OTR Institute Sociological Survey #6

I remember waiting in line at the USL bookstore to get all the texts I would need for my first semester in college. Two anthropology books, three for british literature, two for philosophy, and more I can't remember (mostly, because I never went to those classes). Of course, I had gotten drunk the night before (read: Donovan brushed his nipple with Luke's toothbrush), and though I lived only a block away from the bookstore, I still got there too late to get any of the used books.

I still remember looking at that first anthropology text, seeing the price tag of $74.00, and promptly shitting in my pants. If memory serves correctly (which it rarely does when when I'm trying to remember anything that occurred between 1998 and 1999), I spent about $200 on books that day, and I got off easy.

While this is not a new discussion, retailers and service providers have been trying to further saturate the college markets for decades, but with the rising cost of education, perhaps it is time to re-visit this issue.

Query: If it would reduce the cost significantly, and in some cases entirely, should advertisements be allowed in college textbooks?

If not, why? If so, with what restrictions, if any?

For centuries newspapers, magazines and innumerable other publications have survived solely on adevrtising revenue. It allows retailers, etc. access to the intelligent and literate market, while the newspapers can provide their product at little or no cost to the comsumer. It's win-win.

From the Associated Press:

New idea to cut textbook costs — sell ads

Minnesota firm will offer more than 100 titles this fall — completely free.

Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds of dollars, but in some courses this fall, students won’t pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads for companies including FedEx Kinko’s and Pura Vida coffee.

Selling ad space keeps newspapers, magazines, Web sites and television either cheap or free. But so far, the model hasn’t spread to college textbooks — partly for fear that faculty would consider ads undignified. The upshot is that textbooks now cost students, according to various studies, about $900 per year.

Now, a small Minnesota startup is trying to shake up the status quo in the $6 billion college textbook industry. Freeload Press will offer more than 100 titles this fall — mostly for business courses — completely free. Students, or anyone else who fills out a five-minute survey, can download a PDF file of the book, which they can store on their hard drive and print.

I pose the question to you, my savvy and attractive readers (except for you Vinay, you are neither savvy nor attractive). What do you think?

How Sweet It Is

The fetching Mrs. Sonnier sent an email to me this morning asking for my impression. The email is reproduced below, unedited.

From the June 2006 Idaho Observer:

Aspartame - The World's Best Ant Poison

contributed by Jan Jensen of WELLthy Choices.

We live in the woods and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We have spentthousands of dollars with Orkin and on ant poisons trying to keep themunder control but nothing has helped. So when I read somewhere that aspartame (Nutrasweet) was actually developed as an ant poison and only changed tobeing considered non-poisonous after it was realized that a lot moremoney could be made on it as a sweetener than as an ant poison, I decided to give it a try. I opened two packets of aspartame sweetener, and dumpedone in a corner of each of our bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago andI have not seen any carpenter ants for about 9 to 12 months.

It works better than the most deadly poisons I have tried. Any time theyshow up again, I simply dump another package of Nutrasweet in a corner,and they will be gone for a year or so again. Since posting this information I have had many people tell me of their success solving antproblems with this substance, when nothing else worked. We found laterthat small black ants would not eat the aspartame. It was determined that if you mixed it with apple juice, they would quickly take it back to thenest, and all would be dead within 24 hours, usually. I have found thatsometimes it will kill them, and sometimes it does not. Not sure why, may be slightly different species of ants or something.

Fire Ants: We got our first fire ant hill about 2 weeks ago. Poison didnot work. We tried aspartame and the ants ignored it until we got a lightrain. It was just a sprinkle, enough to moisten the Nutrasweet and ground,but not enough to wash it away. They went crazy, hundreds of them grabbingit and aking it back into the mound. When I checked he mound 2 days later, there was no sign of the fire ants. I even dug the mound up some, and still saw none of them.

How does it Work: Aspartame is a neuropoison. It most likely kills the ants byinterfering with their nervous system. It could be direct, like stopping their heart, or
something more subtle like killing their sense of taste so they can't figure out what iseatable, or smell, so they can't follow their trails, or mis-identify their colonies members, so they start fighting each other. Not sure what causesthem to end up dying, just know that for many species of ants it willkill them quickly and effectively.

As with any poison I recommend wearing gloves and washing any skin areas that come in contact with this poison, and avoid getting it in your mouth, despite anything the labeling may indicate.

I read this email with my usual mixture of amusement, remorse and rage. As if there isn’t enough bullshit, misinformation, propaganda, sophism and fraudulence out there that we need some douche-bag making stuff up to try and cause hysteria about something as inconsequential as Sweet N’ Low. In preparation for the post that I would write about this, I started looking on some websites that deal specifically in debunking the hoaxes that get emailed to us by our gullible and overly concerned mothers. My first stop was Snopes.com, a personal favorite, but aside from an email hoax about aspartame causing cancer and multiple sclerosis, there was nothing about carpenter ants.

Curious, I thought, and dug deeper into the miasma that is the Internet. I found the original article, indeed printed in the Idaho Observer in June 2006. Just to give you a quick impression of this publication, you’ll find other articles with names like ""The Tyranny of Modern Medicine," "Foreigners Buying Up American Roads & Bridges," "The Miraculous Healing Power of Oak Bark," "America: Freedom to Fascism," "Chemical Control of the Mass American Mind," and many more. We can safely assume this monthly newsletter is printed on an Epson Stylus 860 in the underground bomb shelter of a man that possesses an extensive aluminum foil wardrobe.

Having determined that the Idaho Observer is your run-of-the-mill, brain-dead conspiracy theory/ alternative healthcare drivel, I delved further to find more info on the article’s author.

Ms. Jan Jenson is a "health coach," whatever the fuck that means, and operates a blog called "Wellthy Choices" where pretty much all she does is try and whip up aspartame hysteria and hock a dietary supplement called "E3: The Most Vital Wild-Grown Superfood on the Planet!" In case you’re wondering, it’s seaweed.

Well, not much interesting info there, so I jumped back into the deep end, where all I found were endless "modern health" discussion forums where asshole after asshole had simply cut and past Ms. Jenson's article (spelling errors and all) into a post, which was followed by endless antecdotal responses like, "My dog one ate a packet of Nutrasweet and vomited up a tennis ball! I’m never drinking that stuff again!"

And then I found this on Spoof.com:

(In case you are not aware, TheSpoof.com is very much like The Onion)

FDA Certifies Aspartame as Ant Poison

WASHINGTON (AP)—The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has certified the popular sweetener aspartame, also known as NutraSweet, as an ant poison."Aspartame was originally developed as an ant poison and it was only changed to being non-poisonous after it was realized that a lot more money could be made on it as a sweetener," said FDA chief Ralph Roachman. "We are just notifying the public and industry about the original and best use of this stuff."He continued, "That crap kills ants dead. It works on carpenter ants, silverfish, roaches, and almost anything in fact. You just gotta open a coupla packets of aspartame sweetener and dump them in a corner of each of the rooms with the infestation. It works better than the most deadly poisons we have tried. Any time they show up again, simply dump another package of NutraSweet in a corner, and they will be gone for a year or so."

The FDA found that certain types of insects like small black ants will not eat the aspartame, but scientists determined that if you mix it with apple juice, they would quickly take it back to the nest, and "all would be dead within 24 hours."Aspartame is also effective against fire ants, but the poison may not work until it is lightly sprinkled with a light rain or a garden hose, with just enough water so as to not wash it away. One FDA technician observed, "After I wetted the NutraSweet the fire ants went crazy with hundreds of them grabbing it and taking it back into their mound. When I checked the mound 2 days later, there was no sign of the fire ants. I even dug the mound up some, and still saw none of them."FDA scientists know that aspartame is a neuropoison which kills ants by disrupting their nervous system and their hearts and their senses."Ants start acting weird, they begin fighting and having wars, and they end up dying," noted an FDA research paper.

An FDA consumer guide on the use of the poison recommends wearing gloves and washing any skin areas that come in contact with it since it is so toxic, and avoid getting it in your mouth, despite what consumer labeling may indicate. Aspartame is also effective against other insects such as yellow jackets, wasps, praying mantises, and certain other higher lifeforms.

In case you haven’t realized, or maybe too much saccharin has affected your attention span, Ms. Jan Jenson plagairized, virtually word for word (with the addition of numerous, unforgivable grammatical errors), an article from TheSpoof.com, without realizing that it was a joke.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you believe just anything that you read in the mass emails that are forwarded to you by your nervous Aunt Tilly, you are dumber than even the OTR Institute can assuage. You’re the kind of person that buys those curly shoelace things because you can’t remember what hole the rabbit goes into. You’re the type of guy that keeps a lot of rubber coated spoons in the house because if you lost another eye, they would fire you from the Sierra Club board of directors.

You define stupidity, and you have an obligation to kill yourself immediately, if only to spare the rest of us from having to change your diapers and explain to you where toast comes from.

To you, Jan Jenson, I call you to the carpet to answer these allegations. You are an fool because you thought no one would ever find out what you did, and you are a fear-monger because you try to take advantage of people’s lack of information to sell them grass in a capsule. Unfortunately, the type of people that read publications like the Idaho Observer are not interested in truth, only the twisted bits of fabricated bullshit that people like you disseminate, and would never think to check your facts, or even questions your motives.

