to be honest, this was originally going to be a serious, negative rant about the United States in honor of July 4th (because i am nothing if not a loyal servant to my true master, irony); i had my material sort of planned out, i had some choice analogies ready to go (i think the US was compared to a cheating girlfriend), and so on… but then i let a little time past and got a couple of soothing alcoholic beverages in me, and now i’m not feeling it as much. so i guess that means we’re going to have to go with the traditional “make fun of some crazy nonsense we found in the news” type of post. let’s get started!

yes, it would be correct to assume that a photo like this made it into the “news article” i’m about to discuss, which should really tell you everything you need to know about it

Burglars tie up woman - but flee the house when they realise she’s married to action hero actor Dolph Lundgren

this is one of those stories that i feel bad about not posting about sooner. now, the title’s pretty good as is: hooligans raid the home of Dolph Lundgren’s wife and then realize their mistake and flee the scene of the crime. there are, however, some even more excellent nuances to this tale:

“The masked raiders tied up the star’s wife and terrorised her into handing over cash and jewellery by threatening her with knives. But they cut short their raid on the house near Marbella, Spain, after spotting a family photo of the action star and his children in one of the bedrooms.”

that’s right, it’s not like his wife screamed out “don’t you know who my husband is” and made the criminals realize what was afoot; they happened to spot a photo of Lundgren with his wife and this photo alone freaked them out. so i think we all know what’s going to have to happen: i’m going to get myself a photo of Dolph Lundgren to put on my nightstand. the fact that it would need to be a photo of him and i in sort of a familial bond will have to be resolved with Photoshop.

in retrospect, i am now concerned that my dazzling forgery above may give people the wrong impression about me (and Lundgren as well). WE LOVE THE LADIES

“The 6ft 5in karate black belt, once bodyguard to singer Grace Jones, had to save his strength for consoling wife Anette when she phoned him in tears to tell him what had happened.”

that’s right: KARATE IS BACK! and in case you think this is just me being childish - which in almost certainly IS, but whatever - note that the article goes on to again mention that Lundgren is “an expert in full contact karate [who] once injured Sylvester Stallone while filming Rocky IV.” so it’s not like i’m the only person refusing to let go of this “karate is the greatest thing EVER” concept (even if i happen to doubt that injuring Sly Stallone is the gold standard for excellent karate). they also made sure to note that Lundgren “also has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney and a genius-level IQ of 160″ … though i really do fail to see what benefit those are going to have in a karate fight with burglars.

An insider said: ‘Things might have turned out very differently if Dolph had been in. The criminals fled as soon as they realised the owner of the house they had raided was someone they wouldn’t want to come up against in a fight.

okay, with all due respect to Lundgren’s karate skills, how would things have been “very different?” either way, the burglars were unable to steal things, so THAT wouldn’t have very different. and here’s the thing: he’s a movie star. he’s not an organized crime mastermind who has the muscle to have those who burglarize his home tortured and murdered (shout out to Anthony Accardo) and he’s not - again, with all due respect - some high-speed Special Forces killing machine who’s immune to knives. so maybe we should just be glad the story wasn’t titled “Dolph Lundgren attempts to stop burglary and gets stabbed in the face.”

“The Swede, who turns 52 in November, still has a six-pack from training up to six days a week in his local gym.”

wait, Lundgren is 52? christ, do i feel old today.

“A source said: ‘Police have got very few leads. All three burglars wore balaclavas and they’ve no real description to go on. They’re looking at CCTV footage to see if they can advance the inquiry. Dolph’s away on business a lot and he’s increased security to try to avoid a repeat. Anette has even spoken about leaving the area. But Dolph’s persuaded her it’s a one-off and they should stay put for now.’”

away on business a lot? persuaded her it’s a one-off? i think we know what’s going on here: his wife needs to stay at home as cover for the fact that Dolph’s off in the wilderness hunting down these criminals with a machete. to which i can only say: godspeed, Dolph, godspeed.

this is going to be the last thing those burglars ever see. i hope god is with them

also, forgive me for getting a little bit serious for a moment and/or for going over the same nonsense i love to always be going on about. here’s a link to what i’m about to quote:

“People have been studying self-esteem for a long time, and this allows you to compare the self-esteem of kids who grew up in the nineties with, say, those who grew up in the seventies or eighties with regard to self-esteem. Self-esteem has gone up in the United States; achievement has not. If anything, compared with other countries, we have done worse, but our kids feel really good about themselves on average. … Many American kids, particularly in the last couple of decades, can feel really good about themselves without actually being good at anything. This is the problem with the “self-esteem at all costs” message. Self-esteem should be earned.”

okay, so, i know i am a sour old man and everything, but EXACTLY.

just to clear the air before we get started: this isn’t about just dumping on Arkansas just to dump on Arkansas; that’s a little petty, even for me, and it’s not like the state hasn’t been absorbing cheap shots at least since the Bill Clinton days. plus, my go-to state for mockery is Mississippi. you can never really go wrong when you start talking shit about Mississippi. it’s Mississippi! it’s always winning random titles like “most obese state” and “most illiterate state!” it’s practically begging the rest of the continental United States to rip into it at any given moment!

when you’re talking about Mississippi, this kind of picture is never off-topic

…but i digress. ANYWAY, occasionally, i am reading the internet news and am taken aback by something that appears before me, and recently this happened when i was confronted by this whole “lap dance prison” story. what lap dance prison story?

