survey shows majority of people stupid

the detroit free press: "A majority of people recently surveyed by the Chrysler Group don’t know what the glove box was named after."

it's a box in your car where people left their gloves. ...

also:

The survey, conducted by Ipsos Insight, also found that 84% of the people no longer use the box to hold gloves.

remember that last pair of driving gloves you bought? right. you didn't.

not an actual condemnation of christians

but check out this washington post story about the shiloh baptist church, the black church in shaw that owns a handful of vacant and gross properties on the block.


why is this important/interesting? because i (and jesse and coop, who sent me the story) used to live across the street. we were surrounded by this church's vacant lots. not to mention we actually lived next to a crackhouse. not a fake "what a rundown dump" crackhouse, but a shady place where many many illicit substances were sold. anyway, this is also sort of interesting to you ann arbor-ites who might remember rob goodspeed, of michigamua-crusading, goodspeedupdate.com fame. he was a neighbor (small world), and he's mentioned in the story for a blog post he wrote.

there are so many ways to discuss the issue of shaw, its slumliness, its eventual and inevitable gentrification, and what that means for shiloh, but where to even start? shiloh's domination of "le slum historique" ended the moment the city decided to build the convention center 3 blocks away. mayor fenty wants to make a good impression to all the outsider conventioners, and vacant and dilapidated buildings just aren't going to cut it.

the word "gentrification" (especially the white kind) sends shivers down my spine, but i'm finding it increasingly hard to defend a church that does nothing (and even loses money) on its own property. perhaps white people will invade, but they are (i must admit) slightly better than the rats and roaches that occupy the buildings now.

there must be a way to both clean up shaw and maintain its black roots. my suggestion was to partner up with howard university, and offer affordable housing to students. since middle class black people aren't too different from middle class white people (aka, they move to the suburbs), and shiloh is going to lose the gentrification war, they need to start thinking about how they can save as much culture as they can, before the convention center monster consumes everything in sight.

mika who?

so some chickie from MSNBC stands up to her producers and refuses to lead with the paris hilton story.


good for her, but the commenters who are treating her like the next coming are naive. as cynical as i am about this clip, i do enjoy watching joe scarborough look like a total ass-hat. this guy used to be a congressman. doesn't take much these days.

EDIT: in my excitement over this clip, i didn't mention that joel actually sent it to me. "right up your alley," he told me, whatever alley that is. this is a relatively hopeful video you've sent me. unless you just enjoyed watching scarborough suck. then it's not so hopeful.

ex-marine, golden glove iron worker

sound like the perfect person to pickpocket?


even though this guy is 72, he's still pretty scary-looking. luckily the pickpocket immediately got the shit kicked out of him. hopefully he got hit in the nuts so he can't procreate any more dumb criminals.

Happy Hour legislation

have you ever heard of this? i haven't until recently, apparently some states and counties and cities have taken it upon their puritanical selves to limit the kind of drinking and drink specials bars can offer during prime consumption hours, i.e. 5pm and on. most notable culprit: massachusetts in 1984. this seriously explains so much about boston. oklahoma tried to do something similar two years ago. when will this insanity end?

big skunk blog news

this is special to almost no one, but i recently realized that all my links were doing this annoying thing that when you click it, it changes the current window you're at to the destination. i will fix this from here on out so that the next site opens in a new window or tab. you may all rejoice now, and you're apple/ctrl key can have a little bit of a rest.

also, if anyone knows how to do the same thing to the links in the right rail (in blogger), let me know. that is a bit beyond my capabilities at this point.

and if you know nothing about computers and code, just disregard all the jibberish i just wrote. i suppose i could have warned you before.