And to you, the editors of the Idaho Observer, the tracking device was implanted inside of your eyes, see if you can guess which one!

As an aside, I would like to state that these bloodsuckers find it so easy to spread this misinformation simply because this is such an inconceivably inconsequential issue. If you're interested in reading some actual facts about aspartame (and god help us if you are) you can find them here:

American Council on Science & Health

United States Food & Drug Administration

Health Canada

Toilet Humor

Luke is totally right. YouTube is the coolest thing since BevMo.com (except for the teenage morons that think we want to watch them breakdance in ther basements).

Case in point:



I can't decide which is funnier: The fact that these poor people are exposed to the public while relieving themselves, or the fact that Japanese men apparently straddle fruit bowls with their pants around their ankles in order to pee. That's just not right.

Help a Brother Out...

Woody Allen has been trying to figure out women, and making movies about it, for about the last 300 years. Instead of getting any closer, I think it's obvious that he's pushed us, as a gender, further into the abyss than ever before. That Men Are From Mars... fancy lad John Gray certainly didn't get us any closer. He used to live under a vow of celibacy, for god's sake!

And don't even get me started on the myriad of daytime messiahs like Dr. Phil and Montel. Their respective loafer lightness is more likeley to get us an unwelcome green room cop-a-feel than any meaningful advice on relationships.

Ladies, we just don't get you. Some would say that it's this very inability for the the sexes to comprehend each other's motives and desires that makes relationships so interesting in the first place. Like most men, I fall somewhere in between the "vive la difference" camp and the "why do I have to put the toilet seat down, but you don't have to leave it up?" alliance.

One sure thing, however, is that we need to stick together. That being said, I hope someone out there, who can actually use it, will buy this. I mean, there are limits to what even liquor can impart the ability to endure.

Of Apologies and Rotten Meat

First of all, allow me to apologize to you, my small, yet dedicated corps of readers (especially you, Mom) for my recent absence. The reasons include hail storms, car trouble, cross-country treks, and sectarian unrest in the Middle East, just to name a few. In any case, I would like to announce my triumphant return.



In case the word has not spread to the outer reaches of the galaxy as yet, myself and the fetching Mrs. Sonnier, have determined to uproot ourselves from our quiet, comfortable lives in the temperate Pacific Northwest to relocate in the muggy, moist and humid climate that bore us: Louisiana. This was not an easy decision, given the multitude of wonderful friends, sweet house, great jobs and smelly hippies at our disposal here in The Rose City, but it was inevitable. Who wants an easy, non-eventful life, anyway? Especially one that could potentially involve a firebrand like Jillian?

So, the house is on the market, the resumes are in the pipeline, and between keeping the house immaculate for potential buyers and stressing about job prospects in a much smaller town, the fetching Mrs. Sonnier is on the verge of mental breakdown, and by extension, so am I.

In case you guys have yet to experience this little slice of hell, selling a house is like selling a child: you can’t imagine how ANYONE could look at it and not fall in love immediately, and if you were to hear anyone say anything less that wonderful about it, you’d be fully prepared to belt them in the mouth. The act of belting a potential buyer in the mouth, however, has been known to have detrimental effects on the ability of a house to sell (or a child, for that matter), so our agent politely requested that we not be home when the house is being viewed by the general, punch-me-in-the-mouth public.

Last Tuesday, the first day Casa de Awesome was available for purchase on the market for an unreasonably low amount of money, our agent hosted what she described as a “broker’s open.” This is an open house intended specifically for other real estate agents in town to get to know the house so that if they have clients that think might be interested, they can bring them by at a later date. I was not allowed to attend, and resigned myself to chew on my fingers as I sat in the office and pretended to work (a skill at which I excel).

The broker’s tour ended at 1:00 PM, and so around 1:30, I made my way over to Kanda’s house to collect our cats from their play date. Once home, I got to work upstairs in my office (where, interestingly enough, I’ve gotten good at pretending to not work). A few minutes later a knock came on the door.

It was an agent named Sandra. She had fully intended on coming to the broker’s open, but had gotten caught up and could she take a look at the house now? Sure, I said, and ushered her into my unnervingly clean home. She ooohed and aaahed at the boxed ceiling and the laminate floors (total bullshit: no one ooohs at leminate floors, no matter how nice they are) and commented on how nice the house was and how appropriately priced as well (sneer). We made our way upstairs and then back down, and then she asked to see the backyard. I opened the door and showed her the fetching Mrs. Sonnier’s painting studio and the excellent fruit trees, and blah blah blah.

Oooh and aaah.

She made her way back toward the house, and, being the perfect gentleman, I stepped forward and opened the back door for her, ushering her back into the house. As I stepped in, I noticed something on the floor that had not been there only minutes earlier. The bigger (and stinkier) of our two cats had dragged a fresh cat turd from the nearby litter box and deposited it directly in front of the back door. To make matters worse, it had a foot print in it.



Oh crap, I thought, too shocked to savor the pun. I checked the bottoms of my Birkenstocks (no, I’m not a hippie) and verified no poop. Oh no, she must have stepped in it! I looked, and she was walking in the kitchen admiring the cabinets, with a wad of fresh cat shit stuck to the bottom of her espadrille (no, I’m not gay).

What do I do?

Shit, think, shit, think.

Do I tell her and clean it off for her, bringing unnecessary attention to the presence of cat shit on my super clean floor, or do I hope that she just doesn’t notice? Of course, in the mean time, here’s this pretentious real estate agent using words like “boxed ceiling” and “crown molding” while tracking cat shit all over my freshly mopped (ooh!) laminate floors.

Before I could decide how to react, she shook my hand, wished me luck, and was gone, a thin brown trail of leavings from the back door all the way to the front, the only evidence of her presence. Truly absurd, I thought as I scrubbed poop off my floor.

It seems that I am surrounded by absurdity. I experience it on a daily basis; the only reprieve is the variance of its severity. This morning on the way to work I saw a crazy man doing a jig around a telephone pole while singing to himself. A guy in my office buys green coffee beans from Vietnam and roasts them at home in a popcorn popper. My boss just got a package from England that was shipped in box labeled “Mr. Brain’s Fresh Faggots.”

I often wonder if I’m simply statistically more prone to experiencing absurdity, or am I simply more keenly aware of its presence.

In that vein, I would like to tell you all about the most absurd story I have ever heard. The story of the exploding whale.



On the morning of November 12, 1970, a cool wind swept across the beach in Florence, OR, a quiet little beach town near Astoria. That wind wasn’t just cool, it smelled really bad. At first, it was assumed that the Vietnam protestors had made their way from Portland, but they soon realized even this smell was too much to be attributed to even those stink-monkies.

The smell was emanating from a very large, and very dead, and very rotten sperm whale that had washed ashore after floating at sea for god knows how long. Weighing in at 8 tons, the small town of Florence was perplexed as to how to get this big, rotten whale carcass off the beach.



At this point in Oregon’s history, one can only assume that the city council of Florence, the management of the Oregon Department of Transportation, and the Governor’s office were all staffed with boys between the ages of 7 and 13. The unanimous vote: Let’s blow that fucker up!

Half a ton of dynamite was packed into the rotting carcass of this huge mammal; one can only imagine the ODOT engineers giggling and elbowing each other like a little boys while stuffing black cats into a dead frog’s mouth. They stepped a safe distance back and....boom.



When the sand settled, the air was still. The whale wasn’t gone, but a huge chunk had been blown out of its mid-section. Oh, well, they must have thought, it must have vaporized the stuff, let’s do it again!

It was then that it started to happen. Splat here, smash there. Plop, plop, plop. Blubber came falling from the sky. Golf ball sized chunks, baseball sized, grapefruits, basketballs and bigger began to pelt the onlookers from the sky. As they ran for safety from the rotten animal fat, they realized they had bigger problems: their town.

As the rancid blubber rained from the sky, like the smiting hand of some angry whale god, it tore through roofs, it smashed through windows, it blocked traffic, it broke windshields, and there’s even a story that one piece of blubber was so large, it literally flattened a Volkswagen beetle.

According to Paul Linman, an eye-witness to the explosion, “the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.”

By the time the shower of rotten whale parts stopped, the damage to the town was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Paul Linman, “The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere."

Everywhere, indeed.

Oregon is a very unique place, and I’ve seen some pretty amazing things here. Met some great people, and met some people I’d like to stab in the face. Above all, I will miss the absurdity that seems so commonplace in Oregon, especially when Jillian’s in town.

If you’d like to learn more about this totally absurd and very true story, and even see the video, check it out here.

An Open Letter To My Jump Drive

Dear Jump Drive,

I suppose you probably think the worst part is that I didn’t even notice when you left. By the time I realized you were gone, there’s no telling how long it had been. Does this make me a negligent asshole? Probably, but after all, you’re the one who left without a word.

Okay, I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you out to be the bad guy in this. I know we had some rough times, but we had some good times too, right? Every time I had an idea for a story or a blog, I’d just pop you into the nearest computer and type a short note, then when I wanted to write a new entry for On The Rocks, I’d just pop you in again and have a wealth of ideas stored all ready to go. But now you’re gone, and you’ve taken all my ideas with you.

No, you were right that night you came home drunk. I know you apologized the next morning and said you didn’t mean what you said, but you were right. They really weren’t very good ideas, and it was too much to ask for you to schlep them around for me all the time. For that I’m sorry.


