Supply called; demand can't make it

From Brad's Deals:

Through March 1st, USA Today has an introductory offer of 8 weeks for $14, 53% off the newsstand price. This is the lowest publicly available offer for USA Today and one of the best deals for any newspaper (certainly for a national paper). This breaks down to only $1.75 per week or only $0.35 per day (it is normally $0.75).

That's a good deal for everyone involved. You get the McPaper for $0.35 per day, and USA still makes a profit by marking $0.07 worth of news up 500%.

Ramone and Frunkus in the morning

Talk about role reversal.

Opie: Straight man
Anthony: Inside Joke Douche

I almost pissed myself when I heard him say Ramone and Frunkus in the morning.

If you don't get the inside jokes, Jim Norton burns through most of them in the outtakes for O&A's new XM commercial:



That...that's terrible. I'm sorry.

The DJ AtomX Podcast

Your pal and mine DJ AtomX followed the New Years resolution I sent him and setup a Podcast on Podomatic.

Out of nowhere today, "A State of Pants, Volume 4" just appeared in iTunes. I can't remember the last time I was so delightfully and genuinely surprised. My inner sycophant shot a thank you email his way:

From: theAlphaJohn
To: DJ AtomX
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:57:18 -0500
Subject: state of pants vol 4

I fucking love your podcast. iTunes was like "bitch, you have a newpodcast" and I was like..."huh?"I sprang like 8 boners when it just showed up. Fucking love this man.

I'm listening to it now, and it fucking rocks. It even has Dangerous Power on it. Do me a favor if you haven't checked him out already and go subscribe.

Please add "glory hole" to our marketing material

With last week's suicide here on campus, I was sick of blogging about Mason by the time Thursday rolled around. I decided to wait until last week's Police Blotter was posted this week so I could properly immortalize Thursday's fantastic act of faggotry:

2007-000370 / Destruction or Property. Joseph Christopher Mcardle, 44 y/o w/m, from Springfield, Va. was arrested and charged with being "Drunk In Public" and "Destruction of Property" after being found drilling holes in bathroom stall divider. A secured bond was set for $500.00. (36/Gannon).

Sadly, his breath only smelled like alcohol before he was removed from the building. I was in Kirsten's office last week when Brian told her this, and she was surprised that Brian and I weren't more shocked. Brian, unfortunately, has walked in on people in our men's rooms, while I've just read the writing on the walls. Kirsten decided to seek a higher power, and called her gay friend Ron (since Wikipedia doesn't have a good entry on glory holes yet):

Kirsten: i just got off the phone with ron...
Kirsten: he said the hole (the one's in the bathroom) are called glory holes...
Kirsten: lmao
theAlphaJohn: lol
Kirsten: no kidding... i was laughing so hard when i was telling him...
Kirsten: he said do you know what thats called? i said no... he said glory holes...
Kirsten: and then he described exactly how they are used...
theAlphaJohn: gross
Kirsten: that is too funny...
Kirsten: i called tom and told him ... and he knew exactly what they were for too...
Kirsten: lmao
Kirsten: i asked [my husband] and he too new exactly what they were for...
Kirsten: i asked barbara if she heard the news and what the guy was doing and she had no idea ... so i had to explain it to her...lmao ... now that is too funny
Kirsten: i had her laughing her ass off...
Kirsten: kathy knew exactly what it was for...
theAlphaJohn: lol
Kirsten: jingxiao and i both thought it was for looking into the girls room
theAlphaJohn: i love that you took a glory hole survey among your peers
theAlphaJohn: did you check with charlie too?
Kirsten: i had to... i was too funny not to...
Kirsten: brian had to explain it to me...
Kirsten: glory hole...that is just over the top...

Strange, drunk men drilling holes in our stall walls. Put a tent over this circus.

Half Pony / Half Monkey Monsters

I know I'm not discovering the wheel here, but Jonathan Coulton may have written the funniest song lyrics ever in Skullcrusher Mountain:

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Both Google Images:



and Jonathan's Blog show examples that his song has been a muse for:



The idea of ruining ponies is diabolically enlightened. Think of all the little girls waiting in line to ride the ponies, but alas they never will.

Steven Colbert on Telecom

A succinct explanation of Cingular's decision to change their name back to AT&T:

"My Asian Girlfriend"

I suspect the first 88 drafts before MYASNGF went something like this:

"Hello my fellow caucasian friends. Though I am white, 5'6", weigh 145lbs, and enjoy both Mountain Dew and fluffer nutter, I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Sookuntra."

but that was taken, so then he tried:

"Sup dawg? Check it -- I gots me some yellow fever!"

but that was too long, so the next attempt was:

"Recognize: Crooked Pussy."

and DMV was like, "nuh uh". So homeboy bought her an Orange RSX and ordered those up on dmvnow.com.

