I would like to judge a wet manatee shirt contest.
• Does it strike anyone else as ironic that there's a country singer whose last name is Urban?
• I've spent so much time packing things into cars lately that I start humming the Tetris theme any time I have to put stuff away.
• It gets a lot easier to listen to the nonsense the Republicans are spouting if you just treat it as if they were from an alternate history novel.
• I realized I needed to work on cleaning up my language when I noticed that I swore more like an old sailor than did the actual old sailors I worked with.
• A round of Angry Birds is like a rousing game of 9/11.
• I think I'm nostalgic for the future.  At least in the sense of feeling a longing for the past when the future was a bright, shiny place full of appliances to make life easier and space stations and exploration of the unknown, not a grim place filled with tyrannical governments, malevolent AIs, and terrorists trying to kill everything that ever was.
• Betting odds on the genre of the future:
• Tom Swift 1,000,000,000:1
• Star Trek 100,000,000:1
• Deus Ex 3:1
• Blade Runner 2:1
• Cockroach Paradise 1:1
• Well, shit.
• Flipping through channels late at night recently, I came across a show entitled "Fitness Beauties."  The only description on the channel guide info page?  "Footage of women working out."  Full stop, end of story.  How, uh, intriguing.  The next show in line on whatever godsforsaken channel that was: "Bikini All-Stars."  Classy.
• Restaurant name idea: The Panicking Crab.  Seafood, naturally.

Assorted Thoughts 22: Getting My Shit Together (Maybe) Edition

• Humans suffer from anaphylactic shock.  Perhaps a lich would suffer from anaphylacteric shock.
• What we need is a Konami code to revert the internet to 1997-style.
• It's really hard to picture Elton John as a top.  Just saying.
• As you may know, I recently drove across the country.  One observation was how flat the Midwest is.  While I slept, my friend who was taking a shift at the wheel likened the experience of crossing the straight, flat roads of Texas to being on Halo.  If given the choice, I would rather fight the Covenant with my bare hands than drive through Texas.  I hate that place.
• A notation verbatim from my little notebook full of directions and random thoughts:
• Mariachi – WITH BAGPIPES
• I'd like to see someone carrying a "Will Romance for Sex" sign. 
• When walking around San Francisco's Chinatown, it's probably unwise to assume all drugstores are fronts for opium dens.
• Walking into a store and demanding Pocky because "it's all Asian, right?" is also a poor life choice.
• Raisins: the original date rape.
• Note to self: have actual sex to the funky '70s porno music at some point in life.  Perhaps grow mustache for occasion? – editor

2012 Political Sloganeering

With a little help from my friends, I have helpfully compiled this list of potential slogans for the candidates in the 2012 Presidential election.

Obama 2012:

• Because I don't want to go to war in Iran too.
• Mediocrity or the Dark Ages?  The choice is clear.
• At least you won't be forced to drink the Kool-Aid.
• The alternatives speak for themselves.

Romney 2012:

• What would you like me to tell you?
• Slimy politicians with negotiable principles: what America needs most today.

Cain 2012:

• [insert Islamophobic slur here]
• Anyone who tells you that running a pizza chain is not adequate preparation for the presidency is probably an illegal immigrant.

Perry 2012:

• The good news you hear is the sound of the cross bashing your skull in.

Bachmann 2012:

• Why should Afghanistan have all the Taliban fun?
• God told my husband to tell me to tell you that Uncle Sam wants you to run gays over with a tractor.
• Bringing America a rosy new dawn by the light from the burning books and gays.

Paul 2012:

• If I tell you that I voted for him, will you shut up on the internet?
• Still running, still irrelevant, still with the annoying fanboys.

2012 election, general:

• The world's ending anyway, so really, what does it matter?

Assorted Thoughts 21: The 50th Overall Post Edition

• Allow me to summarize about 80% of all conversation in online first-person shooter gaming: "What?  Someone is better at this game than me?  Preposterous!  Clearly they are cheating!  What utter balderdash.  Kindly desist in your use of such appalling "hax," sirrah!  Also, I question your sexuality."
• If you ever need to check if someone is a Californian, there's a simple way: tell them that you think In-N-Out Burger, while decent, is nothing exceptional and you don't understand why it seems to be deified.  Non-Californians will nod and say that seems reasonable.  Californians will attempt to rip your spinal column out via your ear and bludgeon you to death with it.
• The Roman emperors used bread and circuses to keep their populace in check.  We've come a long way since then.  All the United States government needs is the circuses.  Thank you, reality television
• I really can't tell whether the most agonizing hours of my life are those I've spent waiting in hospitals or the times when my internet connection has gone on strike.
• Death cactus panda!  Prove me wrong.
• It's been noted that we only really notice how reliant we are on the internet and technology when we lose access to it.  Some people respond by trying to wean themselves off their dependence on the internet.  I respond by trying to wean myself off my dependence on unreliable ISPs.
• Those gigantic RVs that congest all highways are among the worst things ever.  If I ever come into enough money that I can be exempt from criminal prosecution, I intended to make a hobby of hunting them down with antitank missiles.
• Things one probably shouldn't say whilst cuddling, even if provoked: "I WILL MURDER YOU AND ALL YOU HOLD DEAR!"
• My favorite breed of dog is kitten.
• Ever noticed how much a Pokéball resembles the Death Star?
• Coincidence?  I THINK NOT.
• Linn County, Oregon, has big signs along I-5 pronouncing it the "Grass seed capital of the world."  Personally, I think that's about the most depressing possible advertisement for your area.  "Hey look!  The only thing we have to be proud of is a lot of grass.  Hooray!"