Inmate Sat In Feces At Lap Dance Prison

hopefully, that one’s going to do it for you, because it’s going to be incredibly difficult for me to top “inmate sat in feces at lap dance prison.” i’m not saying it’s impossible, though, because generally prison scandals can go from 0 to insane in a matter of moments. remember that Richard Speck guy? killed those nurses, died in prison, whatever … and then they found a video tape of him (along with other inmates) “performing oral sex on another inmate, ingesting cocaine, parading in silk panties, sporting female-like breasts grown from smuggled hormone treatments” … and i think we all said “even for a guy that randomly killed eight nurses, this is a twist we never saw coming.” the moral of the story? either a) prisons can get really or b) OZ was not that unrealistic of a show.

but let’s return to the feces-sitting-related story at hand. apparently, this Tucker Unit prison was going completely berserk. a short listing of things going down at this prison that we learned from this article and which most assuredly cannot be complete:

–at least some prisoner was left lying naked in his own feces, as the title implies. now, they seem to claim that the prisoner covered himself in the feces and was playing around, and obviously no one wants to be the person responsible for cleaning THAT up. but you’d think that prison guards would be a little familiar with the whole “septicemia and septic shock” thing and at LEAST spray the guy down with a hose or something. OZ leads me to believe every prison has a plethora of readily-available hoses.

on the other hand, OZ led me to believe that prisons are full of guys like Adebisi, something that is a) possibly excellent but also b) untrue. also, i think that screenshot comes from the “what does “brawny” mean? what does “fellatio” mean?” episode, which mostly just proves i watched too much OZ

–guards were receiving lap dances on the job. at first, i was wondering “what kind of strippers are showing up to perform at a prison and thinking it was anywhere near a good idea?” but then the article tells me that a NURSE was giving out these lap dances … and within sight of the inmates, something that i’m sure made for a safe, appropriate back-and-forth in the infirmary.

–inmates were brought in to cook for the night shift officers. really, doesn’t that just seem like an unappetizing proposition? though i suppose there’s nothing like inmate cooking at 3 AM!

also, apparently some guard at this prison shot a guy at this prison after said victim crashed his car into the assistant warden’s car. so this place is clearly like the Wild West or something. but to be fair, after taking the whole thing in, i DO actually have some doubts about this ever having happened at all. why am i so suspicious? well:

“The prison system fired Lt. John Glasscock, who supervised guards on duty at the maximum-security Tucker Unit prison. … The report said Glasscock gave false information to investigators and did substandard work “resulting in injury and/or property damage.” … By Feb. 20, an unnamed sergeant told investigators that Glasscock spent “hours” with female officers in a prison office and that a nurse performed a nighttime lap dance on Glasscock within the sight of several inmates, according to the report. That sergeant also apparently received a lap dance. … Glasscock denied the allegations against him, though he acknowledged he “messed up” by not doing rounds at the facility, the report shows. … Records show Glasscock joined the prison system as a guard in November 1996, and never was demoted or had a disciplinary infraction previously, officials said. A telephone number listed in Glasscock’s name rang unanswered Monday.”

wait… his name is Lieutenant John Glasscock? GLASSCOCK? seriously? look, i remember that Simpsons episode where there was a fictional teacher named Glasscock who’d been forced to retire from teaching because of children reacting to his name (although it was probably spelled more realistically); part of me REFUSES to believe there are real people out there who really have the name Glasscock. i’m sorry, call me a cynic, but i just don’t see it happening. not even in Arkansas.

UNRELATED NOTE: to take your mind off all that feces and Glasscock, here’s a video about a pig invading some kind of baseball game, escaping from some theatrical mascot dives and then being subdued with a mascot’s head. seriously. just look at it.

this post was mostly inspired by the third story below, but i would be remiss of i didn’t say it was also partially inspired by my old sidekick Cujo, who was prone to trying to cage beers off of people. rest assured that if you were drinking some Guinness around him, you WERE going to have to share a little of it. of course he would just drink it and take a nap, not rampage through a village or anything like that.

but this is not about dogs and beers; this week’s update is about animals getting much more wrecked and being much more crazy. so let’s get to it.

this bird is presumably crashing into something, or else looking for a fish, whatever works for you

kamikaze pelicans baffling California scientists

summation: brown pelicans in California are ingesting domoic acid (through the fish and shellfish they normally consume) and flying around like, well, kamikazes.

descriptive quote: “Scores of weak and disoriented California brown pelicans have been slamming into cars and boats, landing on highways and airport runways, and turning up dead in back yards and parking lots many miles from their normal coastal habitats.”

is this awesome or not: well, if the pelicans ARE actually getting high on bad acid (not unlike some kind of horrible Woodstock-themed mistake), it would be really awesome, except for the part where all the pelicans get killed. or injured or whatever, i just theorize it’s difficult for birds to survive “slamming into cars” or “turning up dead.” especially the latter. and i have to take it easy on the pelicans, because according to my grandmother, i really like pelicans. seriously, she says this; it’s not based on anything i know of, which makes it random and that makes me laugh.

but scientists think that it might not be because of domoic acid after all (see the above link), which not only makes it NOT animal intoxication (and thus should remove it from the update for the week), but also makes it much less funny. still, those scientists claim that birds eating acid caused some wicked mass avian suicide in 1961 and inspired the Birds, so i’m not letting go of the notion that chemicals make mass amounts of birds go crazy unless they make me. although i wouldn’t like to presume that acid makes people commit suicide, because as Bill Hicks would say, acid is for making you realize that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. and not so much for suicide.

this elephant is absolutely living my dream: being an elephant, being heroically drunk, and being removed from a village with heavy machinery. well, okay, that last part might not be part of my dream

drunk elephants kill six people

summation: many years ago (i went with an older story because of the carnage involved), some elephants got drunk on rice beer and then ran wild and killed some people, presumably in some kind of hunt for additional beer.

descriptive quote: “The herd of wild elephants stumbled across the supplies of homemade rice beer after they destroyed granaries in search of food. … “They smashed huts and plundered granaries and broke open casks to drink rice beer. The herd then went berserk killing six people,” a forestry official told AFP news agency.”

is this awesome or not: anything involving elephants is awesome; this is probably no exception. in fact, i should have probably used THIS quote above, because it cuts to the heart of the matter: “”It has been noticed that elephants have developed a taste for rice beer and local liquor and they always look for it when they invade villages,” an elephant expert in Guwahati told Reuters news agency.” exactly. if you’re going to hoard your rice beer and not share it with elephants, what exactly do you expect to happen to your home/village/state of Assam? elephants don’t mess around.

unfortunately, once again, scientists are hard at work trying to disprove awesome claims of animal drunkenness; the search for commentary about drunken elephants has led me to discover claims that they don’t get drunk from eating fermented marula fruit, which is the SINGLE selling point behind my purchase and consumption of Amarula (i mean, it’s sort of tasty, but let’s be honest: i buy it because of my obsession with elephants). they sort of hedged their bets by claiming elephants DO get intoxicated, just on something else (bark filled with beetle pupae or something like that), so i don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish here other than killing off Amarula sales. and that’s not right.

