The Awkward Toad: Natural Habitat

We Called It!

2007-03-30T16:48:00.000-04:00

If you recall, this past October, the Toad posted a random list of things we liked. The list included a CD by the Rosebuds, Season 1 of The Wire, and...

Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which we called "a masterpiece".

Well, now everyone's favorite local news anchor turned mega-billionaire, Oprah Winfrey, is jumping aboard the Toad bandwagon. This past week the O announced that The Road will be her next selection for Oprah's Book Club, assuring that the 200,000 or so people who have already read the book will be forced to listen to bored housewives and elementary school teachers prattle on about the nature of the novel's post-apocalyptic setting or how worried they were when the boy lost his father's gun.

In case you were unsure just how much clout Miss Winfrey carries in the publishing world, after her public announcement regarding The Road, Random House printed and began distributing 950,000 paperback versions of the novel. This is nearly 4 times the amount of hardcover books that were printed in response to the Toad's endorsement. 4 times!

There is also talk of a taped interview between the partner of Stedman Graham, the CEO of S. Graham and Associates (as we tend to think of Oprah) and Mr. McCarthy, despite the author's reclusion and abhorrence of the public spotlight. There is no word yet on when this interview will air. (At least we don't think there is, if someone knows will you please put it in the comments section?)

And please stay tuned for more endorsements and ideas that international celebrities can steal and profit from while we live without hot water and wait on them at Cipriani's 42nd Street.

David Icke: Was He Right? Part 1/5

2007-03-28T23:02:00.001-04:00

This is a documentary that apparently aired on Channel 5 in Britain about soccer star-turned -nutcase-turned conspiracy guru David Icke. We post these videos not because we are in agreement with David Icke or think he "was right" (we're not and we don't) but only because we think the guy is a fascinating character.

David Icke: Was He Right? Part 2/5

2007-03-28T22:59:00.001-04:00

David Icke: Was He Right? Part 3/5

2007-03-28T22:58:00.005-04:00

David Icke: Was He Right? Part 4/5

2007-03-28T22:58:00.003-04:00

David Icke: Was He Right? Part 5/5

2007-03-28T22:58:00.001-04:00

A Toad of a Different Color

2007-03-27T15:58:00.000-04:00

From The Daily Telegraph:

GIANT CANE TOAD FOUND

March 27, 2007 12:00

A CANE toad the size of a small dog has been caught by a pest eradication group in the Northern Territory.

FrogWatch, a group culling the introduced menace across the Northern Territory, has found a toad measuring 20cm in length and weighing 860gm.

Volunteers discovered the whopping hopper and 38 smaller toads at Lee Point in the city's northern surburbs.

FrogWatch's Graeme Sawyer said the monster toad was the size of a small dog.

"The only bigger cane toad I've seen is in a specimen bottle in a museum in Brisbane," he said.

"I reckon I've probably seen 50,000-60,000 cane toads in the last 12 months and there is nothing even remotely close to this thing."

Mr Sawyer said he was surprised by the toad's sex. (Aww Yeah - ed. note)

"The biggest toads are usually females, but this one is a rampant male," he said.

"He is huge; I would hate to meet his big sister.

"The highly publicised big female caught in the city recently was little over 15 centimetres, this monster is another five centimetres long and one-third heavier."

A number of toad busts have been organised by FrogWatch to minimise the pest's spread during the wet season.

Thanks to Brett the Mad Scientist for bringing this to our awkward attention.

Get Chipped

2007-03-26T18:40:00.000-04:00

Are you ready for your Verichip?

Approved by the FDA in 2002, the Verichip Corporation's radio frequency identification device is the first in what will probably be a long line of human implant microchips.

The device is generally implanted around the triceps area of the right arm and contains a bar code of sixteen numbers which correlates with a computer database and verifies (hence the name) identity, citizenship, and medical records.

Predictably, mass concerns about government misuse and privacy issues have stopped the Verichip in its tracks. 68 hospitals originally signed up to adopt the technology in their emergency rooms, but most have discontinued use due to disputes with the public. It is estimated that only 2000 people nationwide have gotten the implant since its inception four years ago.

Religious groups are (of course) up-in-arms about the nature of the chip, likening it to the "mark of the beast" mentioned in the impenetrable verses of The Book of Revelation.

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."

