So Robert Langdon is in CERN being shown around by the head honcho, a guy in a pimped out wheelchair. They walk (and roll) by a bunch of people chilling out in a vertical wind tunnel.

"One of the free-fallers, an obese woman, maneuvered toward the window. She was being buffeted by the air currents but grinned and flashed Langdon the thumbs-up sign. Langdon smiled weakly and returned the gesture, wondering if she knew it was the ancient phallic symbol for masculine virility."

Langdon you are the most insufferable fictional person this side of an Ayn Rand novel. I wonder if that lady knows it's an ancient penis symbol for penises? Would she have flashed me the dick sign then? Women are gross! Why can't I be playing water polo?

Anyway this fat lady, for it is important that we know she's fat, has to wear a tiny parachute. You see, she's too fat for the fans to lift her. Science Guy tells Langdon that one square yard of drag will slow a falling body almost twenty percent. Remember that! It's important information. Dan Brown tells us that this will soon save Robert Langdon's life. Why foreshadow when you can foretell?

The Science Guy asks Langdon if he knows anything about particle physics. Is that the study of wangs? No? Then no. Langdon says he only knows about regular physics. Like, gravity and stuff. Because he's an 8th grader. Actually it's because of his years of high diving experience. What? Fuck you, Robert Langdon.

Robert Langdon: Particle physics is the study of atoms isn't it?
Science Guy: You stupid bastard! I could stab you in the eyes right now, so help me god!

Robert Langdon "expertly" throws a stray frisbee back to its owner, a nobel prize winner. Just thought you'd like to know how fucking awesome Langdon is at everything.

Langdon and Science Guy head towards another building, where some nerdy prankster has placed a sticky note on a column that reads "This column is Ionic." Langdon knows a lot about columns, rods and poles so he has to be a smartass about it. He smugly tells Science Guy that one of his science guys is WRONG, the column is Doric. Science Guy is fucking exasperated that he has to explain jokes to this prick as well as science. Langdon feels stupid, as he should.

We're here because one of the CERN scientists got murdered, and instead of calling the police, the director faxed Robert Langdon, dongsologist , and left the body out to start decomposing while Langdon made his way to Geneva. So maybe Langdon isn't the one who should feel stupid here. I know when I have a corpse on my hands I like to call in an academic from another country to come solve my crime. And I like to give them a nice long tour and a lecture about physics while flies lay eggs in my buddy's eyeballs.

Hey, only 227 more files to go in this fabulous adventure! Now let's have a moment of silence for the fax machine, a bit of outdated technology no one will ever miss. Unless Dennis Duffy is right and technology is cyclical.

Edit: I spoke too soon! No one is rotting because Science Guy rigged up a freon cooling system, as you do, to preserve the corpse.

I'm listening to a Dan Brown audiobook (Angels & Demons and don't worry, I didn't pay for it). Fittingly, the narrator sounds like a total douche. I'm about 20 minutes in and I haven't absorbed a damn thing. It's like white noise. Oh, except a stripper offered Robert Langdon the best sex of his life if he verified a religious symbol that appeared on her bedsheets. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to get through this. Oh and Robert Langdon's three loves are: 1) Symbology, 2) Water polo (what) and 3) Bachelorhood. The latter not because of the strippers but because he can travel the world, sleep as late as he wants, and curl up with a good book and a glass of brandy. Because you totally can't do any of those things if you have a ladyfriend.

Water polo? Seriously? What are you, Archdouche Ferdinand?

Robert Langdon reminds me of when Millhouse's Dad gets a divorce:

Millhouse's Dad: I sleep in a racing car, do you?
Homer: I sleep in a big bed with my wife.
Millhouse's Dad: Oh. Yeah.

Recently zooby suggested I do a Worst Of list instead of the Best Of list I was fretting over. We brainstormed about the contenders and one seemed really too obvious, like of course they suck, but they always suck. Then, while on a trip to buy bulk foods (no really), I heard their new song on the radio and it shut down the competition.

Normally you work backwards with these things, but let's cut to the chase. It's like having Christmas early!



( Enter the mullet. )

Bless them. They were trying so hard this year to figure out what "the kids" were listening to, but they couldn't resist putting in John Mellencamp.

