Rainy Friday in California

We've had a pouring rain for the past three days.  A nap on a rainy day is utterly glorious. 

It stormed all night.  The howling wind woke me up a few times.  This morning, however my lawn was very green and looked quite enthusiastic.  I was afraid to walk on it lest I be eaten like that monster in "The Little Shop of Horrors."  Mr. Lawn didn't actually say anything, but I could infer from his facial expression that the water had better damn not stop, or a RICO lawsuit could be in the offing.

I Had to Return My Christmas Tree

I had to return my Christmas tree.  It seems the neighbor liked it better growing in his yard.

Some people just have no Christmas spirit at all.

UPDATE:  Someone added a twinkle effect to my Photoshop.  Looks cool, so I exchanged my original for the twinkle one.

How Does the Supreme Court Differ From the Ku Klux Klan?

From the emailed newsletter "Snippets"

More Stogie Responses to Nigerian Scammers

My latest Nigerian Scam letter from mercebnzprom@dgoh.org.

My reply follows the letter.

Scammer:
Dear Esteemed Beneficiary,

This is to inform you that youhave been selected for a cash prize of £950,000.00 (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds) in the Mercedes Benz Online Promo held this year in United Kingdom.

The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection system (ess) from a database of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world.Mercedes Benz Company Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and also licensed by the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR). This promotion is the 3rd of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public.

Your winning details are:
Secret Pin Code: MBC/536/2012/005
Reference Number MBPC: 12052012/21.
Batch No: 2nd Category.
To begin the processing of your prize, you are to complete the claims form below:

Your Full Names:
Place of Birth: 

Present Country:
Age:
Sex:
Tel:

Please complete your claims form and submit to us immediately, for immediate processing of your winning funds.

Accept my hearty congratulations once again!

With Best Regards
Mr. Jerry Smith
Promotional Manager

****
Stogie Response:

Dear Jerry Smith,

Congratulations!  You have won the Stogie Chomper annual award for most transparent and obvious scam letter!  Please fill in the details to collect your reward, which is five years in U.S. prison for fraud:

Real Name, not the phony one you sent: ___________________________

Address:   _____________________________________

Phone number:____________________________________

Desired color for prison jump suit:  (1) orange   (2) blue    (3) black and white striped

Handcuff size:  ___________________

Are you allergic to anal lube?  Yes     No     Not Sure

How to Invest in the Obama Years (Joke)

 

"I called my stockbroker and asked him what I should be buying."

He said, "If the current administration is in office much longer, canned goods and ammunition are your best bet."

Hee hee!

Hooray for Hollyweird! Famous Hollywood Sign In Danger

Apparently the famous Hollywood sign is in danger of destruction by development.  This is the sign made of 45 foot high wooden letters, painted white, that was constructed for advertising back in 1923.  Various parties are trying to raise funds to save the sign by purchasing the land around it.  I hope they succeed -- I am in favor of historical preservation.

However, based on new "truth in adverstisng" laws, it is rumored that the sign will now appear as depicted below.

On Valentine Day: How to Pick a Card for the Wifey

If you are going to get along with women, it is important to realize that they are not like us men.  We men like Valentine Day cards with dogs and cats and grizzly guys drinking beer, watching football or going fishing.  If the card has a crude rhyme that is somewhat insulting and profane, we like that even more.  Har, har, har!  It's what testosterone does to a human critter.  We men like it.  It's who we are!

However, the above rule cannot be used when buying a Valentine Card for the wife.  Women, being delicate creatures, like things that are pink and heart-shaped, with flowers and bluebirds, poems and posies.   They like something called sentiment.  Yes, I know it seems somewhat unnatural, but there you are.  With that in mind, here are some tips on buying an acceptable Valentine Day card for the wifey.

First off, drive to a store like Target or Wal-Mart and look for a big section where they sell cards.  Find the one for Valentines Day and look under a category called "Wife."  Okay so far?

Now be careful here.  Find a big card, preferably a pink one, and open it slowly.  It will be filled with lurid, rhyming prose about how sweet and wonderful your wife is, how perfect, how the angels sing in chorus whenever she comes to the breakfast table in bathrobe, bunny slippers and hair curlers, and how you realize what an unworthy cur you really are and how you don't deserve her.  It will be sickeningly sweet.  If you read the whole thing you are liable to barf right there on the floor, so it is best to shop for your V-Day card on an empty stomach.