I never meant to hit you. You just pushed and pushed and pushed until I couldn’t take it anymore. You didn’t have to bring my mother into it. I know they all say that if he hits you once, he’ll hit you again, but I can promise, in the deepest cockles of my heart, perhaps in the sub-cockle area, that I would never lay a hand on you again, except in love and respect.
I know what you’re thinking. He just wants his blogs back, he just wants his work files and photos back, he just wants the 187 pages of that book he was writing back, but you’re wrong. I want you back. I want you back more than anything else. What I want back is the jingle you made as you knocked around on my keychain as we traipsed around town. I miss going everywhere with you, I mean, we were inseparable!

But now you’re gone, and you took with you not just a part of my life, you took a part of my heart as well.

So to you, my dear 512 Megabyte Relay Jump Drive, forget the problems we’ve had. Just remember the day we first met, at the Staples store in McMinnville. It was raining that day and I let you hide under my coat as we went to the car so you wouldn’t get wet.
Remember the love, and please, come back to me.

With All I Have,

Scott

What Hippies Have in Common With Child-Molesting Nazis.

There’s a kid in my Judo class named Ezekiel. If you are, perchance, asking yourself why someone would name their child "Ezekiel," all you need is one look at this poor kid’s ropey, granola-fed, patchouli-funk parents and it would all become painfully clear.

Ezekiel is about five years old, and is what can only be described as a joyless child. I know it sounds harsh, but there’s really no better way to put it. Before class starts, when all the other kids are burning off the energy from those afternoon cookies, he can generally be found sitting in the corner trying to keep his shoulder-length hair out of his eyes, hiding behind his mother’s vastly oversized, hand-knitted, fair-trade wool maternity tarp. We can presume he didn’t get any Chips Ahoy! when he got home, his parents most likely opting for the whole-grain, "celebrate diversity" rice cake with soybean butter, or something equally inappropriate and sad.

In addition to being the smelliest, Ezekiel is one of the more timid kids in the class. As such, the requirements are put upon us, the senior students, to engage the poor bastard and try to force him into having some fun and not dwelling on the four-hour speech about "sustainable living" his dad gave at the dinner mesab the night before. In Judo, the easiest thing to do to engage someone on the mat is to open your arms and ask, "Onegashimas?" (Roughly translated: "Will you teach me?).

I was tying get Ezekiel to play with the rest of us, when the instructor noticed that he wasn’t really responding. He immediately came over to Ezekiel and asked, "Onegashimas?" Ezekiel, being not only a white-belt but a five-year-old, had no idea what this meant. Seeing an opportunity to make the kid laugh, I tried to inject a joke and said, "He’s asking you if you want some french fries!"

I know, it’s not very funny, but the kid is five, should I have tried my Benny Hill routine?

Ezekiel paused, thought on this a moment, and in a very serious and practiced tone said to the both of us, "I don’t eat that kind of food."



Now, there is no doubt in my mind that this poor bastard’s parents have him practice that response on a nightly basis. "Now Ezekiel, what do we say when someone offers us food that isn’t green and organic?"

"I don’t eat that kind of food."

"Now Ezekiel, what do we say when someone insinuates that free markets and unbridled capitalism is the best avenue for freedom and individual rights?"

"You’re a fascist!"

One of the many things that makes this country the greatest on Earth, and the reason just about everyone else in the world wants to come here, is that fact that everyone has the right to live in any way they see fit, barring minimal restrictions involving property damage and public decency laws. By extension, you also have the right to raise your children in any way you see fit, barring child welfare/ endangerment statutes (or as I like to call them, the "Leonard Maltin laws). If, by some strange and cruel sociological experiment, I wished to raise my son to believe that he’s the bastard child of Jesus Christ, Garth Brooks, and a cheddar cheese log with almonds, that’s my right to do so, as long as I feed the little bugger and clean out his litter box every now and again.

The downside to this virtually inexhaustible loveable fuzzball of freedom is that, yes, in fact, everyone gets to raise their children anyway they see fit. Ezekiel’s parents have decided to shield their child from the joys of empty calories, and we can presume, Saturday morning cartoons, which no matter how bad they are these days, is tantamount to child abuse. This is, however, their right. Take for example, the dynamic and inimitable musical powerhouse known as Prussian Blue.




Prussian Blue consists of sisters Lamb and Lynx Gaede, from Central Valley, CA. They write catchy tunes, are said to have angelic voices, and are described by their manager (their mother) as "White Nationalists." In case you haven’t gotten the memo: Intelligent Design = Creationism, White Nationalism = White Supremacism.

An excerpt from PrussianBlue.com: (grammar has been unaltered)

"Recently they received international media attention because Prussian Blue is a White Pride band. The songs they the girls sing reflect their White Nationalist beliefs. Today, if you are White ,and proud to be White , it is considered Politically Incorrect by the media. The music that Prussian Blue performs is intended for White people. They hope to help fellow Whites come to understand that love for one’s race is a beautiful gift that we should celebrate."

One point of contention: these girls did not receive "international media attention" because they’re white supremacists. They received "international media attention" because they’re cute, thirteen-year-old-girl white supremacists.

One must, of course, question the origin of these beliefs. Are we to presume they sprung from the womb with the "beautiful gift" of "love for one’s race?" Of course not, just watch five minutes of video of the girls’ mother and you couldn’t pity these sweet darlings more if she was wearing a cucumber mask with metal coat hanger in one hand and a scotch in the other.



I find it particularly amusing that the fans of Prussian Blue denounce claims that they’re racists, when manifestos like "Defensive Racism" and "Dissecting the Holocaust" are proudly promoted on their website. Oh, yeah, and the Hitler t-shirts don’t help, either.



A debate that’s been raging since time immemorial is the question of nature vs. nurture. Is Arland gay because of his genes, or because he was raised with three sisters? Did Yanni hit his girlfriend because he’s "programmed" that way, or because he was hit when he was a child? Does Linsday Lohan not respond to my letters and telephone calls because she’s a lesbian? There’s a very good chance that we may never receive satisfactory answers to these questions.

My boss is a CASA here in Portland. As a Court-Appointed Special Advocate, he is injected into the lives of troubled families to make common-sense suggestions regarding the welfare of the children. Over the course of the last few years he’s been involved, he’s seen some fucked up shit. The other day, while detailing his newest case file involving a horribly abusive, pathetic excuse for a man, he mentioned that the man’s parents had been overly protective and routinely dismissive of his abusive behavior, making it easier for him, as an adult, to use violence to exact control over his wife and children.

My problem with this analysis I this: Who gives a fuck?

The debate of nature vs. nurture doesn’t even enter into this conversation. It doesn’t matter if his daddy touched him or if he was born that way, any man pathetic enough to physically and emotionally abuse his wife and children the way this man has, deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Case closed.

We can talk about genetic vs. environment until we’re blue in the face, but one thing we have to be very careful to avoid is the common pitfall of moral equivelancy. Hitting your children is wrong, and is against the law, and there is simply no justification for that type of abuse. It may be helpful in the long run to determine why he hits his kids with extension cords, but no amount of reasoning can change the facts of what he did. A half-assed reason like a history of negligence in his own childhood is no excuse and should not be viewed as one.

The fact of the matter is that we, as citizens of the greatest representative republic in the world, have the right to raise our children in virtually any way we see fit, the same way our parents had the right to raise us in any way they saw fit. Granted, some people do better jobs than others, but regardless of how it went, there comes a time when you, as an adult, have to assume respobsibility for your actions and your behavior. You can’t beat your wife just because Uncle Joey touched you in the back of his Buick back in 1958, it doesn’t fucking matter, and no amount of limp-wristed psychobabble can make it matter, at least not to this guy's wife and kids.

At thirteen years old, those poor little Gaede girls can’t be held responsible for being held hostage by their parents’ twisted views of the world. There will come a time, however, when they will be responsible for what they do with their talents, and what they choose to offer the world.

Lamb, Lynx, if you happen to be reading this, "Defensive Racism" is not the way to make your mark.

Little Ezekiel came to class recently and all his hair had been shaved off. Not only did I notice he was having more fun, he was talking more and running around like a five-year-old supposed to. I mentioned that I liked his new haircut and he looked at me and said, "I was tired of everybody thinking I was a girl."

Ezekiel: 1
Hippy Parents: 0

Update on the End of the World

Taken from Eric Julien's website:

UPDATE MAY 27, 2006: A clue to the timing of the anticipated event

Many people undoubtedly think that the announced event has fizzled and may be readjusting their outlook on life and returning their lives to normal.

I have trouble doing that when I think of all the dreams and other signs which I have witnessed that point to this event. What would otherwise be the purpose of all these warnings? (emphasis added -ed.) I know the window cannot be extended indefinitely into the future. Two of the people whom I have seen moved out of harm’s way under the pretext of a social gathering are to return home Sunday night. So I would expect Sunday to be the last possible day.

Today I made a review of all my own dreams about the event, using a chronicle written exactly three weeks ago, which has now been on the English website for two and a half weeks, to see whether there was any pattern that could be discerned.

All my dreams about this event happened on a Sunday.