Assorted Thoughts 20: I Would Rather Do This Than Useful Things

• I am seldom as frustrated and embarrassed as I am when I'm forced to voluntarily and consciously give up on a book I'm reading because it's too bad.  I feel like I should still be able to push through and finish it, but sometimes it hurts too much.
• Most awkward phone call I've made in some time: calling the local Borders (closing as the chain goes under) and asking the guy answering the phone (who will shortly be laid off) when the sales start so that vultures like me can pick over the store's corpse.
• I get a bit of a kick out of how surprised people are when I'm not a raging asshole.  So I do something nice every now and then just to throw them for a loop.
• There are two types of gamer girls: the ones who are large and anime-loving and weird, and the ones who don't exist.  With apologies to the gamer girls I actually know who don't fit the context of the joke.
• Note to self: If the realty office is showing a potential tenant around the apartment you will soon be vacating, it's considered bad form to play the Dead Kennedys' "Let's Lynch The Landlord."
• Fun field trip activity: go to a store, buy knives, rope, sponges and bleach, and while checking out, strike up a conversation with the person on the register where you repeatedly insist that you're not a serial killer, and try to persuade them you're really not trying to hide the evidence.
• Underwear made of snakes: a pythong.

Assorted Thoughts 19: I Will Still Try To Be Funny Even If Nobody Reads It

• I recently had a dream where I was writing an essay for some class or something, and I was really upset when my alarm went off before I could finish the essay.
• Never upset a pastry chef.  You might end up with a phlegm brûlée.
• I make odd noises.  This is nothing new.  However, it gets to be a bit disconcerting when I myself am surprised by the noises I make.  An approximate reconstruction:
• Part of Brain: You've been quiet for almost fourteen seconds!  Time to make a noise!
• Rest of Brain: Okay!
• Mouth: [series of sounds absolutely not reproducible in text form]
• Rest of Brain: What the hell was that?  Did did we make those?
• Part of Brain: Yep!
• All the Rest of Me: Seriously, what the shit is your problem?
• I am enough of a nationalist that I will actively root against the People's Republic of China when they run up against South Korea in the women's recurve team event (Bronze Medal Final) at the Archery World Championships.
• Don't get me wrong, a lot of the bands I like are old.  Not old in the sense of "been retired since the '70s" but old as in "their members are in their mid-40s."  But seeing the Rolling Stones still out there on stage and making records really makes me wonder if there's a statute of limitations on rocking.
• Rape investigators must spend a lot of time worrying about con-genital defects.
• In the midst of a fantastical dream involving zombies and a men's World Cup soccer game (US versus Germany), I started analyzing the pitching performance of the closer for the Red Sox in the real game from the night before.  I'm both impressed that I can do that and slightly worried that I can do that.

Grab Bag 2: Really I Just Didn't Want To Have To Think Up More Lists

• Recently, iTunes spat "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" at me.  The internet has so many ways of making me feel old.
• Reading about LulzSec's shafting of HBGary is made much more satisfying when one is also listening to the Imperial March.
• Idea for a movie aimed at middle school-aged insects: Sisterhood of the Traveling Ants.
• I was in an adult shop the other day and saw that they had an inflatable sheep that made noises when, uh, prompted.  How have we as a species existed so long without this?
• If a frat guy suffers rectal damage, does he get an anal brolapse?
• Regardless of whether the computer game I'm playing requires it, my left hand always ends up over the WASD keys.
• Can I be your Komodo dragon of love?  Large, sluggish, a bit smelly, and filled with toxic bacteria?
• I feel like it might be an entertaining diversion to bullshit up an article of arrant nonsense about how the egalitarian ideals promulgated in the formation of the United States could have happened nowhere else, because the English language lacks specific formal and informal forms of address.  Then pass the article to Conservapedia and WorldNetDaily and all the other 'Murikan exceptionalist mouthpieces and see how many run with it.

• Doll Sets That Should Never Definitely Exist
• Sexual Experimentation Barbie
• Stonewall Riots Ken
• Build-A-Stereotype Barbie
• Death Metal Barbie
• Kennibal Lecter
• Aryan Princess Barbie
• Daddy Issues Barbie
• Kensama bin Laden
• Twinkerbell

Assorted Thoughts 18: Oh Gods I Have To Think Of A Title Edition

• The only proper way to listen to Coast to Coast AM is while driving on a deserted rural highway on a very dark night.
• I don't know about you, but I'm distinctly leery of the concept of buying condoms in a "Value Pack."
• My burgeoning social conscience is making it increasingly difficult to listen to ads on AM radio.
• How you know you're running with a nerd posse: they pour one out all right, but use Mountain Dew instead of a 40.
• If ever asked why I have Jehovah's Witness pamphlets in my car, I plan to point out that you never know when you'll need some kindling.
• Just south of Eugene, Oregon, there is a billboard advertising the National Museum of Naval Aviation.  That museum is in Pensacola, Florida.  I don't know why that's being advertised almost as far as you can get from the museum and still be in the continental United States.
• The worst part about very late nights is the sunlight mocking you as you try to get to sleep.
• Screaming "MURDER MURDER MURDER" is a good battle cry for a remarkable variety of games.
• Does anyone ever really want an honest answer when they ask the question "What's the worst that can happen?"
• There are few things more embarrassing than having to ragequit casual games.