i assume from the crazed look in the eyes of this wallaby that he’s currently plotting on how to get himself well; personally, i recommend the metal game. there’s serious money in that copper piping, you know

wallabies damaging crops in Tasmania poppy fields after getting high

summation: in Tasmania, there’s a massive legal opium industry, which in turn has led to wallabies getting into the poppy fields and getting stoned on opium. and from there, their classy behavior takes a serious downturn.

descriptive quote: “No lesser an authority than the island’s attorney general has discovered that hungry marsupials and thousands of acres of legal opium poppy fields do not mix. “We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told a budget hearing on Wednesday. … “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”"

is this awesome or not: seriously is there any debate about wallabies being high on opium and making crop circles being awesome? really? this is not just awesome, this is FUCKING awesome. in fact, it makes me wonder why all the other animals out there getting high aren’t stepping it up to this level. granted, there’s not a lot of animals in cities, but why aren’t we seeing more rats and squirrels going after ground stashes or something along those lines? i’m not disappointed in these wallabies, i’m disappointed in our lazy American animals!

okay, i suppose it’s bad to get wallabies hooked on the hardest of hard drugs, but look at the plus side: if they were on coke, they’d probably be stabbing each other and stealing shit from farmers, but on opium they can just chill out and make ridiculous crop circles. and that’s cool with me.

unrelated note: Michael Jackson has died today (or yesterday, rather) and that’s pretty sad; he’d turned himself into a ridiculous caricature of his former self and he may have kind of sort of fucked some young boys (or molested them or whatever). still, he was the King of Pop and i don’t know if we’re EVER going to see another such dominant pop act, at least not in my lifetime. and Thriller is a top ten all-time album, hands down. and i can attribute all his insanity to the handiwork of his terrible father. so, yeah, this sucks. and here’s the doll picture again in tribute:

RIP, michael. my grandfather insists that you were a dancer - as in, “[janklow], did you hear about that dancer? he died” - and then sort of pantomimes your dancing. and that is both EXCELLENT and the most fitting tribute you could have. it’s just too bad i couldn’t capture any of it on video.

so recently our hero janklow was at one of these events where a large quantity of used books can be purchased cheaply, with the proceeds going to charity; this is typically an opportunity for our hero to scour the racks for ancient books related to military history that most people don’t care about (case in point: i am mad for Bernard Fall, but most people i know could care less about a French journalist who constantly wrote about Indochina and whom they at best know from him being referenced early in We Were Soldiers) or for replacing books i own with better, hardcover versions of those books. this is terrible nerdy and not at all exciting, but we’re going somewhere with this update, so hang in there with me for a moment.

ANYWAY, one thing that often happens is janklow spotting massive stacks of L. Ron Hubbard fiction, considering buying them to shoot, and then declining when he fills his tiny, girly arms with a load of books he might actually read (or at least not shoot). but this time, i said “fuck it” and grabbed all the copies of Battlefield Earth that were available… for the purposes of shooting them with high-powered rifles as Scientology books have been shot before.

the Irishman’s reaction to seeing this stack of books: “either someone’s done something really mean to you, or you got those books to shoot them.” he’s a sharp kid, that Irishman

sweet Enola Gay, are these books massive! they’re something like 1066 pages, 430,000 words … and perfect for blasting away at. but like all cultured gentlemen, before i shoot something with an evil black rifle, i like to thumb through it and see if there’s anything about the work worth not shooting bullets through. after all, with characters with names like “Jonnie Goodboy Tyler” and covers that depict only the most nonchalant of laser-blasting, there’s GOT to be something good in this book, right? i mean, come on, Neil Gaiman defended it! oh… wait… i HATE Neil Gaiman. still, there’s definitely something to be said for the merits of this book: it has about a million ads for a crazy soundtrack for the BOOK inside it.

seriously, for some reason, these ads are located randomly throughout the book in question

now, let’s be clear: this is not a soundtrack for the movie (even though one of my paperbacks is post-release of the film and the other two paperbacks from the 1980s declared “soon to be a major motion picture” a whopping SEVENTEEN YEARS before the release of the film), this is a soundtrack for the BOOK. but not just any soundtrack from a book! well, allow me to let Hubbard & Friends describe it to you (possibly as i insult it):

“Get the soundtrack of the book Battlefield Earth
You loved the Music of Star Wars. Here for the First Time Ever is the Music of a Book.
Composed by L. Ron Hubbard
On album or cassette”

beyond the fact that i adore the crazy capitalization above, i think it’s worth noting that there’s probably a reason this is the first time ever someone’s tried to make a soundtrack for a book. it’s a terrible, terrible notion … or is it? no, wait, it is.

“Only the most advanced computer technology could create the music of BATTLEFIELD EARTH.”

now, i am not sure what kind of music is on this soundtrack … but it must be awesome if only the most advanced computer technology could create it. which really doesn’t make sense on a couple of levels; beyond the fact that music is about the writing of said music, not the level of technology used to transform it from written notes to auditory enjoyment, it’s even crazier that they are claiming that the most advanced computer technology EVER was used to make it. step aside, Mozart, advanced computers are on the job! no time for space shuttles, devote those computers to MUSIC!

“Alien battles and human emotion are combined into a musical style of the future by greats Chick Corea, Stanley Clark, Nicky Hopkins and others.”

uh… i thought we just agreed that what is most important is the computer technology used, not whether or not anything is the work of the greats? also, Stanley Clarke spells his name Stanley Clarke. where did the “e” go? anyway, i know Scientologists are crazy and everything, but i still cannot fathom what a “musical style of the future” even is … although i would make a joke about it being jazz here, only all the above greats are jazz dudes, so it would actually seem like Scientology was onto something if i did so. damn.

“A music landmark, which has been hailed by critics everywhere as the music of the future.”