There is even an anti-Verichip website, "We the People Will Not Be Chipped", at http://noverichipinside.com/.

In May of 2002, the Jacob's Family of Boca Raton, Florida became the first family on earth to be implanted with microchips, in a procedure that was apparently broadcast on NBC's Today Show. (Which we are having a hard time believing, considering all of the negative issues surrounding the device.)

They claimed their enthusiasm for the Verichip came in response to the excitement of their math/computer prodigy son Derek, after he saw a news report about the Verichip, as well as a feeling of safety for Jeffrey Jacobs (48 at the time), a severely disabled cancer survivor. Leslie Jacbos has also said the chip gave her a greater sense of security following the events of September 11th.

'I want to be the first kid to be implanted with the chip,'" Leslie Jacobs remembered her son exclaiming. "For the next few days all he did was talk about the VeriChip. I have nothing to hide, so I wouldn't mind having the chip for verification. I already have an ID card, so why not have a chip?"

Some have suggested that the Jacob's early interest and implantation were little more than a subversive corporate publicity stunt. (And after reading some of the 2002 articles surrounding their procedure (Time's "Meet the Chipsons" and CIO's "All Inside the Family" among them) we tend to agree.)

(In a sad turn of events for the Jacobs, Derek (18) was killed in a motorcycle accident in October of last year.)

As of today, only one company in America, CityWatcher.com, a Cincinnati-based surveillance and security firm, has made a Verichip mandatory. They say that having the chip implanted directly into their employees helps safeguard the vast records of videotape and public data they have stored at their job site.

The official Verichip website is here.

Do you feel like you are living in a Phillip K. Dick novel yet?

Phildelphia Phillies

2007-03-25T13:34:00.000-04:00

In lieu of our own comprehensive preview of the 2007 Philadelphia Phillies (because, really, what do we know?), we give you The Phans Blog, a website "dedicated to detailed analysis of The Philadelphia Phillies."

In-depth and generally well-written, The Phans Blog is great for casual and rabid fans alike, a godsend for out-of-staters like the Toad, and (we would guess) a great time-waster for the office.

This website covers it all, from big news like the recent decision to send former ace Jon Lieber to the bullpen and Freddy Garcia's tender right bicep to smaller details like the return of recent acquisition and possible starter Alfredo Simon back from whence he came (the hapless Texas Rangers) and the waving of prospect Justin Germano.

It also has breakdowns of the Phil's competition in the NL East as well as unofficial trade rumors and gossip-mill reports.

As for our previously devalued two cents, here are a few predictions.

Big Year - Chase Utley; Jimmy Rollins

It doesn't take a genius to predict this one. Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are primed for big years. Last year's achingly close playoff birth seems to have helped Rollins reevaluate exactly how he fits into the overall scheme and Chase is just awesome and will continue to get awesomer.

Breakout year - Shane Victorino

We think this guy is really good. He's fast and hits well for average, which seems like a good combination in terms of overall run production in a division with vastly different park sizes and generally competent if no longer overwhelming pitching staffs.

Slow starts - Ryan Howard; Freddy Garcia

Ryan Howard is a beast and will continue to be a beast for a long time. We do think, however, that being named league MVP and earning national celebrity will take a little getting used to for a 25 year old kid, not matter how likable and well adjusted. Also, we remember a few games down the stretch last year, once Howard started blasting every other pitch out of the park, when opposing pitchers seemed willing to give him an easy trot to first if only our giant young hero could stop himself from swinging at pitches well outside the strike zone. The next step to absolute greatest seems to be learning and accepting one's own limitations (something Barry Bonds, love him or hate him, proved very adept at). As for Freddy Garcia, we just think that the National League and especially Citizen's Bank Park will take a little getting use to as well, probably a month or so.

Bad Year - Pat Burrell; Bret Myers

We would love to see Pat Burrell succeed in the face of all odds but we worry that his confidence is too far gone and the city finds him too easy to hate. As much as professional athletes claim the crowd's opinion of them doesn't matter, common sense tells us that no matter what esteem they may truly hold the fans in (our guess - very low) it is something they deal with day-in and day-out for over 5 months and that such a huge amount of negative energy will become draining, especially for a guy like Burrell who has proven in the past that he is easily influenced by his surroundings (evidence: Tyler Houston debacle of 2003). As for Brett Myers, obviously we don't actually know, but we think the guy seems like a jerk and kind of childish (although we are open to the possibility that he is the victim of "sports writer vilification") and we doubt a brand-new 3 year, 25 million dollar contract will help him grow up. Our guess - the opposite.