Assorted Thoughts 17: Fricking Finally Updating Edition

• I kind of want to put a couple playlists on my iPod purely to confuse anyone looking through it.  Title one "Dismembering Hookers Mix" and the other "Fleeing From The Cops Soundtrack."  Perhaps, for added effect, fill the first one with smooth jazz and the second with some really upbeat, happy pop music.
• I know I have left scars on at least three people from school.  The pharaohs built pyramids to ensure they were never forgotten.  I build scar tissue.
• Further adventures with Ben's gay phone: when trying to type "steer," T9 wants it to be "queer."
• Whenever I see a particularly amusingly wrong book at a bookstore (NASA EQUALS NAZIS, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW), I definitely start humming Trololol under my breath.
• Lego: the number one reason I should never be allowed to have a debit card.
• If you see a sign promoting some charity with the title "Make an impact on an abused child's life!" and your first thought is, "What, with my fist?" you're probably a bad person.  I'm a bad person.
• My brain is upsetting.  There is absolutely no reason to ever have thoughts like "Dildos made of whales!"
• I don't know any sluts.  I do, however, know some romantic overachievers.
• I heard an ad on the radio invoking the Dalai Lama to promote a web site called "values.com."  I was sort of under the impression that the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists was not really a commercial property.  Once again, the internet educates me.
• If I had a Bag of Holding, the only things in it would be books and snacks.
• It's amazing how hard it is to be funny enough to make blog posts when you only sleep in your own bed for maybe six nights over the course of at least 30 days.

Assorted Thoughts 16: Back Onshore Edition

• There are few things more upsetting than picking up a book from a store and starting into it only to realize within the first few pages that you have already read it.  It gets even worse if you remember that it wasn't very good, either.
• I was somewhat disconcerted while lying in bed the other night when I realized that I don't really have any happy thoughts to go to if I need to clear my head.  That can't be good.
• The South may rise again.  I believe the current plan is for it to occur in 2018, and for the states to secede all the way to 1820.
• My desire to watch "The X-Files" is inversely proportional to the amount of bright sunshine outside.
• You should make like a Canadian and apologize.
• One my more unusual impulse-buying habits: berries.
• If I happen to stumble across a Little League baseball game where one of the teams is called the Yankees, it takes a conscious effort of will for me not to bellow "YANKEES SUCK!"
• If you're in a car with me and I'm listening to the radio, be prepared to hear me yell "Citation needed, dammit!" at ads or statements with some regularity.
• I am the Little Engine That Raged.
• "Biology [or other field of study] me this" is an underappreciated way to request some professional input.
• When some people have the hankering for kinky music, they listen to Rihanna's "S&M."  I listen to Tom Lehrer's "The Masochism Tango."
• Ironic thought for the day: being struck and killed in a crosswalk by a speeding ambulance.
• Great moments in off-the-cuff commentary:  "I figure you'll work it out and [guy] will figure out how to work it." – When talking to a female friend who recently entered into a relationship and is worrying a bit about bedroom compatibility.
• I've listened to the songs "Gay Bar" and "Bear Force One" enough that I'm pretty sure that YouTube now thinks I'm gay.
• Perhaps my favorite example of how bizarre and awesome the human brain can be is to think about how I can recall, on demand, the lyrics to literally hundreds of songs.  Now, if only I could do that with useful things, like classwork...

Assorted Thoughts 15: Still At Sea Edition

• It would be an interesting project to author and publish a book that, while meritorious in its own right, has the ulterior motive of attempting to break Dewey Decimal classification as thoroughly as possible.  Add in an unrelated title, such as "Trolling Librarians for Fun and Profit," and see what bookstores and libraries do with it.
• As a descriptor of emotion, the phrase "atavistic monkey-rage" is sadly underutilized.
• I'll often say things that make sense only in context.  Sadly, sometimes even context won't help. Case in point: "If I were a girl and had social skills I'd be challenging you to gladiatorial combat for the right to date him!"
• The fact that my brain can come up with things like "Mail Order Bride of the Month Club" worries me a bit.
• Ménage àlbatrois: seabirds living in sin.
• Ironic statement of the day: I wish misfortune on those who lack compassion.
• Deus Ex is a great game.  However, I suspect I play it somewhat improperly.  While it's possible to simply tank up and slaughter everything in your path, it's generally suggested to utilize stealth instead.  And I do use stealth.  I use it to sneak around until I get the right angle to shoot someone in the head.  I could avoid all the guards and complete the mission unnoticed, but it's so much more gratifying to charge down the hallway expending about as many bullets as the average CIA-supported paramilitary group does in a year.  Of course, my sadism isn't completely unchecked.  I'll go through the first level without killing anyone, because one of the other characters gets upset if you murder every living being there, and I'd rather not disappoint him.  Soon, though, the tear gas grenades aren't being used to distract and occupy enemies as I run past so much as they are to temporarily immobilize them so I can pop them in the back of the head execution-style with my pistol (incidentally, about the only thing I've ever used the pistol for in that game).  I refuse to accept all blame for this, though.  If the designers really wanted me not to murder everyone in sight, they wouldn't have made the higher-level enemies so resistant to tranquilizer darts.  Also, it wouldn't be so easy to turn into a walking tank with rocket launchers, submachine guns, sniper rifles, and a god-sword that can one-hit-kill almost any enemy in the game.

Internet Brotherhood Week

I felt moved to create my own version of Tom Lehrer's song "National Brotherhood Week" to better reflect the conditions commonly found in my natural habitat, the internet.

=================

Oh, the Win folks hate the Mac folks,
And the Mac folks hate the Win folks.
To hate all but your own folks
Is an old established rule.

But during Internet Brotherhood Week, Internet Brotherhood Week,
YouTube and Liveleak are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise,
As long as you don't ever let 'em type.

Oh, the pedos hate the furries,
And the furries hate the pedos.
All of my pervs hate all of your pervs,
It's as normal as hentai.

But during Internet Brotherhood Week, Internet Brotherhood Week,
HuffPo loves the Freepers 'cause it's very chic.
Step up and like the post
Of someone you'd rather roast.
You can tolerate him if you try.