WHO ARE THESE CRITICS. I DEMAND TO KNOW THEIR NAMES. no, but i note that there isn’t even a claim that the critics think the music is great, just that they hail it as “the music of the future.” i imagine this translates to something like “well, this shit is terrible, but maybe they’ll like it in the future?”

it’s definitely still a landmark, though, because i think this is the first time someone had the audacity to make a soundtrack to a BOOK; i would say “first and last time,” but i’ll bet some jackass out there has made their own book soundtrack in subsequent years. but while i’m not impressed with anything to do with this book, it HAS made me want to run out and acquire the soundtrack in question, sort of like when i found out that Deion Sanders had released an album … which i then rushed out and bought for a grand total of $0.75. this album, however, has proved more elusive.

there’s really something not right about an America when i can’t easily get my hands on something entitled “Space Jazz”

for starters, i’m not even sure which of these albums is more ridiculously appealing: the left-hand album has the awesome “Jonnie Goodboy nonchalant laser fight” going on, while the right-hand album has the phrase “space jazz.” this is a great phrase and i think i’ll be using it all the time. alas, i can only seem to find drastically overpriced LPs of this album for $50. the Irishman advised me to purchase it and frame it and hang it on my wall, but then we both combined forces to talk me out of buying it. and in the end, this might have been the wisest of decisions.

but whatever, these books are still going to get the hell shot out of them. from this moment forth, i vow to purchase and shoot all the L. Ron Hubbard books i find at my used book sales … unless, of course, the Church of Scientology and/or their wealthy celebrity backers want to bribe me into stopping with a pristine copy of Space Jazz (or whatever we’re calling that soundtrack). any takers?

EDIT: this is the third awesome commercial i meant to post last week; if you have never seen it, you are REALLY missing out. although i admit that it loses 13% of its excellence if you’re not at all familiar with Wanderlei “the Axe Murderer” Silva or Mark “the Hammer” Coleman:

generally speaking, i don’t like to rant too much about commercials, because a) they’re not exactly stunning works of cinema because they’re meant to be brief moments that sell me a product and b) frankly, commercials have been a touchy subject ever since Dunkin’ Donuts stole my ideas. in fact, i’m pretty sure it’s all been downhill for me since then; it’s sort of like a country-and-western song where i lose my dog and my woman and my pickup, only in 2006 my dog was dead and i had no woman and no pickup. wow… this is getting sort of bleak… so let’s just move back to the topic of commercials.

for some reason, today was spent ragging on commercials, and if such ragging is not shared on the internet, it gets lost to the sands of time. so without further depressing ado, let’s make fun of the two specifically terrible commercials that came up today.

Scientology strikes again

EDIT: actual terrible new Scientology commercial discovered and posted above! enjoy!

this is how ridiculous the obsession with mocking Scientology is with janklow and friends: the Irishman called me today for the express purpose of leaving me a message about this terrible, terrible commercial for Scientology that he happened to catch while watching an episode of Law & Order (note that i completely support Law & Order viewing, no matter what my views on Scientology might happen to be).

EDIT: while i could originally not track this video down - hence the “unfortunately, i cannot track this video down on the internet” commentary - i have discovered it and placed it above. regardless, this remains the description of it that i got over the telephone: “it was sad, and it claimed that Scientology would fill you with the truth.” actually, it almost sounded like he was describing an annoying anti-smoking ad before it became clear as to what the fuck was going on. and now that i have seen the ad… i have to agree with his assessment.

since i didn’t actually SEE this ad since i posted this before i saw the ad for the first time, i suppose that it might just seem like i’m bashing Scientology for being Scientology here, and not really because the ad sucked. but come on: these fuckers made Battlefield Earth! how awesome could a commercial from the same people be?

David Baldacci = STONE COLD

ugh… just terrible. i am not reading any of your books ever, Mr. Baldacci

actually, the above video doesn’t really do the TERRIBLE Stone Cold advertisements that were always running any justice, because it’s a) not very long and b) doesn’t really impress upon you how these ads kept saying “STONE COLD” over and over and OVER. and frankly, this isn’t really just about David Baldacci; it’s about any of these mass-marketed books that are advertised with ridiculous, over-the-top advertisements in hammy actor voices. now, i admit that i sometimes find voices to be irrationally frustrating… but that nonsense is just STONE COLD bad. anyway, you’re also on the list, James Patterson. i don’t care about the Women’s Murder Club! i don’t care about a girl with wings! fuck off!

and in the end, i stand by the following maxim i have thrown out there: “if your book is advertised on television with a shitty ad, then i know you suck as a writer and i will never buy your books.” (i might have also added “you don’t see JK Rowling pitching that Harry Potter bullshit through TV ads, and we all know how terrible THAT stuff is” sometime after that maxim.) good thing everyone agrees with me, thus preventing such writers as Patterson and Baldacci from becoming popular, rich writers! oh wait.

but on the other hand, commercials are not all bad. so let’s not spend all this time being negative. time for a couple of AWESOME commercials!

Jhoon Rhee Taekwondo

NOBODY BOTHERS ME EITHER

seriously, if you grew up in the Maryland area in the 1980s, you probably remember this advertisement. now, kids that didn’t actually grow up in the 1980s might fake their familiarity with the decade by claiming to love Voltron or refusing to acknowledge how terrible the Thundercats were (seriously, what a terrible show) … but they don’t know a damn thing about Jhoon Rhee. i’m pretty sure that i could start singing this jingle to kids roughly my age and they’d immediately respond; youngsters would simply be confused. “taekwondo? what the hell is that?”

still, we all know what the king of awesome ads is:

it appears to be some kind of flea market… that’s some kind of mini mall…

to be direct and upfront about this week’s update: there’s going to be a lot of bitching about Americans and/or my dislike for them. i know, i know, it’s a running theme here and so there’s no need to make an excuse for it, but to be honest, i’m pretty disgusted with them this week. these things happen; let’s get right to the point.