Biggest Questions - Wes Helms; Ryan Madson

Basically, we feel pretty confident Wes Helms will be a good fit in the batting order, especially at home, but we aren't sold on his ability to field his position. Our understanding is that Helms has been mainly a pinch-hitter/designated-hitter most of his career and we think his defense might, well, suck. And, for us, Madson is a huge question because his ability to become a consistent and formidable force out of the bullpen will probably prove vital late into games, particularly when Jamie Moyer starts.

Well, that's all we got.

GO PHILLIES!

Phoenix Lights Documentary

2007-03-24T23:12:00.001-04:00

We found this documentary about the Phoenix Lights on YouTube.

(It's Saturday. We really don't know what to write about.)

For us, the biggest revelation in the video - there is a firing range in Arizona named after Barry Goldwater?

Also...

2007-03-23T23:28:00.000-04:00

We know it's on Catch a Wiff but it would be a crime if anyone missed this:

The Phoenix Lights

2007-03-23T22:44:00.000-04:00

The following is an excerpt from the Arizona Daily Star. It basically says that the governor of Arizona recently admitted to seeing a UFO and covering it up so as not to create a state-wide panic.

The sighting took place in Phoenix Arizona, circa 1997, during an event which is generally referred to as "The Phoenix Lights". Here is a still shot from amateur footage:

And here is the excerpt:

Former Gov. Fife Symington says now that those strange lights that appeared over Phoenix a decade ago were from another world and that he had a close encounter with an alien craft on March 13, 1997.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people," Symington said Thursday. "I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Symington, who was in his second term as governor of Arizona during the Phoenix Lights incident, recently told a UFO investigator making a documentary that he had kept quiet about his personal close encounter because he didn't want to panic the populace.

He repeated his story Thursday on CNN, saying the craft he saw was "enormous. It just felt other-worldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was other-worldly."

The governor didn't let on at the time, instead poking fun at the whole thing.

He hosted a press conference a few months after the mass sightings to announce that his Department of Public Safety had arrested the culprit responsible — a very tall bug-eyed creature brought before the media in handcuffs.

He then unmasked the creature to reveal his chief of staff, Jay Heiler, who at 6-foot-4 made an imposing, somewhat comical space alien.

Symington said the producer of the film "Out of the Blue," James Fox, originally sought him out to talk about why he had spoofed the sightings but then asked if he had seen the lights.

"I said, 'Yeah, I got a good look.'"

Heiler said Thursday he isn't surprised Symington believes in UFOs.

He said his boss was a "Trekkie" who enjoyed discussing space travel. Heiler said Symington was convinced that earthlings would be traveling to distant solar systems at speeds exceeding the speed of light "in our lifetimes."

We should probably mention that Symington was arrested on charges of wire and bank fraud during his tenure as governor and asked to vacate his public office, which he did last September.

Still, though.

UFO's.
The Truth is Out There, Motherfucker.

We Can't Believe...

2007-03-22T23:48:00.000-04:00

...that any critic has chosen to hate on Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank which was officially released Tuesday.

We've been listening to this thing for two weeks (how we're we doing that, you ask. we know people. in Germany. who download stuff there, legally, and then send it to us) and we think it is great.

Now don't get us wrong, most critics seem to like it, but for AllMusic to give it only three stars and Rolling Stone to compare it unfavorably with their "indie" output is astonishingly off the mark as far as we are concerned.

Just because something is catchy and has a chance of becoming hugely popular doesn't make it bad automatically. It usually means it is good. (On second thought we're not sure if we can totally stand behind that statement, but you get the point.)

Especially for a band like Issac Brock and company, who have slugged away at the indie scene for more than a decade. This album is such a vast improvement from their early output, interesting but musically poor and ultimately unsatisfying releases like This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About (although we dig that title) and The Fruit That Ate Itself.

You want proof, download "Dashboard", "March Into the Sea", or "Florida".

Or the Toad can burn you a copy of the album.

Or I guess you could buy it, if you are into that.