Oh, Digg hates Reddit,
And Reddit hates Digg,
And the Goons hate the /b/tards,
And everybody hates Ebaums.

But during Internet Brotherhood Week, Internet Brotherhood Week,
It's Internet Don't-flame-one-another-hood Week.
Be nice to people who
Use different browsers than you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

Assorted Thoughts 14: Sent From A Boat 30 Miles Out To Sea (No, Really)

• Something I'd like to see: "Texting while driving isn't so baaflbkbfhfd -- Sent from my iPhone."
• My meds are there to, if not ensure sanity, then to at least ensure that you can see sanity on a good day, if you squint hard enough.
• It's hard to make some animals scary, no matter how hard you try.  To wit: would you be afraid of Mecha Bush Baby?
• Being bipedal would be a lot more fun if we had telescoping legs.
• I'm a tetrapod and I'm okay, I have four limbs, generally with five digits per limb, I sleep according to my physiology and ecological niche, and to make this rhyme there is no way.
• An appeal to sanity:
• I am an inveterate arguer.  But I've decided to opt out of the "Mac versus PC" debate, just like "cake or pie," and so on, because at this point it's just a bunch of fanboys screeching pointlessly.  As far as I can tell, this is the difference between Apple and Microsoft:
• Apple thinks it knows better than its users.  To be fair, judging from some of their successes with iWhatevers, they might often be right.  But it still can infuriate when they don't give you preference panes or hide folders with system files from your view.
• Microsoft thinks its users are idiots.  How else can you explain Clippy, the endless notification popups, and the existence of Internet Explorer?  You can do a lot with a PC, but it still grates when Windows decides you don't know about something you've done thousands of times before.
• I don't like the term "ex."  It has so many negative connotations.  What about those relationships that parted amicably and without hatred?  I therefore propose a new term to cover those that didn't end horribly: Romantic Involvements, or RomIns for short.

Notes From "The X-Files"

• I've been going through "The X-Files" on Netflix of late.  I haven't seen any of it before, so it's been an interesting experience.  Naturally, started with Season 1, and I'm up to Episode 11 of that season so far.  Granted, this is from 1993, but some of it is comically dated or just plain silly.

• Let's start with the opening titles.  It's pretty clear that the producers had no idea of the hit it would become, because the title cards look less like professional TV and more like public access at 1 AM.  I refuse to believe that even in 1993, this was the best they could do.

• As an overarching theme, the series thus far has an extremely pessimistic view of both humanity and the universe at large.  There's never any sort of happy ending or reconciliation.  Either something Else wants us to die horribly, or we're trying to kill It in some brutal fashion.  Usually one or both of these aims are successful.

• Agent Scully, we're 11 episodes in.  You've seen some really frickin' bizarre shit in just these few weeks.  Why, then, are you persistently refusing to even consider any of what's in front of your face?  For Christ's sake, I'm a devout atheist, but if a goddamn angel showed up in my living room once a week for most of a year, I'd consider reevaluating my beliefs or lack thereof.

• The gender roles are interesting, too.  Poor Scully is generally wrong.  Wrong, or easily persuaded by Mulder.  God I love the media.

• On the one hand, Mulder and Scully actually get shit done.  That's something to admire in a federal agency.  On the other hand, I sincerely hope there's absolutely nothing realistic about their methods, because good gods.  The due process, it does nothing.

• There's one episode about an evil computer artificial intelligence.  "Funny" doesn't begin to do it justice.  The "interface" is a bunch of red blinking numerals and a screen with psychedelic patterns.  It also built itself a voice synthesizer.  But… but… I remember computers in 1993.  They were more advanced than that.  One would suspect that a hyperadvanced, sentient AI would have at least cutting-edge technology.  It's nice to know, however, that the media's appalling lack of understanding of technology isn't just from the internet age.

• The "government connection" Mulder has is totally the model for Half-Life's G-Man.

• I'm getting the hint that at least this first season was done on an exceptionally low budget.  Apparently they could only afford one pair of glasses, which had to be rotated amongst the actors as needed.

• David Duchovny is exceptionally good at looking haunted.  Probably why they cast him.  He's also good at standing helplessly around while other people die or are dragged off to Neptune.

• The alien-hunter squads the military apparently runs are singularly ill-equipped.  Sure, they get some flak jackets, but they're carrying pistols.  Pistols.  The regular Army gets assault rifles, the elite squad gets peashooters.  They're also not carrying any of the good toys like night vision goggles or helmets.  Nope!  The only conclusion I can draw is that their security clearances have a limited shelf life and it's simpler to replace the casualties than it is to make sure these guys don't get a book deal.

• I can sum up the entire series in the words of a wise accomplice of mine:

• THAT'S NOT SCIENCE!

Don't Fuck With Russia (A Cautionary Tale)

I'm currently reading Barbarossa, a 1965 book by Alan Clark about the German invasion of Russia during World War II.  Some observations have come to mind during my reading:

• I generally think science is more fun than history, as a discipline.  However, history does have the tremendous advantage of being able to use phrases like this in a scholarly work: 
• "In the subterranean jungle of Nazi politics such a gesture had as little effect as a peacock spreading his tail feathers at a python."
• Unfortunate parallels to modern history:
• "No army which rests its quality on training, technology, and firepower-- as the German Army did-- should ever allow itself to be drawn into terrain where this quality is at a discount."
• The SS had a uniquely evil approach to naming its units.  The 3rd SS Division Totenkopf (Death's Head) is bad enough, but seriously, the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler?  Can you cram some more upsetting terms into a single name?  Why not just call it the "We Eat Kittens and Murder Happiness In Its Sleep Brigade"?
• Russian tactics early in the war can be summed up as "LEEEEEROOOOOY JENKINS!"
• "Here and there a few tanks accompanied trucks, crammed with soldiers, which simply drove flat out at the German positions until stopped by a direct hit."
• Just in case people forget why we now use "Nazi" as the basic reference point for evil, their plans for Leningrad after taking the city can be summed up in a few possibilities:
• "Level the town, make it uninhabitable and relieve us of the necessity of having to feed the population through the winter." -- Hitler
• Maybe evacuate women and children, seal off the place with electric fences and machine guns, let the rest starve.  If they try to escape, artillery.  -- the Wehrmacht
• Just kill everyone, so no epidemics can develop. -- a variety of people
• Maybe try not to brutally murder as many people as possible. -- absolutely nobody
• Classy folks, the Nazis.
• How a German commander's diary records the first encounters with the Soviet T-34 tank:
• "Interesting historical coincidence that Napoleon also took Vilna on 24th June. ... New enemy heavy tank!"
• To be fair, they didn't have the benefit of knowing exactly what that tank would end up doing.  If they did, I suspect it would have read more "OH FUCK SHIT SHIT FUCK SHIT."
• In terms of political infighting that impedes progress, the US Congress of today has nothing on the Nazi bureaucracy and Wehrmacht command.  That doesn't reflect well on either entity.
• The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 (exactly 47 years before I was born!).  By the end of September, the Soviets had lost around 2.5 million men, 22,000 field guns, 18,000 tanks, and 14,000 aircraft.  Yet they still came back to kick Germany's ass.  What.
• That's like me amputating all of someone's limbs and pulling all their teeth, only to have them use their bleeding stumps to launch themselves at me and bite me to death with their bare gums the moment I turn my back.
• Don't fuck with Russia.

The Interesting People Of Craigslist

Sometimes I like to peruse the personals listings on Craigslist, because, to put it simply, people are insane.  Here are a sampling of some of the personals still listed today on the Humboldt County Craigslist.  Sadly, some of my very favorite ones have been removed or expired, so we don't get to read about "why y'all afraid of bbws" (seriously, that was an actual one a couple months back.  I may have gotten the spelling or lack thereof wrong, but you get the gist).  Do not despair, though!  There are still some entertainingly bizarre people who want your hot lovings!  Before you ask, no, I don't put my troll pants on and reply.  I merely observe and laugh.

• Some men are refreshingly direct. 

• Others are impressively confident.

• Some requests are remarkably specific, yet vague at the same time.

• Desperation is a bit of a theme.

• I really don't think that "Barely Legal and Confused" would make a good title for any gay porno.

• I made you a date but I eated it?

• Do you really think that if your mother sees your post, she won't be able to puzzle it out if you use 1337? 

• Of course, it's not just guys who want to get in on the Craigslist action.  Some girls know what they want, too.  In this case, that means "whit boys," possibly with "tats."  Punctuation is a turn-off.

• I guess Humboldt County doesn't have a big enough population to have enough garage band bassists for everyone.

• See what I mean about desperation?  This poor lady is so desperate, she's willing to settle for off-brand genuine guys.

• Again, though, others go right for what they want.

• And sometimes those wants are a bit disturbing.

•  Humboldt County has some stereotypes, and its residents will do them proud!

• Right, there's that other stereotype about the area too.

• Persistence isn't one of the local stereotypes, but maybe it should be.

• Vegetarian... hippie... redneck... hick... things?  Ah yes, Humboldt County.

• It wouldn't be the internet without flamewars.

• Or spambots.

• Spambots that incite parodies that are almost as bad, that is.

• Of course, there are a few truly reasonable posts. 

• (Shut up, I'm not a lesbian, I'm not replying)

Assorted Thoughts 13: Yep, Still On A Roll

• It's remarkable how PETA can make any worthy cause seem terrible.  There's an ad on the radio in Eureka referring to why you should bring your pets inside when it's cold.  That's fine.  What's not okay is the bit about "OR THEY WILL GET FROSTBITE AND DIE."  PETA, you really need to learn how to frame a message.

• Resolution: I will try to cut back on circumcision jokes.

• I will pay a slight price premium to obtain Febreze as opposed to other air fresheners, simply because I can say "I Febreezed the shit out of [object/room]."  Can't really make Glade into a verb that easily.

• Given that I work on boats, I don't know if my fascination with disasters at sea is very healthy.

• My life is one long game of Katamari Insecurity.

• The contents of my internal monologue described in run-on sentence form: "Dear gods my eyes are bleeding the walls are melting why did I take so much acid."

• I would watch a television show called "Teatime With Harrison Ford."
• This is slightly shorter than usual.  Bite me.  I don't do requests.

Assorted Thoughts 12: It's Easier Than Writing Something Cohesive

• The best possible food would be delicious, nutritious, and expeditious.  That's not so funny on it's own.  I just like the rhyme.