For The ‘Funemployed,’ Unemployment Is Welcome

Michael Van Gorkom, you deserve to be punched in the face even harder than Chi McBride

so you can probably tell from the jump that this is the kind of story that’s going to rub me the wrong way; even if the actual article espoused some sentiment that i support 113%, i would probably still be freaking out about the use of a term like “funemployment.” eh, i’m the kind of person that demands you say “magazine” instead of “clip” when we’re talking about firearms, so you know i like to nitpick about the inappropriateness of such fictional words. that being said, i think this article managed to enrage me more and more with each passing sentence. let’s take a brief tour through the highlights:

“These jobless folks, usually singles in their 20s and 30s, find that life without work agrees with them. Instead of punching the clock, they’re hitting the beach.”
it’s also worth noting that these “singles in their 20s and 30s” are also the same group of people that has no concept of saving for the necessities of their old age, so it’s probably going to be them that finds that having no means of support when they’re retired (and judging by this article, they probably think someone else will be footing the bill for that as well) does NOT agree with them.

Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. … And at least till the bank account dries up, they’re content living for today.
okay, if you’re living off your severance, that’s fine, if maybe irresponsible; the same goes for your savings, because at least you have earned this. but content to coast on unemployment? that’s not what it’s for. or buoyed by your parents “until the bank account dries up?” … okay, listen up, kids: i know you have no conception of working for a living, but your parents probably do. they didn’t save up that retirement money so that you could enjoy not working. and, shockingly, they might not feel that secure in an economy that’s cost you your job.

“I feel like I’ve been given a gift of time and clarity,” said Aubrey Howell, 29, of Franklin, Tenn., who was laid off from her job as a tea shop manager in April. After sleeping in late and visiting family in Florida, she recently mused on Twitter: “Unemployment or funemployment?”
seriously, i have nothing to say here except that this part of the article makes me outraged. OUTRAGED.

As frivolous as it sounds, funemployment is a statement about American society. Experts say it’s both a reflection of the country’s cultural narcissism — and attitudes of entitlement and self-centeredness — and a backlash against corporate America and its “Dilbert”-like work environment.
three things:
01. it’s not frivolous to call this a statement about American society, because it’s completely accurate to see it as such;
02. the bolded part above has been bolded by yours truly to reflect the accurate way to view “funemployment”;
03. the notion of a “backlash against corporate America” is, in fact, just more of that narcissism and entitlement and self-centeredness. yeah, stick it to the man because he wants you to work so that you can afford to pay for things instead of expecting someone else to foot the bill.

yes, we all get it, not working is more fun than working. what a novel and responsible discovery!

These days, more people than in the 1970s are saying they want jobs with a lot of vacation time … Younger employees today also are less willing to work overtime. And, when asked if they would quit their jobs if they had money, more are answering “yes,” though the majority still say they would continue working.
you mean people want more time off from work, shorter hours, and enough money to keep them from ever having to work again? WHAT A SHOCKING FIND, TWENGE. i’m glad to see all the time you spent writing a book about entitlement has enabled you to make such meaningful studies of Americans. seriously, i could have told you that people want more money and more vacation days without having to write a book or do anything else but go into work. just go ask some employer about the average amount of leave a 20-something employee has currently accumulated sometime.

Flores’ decision to quit her job was initially met by concern and worry by her parents and some friends, but she thinks it’s partly because they simply can’t relate. By the time her parents’ generation reached their late 20s and early 30s, most were married with children.
to be honest, i don’t think the problem is that they can’t relate to you not being married or having children in your late 20s/early 30s. i think the problem is that they can’t relate to you not working and hanging out while expecting your bills to be paid by someone else or, failing that, through irresponsible means (as in, using your savings to have fun instead of, you know, SAVING them).

“We need to figure out how to make companies work better for everybody. Until that happens … early retirements and furloughs are going to continue. People are going to opt out of the system.”
my fault, all these retirements and furloughs are about people STICKING IT TO THE MAN. and here i thought we had a bad economy that had resulted in many lost jobs, including jobs formerly possessed by the turbo-cool funemployed people in this article. oh wait…

But since he was seeking answers, the Mongolian shaman had one for him. On a Post-it, she wrote his fortune in Cyrillic. The last sentence, in a nutshell: Go back to work.
that Mongolian shaman is seriously the hero of this article. ugh. i’d better find something to wash the nasty taste of America out of my mouth…

Creepy Dog Robot Planned For The US Military

there are actually many newer articles on the subject of the Big Dog than the above link, but that one has a great “introducing this fucking awesome robot” title, so i encourage you to explore the internet on your own if that one seems a little out of date.

but that’s all beside the point, which is very straightforward: this is a fucking awesome robot. yeah, it’s a little loud (and that’s probably why they aren’t in a rush to send them over to Afghanistan to battle insurgents), but it storms through the elements, leaps goat-style over obstacles, has the ridiculous ability to not fall on ice (seriously, WATCH THE ABOVE VIDEO) and even makes you feel sympathetic when people are kicking it solely for the purpose of showing off how awesome this robot is. i could watch this video for hours; it certainly makes me feel better about America, which turns out to have some awesome geniuses that made this robot, especially since i just read that “funemployment” article that made me want to vomit. ugh.

the only real downside is that the development of such awesome robots means there is only a very limited amount of time left before we accidentally deep-thinking, self-sufficient robots that come to a full realization of how terrible and worthless human beings are and then, for the good of us all, wipe the whole damn human race out completely. oh well!

bonus section relating to firearms

recently, i purchased a Mini-14; even more recently, i replaced the stock, which was a somewhat-worn wooden one, with a newer Hogue stock which is all black and rubberized and everything. for some reason, however, the responses have been pretty negative so far; “why bother to do that” or “what was wrong with the old stock,” seem to be the typical reactions. perhaps for that reason, even my personal satisfaction is less than total, although that could just be because i have emotional problems, because this new Mini-14 stock is pretty cool.

accordingly, i have decided to throw up some before and after photos of this rifle and let the readership of this website - which would be Smilez and… uh… people who thought the topic behind a name like “house of hate” was something else ENTIRELY - weigh in on the topic. go wild:

before picture; this is how the rifle looked when it was zinging .223 rounds through a couple of fancy motorcycle helmets (and/or being cradled lovingly in photos on the internet).

i also have some new magazines that don’t say “for law enforcement use only” to go with the new look of the gun. oddly enough, though, i find magazines that don’t say “for law enforcement use only” to be somehow unsatisfying.

i’ve been making a lot of fun of the internet lately (not to mention running the “series of tubes” reference into the ground), so perhaps i should pause and note that i do love and respect the internet, as it brings me a constant stream of ridiculous stories to mock and be outraged by. sometimes i can work these into longer updates, and sometimes it’s just going to be a batch of brief mockery. this is one of those latter occasions.