Killer tracks, man.

Borat Acting Audition

2007-03-21T21:23:00.001-04:00

Rough Day for the Toad.

Maybe we can get some acting tips from Borat.

Do You Know About...

2007-03-20T19:43:00.000-04:00

...Pitchfork Media?

Probably.

But if not, here, know about it.

Guaranteed to turn you into a twee hipster indie shoegazer in less than a month.

And, for good measure, here is their list of the 50 Best Albums of 2006.

Even better, here is their list of Top 100 Albums of the 1980's!

And below is a video of a girl shooting a machine gun...

Is this enough for today?

M169

2007-03-20T19:41:00.001-04:00

We were just gonna put a still shot of this up, but we think the soundtrack adds something.

If anyone watches this whole thing, let us know how it ends.

We Like This Album:

2007-03-19T22:03:00.000-04:00

This Ain't a Scene...

2007-03-18T16:51:00.000-04:00

Do you know how many countries in the world have nuclear weapons? The answer is 8 (read: 9).

There are five nation states that are officailly allowed to possess them, according to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was opened for signature on July 1st, 1968 and extended indefinitely in 1995.

They are:

United States - Not only were The Stars and Stripes the first country to complete the development of a nuclear weapon, we also have the distinction of being the only country to ever use one, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the conclusion of the second World War. We were also the first to develop and test a hydrogen bomb, "Ivy Mike" in 1952. These days, the U.S. maintains a working arsenal of about 10,000 warheads. Fuck yeah.

Russia - The U.S.S.R got 'em next, in 1949. Their nuclear program was created and funded in the wake of the Cold War, in order to balance world hegemony. At one point, the Soviet Union built and detonated the most powerful explosive ever created by man, the "Tsar Bomba." Unfortunately, they also whole-heartedly embraced Communism, and consequently, their empire collapsed in the early 1990's, putting their stockpile (the largest in the world, by the way, with upwards of 40,000 chemical and 16,000 nuclear weapons) in the hands of their wise and even-handed president (read: crazed, brutal, iron-fisted would-be dictator).

United Kingdom - The wayward Brits were next, beaten to the punch by the Ruskies despite full, unimpeded access to the documents and research from the Manhattan Project. They finally got theirs in 1952, testing a weapon called "Hurricane". Today, Britain's arsenal consists mainly of their "Trident System" which is essentially a few submarines loaded with nucs that will act as a deterrent in the event of an attack. Unlike the U.S. and Russia, the Brits actually paid attention to the NNPT, and destroyed their general stocks in the 1960's.

France - We know, it sucks. France's first successful test came in 1960, designed as an independent deterrent from the U.S.S.R, after they weakened their ties with NATO. For awhile in the 1990's, it seemed like the French were disarming, they got rid of 175 weapons and modernized their arsenal to include mostly submarine-launched ballistic missiles and medium range air-to-surface missiles, but since the looming threat of international terrorism has greatened, Jacques Chirac reversed his countries stance, mobilizing new nuclear squadrons in Afghanistan and deploying the Charles de Gaulle, a nuc-powered aircraft carrier. Viva la Resistance!

China - In 1964, China became the first Asian nation to develop a nuclear weapon, in response to the perceived threats from both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. They have a public "no first-use" policy as well as a policy of never using these weapons against a nation-state that does possess them. Officially, China claims to possess the "smallest nuclear arsenal" among the nuclear-weapon states. With a program cloaked in secrecy, however, and a government not heralded for its forthrightness, unofficial estimations as to its actual size are, appropriately, all over the charts.

There are three (read: four) other states that are known to have nuclear weapons but have not signed the NNPT and therefore are not bound by its provisions.

They are:

Iraq - Just kidding.

India - In response to China, India tested what they called "a peaceful nuclear device" in 1974 (it was even called the "Smiling Buddha", so how bad could it be?), raising all kinds of fucking questions about the functionality and justifications behind the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They have since tested weaponized nuclear warheads. The U.S. recognizes India as a responsible nuclear state and even signed a "civil nuclear cooperation deal" with them in 2006. They are believed to possess around 40 or 50 warheads.