Sunday Jan 18, 2004: I see planes falling from the sky and cry out to God in anguish “Do we really need to go through this?” (123)

Sunday Jan 25, 2004: The race to the closing gate dream. Also most likely date for my vision of the Texas coast red-lined to indicate danger, in direct answer to a question in prayer. (122)

Sunday Apr 04, 2004: Dream of a 500m high wave. (112)

Sunday Feb 19, 2006: Simultaneous clairvoyance and clairaudience of the words “unexpected attack” in answer to a question about what the event would be. (14)

Sunday Apr 30, 2006: Dream confirming that Eric Julien’s message, discovered the day before, would be fulfilled on the same day that it was predicted. I dreamt this on the last Sunday of the month, and tomorrow is the last Sunday of the month. Another way to look at this is that a day represents an entire month. (4)

The number in parentheses represents the number of weeks remaining before Sunday, May 28, 2006. Numbers 123, 14 and 4 are particularly interesting. Note that May 28th is the first day following 21 full weeks in 2006. (okay, seriously, what the fuck is this guy talking about? -ed.)

For more details on the dreams involved, see article below entitled "Why I think there is something to Eric Julien and his message".

(okay, seriously, you have GOT to read this article, I laughed until I puked. My favorite part is when the author cites his friend's dream about buying a new car and then just heaps it on the nonsense pile of "dream evidence" that the end is nigh. -ed.)

Note that Eric Julien received the date of May 25th in meditation two days shy of the seven week mark, which was on April 9th, 2006. (?!?!?!?!?! -ed.)

"Assuming the chain of events is completed on the 28th, I suspect that there is additional significance at various levels in the disjunct between the two dates. Several of the dreams in my account occurred on the 25th of the month, and that number also seems significant. It is possible that the comet has already struck -- Eric Julien saw it slice through the atmosphere, the ocean and the lithosphere without there being any conflagration. His original vision did not involve an immediate sequential link between the fragment and the wave; the comet was rather given subsequently as a cause of the event. I could imagine that ET's using comet fragments as weapons might have ways to send these directly through a medium such as water."

-Craig Boswell, Asshole (title added -ed.)

The End Is Near (The 711 On Powell Blvd. Near The Seafood Market )

Folks, I've got some bad news. No, Prince hasn't mentioned anything to the press about what hapenned between you two last weekend, It's much worse that that. In case you didn't know it, today is the last day in the world.

Today, March 25, 2006, is the last day of our collective lives.

Former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, Eric Julien, several years ago completed a study of the comet “73P Schwassmann-Wachmann” and warned us that a fragment of this "perambulating ice-ball" is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around Thursday, May 25, 2006. The cpmet, discovered by Arnold Schwassermann and Arno Arthur Wachmann in 1930, has an orbital period of just less than 5.3 years and comes nearest to the Earth every 16 years.

It has followed this five-year orbit intact for centuries, but in 1995, it mysteriously fragmented. Sure, you might say, that happens all the time, right? Yes it does, but Mr. Julien reeeeeally wants us to worry about it. He says that some fragments are too small to observe (duh. -ed.) but while astronomers have predicted possible meteor showers as some cometary debris enters the atmosphere, they tell us that the comet poses no direct threat.

Mr. Julien, however, has real evidence for his Doomsday scenario. He chooses not to rely only on paltry facts and figures, and statistics for his conclusions, he has employed the latest, greatest, and most advanced technology availbale to mankind.

This very year, a “crop circle” appeared showing the inner Solar System with the Earth missing from its orbit, he concludes that this was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies, all of this tied in to the Bush administration's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences, blah blah blah addicted to oil blah blah blah 2/3 of the world's resources blah blah Kyoto treaty blah blah blah.

According to Mr. Julien, “We have to save lives when we have such information to share with the public."

The question you must ask yourself is, when have the crop circles ever been wrong?

Mr. Julien assures us that the comet-fragments will fall into the Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, though he says that will generate 700-foot waves, so let's not start craking open the cold ones just yet. He tells us that "each person with this information has to take responsibility to warn potential victims."

Check out his article "May 25, 2006: The Day of Destiny"

Doomsayers have been around for as long as man himself, and, much like virtually every other form of hoo-ha and codswallop that people constantly fall for, they have always employed the same basic tactic: predict something catastrophically horrific that will more than likley claim millions of lives, or perhaps all of them, a reeeeally long time in the future to scare the pants off people and get the to buy your books on how to stop it. Then, assuming your even alive by the time this date rolls around, make sure to have dropped the subject and moved onto something even more catastrophic and horrible, so its not a big let down when you refuse to aswer inane questions from your detractors like, "what the fuck were you thinking?" and "can I have my eight dollars back?"

I can't decide if I feel pity for this poor French sap because he missed Successful Doomsaying for Fun and Profit 101, or if I feel slightly more respect for this guy than all the other toe-heads because even on this very day (according to him 48 window of possibility) he's still sticking to his guns

Nope, still pity.

Chuck Norris is Allergic to Doorknobs

The following list, or numerous incarnations thereof, have been circulating around the Internet for years. The other night, my good pal Luke mentioned one of the items from this list and I was reminded how much I enjoyed it the first time I'd read it. He hadn't actually ever seen the list, so I was emailing it to him, when I thought I should just post it in case any of my seven regular readers hadn't seen it. (Thanks for the cookies, Mom. - Ed.)

When searching for the list I'd read lo so many years ago, I stumbled upon numerous versions. I took three of them, pasted them together, and deleted some of the not-so-funny facts and ones that contained words like "ninja-kick" and "beard-a-licious."

After all, I have standards in this forum.

Little Known Facts About Chuck Norris:

Chuck Norris does not require oxygen to live, oxygen requires Chuck Norris.

Achilles was supposedly the greatest warrior of all time, but he died because of his weak spot, his Achilles heel. There is no Chuck Norris heel.

Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes fucking the waitress.

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

They once made Chuck Norris toilet paper, but it wouldn't take shit from anybody.

As a teenager, Chuck Norris impregnated every nun in a convent tucked away in the hills of Tuscany. Nine months later the nuns gave birth to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only undefeated team in professional football history.

Chuck Norris has already been to Mars, that's why there are no signs of life there.

Chuck Norris has counted to infinity - twice.

Outer Space exists because it is afraid to be on the same planet as Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse, horses are hung like Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Chuck Norris is not afraid of the dark, but the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris likes to knit sweaters in his free time. And by "knit", I mean "kick", and by "sweaters", I mean "people in the face".

Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a fucking Indian.

Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake ever made by a human being.

Chuck Norris died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer, too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris doesn't go hunting because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.



Chuck Norris is allergic to doorknobs, that's why he always kicks doors down.

To prove it isn't a big deal to beat cancer, Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer, only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't have any hair on his balls because hair doesn't grow on steel.

Chuck Norris has to maintain concealed weapons licenses in all 50 states so he can legally wear pants.

It is impossible to be raped by Chuck Norris because that would mean you didn't want it to happen.

Chuck Norris is allowed to talk about Fight Club.

Chuck Norris only has one hand: the upper hand.

Chuck Norris always clogs the toilet. Even when he pisses.

Similar to a Russian nesting doll, if you were to break open Chuck Norris, inside you would find another Chuck Norris, only smaller and angrier.

Chuck Norris doesn't use pick-up lines. He just says, "Now."

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.

A handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually a warning that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris's fist.

Chuck Norris does not teabag the ladies. He potato-sacks them.

Filming on location for Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris brought a stillborn baby lamb back to life by giving it a prolonged beard rub. Shortly after the farm animal sprang back to life , Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the animal, killing it instantly. This was to remind the crew that Chuck giveth, and the good Chuck, he taketh away.

A recent poll discovered 93% of women think about Chuck Norris during sex. A similar poll revealed that, during sex, Chuck Norris thinks about Chuck Norris 100% of the time.

Chuck Norris thought about submitting more facts about himself to this website, but he doesn't believe in any form of submission.


Mr. Norris, a great sport, has posted a short response to these lists. Check it out here.

Cabbage Is Next To Godliness

Speaking to a vegan a few years ago, I asked flatly, why? She told me that she liked the way the shoes looked with the skirt. I asked again, but specified that I wanted to know why she chose to live a life absent of cheese and worcestershire sauce. She told me that, while health was certainly a component, the primary reason was that she was unwilling to support an industry that was cruel to animals, and impacted the planet in such a profoundly negative way.

The litany of complaints about the meat industry being touted by people in this group range from animal cruelty (eating them is cruel, right?) to the environmental impact on the vast areas of land required to grow the corn and grain that are needed to feed these animals, to the contamination of the earth where these animals are raised. They march and they protest, they cover themselves with red paint and stick “meat is murder” stickers on the backs of their mid-80’s Volvos and Subarus (all the while sneering at the “abortion is murder” on the family sedan in the next lane).

Lately, it would seem that the anti-meat industry has gotten pragmatic, if such a word can be applied to people that equate chicken yards to concentration camps. They seemed to realize a long time ago that trying to get people to stop eating meat “just because” wasn’t going to work. The goal now, is to hilight the evils of the industry that provides this meat, its cruelty and its souring effect on our oh-so-fragile ecology. It would seem, even, that the soy-dog-eating masses have all but left the “inhierent cruelty of meat” argument by the wayside for another argument they feel has a chance of “playing in Peoria.” One might even say, they may have put all their eggs in one basket.



What would happen if that basket was gone? Instead of harvesting meat from the corpse of an animal, what if we could grow meat, like broccoli? What if the environmental impact of meat production dropped to zero, animals were no longer “born just to die,” and a delicious rib-eye could be made to have all the nutritional value of a bunch of spinach, a bag of sweet potatoes and a watermelon all in one.