Infection Rules Shoaib Akhtar Out Of World Twenty20

i presume this photograph was taken some time before the outbreak of genital warts

one thing that we all love about the internet is the speed with which it discovers and outs the dirty laundry of the various celebrities and politicians we care about; this Shoaib Akhtar incident just happens to be about as harsh as it gets (well, it’s maybe topped by the whole “Ron Mexico” incident involving Michael Vick, but it’s hard to make light of him these days, as everything to mock there has been run into the ground). this, however, is an exceptional story, mainly on the grounds that i don’t think anyone expected to hear “genital warts require 10 days’ treatment” and “Pakistan yet to name replacement for fast bowler” in the same breath. and we all know that “genitals warts” is an automatically comedic phrase - as long as the genital warts happen to someone else, anyway.

in more serious discussion, though, since when do we refer to the effects of a genital warts outbreak as a “wound?” also, i note from this discussion that his warts are being treated with “electrofulguration treatment,” which i gather means that they shoot electricity into his junk to kill “unwanted” tissue. this… this sounds like both a) torture and b) adding insult to injury. “well, you’ve gotten an embarrassing sexually-transmitted disease … and the only way to fight it is to shock you in the crotch over and over until it all works out.” in the face of this new information, i have to admit that currently, i’m thinking that if it’ll stop the scourge of genital warts, i’ll have to consider the notion that those insurgents might be on to something with this whole “sharia” thing.

Nationals Fail Again, This Time With Sausage Shooting Mascot

this has nothing to do with “sausagegate,” but what a ridiculous pose for a mascot to assume

ah, the Washington Nationals: they may be a local team and they may have a very nice ballpark, but i mostly love them because they make my sad, sad Pittsburgh Pirates look like a stellar team (we had a 3-1 series against them recently, and i feel pretty good about that). still, when you’re that bad of a baseball team - and the Nationals are, with all due respect, a TERRIBLE baseball team composed of Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn and a batch of misfits that are better suited to improbably victories in Hollywood films than, say, actual MLB play - there’s bound to be more comedy and joy produced by your ridiculousness than just that which comes from losing to the Pirates (such as, say, misspelling the name of the team on your jerseys).

so let me just quote this portion of the article in question: “The latest and greatest in the long string of failure that is the Washington Nationals is SausageGate 2009, in which they attempt to shoot sausages, wrapped up in t-shirts, into the stands, using a small cannon. Not surprisingly, this doesn’t go as planned. It looks like the wieners couldn’t handle being shot out of a cannon like that, and fell apart, raining down chunks of sausage and buns all over the field and the fans.” what more is there to say in the face of that? it’s like a less funny but more real version of Maude Flanders being killed by t-shirt cannons at an Isotopes game.

Wind Turbine Noise Suspected Of Killing 400 Goats

note: these goats have not been killed by a wind turbine. they are merely fainting

my first reactions to hearing of this story were a) “what kind of fucking monsters are out there callously murdering goats with all their science” and b) “wait, you can kill goats with noise somehow? how does that work? is there some kind of awesome death frequency?” if it wasn’t for the fact that wind turbines were explicitly mentioned in the title and/or link that i followed to the article, i would have immediately assumed that some government super-weapon destroyed these goats. i’m picturing some kind of massive coil-sporting device and goats bursting like grapes in the middle of a field somewhere; a much more awesome version of the Dugway sheep incident. which, by the way, would be a GREAT name for a band.

but it turns out that all that’s going on is that the turbine noise just keeps them awake and the goats have been dying due to sleep deprivation, which is still sad, but much less cool in terms of raw, secret government technology (though on the other hand, i guarantee i know some guys who would believe my initial hypothesis was correct and call this wind turbine story a government cover-up). further, i wasn’t aware that you could actually DIE from lack of sleep (i thought you basically just had awesome hallucinations and then passed out), and i’d always understood goats to be awesome hardy animals… so since they haven’t PROVEN the turbines are killing these goats, who knows what’s going on here. still… murdered goats! outrageous!

Air Sex World Championships

i want to punch this guy in the face much, much harder than i have ever wanted to punch Chi McBride in the face. and that is saying something

no. just… no. everyone involved with this concept… you’re a bad person. oh, would you like to offer a justification? “”Air Sex is sort of like Air Guitar,” said Tim League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse and the Air Sex World Championship, “except instead of pretending to play an invisible guitar on stage, contestants get up there and pretend to have sex with someone who isn’t there. With their clothes on, typically. They pick a song to perform to and then have two minutes to impress the judges with their overall Airness.”" okay, having reviewed those remarks… no. first off, air guitar is something for teenage kids to do around the house; it’s not something worthy of competing at. secondly, even if this concept of air sex wasn’t immediately considered an abomination before god - and that is one MASSIVE “if” there - the use of the phrase “their overall airness” is. and why the FUCK is Airness capitalized? why?

also, this came from Austin, Texas? why am i not surprised. in fact, here’s the vacation plan for the summer: i am going to Austin, and then i am going to drive around yelling out the window of my car at people how ashamed of them i am for allowing this shit to occur. “THE INTERNET HAS TOLD ME WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, AUSTIN; FOR SHAME! FOR SHAME!” yes… this is going to happen. and while it might seem like it’s a bad thing that the internet has inflicted this… event on me, it’s not. it’s a good thing that the internet has not allowed this nonsense to fly under the radar.

anyway, thanks for all that, internet.

generally speaking, when our hero janklow is under the weather, i like to use it as an excuse to make a fairly lazy update for the week, and this week shall be no exception! now, maybe if i had the swine flu i’d have something much more exciting for everyone out there (”this week, i’m going to attempt to destroy humanity by spreading the terrifying contagion that is SWINE FLU”), but it seems like i have something much more boring that a) can be destroyed by the appropriate application of chicken soup and whiskey and b) will not prevent me from going to work tomorrow. but enough about my laziness: on with the update!

on why i appreciate James Harrison making the Steelers look bad (or at least like they employ idiots)

James Harrison: remaining inexplicably furious about everything for no good reason

now, if there’s one thing i love about professional athletes, it’s that they’re generally not incredibly well-skilled for dealing with public relations issues, while at the same time being possessed of the ability to have their regrettable statements shot all across the United States in a matter of moments. in fairness, there are many intelligent and/or well-spoken athletes who ruin my fun, but luckily, James Harrison is not one of them. let’s start by quoting him:

“Linebacker James Harrison — who made Super Bowl history with a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown — said he’ll pass on the invite from President Barack Obama.