Pakistan - In response to India's program (startin' to see how this works?), Pakistan began a covert nuclear program that is generally believed to have been supplied by Western nations. (Read: Us?) Some estimates put the appearance of their first armed device around 1990, but they did not go public with their program until 1998, when they conducted a test at Chagai Hills. Pakistan has refused to join the NNPT before India does and rumors abound about an "overwillingness" to use these weapons during the Kargil Conflict.

The U.S.' relationship with India and Pakistan in regards to nuclear matters is complicated, but the most telling aspect of it, is that after the attacks of September 11, we lifted economic sanctions that were in place against both countries because of their nuclear policies, perhaps in return for their cooperation for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

North Korea - Yeah, despite governmental limitations on his populations electricity usage, Kim-Jong Il has nucs, kind of. In 2006, North Korea reported a successful test of a nuclear weapon but experts seem to believe that the test was only partially successful. As of this writing, the North Koreans are supposed to be dismantling any warheads they have and shutting down their Yongbyon reactor in exchange for beginning the process of normalizing relations with the U.S.

Israel - Israel does not have nuclear weapons. (Read: Israel has about 200 working nuclear warheads whose existence they refuse to confirm or deny. Everyone knows they exist but we aren't supposed to talk about it. However, Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert "accidentally" gave up the goat (is that an expression?) in an interview last December when he said that Iran hopes "to have a nuclear weapon as America, France, Israel, and Russia (do.)"

Also,

Iran is in the process of developing nuclear weapons even as the rest of the world tries to stop them.

Saudi Arabia is most likely in possession of them (from Pakistan) and have said publicly that, in light of worsening relations with the U.S, they feel it is incumbent on their government to begin a program of development, although this does not seem to have actually happened.

South Africa used to have them, along with a bunch of former U.S.S.R satellites, but they were either dismantled or sent to the motherland after each country signed the NNPT.

The list of countries with failed programs is long and includes Japan, Spain, Egypt, and Romania when it was under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.

(Wow. That took a long time. In the course of our writing this, almost every team we picked to advance to the Sweet 16 had time to lose.)

Reprise

2007-03-17T19:34:00.001-04:00

We know, this is old news...but maybe some people didn't see it - and even if you did, it's still pretty funny

The Bermuda Triangle

2007-03-16T22:41:00.000-04:00

"The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near..."
- Christopher Columbus, during passage through the Bermuda Triangle area, October 11, 1492

Everyone and their mother know about the Bermuda Triangle - ships disappear, no one knows why, etc... But do you know the details of the events or just how many there have been? Well you do now...

Flight 19 - A training flight of U.S. Air Force TBM Avenger Bombers, it disappeared over the Atlantic on a clear day in December of 1945. The aircraft's pilot, Charles Carroll Taylor, has become the focal point of this debate, with proponents of the paranormal citing his experience and leadership qualifications and skeptics pointing out that Taylor had a penchant for losing his way and ditching aircrafts, there are three documented cases of this during World War II.

Mary Celeste - An abandoned ghost ship that set sail from Staten Island and was found drifting along the coast of Portugal in September of 1864 with no lifeboats or crew aboard. Many believe the passengers of the Mary Celeste floated into the Bermuda Triangle and disappeared. Of course, no evidence of this exists but not a single passenger from the ship was ever recovered.

Carroll A. Deering - 50 years later, the Carroll A. Deering was found abandoned off the coast of North Carolina after passing through the Triangle. Many chalk this crew's disappearance up to piracy, citing the prevalence of the rum-running trade that was at its height during Prohibition.

Ellen Austin - While in the Triangle area, the Ellen Austin came across an empty vessel and sent a crew aboard, intending to sail with it to New York. During a squall that came hours later, the ships were separated. When the Ellen Austin again encountered the abandoned derelict, the crew members they had sent aboard were missing. No casualty list for the Ellen Austin exists and scholars seem unsure as to what to make of this story.

U.S.S Cyclops - The coolest one. In March of 1918, this naval ship disappeared without a trace and resulted in the largest, non-combat related loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy. No distress signal was put out and no trace of the vessel has ever been found. 306 crew member perished. There's no prevalent theory in regards to the fate of the Cyclops.

Joshua Slocum - The first man to sail solo around the world, Joshua Slocum and his fishing boat, the Spray disappeared in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle in November of 1909. No one knows what happened to him but many have posited that he was struck by a steamship or a whale.