Actually, it isn't even necessary to read the card.  If you get the dry heaves within two seconds of opening it, it's a good card.  Buy it, sign it and present it to wifey on Valentines Day.  Okay, now proceed with caution:  you're not out of the woods yet.

Your wife will read it with tears in her eyes (it's a female thing, you wouldn't understand) and then will ask you a critical question:  "Did you mean what it says in the card?"  How you answer is very important.  Do NOT answer, "I dunno, what did it say?"  Women like another crazy thing called sincerity.  A wise man once observed that if you can fake that, you've got it made.  Other answers to avoid:

• "Yeah, sure, what's for dinner?"  
• "Beats the hell out of me."
• "Whoops, I forgot to get it notarized."
• "Shut up and bring me a beer."

Just answer like this:  "Yes, I know it's a little mushy, but you're my wife and I love you."

There, now that wasn't so hard, was it?  

South Park -- a Leftward Tilt?

The Other McCain today has a post about South Park's latest episode, featuring Eric Cartman singing his lamentations over the rising tide of immigrant minorities to the United States.  I watched the episode over the weekend at the South Park website.  I have noticed that South Park appears to be titling leftward politically over the past few episodes.  This is after years of tilting right -- there was even a book a few years back about "South Park Conservatives."

First some background.  I love South Park and have watched every episode since its inception in 1996 (you can watch all of them at the link above).  South Park is often great for laughs when one is fed up with all the serious negativity in the news.  The show features four eight year old boys, Eric Cartman, who is fat, intelligent but bigoted, manipulative and selfish; Kyle Broflovski, the intelligent and moral Jewish kid, his best friend "every man" Stan Marsh, and the poor kid, Kenny McCormick.  There are other characters too, like Butters Stotch, and Stan's girlfriend Wendy Testaburger, but the first four are the main characters.

South Park is highly irreverent and insults anyone and everyone, whether they be politicians, egotistical celebrities or religious personalities.  It has lampooned Jennifer Lopez, Barbara Streisand, Scientology, the Mormon religion, Osama Bin Laden, Tom Cruise and many others.  Some notable examples:

Episode 1006 lampoons Al Gore's eco-alarmism in an issue called "ManBearPig," a mythical creature that Gore is sure is wandering the world and attacking humans without cause.

Episode 1109 has men attempting to break the world's record for taking the biggest crap.  Craps are measured in units of weight known as "Katy Courics," or simply "Courics" for short.

Most of the episodes, however, are mostly just for fun, though they may (or may not) contain some moral point or lesson.  Often the theme is merely to satirize artistic mediocrity, as in the last "Indiana Jones" movie or the films of comedian Rob Schneider.

In late 2009 the episodes seem be taking a leftward tilt.  In Episode 1314, Cartman's racist song "My Water Park" is extraneous to the plot and is pasted on for no apparent purpose, other than to establish the broad-minded credentials of  the South Park writers.  The song highlights the "hateful attitudes" of undefined racists.  However, there is no point to the song as it isn't used to advance the plot or provide an epiphany, i.e. a "lesson learned" insight.

Prior 2009 episodes that seem to tilt leftward are these:

1311 - Stan leads the movement to fight the Japanese slaughter of whales and dolphins; he learns why the Japanese are so malevolent to whales and dolphins, and persuades them to cease this slaughter and substitute the slaughter of cows and chickens instead.  "Now they are just like us!"  PETA will like this epsiode.

1313 - Eric Cartman becomes the new morning announcer at South Park Elementary School, reading the school's news announcements, lunch menu, sports activities, etc.  However, Eric always takes his assigned role way too far.  He begins dressing in a suit and tie and starts denouncing the student body president, Wendy Testaburger, for being a tool of socialists and an oppressor of the Smurfs, and either incompetent, immoral or corrupt, and probably all three.  Cartman even writes his own book where he says he is "just asking questions," so as to avoid legal liability for the smears.  One scene shows him with light hair, a touch of gray at the temples, wearing a light blue tie and looking intently into the camera with tears in his eyes as he laments the ruination of his school by its student body president.  It's pretty obvious that Eric is supposed to represent Glenn Beck.

However, episode 1313 has a mixed theme, portraying Wendy Testaburger as a Sarah Palin figure who is finally hounded out of office.  She resigns as president of the student body, and writes her own book, "Going Rogue on the Smurfs."  Perhaps the true purpose of episode 1313 is to lampoon political demogoguery, whether it be from the left or the right.

I think it is unlikely that South Park will go too far left. If they do, they will surely hear about it.