News of the Obvious

STOP THE PRESSES, MR. & MRS. AMERICA! It turns out that kids don't like clowns!

What? I mean, seriously. What? According to the story on the Internet today, children and even older kids are scared of clowns. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children," a researcher from the University of Sheffield said. "Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."

Frightening and unknowable? What is frightening or unknowable about this?



And I suppose this is frightening too?



And this?



What could kids possibly find off-putting about any of those images? The crazy hair, the freakish makeup, the drunken demeanor? I suppose next you'll be telling me that kids don't like being shaken to sleep, or that they find the movies of David Lynch to be disconcerting and inscrutable.

Well, I guess I just don't know kids at all.

Spam-A-Lot, Week 8

THE BIG QUESTION FOR WEEK EIGHT’S SPAM CHART is, obviously, "isn't it derogatory when they call your penis a baby carrot?" The answer may surprise you, because the answer is no. Baby carrots are delicious and very good for you. So, not derogatory at all.

Week Eight brought in 511 emails, making it the most spammy chart yet, topping the previous high of 494 emails. Despite that surplus, however, it appears to be the end of an era. Never in the history of The Chart have so few MegaDick emails been recorded in a week. Only 15 MegaDick emails, down from an already low mark in Week Seven of just 30. Remember those good old days of when we were swimming in MegaDick? When there were more than 55 (Week Six & Week Two), more than 70 (Week Three & Week One) or even 91 (Week Four). Don’t tell me those magnificent days are over. Please.

Sadly, now Boner Medication is all about VPXL, which came on so suddenly (Sudden Onset VPXL?) I wasn't able to accurately track it this week. I'm guessing there were about 90 VPXL emails this week. We'll see how the numbers stack up next week.

New to the chart this week are View My Profile/Pictures! (#11), Happy New Year Click on This (#16) and We Will Approve Your Loan (debuting big at #6). Two of the most useless pieces of new spam came in the form of Selected Into Madison Who's Who and All Kinds of Embroideries! (both bottoming out the chart at #19). How enticing is either sales pitch? I mean, really. Madison, Wisconsin wants me? Wow! The Madison, Wisconsin? And not just any kind of embroidery but all kinds? It's like every day is Christmas!

Dropping off the chart this week are Here Is a Video, Stock News and Bank Scam. But most notable is the prolonged absence of Personal Pussy and Bigger/Better Boobs, now AWOL for the second week in a row. If the future doesn't contain a Personal Pussy and Bigger/Better Boobs, I'm not sure I want to live there.

Get down with the Chart!

SPAM WATCH WEEK EIGHT
511 emails
BMS = 48% (up 1%)

((1/1)) -- 243 Boner Medication (15 MegaDick, 58 Viagra/Cialis)
((2/3)) -- 73 Canadian/Online Pharmacy
((3/2)) -- 56 Rolex/Luxury Replica Watches
((4/4)) -- 29 Online Casino
((5/6)) -- 23 OEM Software
((6/-)) -- 19 We Will Approve Your Loan
((7/6)) -- 7 Inspecific "Look at this!"
((7/10)) -- 7 Weight Loss/Anatrim
((9/5)) -- 6 Foreign Gibberish (1 German)
((9/8)) -- 6 Validate Your Identity (eBay, PayPal, etc.)
((11/10)) -- 5 Stop Smoking
((11/10)) -- 5 Improve Your Health
((11/16)) -- 5 Dating Site: You Have Messages/Interested Ladies (Russian Brides)
((11/-)) -- 5 View My Profile/Pictures! (And vote for me!)
((11/16)) -- 5 Earn Your Degree
((16/15)) -- 4 Pheromones
((16/9)) -- 4 Human Growth Hormone
((16/-)) -- 4 Happy New Year Click on This!
((19/-)) -- 1 Selected Into Madison Who's Who
((19/18)) -- 1 Employee Search
((19/18)) -- 1 Buy Shoes
((19/-)) -- 1 All Kinds of Embroideries!
((19/10)) -- 1 Would You Like to Chat?

KEY:
BMS = Boner Medication Saturation
((this week's rank/last week's rank))
-- = new to the chart this week

Potty Training For Dummies

WHAT IS IT ABOUT MAJOR CORPORATIONS AND BATHROOMS that makes people crazy? Is it the cubicle lifestyle? Or is it just a by-product of hundreds of people being stuck in the same building together for 40 or more hours a week? I only ask because of the sign I saw posted on the men's bathroom at the company where my wife and I frequently do freelance work. (Click for a larger image.)