• Watching an illegal stream of TSN's broadcast of an NHL playoff game, the ads right before the second intermission were, in order, for makeup, a Hot Pockets analog, a Canadian political ad, child diapers, car racing, and the NHL Playoffs.  Finally, "This second intermission is brought to you by: Mr. Lube!"  Oh, Canada.
• I'll be honest.  I don't hate hipsters like everyone else does.  I actually think they're pretty funny.  It's not like I see many of them, but I'm really amused at how un-ironically they're their own stereotype.  It's not like they're doing or advocating anything actively detrimental to society, like the teen-angst libertarians/anarchists/Communists do.  I'm fine with them being hipsters, because if nothing else, I have something to laugh at.  I wish there were more things like them in this world.
• The best possible reason to buy a cereal: it's capable of sending a moose into a diabetic coma.
• One of the more worrisome sights you might find on a freeway: a beat-up car with license plates reading CHTCEVL.
• Relatedly, I'd be in favor of a senator with LWFLEVL plates.
• Most hilariously ironic, yet unintentional, purchase I've ever made: one toothbrush, one travel-sized tube of toothpaste, ten packages of Peeps.  In my defense, all of that had a legitimate purpose.
• Thoughts that come to me while in line for gas: THESE ARE DELICIOUS HYDROCARBONS YOU MUST EAT THEM
• I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there is a spawn point for semi trailers somewhere in the redwoods on Highway 101 between Eureka and Crescent City.
• I wish there were more agnostic Christians.  I have assume they believe in Schrödinger's Jesus.  He's both alive and dead!
• I live in fear of making the automated "Your Speed Is" signs disappointed and upset.
• When driving on the highway, I eventually get bored enough to start playing the fascinating game "Is that roadkill, or just a piece of tire?"
• You can definitely tell when I've been driving based on how many of these entries revolve around cars and driving.

Letting Me Out In Public Unsupervised Isn't Always A Wise Idea

A conversation, in text message form, occurring while I was riding a BART train to a baseball game:

• Me: Definitely a big fat guy on this BART train talking on his phone about 3e [D&D] weapons and strategy.  Serious business.  Sadly no neckbeard.  I wish I had my gelatinous cube costume.

• Wade: Just scream something along the lines of "Fighters are better than Wizards!"  And watch the nerdrage ensue.

• Me: Oh man, he has a ponytail too.  A Hawaiian shirt as well.  NEEEERD.

• Wade: THAT'S JUST TOO MUCH STEREOTYPE TO HANDLE
• Me: "You know, I'm just happy his character is alive." - This Guy
• Me: If I get off before he does, I'm definitely going to say "4th Edition is better" and sprint.
• Brett: Do it!
• Wade: DO IT. POST RESULTS.
• Me: "You know that guy you were playing chess with?  Yeah, David!" - This Guy
• Me: I think I scooted before he could process what had happened to his world and rage.  I'll be looking over my shoulder for the rest of the day, however.
• Wade: You, sir, win several internets.
• Brett: You are in the Bay Area, after all.  Caution is key.
• Me: I think I'm safe from nerdrage hiding here at the baseball game.
• Wade: That is a safe assumption. 

• [much later]

• Carrie: 3.5 is totes better

Assorted Thoughts 11: I Will Post This Even Though Nobody May Ever Read It

• I believe my sanity is somewhere on the Island of Stability.  That is to say, it's theorized to exist, but despite a great deal of time, money, and nuclear reactors, has not yet been discovered and nobody knows if it ever will be.
• I very much enjoy shooting down "deep" questions, like "what is the meaning of life?", by recourse to basic biology.
• It's really quite amusing how every NHL team, regardless of how deep in America it is located, seems to have at least one Canadian on the broadcast team.  Do people really emigrate to Nashville to provide color commentary?
• Some people lose their days to Cracked linking to other Cracked articles.  I lose my time to Cracked's links to Wikipedia.  I'm now researching derelict satellites orbiting Earth.
• Oh dear gods, now it's on to spacecraft in general.  Somebody help me.  I cannot stop myself.
• Wow, I almost totally forgot to read the rest of the article that started all this.
• As I started my car to drive home from Safeway, the radio didn't immediately come on, and I wondered why I'd turned it off as I put the baseball game back on.  A few minutes later, a particularly obnoxious credit score ad came on the air.  "Ah, now I remember," I said, as I reached down to turn off the radio.
• I got a fortune cookie that said something along the lines of "You should be able to achieve anything you desire."  That's possibly the worst affirmation of all time.  It's like saying "It's theoretically possible you can tie your shoes!"  Well, thanks.  Could you be a bit more concrete about whether I can do things or not?

Assorted Thoughts 10: Now With Double-Digit Numbers In The Title

• The height of irony is when Glenn Beck starts scolding others for saying anything to sell a book.
• You can track my progress around an REI store by following the little sounds of shock and horror I make every time I see a price tag.
• A restaurant featuring Indian-Pakistani food strikes me as a recipe for, ahem, explosive diarrhea.  Especially if you try the Chicken Kashmiri.
• I can do a very convincing Rip van Winkle impersonation.
• How much wort could an Elite wort wort if a wort wort wort wort wort?
• At some point, I'd really like for a guy to hold up a bunch of gas stations at gunpoint while wearing a suit and tie (and a white collar, naturally).  I think the mixture of criminal classes would be entertainingly confusing.
• Kool-Aid is too artificial.  For the more health-conscious cults, I think they should be drinking juice.  Call it sui-cider.
• Loleta, California: where the age of consent is merely a suggestion.
• It's surprisingly creepy to be driving along the freeway and see a car that is apparently an exact duplicate of yours coming closer in the rearview mirror.
• Also creepy: when my car's AM radio is on the edge of the range of the signal you want, and several stations compete for the frequency.  I hear multiple voices, but none are clear.  My radio is become Legion.

Grab Bag 1: Wherein I Desperately Attempt To Generate Enough Content For A Post

• I feel like Morgan Freeman should do more public service announcements.  I'm definitely more aware of colorectal cancer thanks to the one on the radio here.

• I want to start a gentleman's club staffed by Bangkok ladyboys and call it the Ack-Bar.  "It's a trap!" will be the slogan.

• You know you need a shave when you walk into your supervisor's office and they ask if you just got off a boat.

• I think that I'd rather get a phone call ordering me to drop everything and go to work during sex than during the seventh inning of a baseball game.  At least with the sex, you get to feel like James Bond.  With a ballgame, you just miss the end of the game.