"work"

today was a going away party for one of beloved coworkers. we celebrated with food and drink and fudgecicles, and now i'm riding out the rest of the day, slouched in my chair wearing sunglasses and coming up something witty to put up on facebook. i'm tired as hell b/c i was assembling ikea furniture till 5 in the morning. i almost ran into a wall, and by the time i got lunch, i was so hungry and insane that i "missed" my food and bit my lip and drew quite a bit of blood.


here is me literally 4 minutes ago. TIME TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

spellcheck

this is a terrible place to gripe about this, but does it bug anyone that "Facebook" gets flagged in fb's spell check? i mean, clearly the word exists, at least in the fb world.

oh yes, and i'm also pissed about poverty, crime, genocide, terrorism, apathy, and paris hilton's jail time.

JT = josh turner

coincidentally, the hottest country singer ever has the same initials as the hottest pop star ever. WEIRD.


they even look sort of similar.

i'll take a cowboy any day, esp if he looks/sounds like this. even if he is a republican.

dl: "would you go with me" or "lord have mercy on a country boy"

slate is such a copy cat

slate is calling the anti-pot ad that i blogged about AGES ago the "best anti-pot ad, ever"

The lovely, doodle-y animation (by artist Souther Salazar) helps sidestep most of the pitfalls that endanger any work aimed at teens. (The "that kid's not me, he's wearing the wrong kind of T-shirt" problem, as described by Robinson and Fogarty.) Similarly, casting an alien as the guy who sweeps the girl off her feet, while the stoner feebly looks on, eliminates the need to decide what sort of person the girl would be likely to find more appealing than a pot user. Having her new suitor be a drug-free preppie (or jock, or musician, or whatever) would be fraught with all kinds of peril. Not so with an alien—because aliens are always cool.

i feel slightly robbed. no credit? really slate?

i'm thinking about buying a car

and i live in the pittsburgh area ...

what better place to go than shadyside honda?
it's "pitt's best honda dealer" that offers college specials! sort of like giant long islands after midnight at charleys, but with cars. trade you your inexperience for a future rice burner. fully tinted windows not included.

the best part is i saw the ad originally on a story about bike thefts at pitt. got your bike stolen recently? buy a honda!

i can't believe troy high isn't on this list

this is pretty old, but a list of the top party high schools in the U.S. an excerpt:

7) Liberty High School, Lincolntown, Pa.
A new entry on this year’s list, Liberty is coming on strong, fielding an impressive tally of unwanted pregnancies and first-time felony convictions. It helps that the school administration maintains lucrative junk-food contracts, as a kid’s short attention span and libidinous tendencies are greatly exacerbated when he’s all hopped up on Mountain Dew Magna.

how do you live this lifestyle when taking 7 APs? i just don't understand.

they're also good at making pastries

denmark has fully embraced the lifestyle of "B-people," aka those "genetically pre-disposed to operate better and to be more alert later in the day," aka ME (and maggie, apparently, who sent me this most excellent link).

i personally adore the guy who works on the 25-hour clock, but i like where the danes are going with this. and they're so accepting:

"Don't worry," Danish Minister Carina Christensen says, "some people might think you're lazy - but there's more to it than that."

see? i'm not lazy. jes speshul.

more god-hating propaganda

by the looks of it, i have this anti-religion crusade going on in my blog, but in reality, andy just likes to push his agenda and send me all these stories/videos that make christians look bad.

i suppose i don't have to post any of it, but it's so damn funny! apparently, whoever wrote the bible wasn't very good at math.

The value for pi used in calculators is 3.141592654. But if we look at the word of God, it states that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is 30:10 cubits. In other words: 3

those idiots!

AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU DON'T LIKE THRUSTING HALF-NAKED GAY MEN

A sneak peek at the gay pride parade i went to this past saturday. there are more pics on facebook, but this is by far my favorite.

a much belated "is this really my life?" photo

2 tvs is a little ridiculous, but 3? insane.


the 3rd isn't a tv, technically, but a computer with the tigers on. red wings, tigers, and pistons, all at the same time. like beyonce said, i don't think you can handle it.

if i were shape, i'd be an upside-down trapezoid

because i'm top heavy. HI-YO!

i only say this because kristen bell (aka veronica mars) is going to be the voice of a hexagon.

what shape would you be?

if i were a movie critic ...