What if?

The obvious answer is that they wouldn’t care. When one part of their argument fell apart, they’d just fill it one with a new one. They would protest, in typical Luddite fashion, that this new meat was unnatural (even though they claim that eating meat itself is unnatural) and dangerous (like feeding starving Africans) and then they’d just descend into aimless ranting about all the wrongs and injustice they see in the world and blah blah blah George Bush blah blah blah organic blueberries blah blah blah healthcare for everyone blah blah blah oh sure I’ll give you a ride home, my BMW is parked over there, yeah it’s the one with the dancing bear sticker over the Tookie Williams for President sticker blah blah blah.

While I will always respect anyone’s right to eat whatever the hell they want, I find “eating as protest” about as is idiotic and vacuous as “back window of Subaru as protest.” People become vegetarian or, god help us, vegans for various reason. Some for health reasons, some commit to a life that doesn’t exploit animals for food, and some suffer from dangerous, brain eating viruses. In any case, what you put in your mouth is entirely your business, but things are never that simple.

Saying, “what you put into your mouth is your business,” is like saying, “what you like to do on Sunday mornings is your business.” While both statements are true, both betray a naïve delusion that all our lives are lived privately and what we do privately doesn’t bother anyone else.

The unavoidable equation: Food-Nazis = Jesus-Freaks.



August 2nd, 2005
Salt Lake City, Utah.
Demonstrators from organizations like PETA and the ALF (but they’re not related, not at all. Nope. Not one bit) performed “direct action” (read: chanted like crazed, meat-starved orangutans) to protest the treatment of chickens by fast-food giant KFC.

Net result: Busiest day that KFC location has seen in months.

Best line from the article: “I think there’s a place in this world for all God’s creatures, right next to the mashed potatoes.”

March 22, 2005
Washington, D.C.

Christians protest the film "Kinsey" as a "Hollywood whitewash of the man they hold largely responsible for the sexual revolution and a panoply of related ills, from high divorce rates to AIDS and child abuse."

Net Result: While I would love to say that the Christians protesting “Kinsey” made this film a hit, that would be far from the truth. The movie simply wasn’t that good. On the other hand, I guarantee about 6 of the 18 people that did see the film would not have if not for the mildly publicized discontent of some “believers.”

I’m not trying to say that everyone that protests or publicly and loudly complains about something is the same as a jesus vigilante fighting for some falsely perceived purity of culture, or some animal rights moonbat with no job. All I’m saying is that it’s high time the phalanx of morons on both sides realize that every time they speak out against something, all they’re doing is increasing awareness, and thereby increasing its sales.

There’s no such thing as bad publicity.

To be so committed to a utopian ideal that no one eats meat or no one talks about sex is idiotic, but these people will never realize it because they’re crazy, and they’re so committed and blinded by some bizarre ideal that they believe that anyone that doesn’t see things their way is simply not able to see the big picture.

Ladies and gentelman, the big picture is of a fat guy eating an eight piece bucket with extra skin and an extra large mashed potatoes while watching porn on his 52” plasma screen. Anyone that doesn’t see this is simply fooling themselves into thinking that they’re fighting war they can win. This is a cultural war, and the culture of porn and fried chicken will always win, because it's more fun than drum circles and prayer sessions.



It’s like the creationists. How can they think they’re going to win? While recently they’ve attempted to swathe their god-based creation idea in the blanket of pseudoscience, anyone with enough vitamin D can see that intelligent design (ID) is the same fucking thing. They have a pre-conceived notion, and are attempting to make the peg of all past scientific research fit into the limited confinces of ID’s poorly misshapen hole. The problem is that while ID freaks attempt to rewrite history to fit their thinly veiled ideas, science is still moving forward at an exponential rate, uncovering new evidence, and making new ideas, that are every day forming a more complete picture of the evolution of our species. Science is always moving forward, while ID has, since its inception, been backward looking. They can never possibly catch up, so what can they hope to accomplish?

Back on point, I'd merely like say, that you go ahead and eat whatever you wanna eat. Go ahead and do whatever you want with your Sunday morning. All I gotta say is that Schumacher Furs is doing better business than they have in 30 years, and I'm sure the weekly protests , and inevitable media blitz over those protests, have had nothing to do with it. Fucking morons.

Spy of the Century

When you meet new people, the invariable addition into the first round of questions is “What do you do?” I've always hated that question because I always hated being defined by “what I did.” Just because you meet some guy at a party who says he’s a chef, do you automatically assume he’s a good chef? No, chances are much higher that he sucks, otherwise why would be at the same crappy party you got invited to, right? If some gal says she’s a “Municipal Engineer,” in such a manner that is sounds capitalized, do you dare ask what exactly that means, or just continue to stare blankly at her chest and hope she walks away.

All this time I’ve had to say stuff like “I work in a café” or “I’m in data-entry” and received the appropriate scowls of derision from the chefs, Engineers and professional dog-walkers in the room as they eat the dip that I made and talk amongst themselves about how good it is.

For those of you that don’t know, I am currently employed as an adjuster. For those of you who don’t know what an adjuster is, FreshPair.com defines it as “Fine metal or plastic hardware found on garment straps that slide up and down to allow strap adjustments.” Fortunately, the Oregon Board of Insurance, a much more reliable source of information, defines an adjuster as “A person who may act either on behalf of the insurance company or the insured in settling a claim. Employee adjusters work for an insurer; independent adjusters represent the insurance company on a fee basis; and public adjusters represent the insured on a fee basis.”

For clarification, I’m an independent adjuster.

Now when I meet people at parties, I get to sit at the adult table and say, “I’m an adjuster!” The people in the room all look at me because no one asked me anything. They then invariably ask, “What’s an adjuster?” In short order, it became easier to title myself with the better-known, but smaller portion, of my job duties: Investigator.



As an adjuster, I investigate insurance claims of all kinds, from car accidents to leaky pipes, to make sure all parties are fairly treated and appropriately compensated. These duties sometimes extend into the field of workers compensation insurance, in which the insurance company might feel that a claim is fraudulent, in which they might hire us to perform surveillance on a subject to determine if they really are missing a leg, or something like that.

The first time I went on a surveillance assignment, I sat in the back of a tinted minivan with a camcorder for four hours before I concluded that the guy wasn’t home.

I had my second assignment today.

Dan, the senior investigator, and I arrived at the subject’s house at 7 a.m. I parked across the street from his house and Dan parked a block away, prepared to tail him in the event he drove off. I set up my camera, pinned some blankets to one side of the interior of the van (to make it even harder to see into the van through the already heavily tinted windows) and waited for him to come out and start doing cartwheels or chopping firewood or something.

I had received some cursory training from my boss before I went out on this assignment. My boss, a 16-year veteran of this business, showed me the tricks of keeping light out of the van, keeping a blanket handy to hide under in case anyone got really suspicious, to notify the Police of where I was in case anyone called them, that kind of stuff. The basic lesson is: Most people don’t give a shit. Unless you give someone a reason to be suspicious, they won’t give a strange vehicle in their neighborhood a second glance.

It was 7:15 a.m., and I see a woman walking by on the sidewalk across the street (not our subject) obviously on a morning stroll (and believe me, she needed it). She stopped in front of the van. “Oh shit,” I said and ducked under the blanket. I looked up a minute later, and she was gone. Ten minutes later, two more women, pretending to exercise while they drank coffee and smoked, also stopped and examined the van very intently. I was beginning to think this was unusual, not just because I had never seen this before (on the one time I’d been out before) but because this was not supposed to be happening. No one was supposed to care.

I double-checked everything, the lights were off, the blankets were covering adequately, I was behind the seat, and I was downright difficult to see. Everything seemed in order. It was 7:35 a.m.

Then they converged.



I knew I was in trouble when I saw a guy pop up next to the van and cup his hands around his eyes to see through the tinting, and then another guy popped up on the other side. I hadn’t seen them coming so they must have sneaked up on the van. I hear someone say, “It’s too dark.” Oh shit, I thought, and dived under the blanket. That’s when I saw a flashlight beam. “A camera’s rolling, but there’s no one in there.” I heard someone say in an angry and distinctly Deliverance tone. Oh fuck, I thought, this was not supposed to happen, I did everything right! What the fuck am I going to do?!

Then a kid, not more than seventeen, jumps on the hood and peers directly into the van through the crystal clear and untinted windshield. “Thar’s somebawdy in thar!” he shouted, pounding on the windshield.

Shit. Think. Shit. Think. Shit. Think.

Taps and knocks were coming on the windows, taunts like “Come on out, pussy!” and “what the fuck do you think you’re doing in front of my house?!” were being spoken only feet from where I was laying. It was then that I realized how stupid I looked. Here I was, a full grown man hiding under a blanket in the back of a mini-van while being taunted by a posse as they circled my vehicle like a scene out of West Side Story.

I sat up, and grabbed my phone to call Dan. I had dialed the first few numbers when I felt a bump that shook the van. The kid had backed his Honda in front of my van and actually touched it, to prevent me from driving away. I got Dan on the line and apprised him of the situation, he said he’d drive over and we’d caravan out. It was then that I noticed that I was surrounded by no less than eight people, including some fat fucker with no shirt, an even fatter bitch with crazy bloodshot eyes and a skinny white freak with a baseball bat. The taunts continued.