• I'm a great believer in the power of better living through righteous fury.

• Toys that should never be made:

• G.I. Mujoehideen
• Medical Curiosity Barbie
• My First Hatchet Murder Playset
• Grow Your Own Teratoma
• Can O' Fissionable Fun
• Model Rocketry Lawn Darts

Assorted Thoughts 9: Is My Well Of Humor Running Dry Already?

• What does it mean for my life that I go directly from thinking about a Magic deck I could build to taking swings in the local batting cage?  Am I allowed to have this sort of amusement duality?
• Don't get me wrong, I'm a safe and old-womany driver.  I still treat the "caution, curves ahead, you should slow down" signs as less of a warning than a challenge.
• I will happily stay up until 3 AM if it means I get to watch Australian Rules Football, or cricket if I really don't have any other option.
• I am apparently the best and most appreciated table.  The compliments (?) people pay me.
• I've definitely spent too much time thinking about airplanes.  A hundred miles of distance seems really short after spending a while in a situation where 300 miles per hour is normal.
• Conversations you only hear after 3:30 AM: "You're punching my tits." "You're in my armpit."
• I was reading a book about cannibalism and it mentioned that the ancient Chinese had a method of pickling humans for consumption called "t'so."  That puts a whole new spin on the standard Chinese takeout dish of General Tso's chicken.
• In related news, books on cannibalism are clearly the best choice for mealtime reading matter.
• I never want to visit Drain, Oregon.  I hear it's a real sewer.
• Merlin, Oregon, on the other hand, seems like a magical place for a vacation.
• It's a pretty clear sign you've been playing too much Magic when you're going to sleep and realize that a) you've been playing a game in your head, and b) you just told your imaginary opponent "go" out loud.  It's worse when you're staying at a friend's house and they are trying to sleep in the same room.
• I cannot think of a sport less suited to radio sportscasting than golf.  Even after listening to some (due to lack of anything interesting, like baseball, or semi-competitive snail jousting) I cannot comprehend how anyone gains enjoyment or information from it.
• I would like to someday be known as the Great Equivocator.
• When I am driving around town, I am usually muttering/talking/yelling to myself.  It's usually either a) entirely incoherent babbling, b) ridiculously obscene, or most of the time, c) both.  I may or may not have run over the crazy guy on the street corner and treated him as a powerup.
• Almost 60% of the bulleted items in this list start with the letter I.  This seems like something that should be mentioned.

Assorted Thoughts 8: A Large Percentage Of These Are Work-Related

• It's remarkable how much better you feel about an unfortunate event when you can sum up with "At least I was wearing pants."

• I've clearly read too many books on forensics when I know the exact case of horrible murder a new book is talking about from their first two sentences of introduction.

• Four or five days without shaving is about as long as I can go before things get too itchy.  Coincidentally, that's about the length of an average boat trip for work.  The sad part is that after about five days' growth, even a razor with lightsabers for blades would get dull in a real hurry.

• I love biscuits.  However, biscuits made of used needles are a bad idea.

• You know how people will sometimes say "There's no wrong answer"?  They're lying.  There will always be a wrong answer.  Genocide is one of them.  You'd be surprised how often open-ended questions result in the promotion of crimes against humanity.

• Nerd prison: where you have to barter sexual favors for Mountain Dew.

• It probably says a lot about how weird I am that I make a game of trying to search for the exact title of the Wikipedia page I'm looking for, so there is absolutely no redirecting involved.  No capitalization, word order, or punctuation changes.

• I feel like the motion sickness tablets may not be doing their job right when I get nauseous just looking at their package.

• A working knowledge of 1337 is surprisingly useful when choosing passwords that are, in fact, good enough for government work.

• Getting tired while doing paperwork at 3 AM?  The answer is to crank up the Dead Kennedys.  Suddenly you are awake.  From personal experience, it seems that holidays in Cambodia mix well with fish weight data.
• After four days at sea, there is no contest: showers are much, much better than sex.

Have I Jumped The Shark Yet?

• Reasons you should be glad I don't have access to mad scientist technology:

• land-octopus minions are less fun for the people they play with
• while making my small friends temporarily NBA size is amusing, they tend to act a bit too much like Godzilla
• some people had friends who used to live in the Great Crater of New York
• although Punch Over IP technology has many uses, giving it to the rest of the internet was a poor decision, and I feel bad about your black eye
• a mechanical Tyrannosaurus is a poor choice of commuting vehicle for public safety reasons
• while scientifically testing my voodoo powers is a laudable project, choosing to do it by use of human sacrifice was regrettable

• Games that don't mix with stripping:

• jousting
• Russian roulette
• tossing the caber
• bull riding
• American football but with lawn darts instead of a ball

• Vehicles whose time has not yet come:

• rocket-powered pogo stick
• suborbital sedan
• tank couch
• intercontinental ballistic lawn chair
• shoes made of geese
• monorailgun
• teenager-propelled chariot (now with extra whipping action!)

• Vehicles whose time has long since passed never was:

• anything steampunk fans ever talk about

The Internet Is A Terrible Place

Don't get me wrong.  I don't hate the internet.  In fact, some of my best friends are the internet.  But the internet has a lot of bad people on it, and I'm using the word "people" lightly.  I'm pretty sure that if you were to print out the internet and try to sell it as a book on Amazon, not only would you get the same treatment as the guy who was selling a how-to for pedophiles, but you'd be summarily burnt at the stake when people found out where you lived.  And nobody would ever feel bad about it.

The classical site that everyone thinks of when they're trying to come up with the dumbest places on the internet is Yahoo Answers.  It's full of legendarily moronic posts.  But I don't think that sort of description really does justice to how terrible a place it is.  I think of it more as the star witness for the prosecution when humanity is brought up before the Galactic Court on charges of crimes against sentience.  Not much even the highest-paid defense attorney could do in the face of that other than give us a pat on the shoulder and say "May the gods have mercy on your species."