Bonus: the cover of Brad Pitt looks eerily like Pam's sketch of Dwight as a sexual predator.


Okay, you should probably read some of these album blurbs.

Fleet Foxes:

Singing gentle but spacey arrangements, the folky ensemble could fill up a room like the smell of fresh-baked bread.

Kings of Leon:

The Followills finally reach the "young manhood" promised in the title of their 2003 debut.

Um, mazel tov?

Bon Iver:

Along with Fleet Foxes, this record put beardy-boy folk on the map with stark meditations on love, regret and the ice-encrusted northern Midwest.

Oh Jesus' balls. This makes beards so much worse. Anyway, it was Sam Beam who put giant, terrible folk beards on the map with his album Our Endless Numbered Beards. Wiki that shit before you blurb, RS.

The Hold Steady:

Brooklyn's finest bar band delivers an empathetic portrait of midlevel rockers in their 30s, with details so sharp they'd make John Cassavetes weep.

Wait, what? Is this album about having a drunken fight with Gena Rowlands? Anyway, I have a theory that this band is the result of affirmative action for aging hipsters and this blurb does nothing to dissuade me. I have another theory that this band is terrible which I've confirmed with scientific analysis.

Soccer practice is over, and it's time to pick.it.up.

THERE'S NO FLAG WHERE'S THE FLAG OH GOD FLAGS

"Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as part of the culmination of the machinations of the leader of the NDP, we had these three parties together forming this agreement, signing a document, and they would not even have the Canadian flag behind them. They had to be photographed without it.
They had to be photographed without it because a member of their coalition does not even believe in the country. As Prime Minister it is not my responsibility to turn the keys of power over to a group like that.

They had to be photographed without the flag because they hate Canada! And they hate puppies! And they hate my son! I have a mandate to love my son!

"Hon. Jim Prentice: Well, it was clear, I watched the press conference myself, they were not Canadian flags behind the three opposition leaders. There were a number of flags there. And I think the implication was clear that there were not only Canadian flags behind him. That’s the point."

Question: But, Minister, there were Canadian flags. We were there. There were Canadian flags (inaudible) so why did you say there weren’t?

"A number of flags" is my new "series of tubes."

I'm sure I don't even have to point this out to my American friends, but the the number of random unpatriotic devil flags they're sitting in front of are Canada's provincial/territorial flags. In addition to the actual Canadian flag. You might say there was a number of flags there. A number of Canadian flags.

Fail government has failed. Shut it down.

It's a combination tampon/pad. A lot of people in ugly_crap assumed it was a man's invention, as did I, because the inventor doesn't seem to understand where you wear a tampon. But it appears to be a woman. At least, a person named Norma.



Wear it by day when you're a executive hooker, or by night when you run new age crystal shop out of your garage! Either way, you'll be walking around like there's a tampon sticking out of your vag. Because there is.

What gets me is that this doesn't even add anything to your current menstrual options. You can wear a pad and a tampon right now, this only makes it a hell of a lot more uncomfortable. What else does the Tampon Menstrual Pad bring to the table? A wedgie and borders that look like they're designed to keep Mexico out of your lady garden.

Thomas Kinkade movie! Thomas Kinkade movie! You are all getting this for Christmas. It could use more landlocked lighthouses though. I hope and pray that Peter O'Toole blacked out and doesn't remember the week he spent filming this.



rockgeisha tried to blind me last night by showing me this photo. I think Russell Crowe is going to sell his kid for some more Sterno to drink. Hard times. Maybe it isn't even his kid, maybe that's just an urchin he's formed a symbiotic relationship with. He carries the kid around and the kid picks nits out of his hair. Like a rhino and an oxpecker. Every time I see a horrible picture of him, someone's like "It's for a role!" Really? What role would that be? The role of Homeless Dad? Boxcar hobo? Mickey Rourke?

So General Petraeus is going to be the next president? And McCain is his vice? They've squeezed the sweetest juice from Ronald Reagan's mindgrapes, and together they'll dickslap the entire world and stop all bear related scientific endeavors? And also, apparently they're setting up some kind of International Justice League? Sounds pretty good.

Actually that sounds pretty balls. You know they're going to make Canada be Aquaman. We're Wonder Woman, or nothing. Anyway, I hope we finally catch that pesky Joker.