“This is how I feel — if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don’t win the Super Bowl. As far as I’m concerned, he would’ve invited Arizona if they had won,” said Harrison.”

oh, James Harrison. of COURSE he would have invited Arizona if they won. that’s the way this whole “win the Super Bowl, be the reigning champions of the NFL” thing works. so we know that Harrison’s at least sort of dumb and at worst, he’s upset that Obama doesn’t want to hang out with him and watch him play on a regular basis. James Harrison, is Obama a Steelers fan? and to answer your question as to “why it is a big issue now that i’m not going if it wasn’t a big issue the last time,” beyond the fact that Obama is the second coming of Jesus Christ and you’ve now insulted him, it’s probably because i don’t recall you making such an idiotic remark about the president would have invited the other team if they’d won the Super Bowl.

but let’s not dwell on this too much, because everyone on the internet and/or at your office already is; the main thing for me is that James Harrison is a Steeler, and considering that their players are usually classy gents like Troy Polamalu and considering that their organization is turbo-well-run and keeps winning all these championships and blah blah blah … well, it’s nice to have something about the Steelers to make serious fun of aside from Steely McBeam, the Worst Mascot Ever To Live. and considering that as a Raiders fan, Steelers fans are ALWAYS mocking the hell out of me and/or my team, well, it’s nice to turn the tables on them for a week. next stop: DHB scoring dozens of touchdowns!

on why i am not pleased about this whole “the Taking Of Pelham One Two Three” remake i keep seeing ads for

oh, look, John Travolta is so EDGY and so AWESOME that i can barely stand it! why can’t this film be in theaters RIGHT NOW?

so maybe you know, maybe you don’t know, but janklow likes to enjoy the occasional heist/crime caper movie. this is why i’ll be defending Rififi while people are busy watching the remake of the Italian Job and complaining that i won’t stop talking about “black-and-white films” made in “foreign countries” that “aren’t even in English.” this, like most things, is just another cross i have to bear. it’s why i am sort of like Jesus, only without all the religion and foot-washing.

ANYWAY, sacrilege aside, i keep seeing these ads for this movie the Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, starring Denzel Washington (who i enjoy in films) and John Travolta (who i despise). now, people in general probably don’t know that there was once this film that came out in 1974 called the Taking of Pelham One Two Three that happened to be the original version of this film. true, the casting wasn’t as flashy, what with Walter Matthau being the sexy young male lead (i guess) and the robbers being guys like Robert Shaw and Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo and Earl Hindman (exactly, especially with the latter being known for his faceless role on “Home Improvement”) and a young pre-Seinfeld Jerry Stiller being in the mix. but it was a solid little heist film that was well-done for the time and which featured a pretty solid villain in Robert Shaw’s Blue. i imagine that his acting chops will be replace with John Travolta chewing up the scenery and yelling BAD-ASS lines. and, slight spoiler here, he’ll probably survive the damn film and be in a sequel because he’ll be SO DAMN COOL.

honestly, you know what really sums this up for me? the simple change of “One Two Three” in the original title to “1 2 3″ in the remark’s title. oooh, numerals are way cooler than words! yeah! seriously, fuck this shit and fuck John Travolta for being involved in it. and this whole mess has reminded me that people keep telling me they’re making a Red Dawn remake. fuck Hollywood!

on why it’s excellent to know poor people who have guns they can sell to me

there was some recent shooting going on here, at which time we learned some very valuable pieces of information:

-Zippy thinks the Ruger 10-22 is completely awesome;
-motorcycle helmets might be surprisingly durable in the face of 7.62×54mm rifle rounds and some double-ought buckshot, but 5.56×45mm rounds go zipping right through them (and thus, i shouldn’t be counting on them for post-apocalyptic combat);
-fuck, ammunition is very, very expensive to replace right now! i think i am shooting nothing but .22 LR and 9mm for the next 8 years or so, until Obama gets out of office and the bubbas can stop shooting urine into their pants at the thought of his SECRET MUSLIM way.

but more that all this, as Smilez likes to say “poor friends who need money are a good way to get cheap guns” (or, rather, i like to paraphrase what he likes to say, because the exact quote escapes me right now). and so, this is why a friend of ours who might have had to sneak out of the house with his 10-22 so he wouldn’t get in trouble with the wife for shooting with us has sold me said 10-22 … which i have promptly ran around the property lording over one Zippy, who assures me that i am allowed to keep it in his bedroom so that he can shoot it any time he likes. he should have thought of that before he started pantomiming shooting me Gran-Turino-style all the time.

i know that with two Rugers purchased in a row it might seem like i don’t have beef with Bill Ruger anymore, but, no, i still do … i’ve just purchased all the Rugers worth purchasing

yes, the rear sight is about to be fixed by yours truly once Ruger gets the replacement part in question to me, but mainly, this will fuel a lot more of that .22 LR and 9mm shooting (not that the Rossi 62 SAC isn’t cool and all, but this will be cooler). seriously, $37 for a box of .40 S&W? damn that Obama!

DISCLAIMER: this has been separated out from the standard weekly update so as not to offend 50% of my readers by talking about “all that hip-hop nonsense.” feel free to cruise on past this post, you zany white devils!

generally speaking, i have some notorious trends in my love of hip-hop music:

01. i am totally nostalgic for the sound of the 1990s and love to get all worked up about this when i go back and listen to albums from that time. classic examples include: AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted making me outraged about the lack of samples and proliferation of choruses on modern hip-hop records; me being the only person to purchase and fully enjoy Public Enemy’s Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age. seriously, no one gives a fuck about that record, but “Whole Lotta Love Going On In The Middle Of Hell” always, always, ALWAYS gets me worked up.