i'd be rotten tomatoes. no really.

andy sent me this cool movie critic tool that matches your tastes with mainstream critics. i really don't like who they've matched me up with, but here goes:

* Rotten Tomatoes : 90%
* James Bernadelli[sic] : 85%
* Peter Travers : 82%
* Roger Ebert : 80%

what does this say about me? i apparently like what the masses like. UGH. i wish i were more hip and counterculture.

james berardinelli is the man behind reelviews, and i checked out his top 100. it's not to far off from the AFI top 100, but i really like the deletions and rearranging he did, (citizen kane #1? please)

as for peter travers, that's probably more embarrassing than rotten tomatoes. travers has the unfortunate reputation of being a total hack, and this review (of the reviewer) says it best:

Problem is, Peter Travers is a sanctimonious blowhard, a buffoon with nothing to say and painfully limited ways to say it. You can almost sense him scanning other reviews, looking for what he perceives as the popular view, then flipping a coin as to whether or not to play along. He likes to consider himself the consummate outsider, but he's about as daring as creamed corn.

i don't really have any problems w/ roger ebert, so we'll leave it at that.

in my defense, i surprisingly haven't seen a lot of the movies on the list (too mainstream? who knows), so i'd like to think the results are skewed. i just wish i were more like owen gleiberman. he's my hero. and my favorite.

a cup of joe and a full tit in the morning

riding on the bus (no surprise) the other day, a woman with a baby sat in front of me. cute happy kid, until he/she started crying. momma tries to comfort baby, and when normal playing and bouncing up and down doesn't work, it becomes clear that baby is hungry.

so instead of a nice bottle full of delicious formula, this not especially attractive woman whips out her breast and shoves baby's face onto it. she did bring out a little blanket to "cover up," but all it was covering was her shoulder.

mind you, this is a crowded rush-hour bus, and maybe i'm a perv, but it's hard for me not to stare at baby clutching and sucking on momma's tit. after the meal, baby kind of tossed the mound aside, so i got a full peek, in all its nipplificent glory.

i'm not really opposed to or offended by public breast feeding, but it's startling nonetheless. it's not really any worse than girls who wear low cut shirts or short skirts for optimal ass-out-hanging. plus the whole embracing motherhood thing. in any case, it's not really the best way to start off the morning.

i can't imagine what my face looked like during this episode, but if it was anything like the woman sitting next to me, then i'm sure i was quite a show.

for all you still in academia

and perhaps taking on teacherly duties, you all should strive to be as sweet as the prof responding to this exam.

housing search, decoded

the language of craigslist is often strange and confusing. what seems to be not always is. a guide to navigating through the truthiness of craigslist.

"charming" = this place is old, probably with beat up hardwood floors and lightswitch covers coated in paint.

"LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION" = and that's about it. everything else is a piece of shit

"renovated" = crumbling walls and mildew stained tubs, but with brand-new kitchen appliances

"cozy" = slightly bigger than a cardboard box

"english basement" = dank, dark, and rats

"plenty of street parking" = good luck finding street parking

"quaint" = no dishwasher, laundry, central air, or garbage disposal. (see: "charming")

finding housing should be my job

today, jesse and i realized that we are basically the most awesome roommates ever. we've been on an extensive housing search and the clock is quickly ticking toward move-out day at our current place (july 1). we've been casting our net wide for a decent two bedroom in the city (northern virginia? ugh) that comes out to be around $1000 a month (per person). this is WAY harder than you can ever imagine.