Oh my god, he totally did it.

Actor Robert Wagner was so distraught after the breakdown of his first marriage to actress Natalie Wood that he considered killing himself and her lover Warren Beatty. Wagner says he would sit with a gun outside the home of Beatty, whom Wood met on the set of Splendour in the Grass in 1961.

There was speculation Wood drowned trying to flee the boat while the men argued over her career - Walken thinking Wood should work more and Wagner believing that would threaten his domestic bliss. “He may not have been off the mark,” Wagner says of Walken's belief. “But I didn't want him involved in setting anything off that might take her away from me.” Wagner says he believes Wood accidentally fell overboard."

She accidentally fell when I pushed her.

McCain, you cat piss smelling Yankton cocksucker, you can't postpone the debates because I've been looking forward to you getting your ass handed to you all year. I have my canned peaches ready and everything.

This is the best campaign flame out I've ever seen. It's like the Straight Talk Express just jumped over Cousin Oliver jumping over Mulder and Scully's kid jumping over Cop Rock jumping over Fonzie jumping over a shark, and then it plows into a wall and the wall explodes and Horatio Caine takes off his sunglasses and deadpans "Speed kills." YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.

Great icon or greatest icon?

Last night, me and zooby and rockgeisha listened to Robert Pattinson's music. I didn't realize Pattinson (aka Spunk Ransom, aka Edward Cullen, aka Cedric Diggory, aka Spliff McBlunt, aka Bitey McSparkles) made, um music. I'm sure this is old news to other lulzTwilight people. If not you can download it here. Or if you're smart you'll just hit up Youtube, which is much less likely to embarrass you by popping up on your iTunes later when you have your cool friends over discussing Wolf Parade, or We Are Wolves, or AIDS Wolf or something else with "wolf" in it.

Listen along! Broke /I'll be your lover too / Stray Dog /To Roam / Lady L

This kind of sounds less bad than what I downloaded. Or does it? I don't know. I'm tired and I think I have Stockholm Syndrome.

zooby: I am listening to Broke.
jess_d_ripper: On a scale from Russell Crowe to Dogstar...
zooby: Jack Black doing a cover of Marvin Gaye. But not funny.
zooby: I can't tell what's worse, the guitar playing or the singing.
zooby: I'm going to go with the singing.
jess_d_ripper: I hope he starts a band with Rupert Grint.
zooby: He sounds like Jimmy Fallon doing an impression of Adam Sandler.
zooby: And goat boy.
jess_d_ripper: James Blunt, the bloke from Keane and a tortured cat.
zooby: Jack JOHNSON singing through a bong and that SAME TORTURED CAT!
zooby: He's just.... singing random things that come into his head, right?
zooby: I mean, I can't believe somebody sat down and wrote the lyrics "But it's over --- repeat to end."
zooby: DOUBLE IRONY! It's NEVER OVER!

jess_d_ripper: I am skipping ahead.
zooby: Yes. I'm listening to I'll be Your Lover TOO.
jess_d_ripper: Jack White with a tracheotomy and Kermit the Frog.
jess_d_ripper: Constipated John Mayer and Russell Crowe.
jess_d_ripper: PRINCE AND GRIMACE!
zooby: Robbie Robertson and Jordan Knight.

zooby: Next song!
zooby: Stray Dog.
zooby: Name of the song.
jess_d_ripper: Geddy Lee and the guy from Nickelback.
zooby: Bob Seger. That's it. Just Bob Seger.
zooby: For real. This song is like... Night Moves!
jess_d_ripper: If he was really a blues singer, his name would be Laryngitis 'Smokes' Pattinson and he would've gone to the crossroads to sell his soul to a vampire for a dimebag.

( Moaning stereotypical ghost and Eddie Vedder )

It recently came to my attention that Ziggy sometimes wears pants. I thought he never wore pants, which is weird but at least consistent.



WTF?

Here Ziggy wears pants while climbing a mountain. That's a situation that calls for pants even if you don't normally wear them. Makes sense.

Here Ziggy wears no pants to a travel agency.

Or an IRS audit.

Or a....mountain? Wait, why isn't he wearing pants on the mountain?