Another place full of the more egregious idiots online is YouTube.  Not just the comments section, mind you.  That's a pretty commonly-known source of brain-melting lunacy.  It's also worth noting how gargantuan a percentage of the videos on there are just things that make you want to reach through the tubes to strangle the uploaders.  I really don't think your "parody" version of some already bad fan video to a terrible singer/movie/cat/small glob of gunk in your nose is something the world needs to see, thanks.

On the topic of video sharing sites, all I will say about LiveLeak is that unless you're a member of al-Qaeda, don't go there.  It hurts.

There are also the online communities that aren't merely content to be wrong in their own corner of the internet.  No, they need to go preach the Gospel of Wrong (also the Gospel of Ron, but thankfully those guys gave up trying to get Ron Paul elected president in the '08 election sometime in the summer of 2010) everywhere else on the internet.  That, of course, means that when the trolls filter in to any given website to convert everyone to whatever brand of bullshit is currently in vogue, there will be counter-trolls.  Poe's law is the common description of how bad this can get.  As for me, though, it's more of a case of Schrödinger's Troll.  You don't know without personal observation of the poster whether they're serious or not, but you really hope the radioactive particle decays soon and triggers the flask of acid to kill the bastard.

If you have high blood pressure or have taken a feat giving you berserker rage, reading the comments section on any news story, no matter how innocuous, is a terrible life choice.  It could be a story on how kittens are cuddly and some douchewagon will be calling for the Jews to be stuffed into blenders and made into milkshakes.  Then another dickmonger a few posts down will be insulting the aforementioned douchewagon's sexuality and saying that all Muslims should be catapulted into gigantic jet engines.

I am increasingly becoming convinced that much of spam email has no human responsible for it anymore.  It's now self-aware and has gone feral, and we will never be able to contain it.

To conclude this rant, I actually think that the "assholes of the internet," like 4chan and Something Awful, are really pretty innocuous compared with some of the places I've mentioned above.  The denizens of such sites may well be monsters, but at least they realize that and largely stick to their own cesspools.  If you accept that going in, you're safe.  I have more issues when I'm trying to read up on the latest mass murder in some far-off nation and there are hundreds of assmonkeys screaming about how we should turn the gays into tiki torches.  Somehow I'd rather know I'm in a cage full of venomous snakes than walk out my front door one day to suddenly find that all my neighbors are Jeffrey Dahmer.

Assorted Thoughts 7: Straight Outta Idea File.rtf In the Holding Pen Folder On My Desktop

• Perhaps it's just my habit of rooting for the underdog, but I'm actually strangely glad I live in a world where a $85 million aircraft can pick a fight with a flock of geese and lose.
• Stimulus: spotting "The Physics of the Buffyverse" at the bookstore.  Response: Shaking my head and saying "Oh for crying out loud."
• Adventures with my phone and T9 predictive typing:

• If you try to type "cock," you get "anal."
• If you try to type "loud," you get "love."
• My phone apparently enjoys noisy gay buttsex.  Its neighbors must really enjoy living near it.

• At a sporting goods store, I saw kits with stickers that you can affix to your child's batting helmet to mimic your major league team of choice.  My only concern is that giving your child a Cubs kit indicates you think they will only ever amount to historic quantities of failure.
• I feel like it would be fun sometime to go into a sporting goods store with a wide selection of hockey equipment and start flinging the gloves around.  When challenged by employees, tell them you're trying to find which ones are the easiest to drop, throw the gloves down, and then attack them.
• Living in a pet-free apartment is difficult.  I now go into pet stores purely in hopes of seeing a kitty.
• I continue to be amazed by my body's ability to, apropos of nothing, sleep for twelve or more hours at a go.
• It's amazing how much less stressful Legos are now that I'm old enough to use profanity.
• Lesson from my life: it's surprisingly difficult to passively brush someone off in text-based communication when your speech patterns involve relatively few monosyllabic words.
• After so many years of video gaming, if I ever see someone shot and killed in front of me, it'll be difficult to restrain myself from my first instinct of running over to loot the corpse.

To-Do List For World Dictatorship

• Force all swiveling executive chair setup instructions to include the phrase "make it so" somewhere in the text.
• Tell Israelis and Palestinians that if they don't stop, they'll both have to go sit in the corner in time-out.
• Institute segregated seating at baseball games.  One section for families with children, one section for casual fans (beer 15% cheaper!), and one section for real fans.  To get into the real fans section, you have to answer a question on how to score a play.
• During Raiders games, rename the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to the "Oakland Penitentiary Outpatient Facility."
• Deport Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck for Crimes Against Sanity.  Deport them to Mercury.
• Decree that henceforth, the plural form of "chinchilla" will be "chinchillae."
• Ban "talent"-based "reality" TV shows, and additionally replace all daytime soap operas with "Desperate Entwives."
• Do what should have been done years ago and institute the Strategic Potato Reserve.
• Make the first and last days of deer season also hunter hunting season.
• The city of New York has lost its sports privileges.
• Those ISPs wanting to charge more for accessing certain sites and with draconian bandwidth caps will have to choose one member of the board of directors per five sites cut from general use.  This member of the board will be used to keep my kraken healthy and entertained.
• Especially unruly small children will be drafted into a rugby side and sent to face Samoa's national team.
• The Ayn Rand cultists will finally be given the freedom from regulation they crave so much, in the form of Prince George Land.  However, if they ever show signs of being too successful, mercenaries will be hired to pillage the island and steal their lunch money.