Since you may not be able to read the extensive text under the title Potty Training for Dummies, I will reproduce all two hundred and thirty-nine (!!) words here:

The cleaning staff that services our bathroom facilities do a great job of keeping them clean and tidy, yet it seems that within minutes of their departure some of us who participate in the use of said facilities tend to be some of the sloppiest hygiene deprived individuals around. I would venture to say that the dirtiest public restroom in Calcutta would rate higher on the clean meter than this bathroom on any given day.

The toilets aren’t there to see how many rolls of TP you can attempt to flush in one sitting.
The sink counters are not a display table for your used paper wash towels.
The sinks are not there for you to clean your coffee pots and leave the grounds.
The urinals are meant for what the name implies, not paper, gum and some thing which science has yet to name.

Remember when your Wife, Mother or Father would remind you to put up the toilet seat, well that still hasn’t registered with some of us yet. It doesn’t take anymore effort to practice cleanliness and good hygiene than it does to make the mess, so let’s all think back to what are parent’s taught us when we were young...Put the seat up, flush the toilet, don’t use to much TP, and wash your hands. We’ll all be happier, the cleaning staff will be happier and most of all our parents will be happier.

The italics are mine, but the grammar (and color change) is all the mystery author of this crazy, crazy note. Now, I have written about the bathroom antics at this building before. But I found this note to be the most insane. First of all, let us consider the amount of time that went into composing it, and add to that the amount of time it took in Photoshop, then add the time it took to find the appropriate clip art images of toilets, and then add to THAT the amount of time it took to print and then laminate the sign. (Did I not mention that this sign was laminated? Because it was.)

It's hard for me to pinpoint my favorite thing about this sign. Because there's so much to love. There's "let's all think back to what are parent's taught us", just for beginners. And there's also the capitalization (for emphasis I'm guessing) of "Wife, Mother or Father". There's also the fact that the sign disappeared after being up on the door for a few hours.

But best of all, I think, is the illustration. The YES and the NO. I get the NO part. I get that the illustration is showing me not to throw an entire roll of toilet paper (or TP, as the author prefers) into a toilet, and that the result of doing so is water on the floor by the toilet.

But I'm a little confused by the YES. It takes me a little while to recognize the floating blue curlicues as individual sheets of TP, and in the illustration it is unclear what those floating TP squares are up to. Should I use them to press the plunger? (Good advice, I think.) Should I stick them to the wall? The illustration is unclear. What it does NOT appear to indicate is that the TP squares should go in the toilet. When I compare the YES to the NO, I can clearly see the rolls of TP going in to the toilet, where the TP squares in the YES illustration may, in fact, be floating away from it.

Whatever the action to be taken with the TP squares, I believe the illustration is very clear about what should be happening. I should pee on the floor next to the toilet. At least, that's my take-away from the yellow pool around the base of the toilet.

And I have to be honest: I don't think I agree with this sign. I don't think it's a good idea to pee on the floor. Maybe that makes me a snob, but if it does, so be it.

Not a Fan

SO FAR 2008 IS NOT WINNING ME OVER. And if this year wants to be my pal, it's got a lot of work to do. As if the ongoing (and apparently unending) Writers Strike wasn't bad enough, I had to put my cat Myrna to sleep yesterday. She was 16 years old (would have been 17 in May) and had been sick with Chronic Renal Failure since the summer. So it wasn't as if it was unexpected.

Which is not to say that it was any easier to say goodbye.



Surprisingly, the worst part of the whole experience wasn't being in the room while she was euthanized, even though that was awful and incredibly heartbreaking. The worst was watching her waste away, gradually and almost invisibly, for the last six months. It was the reverse of watching her grow from a kitten into a cat. Seeing her everyday made it difficult to register just how much she was shrinking away.

Several months ago, I happened to look back a photo I took of her last January, and only then did I realize how thin she had become. The regular weighings at the vet confirmed her dropping weight. She used to be a big cat. Not fat at all. But big and fluffy. By fall, she was down from ten pounds to about seven. And in her final weeks, the weight loss was even more dramatic. The last time she was weighed at the vet, she weighed barely over three and a half pounds.