Dan arrived and I slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The kid sat on the hood of the van and Jabba the Shirtless demanded that I roll down the window and answer his questions. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks. “Sir, we’re performing an investigation into possible criminal activity.” I said. “I’m calling the police,” he says and opens his tiny flip phone, which was dwarfed by his giant sausage-fingers (I could actually smell him at this point). By the time Dan got there, the crowd has swelled to no less than twelve people. The fat bitch with the crazy eyes and the mullet starts screaming at me, “What are you fucking casing my house? You gonna fucking rob me?!”

I bit my lip. Believe me lady, you don’t have anything I could possibly want.

“Ma’am, I assure you were not doing anything of the kind. We’re investigators, feel free to call the police, they are well aware of our presence.” Dan chimed in, looking a little freaked out by all this. “Would you mind getting off the hood of the car, please?” I politely asked the kid. “Why don’t you make me?” he responded in a perfect I-used-to-say-that-a-lot-in-eight-grade-and-everyone-was-really-scared sort of way. He followed it with a menacing by-the-way-I-never-finished-eighth-grade type of stare.

I put the van in drive with a dramatic clunk.

Jabba the Shirtless told the kid to get off the van, and I backed up to get around the douche bag’s Honda. Dan made his way to his car, and I idled out of the space as the crowd dispersed to let me pass. “You stay out of our fucking neighborhood, you motherfuckers!!” the crazy-eyed mullet bitch screamed as loud as her meth-soaked lungs would allow, throwing up a middle finger for good measure. As we drove away, I saw other similar gestures come from equally educated and well-mannered folk, as they began to crawl back to the rocks under which they lived.

About three blocks away, I pulled up next to Dan and rolled down my window. “Has anything like that ever happened to you before?” I asked. “Not in four years.” He said.

When we got back to the office, my boss called the insurance company that hired us. “Yeah, that happened to the last gal we sent out,” said the examiner. “Not so many people showed up, but she got some choice words thrown at her. I should have mentioned that the whole neighborhood is pretty paranoid.”

The best part is though, that since the whole neighborhood is so fucking paranoid, they all think they were begin surveilled, not just our subject. We got permission to take it up a notch and get a third investigator on the job. We’re taking this fucker down.

How’s that for a story to tell at a cocktail party?

An Update

The Mystery of the Microwaved Penis (TM) has been solved.

I can only hope this will help those of you most affected by this story sleep more soundly. I know I will.

A Call to Action

"Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future - not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made."
-- Kevin Carr, 7M PICTURES

Last night, I went to an Oscar party. I know, I couldn’t quite believe it myself, but I really didn’t have a legitimate excuse not to attend, and there was supposed to be sushi. So, grabbed a bottle of wine, a bottle of sake, and a bottle of scotch and made my way to Penny’s house to watch a group of overpaid, under-talented hacks swish around in $180,000 dresses and tuxedos and give each other accolades as if the services they offer to the world really matter one tiny little bit. It was disguisting, and I grew more nauseous with each montage. Being as there was a montage about every three minutes, it wasn’t long before I had to leave the room. But I was torn.



I had the choice of staying the room with John Stewart desparately trying to make a career out of deadpan humor, or go into the kitchen and listen to pretentious wine girl. (Sorry Arland, I thought she was nice, and I respect the fact that it’s difficult to disconnect oneself from what you do, but she came off as a pretentious wine ass.) Do I go back to the living room and watch another montage, and then listen to John Stewart make another joke about another montage, or do I go into the kitchen and listen to ostentatious wine lady talk about wine that smells like airplane glue?

I went to the backyard.

"Wimmer [director of Ultraviolet] is so brazen that he doesn't even bother to pretend that there's an original concept here: all his ideas are borrowed from other movies that borrowed from other movies that borrowed from The Matrix, and he doesn't care who knows it."
-- MaryAnn Johanson, FLICK FILOSOPHER

There was a time when I really enjoyed the Oscars, although I really couldn’t tell you why. The pomp of the awards has always been a standard, but for some reason, there was a time when it did not affect me so much. I still remember the last Oscars ceremony I watched on purpose, in its entirety. The year was 1994, and there was no question in my mind that Shawshank Redemption would walk away with the best picture prize and Morgan Freeman would win best actor for his role in the film. But when the Hollywood Hogwash ™ that was Forrest Gump was handed those coveted trophies, I was heartbroken.

"The bad guys [in Ultraviolet] stride through spotless corridors in buildings where weirdly calm disembodied female voices say things like "Switching to emergency backup lighting system." If only I could have found the button for the emergency back-up better movie system."
-- Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM AT YAHOO! MOVIES

Well into the ceremonies, having successfully avoided them for several hours, the sushi finally arrived. Arland and I realized that there was probably not enough to feed all of us, so Arland has the bright idea of going down the street to the sports bar and getting some nachos. If you’ve never had the nachos from The Scoreboard, you have not tasted nachos. Needless to say, the plan was a go.

We trekked down the street the couple of blocks to the bar, all the while complaining about the tripe that’s been spewing from Tinseltown for the last ten years, and me promulgating my own theory that Hollywood has officially run out of ideas.



The anxiety of it all was just beginning to wash away, like the mud off Andy Dufresne’s body when he finally escapes Shawshank, and then we entered the bar. Seventeen televisions, three of which were over 47 inches, staring me down with images of this crowd of self-important miscreants clapping for the winner for Best Picture, Crash.

My friend Arland went into a bit of a fit, being as Crash was the only one of the nominated movies he’d actually seen, a film which he described as, “craaaaaaaaaaap-uh.” The guy sitting at the bar next to turned and said, “I never saw that movie. I didn’t think it looked very good. I thought it was, like, an action movie like that movie with the bus.”

“Speed?” I asked.

“Yeah, dass right. Man that was an awesome movie.” He replied.

It was then that I told Arland that I was looking forward to the news reports on Monday morning, the same reports we’ve seen every Monday morning following the Oscars since 1998, that once again, the rating are down. I always found it so amusing that each year, the Oscars got longer, and fewer people watched them.

This year was only a slight exception: They weren’t much longer, but fewer people than ever tuned in.

"The violence [in Ultraviolet] is presented in such a childish fashion, that it has all the impact of a Pokemon battle."
-- Joshua Tyler, CINEMABLEND.COM

Okay, so it’s time to get real.

Kyle Smith wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Real History of the Olympics, and Why They Should Come to an End." In the article, Smith makes the point that the modern Olympic games were originally and specifically intended to prevent armed conflict in the world, allowing nations to meet their best against the best of their rivals. This, of course, is complete bullshit, as the Olympics has done nothing to limit armed conflict, and in fact has only provided another forum for national rivalries to be agitated.



Smith states that the Olympic games are, at best, zero-sum, filled with scandal, intimidation and poor sportsmanship from front to back. To make matters worse, the television ratings for Olympic events has dropped each and every year for the last sixteen. His solution: cancel the games. They do more to promote national rivalries than quell them, and nobody watches them anyway. And seriously, does anyone really think curling is an Olympic sport?

I would like to take this idea even further, a task with which I feel entirely comfortable because Kyle Smith, the author of the above-mentioned article, is actually a movie critic for the New York Post. The ceremonies are rife with corruption, nepotism, negativity, childish rivalry and misguided political and social activism. No one watches anymore, and no one cares. In order to promote a more harmonious movie-going public, I implore you, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, please cancel the Oscars.

"[Ultraviolet is] an unholy combination of comic book and video game,...so awful that you'd swear it had been directed by Uwe Boll."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION

Also, in a related action, if you would like to sign the petition to ask Uwe Boll to never direct another film ever again, please do so here.

Shocking Human Behavior: Incident #34,855,548,425,967

Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, February 24, 2006

A clerk at a GetGo station made a horrifying discovery last night after a man walked into the minimart and asked her to heat something wrapped in a paper towel in the store's microwave.

When the item in the microwave gave off an unusual odor, the clerk opened the over door, unwrapped the paper and found what appeared to be a severed human penis, according to KDKA-TV.

The clerk immediately called police, but the man who handed the item to the clerk fled from the store on Fifth Avenue, KDKA reported.

McKeesport police declined comment last night.

Several questions lay heavy on my mind:

1. What....the....fuck.

2. What kind of irresponsible news organization would print such a gruesome story without a shred of substantiation? (I refer you to the word “appeared.” For all we know, this thing could be a pickled pig’s foot, or worse, Dennis Kucinich.)



3. What...the...holy flippin’ fuck.

4. Do people routinely waltz into convenience stores with random things wrapped in paper towels and request that they be microwaved?

5. Are these mysterious items often placed in a microwave by the store staff without even a cursory examination? If so, why don’t we see more stories about squirrels being microwaved?

6. If it truly was a severed penis, wouldn’t there have been blood on the paper towel? (this, of course, lends credence to the pickled pig’s foot/ Dennis Kucinich theory)

7. Okay...seriously...what the fuck?

What I find even more shocking is that I’m even shocked anymore.

Do It Yourself, and Be Ridiculed

I work in a really small office, only four other people, and because of the nature of what we do, two or three of us could be out at any given time. We’re all friends, and our familiarity routinely leads to us wasting time chatting about movies, current events and breakfast cereals.