Here he wears pants in his own house and shorts at the beach. In fact, from May 17th to 21st, he has a four day pants streak.

No pants at the shrink

No pants at E-Harmony.com, which is now apparently a brick and mortar store rather than a website.

Pants, in what I'm assuming is his own bathroom, while his toilet tells him he has email.

No pants at the playground. That's a little disturbing.

Pants while not being abducted by aliens Poor Ziggy, not even aliens want you! Here, in a similar situation, Ziggy is pantsless with his dog.

So why does Ziggy sometimes choose pants and other times forgo them? I have a few theories.

1. Ziggy is a nudist who lives in a clothing optional community. This doesn't explain why Ziggy is the only one going pantsless.

2. Ziggy is not human. Many anthropomorphic characters are drawn without pants because they have no human genitalia. Maybe Ziggy has a cloaca. This doesn't explain why he sometimes wears pants.

3. Ziggy suffers some kind of memory loss. Everyone knows about his condition and no one wants to draw attention to the fact that he often forgets his pants.

4. The pantsless strips are Ziggy's dreams. Ziggy has boring dreams.

5. Ziggy is a hipster. When he appears to be bottomless, he's actually wearing flesh coloured tights. He spends thousands of dollars at American Apparel. Everything he says and does is an ironic affectation. This also explains why Ziggy often wears a newsboy cap and is universally disliked, even by the vermin infesting his house.

I was taking a sentimental journey through YouTube when I thought, "What about Cop Rock?" Of course someone (my hero) had uploaded clips of Steven Bochco's ill-fated musical police drama. With music by Randy Newman. Because nothing could rock more than cops and Randy Newman.

The baby merchant (where Suri Cruise comes from):



TOTS 'R' US!

There's more where that came from.
Cop Rock, muy caliente.
Randy Newman knows life in the hood.
Being a cop is like collecting garbage. Human garbage. Apparently that means whores.
Intro, starring Randy Newman.
Bringin' sexy back
I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, but...

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone. My gift to you: Stupid Comics.

One in particular, Areba Koala, is just amazing. Frankly, I'm jealous. I'll never have this artist's naive genius for disturbing people.



What's buzzing in that last panel? Wait, don't tell me.

Crack Busters can't possibly top a penguin fantasizing about Charles Bronson, but it does have a hero who "Majored in football. After college [he] went to the Canadian Football League to make [his] fame and fortune." Now he fights the crack cocaine menace that's killing 5 year old suburban white kids.

( Yes, that's crack. They went to their sh--hole basement and smoked it like a cigarette )

I found this at Pandagon:

Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, “You mother f****r. I’m going to f*** you.” The report also says “Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.”

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: “F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?“

The deputy became alarmed as Gibson’s tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, “What the f*** do you think you’re doing?”

A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, “What do you think you’re looking at, sugar tits?”

So if you put a few drinks into Mel, he turns into Frank Booth. "You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You recieve a love letter from me, and you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!"

The burning question: who's crazier, Mel or Tom Cruise? More importantly, can we get them to fight to the death while Tina Turner oversees the battle? Discuss.

My computer that is. And honestly, I don't know how or why or for how long. But at least I can get some things backed up.

I take back what I said. You are wise and merciful, Steve Jobs! I am your unworthy disciple.

My computer is experiencing a major malfunction, and I haven't slept and I haven't been good about backing anything up and I'm going to lose everything, aren't I? Maybe even my computer. Maybe it's toast, and I can't afford a new computer. I'm rather attached to my computer. I know this is stupid, there's nothing really important on it, I don't think. No work related things anyway. But dammit. My witty chat logs! My pictures. My FT quotes. Thousands of downloaded files. Dead from coke.

DIE, STEVE JOBS! DIE!

KSSP, if you're out there, I will get my questionnaire up as soon as possible.

As you may have read Clay Aiken's fans are suing him:

The one-time devotees have been shocked by recent US tabloid claims the wholesome pop singer is gay and they’ve filed a Federal Trade Commission complain against executives at RCA and Sony/BMG, alleging they were duped in marketing and promotional campaigns…..

The angry ladies go on to state, “This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were both unfair and deceptive to consumers.”

( You know you wanna hit this )