So there is a little bit of relief that comes with the sadness of putting an ailing pet to sleep. She was suffering and had been for months. And as much as we wanted her to stick around forever, her body was not going to let that happen. Also, we will always outlive our pets, always. It's the heartbreak agreement we willingly enter into. And I will gladly do it again, considering what I received in return: 16 years of companionship with a really great pet.

So thanks a lot, 2008. So far you've been a real dick.

Mysterious...

THE IMAGES FROM THURSDAY'S POST disappeared from my blog. Either Blogger does not like Pricasso, and thus fine art, or the agents of Pricasso constantly trawl the web to make sure no one has misappropriated JPEGs of his genius.

Whatever the case, I have reposted photos on the post. We'll see if they stick.

Keep It In Your Pants

ALL ARTISTS HAVE EGOS to some extent. It's what helps convince them that anyone would care what they had to say or do or write or paint. But what kind of ego must you have to be this guy?



That's Pricasso. He paints with his dick. Seriously. He paints nudes (no surprise there) and portraits (of world leaders, no less), using his dick as a paintbrush. To fill in the background, sometimes he uses other body parts.



Now, admittedly his name is mostly just a pun. He could have gone with Vincent Van Cock, Claude Bone-et, Balls Gauguin or Dick-elangelo. But I love that he chose a name that brings to mind Picasso, one of the greatest artists ever. And after visiting Pricasso's web site, I get the feeling it was no accident, like people should sit up and take notice of his painting talent. He's definitely the best artist who paints with his dick. I'll give him that.

Oh yeah, he's also a kickass poet. His use of "ware", "Virgina" and "cloths" really makes you think.

Spam-A-Lot, Week 7

IT'S TUESDAY, THEREFORE IT'S TIME FOR SPAM! That's my plan in 2008: updating the Spam Chart every Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. So far, I've already missed one Tuesday. What do I have to say about that? Nothing, I'll let the spam do the talking for me: "Moreover it is good it a little to make more thickly."

Yes. Yes, it is.

The most notable movement on the chart this week involved Rolex/Luxury Watches and OEM Software, with the former vaulting to the #2 spot and the latter dropping its output for the third consecutive week (down to only 15 spam from 58) and ending up at #6. Tragic news for fans of OEM software, indeed.

Bank Scam, Earn Your Degree and Holiday/Last Minute Shopping returned after a one-week sabbatical, joined by Dating Site and Buy Shoes as the new faces on the chart.

Two freshmen categories did not return for their sophomore engagements: Get Approved and The World Book Is Here. Notably absent from the chart now two weeks in a row: Legal Pot, View Your Kitty Card and Tax Refund from IRS. Sadly, both Personal Pussy and Bigger/Better Boobs dropped off the chart -- not a good sign, if you ask me.

Chart time!

SPAM WATCH WEEK SEVEN
420 emails
BMS = 47% (down 6%)

((1/1)) -- 197 Boner Medication (30 MegaDick, 41 Viagra/Cialis)
((2/6)) -- 64 Rolex/Luxury Watches
((3/3)) -- 36 Canadian/Online Pharmacy
((4/5)) -- 26 Online Casino
((5/2)) -- 16 Foreign Gibberish (0 German)
((6/4)) -- 15 OEM Software
((6/7)) -- 15 Inspecific “Look at this!”
((8/11)) -- 8 Validate Your Identity (eBay, PayPal, etc.)
((9/13)) -- 6 Human Growth Hormone
((10/7)) -- 5 Weight Loss (Anatrim)
((10/8)) -- 5 Would You Like to Chat?
((10/12)) -- 5 Stop Smoking
((10/13)) -- 5 Improve Your Health
((10/--)) -- 5 Holiday/Last Minute Shopping
((15/13)) -- 3 Pheromones
((16/--)) -- 2 Dating Site: You Have Messages/Interested Ladies
((16/--)) -- 2 Earn Your Degree
((18/13)) -- 1 Here Is a Video (w/attachment, Angelina porn this time)
((18/12)) -- 1 Stock News
((18/13)) -- 1 Employee Search
((18/--)) -- 1 Buy Shoes
((18/--)) -- 1 Bank Scam (Nigerian & otherwise)

KEY:
BMS = Boner Medication Saturation
((this week's rank/last week's rank))
-- = new to the chart this week