There’s only one girl in the office, she’s our Administrative Professional (read: secretary) and her name is Jessica. Jessica was telling us about her new boyfriend the other day. His name is Perry. Perry is twenty-four years old, is a graduate of the Computer Science Department of Wesleyan, and currently is the manager of a bike shop here in Portland.

Also, he roasts his own coffee.

“He does what?” you probably just asked.

He roasts his own coffee. He orders raw, green coffee from suppliers in South America and Asia, and roasts these beans at home in his electric table-top roaster. He keeps recipes, additives and roast times in a notebook and apparently takes great pride in this hobby.

I imagine my response to this statement was the same as yours would have been. “Is this guy some kind of an asshole?” I asked, genuinely interested. “You know, I’ve never really liked you,” Jessica responded.



I found myself in a bit of a pickle, and I would hoping one of my seven readers could help out. I know full well that roasting your own coffee is weird, but I can’t put my finger directly on why.

I’ve made beer before, and frankly, when someone tells me they make beer, I feel an instant fraternity with that person. I also make jam, I pickle vegetables, my wife makes soap and candles, why is coffee so weird?

Here’s the conclusion I came to: When I make beer, or jam, or whatever, I usually pick or grow as many of the ingredients as I can, or in the case of beer-making, I obtain the ingredients from a nearby brew shop. Coffee beans can only be grown in a few, select regions of the world, and you can’t exactly buy green coffee beans from the 7-11. It has to be something about the amount of effort this guy has to put into it that makes this weird.

I mean, it would be weird if I made my own cheese, right? I’m sure it would be cheaper in the long run, because I really love cheese, but would it be worth the stigma of being “that cheese guy?” Would it be worth building a tiny cheese factory in my backyard. Would I milk my own cows? The fact of the matter is that cheese, like coffee, is extraordinarily popular throughout the whole world. Coffee, either the beverage or the beans, can be obtained virtually anywhere, especially here in Portland. 7-11, Plaid Pantry, Starbucks, Stumptown, and every grocery store, restaurant, and street side booth in the industrialized world serves coffee in one form or another. Not even cheese is that universally available.

Am I wrong? Is it not weird to roast your own coffee? Would it be weird to make your own cheese?

When Jesscia told us about Perry’s strange hobbies, I made a comparison that I realize now was not entirely fair. I told her roasting your own coffee was like fermenting your own mead, it’s just plain weird. I understand that was not entirely appropriate, because someone who drinks mead is weird, let alone someone who drinks so much he might see an economic benefit to fermenting his own. Roasting your own coffee, in my opinion, is like making your own tortilla chips. Sure, they probably taste better, and if you ate a shit load of tortilla chips, then it would probably be cheaper in the long run. But tortilla chips, in all different varieties of flavor, shape and thickness, can be purchased a minimal cost all over town. Regardless of the taste and economic advantages, it’s just weird. Just go buy a damned bag of chips!

So, what do you guys think?

Karate is Stupid

As I'm sure most of you know, Canada's Constitution does no include an equivalent to our First Amendment right to free speech. As a result, the government routinely silences the media for the "common good," but more often than not, in true Canadian fashion, they'll simply politely ask the news outlets not to report some big story for one reason or another. The most famous incident was several years ago when a serial rapist/ murderer was prowling the rural highways of western Canada. The government simply asked the news outlets not to tell anyone about it, for fear of causing a nationwide panic.

Of course, for us in America, that's just par for the course on Tuesday's edition of "Good Morning America."

I hate censorship in all its forms, and like most truly egregious crimes, true censorship can only really be perpetrated by a government body. But why, oh why doesn't the Canadian government start censoring stuff like this, just so I don't have to waste precious moments of my day reading, then whining about it:

Karate experts hired to control marauding parrots in New Zealand

Organizers of a vintage car rally in New Zealand have hired karate experts to protect vehicles from marauding native parrots, a news report said Friday.

About 40 members of a karate club have been enlisted to protect some 140 classic cars due to visit an alpine village near Mount Cook on New Zealand's South Island on Sunday, the New Zealand Press Association reported.

The karate experts will protect the cars from Keas, sharp-beaked native parrots which have been known to damage vehicles in their search for shiny items, NZPA said.

Denis Callesen, manager of the nearby Hermitage Hotel, said bird lovers needn't be concerned the karate experts would use martial arts moves on the parrots, which are a protected species. Their job would simply be to scare the birds away, he said.

Local wildlife ranger Ray Bellringer said the karate masters are unlikely to deter the Keas.

"They will fly around and laugh," he said.

The question is begged: If bird-lovers needn't worry about any karate moves being used on the birds, (a phrase which conjures some supremely amusing mental imagery... like Jet Li kicking a duck in the face), why the hell did they hire a bunch of "karate experts" to do the job? And if they can't use their supremely gay karate moves, what exactly are they supposed to do to scare away the birds?

I'm picturing 40 beefy guys with white karate outfits on, blacks belt tied around their waists and rising sun bandanas around their heads, going "keeyah!" over and over again while chasing a flock of sharp-beaked birds around, swinging those colorful foam noodle things that are so fun in the pool.

Karate guys are so gay.

So Close, Yet So Far Away

We’ve all imagined it. We’ve all wondered what would happen if it ever came true.

The dapper man in the shiny suit steps up to the podium, crowds of people holding signs with his name written in stark, patriotic letters with subtext like “The Choice for a Better America!” The crowd cheers, he waves them a thankful hello. The noise quiets, he turns his mouth to the hive of microphones poised near his face. “Ladies and gentlemen,” He says, “I want to promise you that as soon as I take that seat in Congress, I will immediately forget each and every one of you. I will wipe clean my memory of kissing that small child. I will intentionally forget everything I said about lowering taxes, “investing in our children” and keeping jobs in America. I will pander and bow to whatever special interests can write the largest check, I will increase the tax burden on you and your families to pay for programs no one really thinks will actually work. The media will easily pressure me into never making a firm stand on any single issue. I will authorize more spending on public education than has ever been seen in history, while the quality of that education goes down the tubes. Hell, my kids go to private school, what do I care!?”

The crowd erupts in thunderous applause.

“Furthermore,” he will continue, “I’m gonna fuck every intern that walks through he door of my office, when I’m not balling those hookers, of course.” His wife, sitting only feet away smiles and waves to the audience. He will look directly into the nearest camera, give that practiced dramatic pause and say, “Hookers that you’re gonna pay for.”



The crowd goes wild, streamers fall from the ceiling, and the national anthem begins to blare on the loudspeakers, while he places his right hand against his heart, and left hand in his pants.

What if they told us what they really stood for? What if they just came right out and said what they were really gonna do, once they got there?

We were close. We were just so very close.

Jonathan Sharkey, also known as “The Impaler” has thrown his hat, or maybe his cape, into the ring of Minnesota politics. The reason this is noteworthy is that Mr. Sharkey will be the first gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota history that, in addition to being an avid hunter, is also a vampire. The more distressing fact is that this is not the first time this has happened in the U.S., thank you very much California and Florida.

Mr. Sharkey kicked off his campaign on Friday, January 13th (of course) and will be running on the platform of “Pure Evil.” According to Mr. Sharkey, “Unlike the other candidates, I’m not going to hide my evil side.”




It’s refreshing, isn’t it?

Mr. Sharkey’s goals include legislation that will allow the public impaling of terrorists, drug dealers, rapists and other criminals, as well as an increase in veteran’s benefits. While Mr. Sharkey worships the Dark Lord Satan, Devourer of Souls, Destroyer of Light and Spoiler of Milk, he states that he has nothing against Christians. “I don’t mind Christians at all,” he explains, “But God the Father is my mortal enemy.”

When I first read this article I was ecstatic. Finally a politician I can get behind, not because I share the peculiar views of the Vampires, Witches and Pagans Party, but because he actually says what he means. He’s a freak of nature, and I probably wouldn’t be able to stand ten minutes in his company, at least he’s honest.

Or so I thought.



Mr. Sharkey is currently in custody on charges of stalking and escape. At some point during the media hullabaloo about his idiotic Vampire Governor campaign, he made the comment that he used to a professional wrestler that went by the name Rocky Flash. A grossly underpaid Sheriff’s Department dispatcher recognized the name as an alias for a man wanted in Indiana, and he was promptly arrested.

I really don’t care about the stalking and escape charges, but I could never vote for a professional wrestler.

On the Subject of Me

"I was a caesarean birth because my mother always liked that hairstyle."

Some of you know me. Some of you have never met me. Some of you who haven’t met me would like to. Many of you who have met me would like to tell those folks that would like to meet me that they shouldn’t bother. Some of you drink. Some of you don’t care. Some of you don’t drink, or care. Some of you drink, but care.

In any case, I thought with the New Year in full swing, I would take the opportunity to get a few things off my chest. Even those of you that know me (or just pretend to, in order to soak up a few fleeting moments of my perpetual spotlight) will not know some of the things I am about to reveal. I’m not proud of these facts, not am I particularly ashamed. I just thought full disclosure would be a good way to start 2006.

Please, look upon these admissions with a kind and forgiving heart, that is all that I ask.

1. I’ve never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

It would seem that in order to reach the ripe old age of 25 having never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” all the way through, you’d have to be purposely avoiding it. I assure you this is not the case. In fact, I keep meaning to watch it, on account of Jimmy Stewart being one of my favorite actors.