This is a tragedy that makes Dafur look like a bake sale.

Micronations make my head hurt

In her attempt to kill me with an aneurism today, Mary made a reference to Sealand, a micronation:

The Principality of Sealand is a man-made off-shore installation named HM Fort Roughs, a former Maunsell Sea Fort located in the North Sea 10 kilometres (six miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England, as well as territorial waters in a twelve-nautical-mile radius.

Since 1967, the population of Sealand has consisted of the associates and family members of Paddy Roy Bates, a former radio broadcaster and former British Army Major. Critics claim that Roughs Tower has always remained the property of the United Kingdom, a view that is disputed by the Bates family. The population of the facility rarely exceeds ten, and its area is 5920 sq. ft.

Sealand's claims to sovereignty and legitimacy are not recognised by any country, yet it is sometimes cited[1] in debates as an interesting case study of how various principles of international law can be applied to a territorial dispute.

Ok...so a British DJ squatted on what is essentially an oil rig platform (but built for port defense in WWII), fought off the British Navy with a shot gun, and crowned himself price?

Do what??

While I desperately plugged my ears to keep my leaking brains from spilling out, Mary continued to look at micronations until she ran across the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands:

On June 14, 2004, the group claimed the Coral Sea Island Territory and seceded from Australia after sailing to the largest island in the group and raising the rainbow flag there. One of the group's members, Dale Parker Anderson (born 1965), was declared Emperor, as Dale I. The "secession" was staged in protest at a decision to ban same-sex marriage made by the Australian federal parliament.

Since 2005 the Australian group has reportedly been embroiled in internal disputes and secessions by various factions. These include two American-based groups, the Gay and Lesbian Commonwealth Kingdom, headed by Jaix Broox, the Unified Gay Tribe, led by Bill Freeman and Enrique Pérez, and the German based Gay Homeland Foundation led by Victor Zimmermann. None of these other groups claim the territory of the Coral Sea Islands.

The kingdom's claims are not recognised by any state, and as no permanent settlement has been established, the Coral Sea Islands remain uninhabited. The kingdom claims to have begun operating a mail service on January 1, 2006. It is presumed this service operates between the Coral Sea Islands and Queensland, however as of July 2006 there is no independent verification of its precise nature and frequency. The kingdom issued its first stamps in July 2006, and intends to issue stamps conservatively "with the aim of creating a high and distinctive reputation amongst the philatelic fraternity." The kingdom's website asserts that tourism, fishing and philatelic sales are its only economic activities.

...

Are you kidding me? Here are their stamps:



My favorite are the circle-symbols: man & woman, man & man, woman & woman, and a fucking tranny.

Christ. A tranny stamp. But wait, there's more. Here is the bio of their emperor:

His Imperial Majesty the Emperor
Born in August 1965, Dale Parker Anderson is the eldest of identical twins and is the 19 x great grandson of King Edward II of England (the gay King) and Queen Isabella of France via their son King Edward III. The Emperors Imperial Standard carries the royal arms of England and France.

Yes, you read correctly. "The gay king".

Don't get me wrong. I don't care that it's a homo nation, I care that's it a psuedo-sovereign nation of fucking nutbags. I wish all the LARPers would move to their own island so we could blow that up.

It's that time of year again

Apparently we need to review and update our useless job descriptions and meaningless employee work plans (ewp) every year. In reviewing mine, I found this under "Critical Thinking Competencies":

Exents communication level of effort to other key technical personnel within the University and possibly to other State agencies that share the same application software.

These are my concerns with this bullet:

(1) Virginia is a Commonwealth, not a state
(2) University is capitalized, to imply a proper noun (Mason), when in fact the document only personifies Mason as the embodiment of George Mason University, not University
(3) Most important: what the fuck does this even mean??

Mason student death ruled a suicide

Just received an email from University Relations about the student who died Tuesday:

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:52:25 -0500
From: University Relations
Subject: University Mourns Campus Tragedy

STUDENT DIES FROM FALL IN JOHNSON CENTER

George Mason University is saddened to announce the death of one of our students that occurred Jan. 9 from a fall in the Johnson Center. The death of Martin Klapproth, 26, an economics major, was ruled a suicide by the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The university extends its deepest condolences to Mr. Klapproth’s spouse, Maryam, (BIS graduate 2004) as well as other family and friends.

Consultation and help is available in the Counseling Center to any Mason student, staff or faculty members seeking assistance regarding this tragedy. Contact the Counseling Center, SUBI, room 324, at 703-993-2380.

When this was mentioned on DCist yesterday, they were the only ones to tie the accident to this New York Times Magazine article which references Princeton Review's study showing that Mason placed 15th on a list of 20 schools where the students are least happy.

Suicide makes me a very sad panda.