Douglas D.C-3 - A flight from Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida, this plane and its 32 passengers vanished into thin air around the Triangle. No factually supported theories as to what happened exist.

Star Tiger & Star Ariel - Two more commuter flights that disappeared inside the Triangle without a distress call or any wreckage recovered.

Teignmouth Electron - This was the name of the boat that was sailed by Donald Crowhurst in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, which was a yacht race around the globe. The Teignmouth Electron was found abandoned outside of the Triangle and Crowhurst's body was never recovered. Most serious scholarship on the event holds that Crowhurst was well on his way towards insanity and that the boat race and the pressure of his failing business finally pushed him over the edge, prompting him to take his own life.

SS Marine Sulphur Queen - Another U.S. Military vessel that "sailed into the unknown" and was never recovered. This one, however, had a history of being "badly-maintained" and was deemed unseaworthy by the Navy before it shipped out of port.

Well, that's the bulk of it.

Most experts hold that we are considering an area that is frequently leveled by tropical storms and that the disappearances in and around the Bermuda Triangle are not particularly notable. The consensus seems to be that the Triangle myth was an old sailor folk legend, stemming from navigation unfamiliarity after the discovery of the New World, which was later embellished by writers to sell books.

Still, where's the U.S.S. Cyclops? Why can't we find a giant Naval collier?

Because aliens took it. That's why.

Now, In the News...

2007-03-15T22:35:00.000-04:00

...Duke is upset by VCU!!!! Proving unequivocally that Duke sucks and that we are genius...

...A late winter storm threatens to dump 12 inches of snow on New York City and the early numbers on US winter temperatures come in around average, proving that Global Warming doesn't exist...

...Barrack Obama calls Senator John Edwards "kind of cute", proving that he is at least a little gay...

...Iranian President Ahmadinejad plans another trip to New York and asks for 25 visas for 'security agents' and says that a large group of his followers will stay in their private plane at JFK rather than pass through U.S. customs, proving that Iran really isn't taking this whole 'international relations' thing very seriously...

...Scientists discover a new species of leopard with fangs large enough to kill its prey in a single bite, proving that cool things still happen...

...Simon Cowell says that he is more important than Bruce Springsteen, proving that the amount of faith America is putting in this man's opinion needs to be reevaluated...

...Vladimir Putin spurs production of a Russian 'super-agency' to regulate and control the country's media, proving that the motherland has finally reached 'Orwellian nightmare' status...

...New Arcade Fire album, Neon Bible, debuts at #2, proving that good music can still move product...

...Korn MTV Unplugged reaches #9, proving that people will buy anything if the words 'MTV Unplugged' are in the title...

....We copy an entire post from Drudge Report, proving we are burning out on this one post a day shit.

Crossover Appeal

2007-03-14T19:55:00.001-04:00

If you like the Awkward Toad, then get ready to love these other unpaid internet op-editorialists (nerds).

ONE MAN INVASION - An Awkward Toad cohort and collaborator, the OMI gives you the skinny (literally and figuratively - apparently the guy only eats vegetables) on the beautifully backward culture of a certain Eastern European country that was once tucked firmly behind the Iron Curtain but now finds itself in the middle of a fast-moving European unionization.

WIFFLEBALL FOR ALCOHOL: CATCH A WIFF - Nestled in the quiet, picturesque suburban sprawl of Northern Delaware, an untamed monster lurks unchecked, unfortunately. It is the wild and woolly Wiffleball for Alcohol league, and this page is where its devoted commissioner documents the evolution of the beast. This year's league promises more hits, less strikeouts (it's almost a statistical impossibility to have more strikeouts than last year), more alcohol, an undisputed champion, and more bare breasts, courtesy of a new league partnership with B-Rad Gone Wild enterprises.

RAGGLE SNAGGLE - We're not gonna lie, this thing hasn't been updated since Xmas. (Notice how we spelled that.) But if you are new to the Snaggle, there is plenty here to sink your unlearned teeth into. Its proprietor works in a laboratory, lives in an apartment the size of most closets, rides the bus to work, and he documents and defends these practices with an avidness worthy of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan except with about half as much sweat and not nearly as much lying. It even has it's very own URL, sucka.

Seinfeld-Kramer's Merv Griffin Set

2007-03-13T23:29:00.001-04:00

We've had a long day.