Of course, Luke was 23 before he saw “Jaws,” or “Rocky.” Now that’s just sad.



2. I used to think the first day of the week was called Sunday because it never rained.

On this one you’ll have to cut me some slack, I was pretty young. Also, growing up in Louisiana, we get a lot of sunny days. I just made a logical leap. Unfortunately, I made quite a fool out of myself in Sunday school when I made reference to this “fact” and its obvious connection to god’s holy day.

It was then that they told me that at seventeen years old, I no longer had a place in Sunday school.

3. I’ve always wanted to collect something.

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that collected one type of thing. Decorative spoons, Civil War memorabilia, shrunken heads, anything really, just to have that singular reputation would be so liberating. To hear people say, “Oh, Scott? Yeah, he’s that guy with all those hippopotamus figurines, remember?”

I’ve tried numerous times over the years to become a collector of one thing or another, but have always lost interest in whatever it was I had. Inevitably, I end up with two pewter dragons, three animal bone horns, one prop from the set of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” six decorative thimbles from Niagara Falls, and no interest in any of them.

All I have now is a collection of Gideon Bibles I've pilfered from hotel rooms across the country, and frankly, even I think that's wierd.

4. My dad was a wannabe sheep rustler.

Some of you may know that I grew up on a farm-type thing in rural Louisiana. Well, we had this pen (as in a fenced-in area with a gate) but frankly I don’t remember why, because it was always empty. Sometimes, as we were leaving the house, we would see a single sheep hanging out in the pen, perhaps because my lazy-ass brother never mowed in there. My dad would command one of us to run as fast as we could to try and shut the gate and trap the sheep, but he always ran away before we could.

I have no idea where this sheep came from, or even why my dad wanted it. I even asked my dad about this a few years ago, and he feigned ignorance of the whole ordeal. Apparently, he's a liar as well as a thief.

5. I used to think there was a chance I might be Jesus.

Okay, now just bear with me on this one.

I attended Catholic school all my life, and was raised in a strict, lapsed-Catholic household. As a young boy, I was introduced to the story of Jesus, and took particular interest in the stories of Jesus’ younger years. According to the Bible (or at least how I interpreted it,) Jesus didn’t know he was the son of god until he was 30, after which he began his ministry and went around telling everyone how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other (and we all know how well that turned out).

Given the non-stop Catholic-style pulpit pounding about the inevitable return of Jesus, I logically thought that maybe one of us in the room might be him and just not know it. Maybe, I thought, he could even be me, or I could be him, or whatever.

This seemed especially feasible since, as far as I was concerned, the borders of the world were West Jennings and East Lafayette, and "Jerusalem" was as fictional a place as Castle Grayskull.

6. I really like Prince.

Granted, I was a little disillusioned when I discovered that Prince was not really a prince at all, but just some guy from Minnesota, but this did not reduce my enjoyment of that nancy-boy’s frilly, limp-wristed, falsetto, pillow-biting, but ultimately enjoyable tunes one bit. Except for the “Bat-Dance,” that was just fucking gay.



I hope these admissions and revelations have provided useful insight into the puzzle that is me, the President, CEO, CFO and Head Custodial Engineer here at the OTR Institute. I further hope that my own disclosures might compel some of you to share your own troubled pasts in this public forum.

I would also like to know if anyone else thought they might have been Jesus when they were young, because if so, that would make me feel a lot better.

There's a Christmas Party in my Pants

Christmas is upon us. It’s been approaching for some time, but we’ve all tried to wish it away, plug our fingers in our ears and hum “The Monster Mash” to keep ourselves from having to deal with it, but it didn’t work. Christmas has been stalking us for months, in the form of “The Little Drummer Boy” as sung by Jewel on the local iPod shuffle station,and it’s been tracking our scent with it’s festive nose with signs that read “Chrismuss Trees 4 Sale” on 82nd Ave.

And now, it’s found us.

Christmas is upon us, indeed.

And after it’s ripped apart our flesh, swallowed our brains and chewed on our entrails, it’ll calmly stroll away, leaving bloody footprints, leaving our mangled corpse to the hungry carrion birds, content for another year.

Okay, I still haven’t got all my shopping done, I’m a little tense. Frankly, I wish I could just bypass this whole Christmas thing and get right to New Year’s Eve. Now there’s a real holiday. Why can’t there be more booze-related holidays? Trying to limit my serious bingeing to New Year’s Eve, July 4th, President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Flag Day, Boxing Day, and Isaac Aasimov’s birthday just gets harder each year.

But I digress.

The OTR Institute is here to help all those unfortunate whelps that may find themselves in the same perdicament as I with our first annual OTR Institute Gift Buying Guide. This guide will allow you to give the unique gifts that people always talk about when you’re not around. The kind of gifts that ensure it will find it’s way to the back of the closet in the bathroom, and virtually guarantee that you won’t even be invited next year, so you won’t have to worry about buying another gift! Think of the money you’ll save!

So without further ado:

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The OTR Institute 2005 Christmas Gift Guide for the Unique of Mind and Limited of Imagination:

The Electric Marshmallow Toaster ($19.99)



There are numerous products available on the internet (several of which appear on the 2005 OTR Gift Guide) that engender a response like that of our rock n’ roll “chaos theory” professor Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park. “You were all too busy trying to find if you could, you never stopped to think about whether or not your should.”

The Electric Marshmallow Toaster from Wiching Fish is a perfect example of this mentality. It would seem the creators of this fine product saw the four foot long hickory stick, used effectively to this end since the invention of the marshmallow, was seen as too cumbersome and graceless, causing them to opt for a more technologically superior solution.

Favorite quote from product description: “As seen in Wired magazine!”

The Peter Potty ($39.99)



Frankly, children scare me. The responsibility, their helplessness, their dependence on you as an adult, all of this terrifies me. Not as much, however, as their fluids. And perhaps, the only thing more fearsome than their actual fluids, are the bizarre plastic things people construct to store them: that’s right I’m talking about the potty.

The potty is a thing of the past, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce The Peter Potty!

The Peter Potty is a urinal for your young boy. Now he can go just like daddy, all over the floor!!

Favorite line from the product description: “…as parents fight against super-absorbent diapers…”

Urban Asshole Notification Cards ($7.50 for a box of 10)



Imagine that you’re walking down the sidewalk in a large, metropolitan area. You pass the exit from a parking lot, and get your ass bumped by a fuck-wad in a brand new Audi TT roadster that wasn’t even paying attention.

My pal Meghan would simply spit on the hood. If you, however, are not inclined to spit, or perhaps the dry, winter air has robbed you of that wonderful revenge juice, you would casually reach into your pocket to withdraw a piece of colorful paper, make a few scribbles with your trusty pen, and hand the driver of that car one of these.

“Congratulations, You’re an Asshole…. Let’s Discuss Why.”

Favorite line from the product description: “Assholes rarely know why they are the way they are…”

The Poops-A-Daisy ($18.95)



Do you ever read those disturbing new stories about some family’s loving cocker spaniel turning on the youngest kid for a reason no one can identify. Now we know why.

The “poopsadaisy” is like a fanny pack for your dog’s neck. What goes in the fanny pack? You guessed it, POOP!

You try and tell me that you wouldn’t snap and bite someone’s face off if they made you walk around with a bag full of your own shit tied around your neck.

Favorite line from the product description: “The Poopsadaisy’sTM patented two-pocket design will safely hold the dog's 'business'”

The MP3 Breast Implant (Price Currently Unavailable)



Admittedly, this one is still in the works, but the idea of a breast implant that plays my favorite tunes is simply too alluring. You gotta wonder if the storage capacity will be associated with the cup size…

Favorite line from the product description: “…pleasing alternative to the iPod selector wheel…”

The Dream Helmet ($29.95)



Have you ever wanted to be entirely sure that everyone on the plane you’re with thinks you’re an asshole, retard, or worse? Well, then have I got the product for you!

When a pillow or a strategically placed blanket just won’t cut it, and you’ve got thirty dollars just burning it’s way out of your pocket, you need The Dream Helmet!

The Dream Helmet is a specially designed moron-indicator and sleep aid guaranteed to provide you with the best sleep you’ve ever had on an airplane. And if you play your cards right, you may get free pudding and some flight wings form the helpful crew!

Favorite line from the product description: “The Dreamhelmet... is worth its weight in psychotropic drugs”

Poop Freeze ($8.95)



What is it about pet owners that seem to attract the most bizarre and disguisting produtcts?

You ever reached down to pick up a fresh pile of dog poop, only to have it squish in your hands like so much jello pudding?

Introducing Poop-Freeze! This patented and secret blend of aerosol, CFC’s, liquid nitrogen, herbs and spices allows you to freeze that poop, making it safe and pleasant to handle, no gloves required!

Favorite line from the product description: “a specially formulated aerosol freeze spray that, upon contact, forms a frosty film on dog poop”

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I hope this first annual OTR Institute Gift Guide had been helpful and informative. I wish you all the merriest of all possible Christmases, and the happiest of all possible New Years.

Also, if you're looking for gifts for that special prostitute in your life, may I recommend www.whorepresents.com.

And if anyone is still banging their heads about what to get for me this year, in thanks for a supendous year of editorial blitzkrieg here at the OTR Institiute, I’ve still got many empty spots on my Christmas List.

But please, no more ties.