02. i love to wait expectantly for albums that have been on the back burner for years, get turbo-excited for them to be released when they’re finally about to drop … and then soak in all that wonderful disappointment of them not being that good. the best example of this, i suppose, is Pharoahe Monch’s Desire: his Internal Affairs album is one of the best records ever, hands down; his random songs, unreleased “albums” and pseudo-mixtape-collections like Y’All Know The Name and Innervisions kept me waiting with baited breath … and then Desire dropped. and it wasn’t bad, but, after 9 years, it could have been so much better. i imagine the same thing will happen for me when Only Built For Cuban Linx II finally comes out.

and then Method Man and Redman came out with this Blackout! 2 thing.

they had this cool little album called Blackout! back in 1999 and then they came up with this one out of nowhere. i have no idea why it took so long to finally get out on the market (although i obviously suspect that a massive amount of marijuana being ingested by the artists in question had something to do with it…) and, even better, i have no idea why the exclamation point is after Blackout! but NOT after the 2 in the title … and i also have no idea why that makes the title even more excellent.

but best of all, after heading out to the record store to stand in line and pick it up, never minding the fact that i hate to be up early and the fact that i think the album being purchased by the rest of the young white hooligans at that time was Eminem’s Relapse, i find it’s not a disappointment at all. maybe i should have expected as much from the handful of quality singles that got dropped prior to the album’s release (such as “Four Minutes To Lock Down” and “Dangerous MCees,” to name only two), and maybe it’s because i was so primed to be disappointed… but you know what? i’m not. i don’t mind that Bun B is on this album on a song where Wu-affiliates are shouting out the South (something i am sure drives Ghostface BEYOND crazy … or, rather, it might, if he wasn’t clearly already there), because the song kind of sort of rocks. i don’t mind a brief moment of Autotune from Redman because it kind of sort of works.

so i would recommend people buy this record, if only because it’s pretty inexpensive and if you never got Blackout!, you can pick them both up in this 2-CD collector’s set. maybe you heard Blackout! was a good album? or that the title track of that album is up there with “Thug Motivation 101″ on the short list of house of hate theme songs? well, if someone who isn’t a liar told you that Blackout! rules, i would check them both out.

and Eminem’s record isn’t bad, but if you have been waiting expectantly for it … you might be disappointed.

now, admittedly, this site is generally a purveyor of things either comedic (like all my hilarious jokes and related material) or just plain ridiculous (like that photo of the creepy shelf with all the ultra lube on it), and that’s fine, because we like jokes around here. but sometimes, something so important happens that we have to drop the comedy act and talk about nothing else. i’m thinking of things that threaten the very nature of a free society like ours, things that are so monumental that everything else must stop while we discuss them. so let’s get right to it:

Danza Lands ‘Responsible’ Reality Show

America… you’re just not ready for this

alright, but what’s really upsetting about this story isn’t fully revealed in the title. so let’s dive right into this thing.

Actor Tony Danza is heading back to the classroom to front his own reality TV show about education.

this is actually a very good opening to the article, because it forces you to read more to make sense out of it. of all the things that Danza could make a reality show about (such as “housekeeping” or “picking up hot chicks in the 1980s”), he chooses education? i have to read on!

The former Taxi star, 58, admits he is struggling to find work as an actor, so he has decided to spend a year teaching 10th grade English at a New York City school - and film it for an as-yet-untitled series.

i have bolded the most shocking part of this statement. why the fuck is TONY DANZA struggling to find work as an actor? did no one else out there in Hollywood watch Taxi? or Who’s The Boss? or the Tony Danza Show? actually, strike that last one, because i’m pretty sure that no one watched the Tony Danza Show.

And Danza, who earned a degree in history education from Iowa’s University of Dubuque before launching his acting career, insists the programme will carve out a new genre for reality TV.

okay, here are some problems i have noticed with this plan so far: first, that Danza got a degree in history education, and is going to use that to teach 10th grade ENGLISH; second, that Danza somehow, at some point, got a degree in history education at all (seriously, what was the thought process there? because it seems completely random); third, that something called “Iowa’s University of Dubuque” is getting mentioned. i don’t really know much about Dubuque beyond it being located in Iowa and being slightly related to the life and times of Tony Danza, but i am willing to wager this: Dubuque absolutely, positively, sucks.

He says, “I was talking about going back and answering the call to service and doing something different with my life. I’m going to teach 10th grade English and have some other duties, maybe a drama class, and all of the things that come with teaching, like cafeteria duty.

Danza, listen, all the things that come with teaching are actually stuff like “dealing with angry students who have no time or respect for you” or “dealing with angry parents who want to abdicate responsibility to you while at the same time demanding you pamper their little angels” or “notable amounts of unpaid overtime to get the work done,” not cafeteria duty. cafeteria duty is cake and not worth mentioning. though it’s completely subtle how he worked in “maybe a drama class.”

LL Cool D: ladies love cool Danza

“I’m trying to do what I call ‘responsible reality’. I don’t want to do that other (reality) stuff and I don’t want to do a game show, and nobody’s knocking down my door for acting jobs.

…Danza, listen, there’s no such thing as “responsible reality,” because unless you’re shooting a serious documentary (and you’re not), then either we’re laughing at a reality show being stupid and ridiculous (which is what the standard reality shows all come under the heading of), or we’re laughing at the sad situation you’re in (such as, say, being Tony Danza being paid to star in a terrible reality show).

“I’m hoping that I’m going to move into the community and try to change some lives. I can smell 60 now and I’ve got a little bit of wisdom.”

“kids, here’s my advice: don’t blow all the money you make on the big acting successes of your career on cocaine and prostitutes, because neither of those is actually a sound investment. and further, never have sexual intercourse with Judith Light. that shit will take YEARS off your life.”

The name of the school where Danza will teach will remain under wraps for privacy reasons, reports the New York Post.

oh COME ON. that shit will remain “under wraps” for about 13 seconds, maximum. though i think there will be a race to see which of the following happens first: the name of the school being revealed or the show being canceled for a total lack of ratings.

The series will air on America’s A&E network this autumn.

stay classy, A&E… stay classy.