1st try was saturday, a tiny 2br apartment in a great location. we schmoozed the best we could, but didn't get the place - didn't help that there were at least 8 other people looking at the rooms at the same time we were.

discouraged, we went to a sunday open house in the same building, different room ($1,950). someone once told me that if you have to go to an open house in the city as opposed to a private showing, you've already lost the game. we went anyway under the assumption that our good looks and winning smiles would get us somewhere. i'd say about 10 people were looking at the same time, and the open house still had three more hours to go. but let me tell you we had our shit together. we had our checkbooks out, we had our info ready, and even better we worked over the apartment manager like it was nobody's business. we joked and laughed, we told him our plans for the place, all the while the suckers around us saw all their chances slip quickly away. after about 30 min, we left the building with two winks from the manager (both directed at jesse, go figure) and confident the place was OURS.

since i believe in overkill, i had set up another meeting later that day. the place was listed at $2,400, a two bedroom in a not-as-perfect location, but decent from what i can tell from the ad and a better commute for me to work. we get to the building--it's less than a year old--and we are pretty sure the place is totally out of our league. turns out, it is amazing--in-unit laundry, hardwood floors, nice appliances, a big kitchen countertop, TWO full baths, and one of the rooms has a ginormous walk-in closet. it was just a tease to even show up.
we start talking to the guy who owns the unit, and he asks if we have a car. we don't, and then he drops this one: no car? well why don't i drop off a couple hundred bucks off the monthly rent?
i came close to fainting at that point, but i was too busy lunging at the man to grab a rental application. turns out he wants to rent the thing as fast as possible and is willing to give us the place, right then and there. because he supposedly likes us ("you seem like nice people..."), we are also getting the first month free, and can move in at our leisure.

that's pretty unbelievable, but to top off the day, the guy from the first apartment called us 5 hours after we met him, and offered us that place. i had to turn him down. i think only dc peeps will understand how absurd that is (WHAT POWER). the conclusion of the story is that jesse and i are just the most badass pair that this city has ever witnessed.

and has anyone ever noticed that finding somewhere to live in a tough market is a lot like rushing a sorority. you seek out acceptable apartments, go to crowded open houses, dress up and try to make a good impression, then you hope they choose you to join in their air of exclusivity. if you're tri-delt quality, you get the nice apartment. if you're not, you get stuck in a smelly, rat-infested, poorly decorated (sorority) house that i don't even know your name because you're so fat/ugly/unimportant.

i just hope this too-good-to-be-true apartment is the real deal. jesse's absolutely right: we don't deserve this.

if you need to get some ass ...

get a wolf shirt.


don't forget to read the comments.
i also like how the first sponsored link is for christian t-shirts.
some sample comments
jesse's picks:

Satan says...
I wasn't wearing my wolf shirt when I fought metal cap Jesus, that's why I was banished into hell. I fought him decades later but, he had the frog suit. I thought I could take him, then I remembered that I forgot to wear my wolf shirt AGAIN. I fucked up.
Fazle says...
"Born to Bone" is more like it when you wear this fucker around.

my picks:

Jesus says...
I was crucified in this shirt, and it was the reason i was resurrected!
Wolfenstein says...
I have THREE TIMES as many STD's compared to when I didnt own this shirt! Thankyou so much Wolf Howl Animal preserve!
Jake says...
This shirt is the only reason why i got hired at McDonald's. I'm Lovin It.
James Earl Jones says...
I gave it five stars at first, but then I found out that it doesn't supress my appetite.
Hiroki yuki says...
I have a wide variety of wolf t-shirts and wolf long johns , but this is the ultimate wolfage!! Makes whores howl for my dick. OOOOWWWWWWW !! double wide trailer not included.

real world las vegas reunited

everything i hoped for ... and more.

some of you, who went to an academically competitive high school, may remember a time when you were worried about your place in life. that your peers were smarter than you and that life after high school and college would be tough or challenging. you somehow formed an inferiority complex despite multiple AP classes.

then you watched season 12 of real world, and realized everything would be OK.

and if you thought 5 years to get older, wiser, more mature would also mean 5 years to get boring, then you'd be wrong. these kids booze/sex/fight like champs!

trishelle = disgusting
brynn = 2 kids, really?
frank = still a total tool. but hot.
steve = undecided, but the preview for next ep is intriguing
alton = still a moron
aryssa = still psycho, but i totally believe your story over alton's
irulan = cute hair, but you can do so much better than ninja turtle look-alike alton