Enjoy this montage from a post-Larry David era Seinfeld episode.

We did.

Top This? Doesn't Seem Possible

2007-03-12T21:13:00.001-04:00

Originally posted on the MySpace blog of everyone's favorite famous friend, Keith.

It starts a little slow, but give it...oh say, 39 seconds.

Brackets

2007-03-11T21:04:00.000-04:00

The Awkward Toad admittedly doesn't know a whole lot about college basketball. (With so much turnover in the league, how can you?)

We know that Kevin Durant is a skinny, scoring machine. We know that Greg Oden was born in 1988 and looks old enough to be our father. (Or, more likely, to have killed and eaten our father.) And we know that Dick Vitale is blind in his left eye and is a machine of self-promotion.

We also know (read: hope) that his year the Florida Gators will devour the competition on their way to meet and beat Ohio State in the NCAA Championship game.

We know this for a number of reasons.

First of all, we know we are terrified of alligators and suspect that many of the players in the tournament are as well. We know that almost all of the Gators from last year's National Championship team have returned. And we know that Joakim Noah is a pretty damn good forward and we like the fact that he sports the long hair despite almost constant badgering from fans of opposing teams and the media to cut it.

As for the rest of the games, we've decided to take a slightly modified approach to "bracketology" this year.

In the past, we have spent long days reading about each team, watching Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps disagree with each other on ESPN, and picking and unpicking Creighton to upset whoever it is they are playing in the first round even though we really can't tell you what state Creighton is from or who their coach is or anything about them.

This system has yielded, at best, mediocre results.

So this year, we took a new approach - we put no thought into this whatsoever.

We've got Penn upsetting Texas A&M, even thought the experts seem to like A&M, simply because we love Philadelphia and remember how cool the Penn campus was.

We've got Texas Tech upsetting Boston College because we like watching Bobby Knight yell at reporters.

And we've got VCU upsetting Duke because we can't stand fucking Duke.

That's it. No thought at all. Let's see what happens...

(P.S. - This counts as Monday's post.)

Matt Lauer interviews/hits-on Debra Lafave

2007-03-11T19:29:00.001-04:00

I finally got this thing to work.

Phalanx but No Phalanx (Get It?)

2007-03-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

In November we ripped New York Times film critic A.O. Scott for his review of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

We haven't received Mr. Scott's letter of attrition yet but we are pretty sure he's learned his lesson, because his review of Zach Snyder's slow-motion epic 300 is spot-on.

You can read it here...

Or you can read an even better review, from the New York Post of all places, here...

Or you can take our word for it...

300 Sucks.

The Other Side of the Coin

2007-03-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of full-coverage (and because it's Friday, we can't think of anything else to write, and can probably do this quickly) here are the five best albums by The Rolling Stones.

Aftermath - Like an angry, sarcastic letter from a jilted lover, Aftermath, the Stones' first album of all original material, is a dark, sneering masterpiece. It includes their best two overplayed songs - "Paint It Black" and "Under My Thumb", as well as a rarely heard gem called "I Am Waiting", which was used in the film Rushmore but not included on its soundtrack. Only one bad track - "Lady Jane" - a bit la-di-da for our taste.

Beggars Banquet - Side one starts with "Sympathy for the Devil" and side two with "Street Fightin' Man" but it's the lesser known tracks that make this album essential. "Stray Cat Blues" is the ode to love making (read: nasty sex) that Jagger has been trying to rewrite for 25 years, "Jigsaw Puzzle" closes the first side of the record with nihilistic glee, and "Prodigal Son" (originally by Reverend Wilkins) is hands down their best blues cover.

Sticky Fingers - Their first album for Virgin, Sticky Fingers was also Mick Taylor's debut with the group and his razor sharp guitar sets this one apart. Lyrically, (for better or worse) the whole damn thing is about drugs, from "Brown Sugar" (also about sex with black chicks, which we are in favor of) to "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" to "Sister Morphine". It also bodes their best stab at country, "Dead Flowers" and their best, albeit obligatory, Keith Richards ballad, "Sway".

Exile on Main Street - The best drinking record ever made. Over-long, unfocused and out-of-tune, Exile on Main Street is a masterpiece. With songs as varied and original as the collection of pictures that adorns the album's cover, this record defined early seventies rock, appearing just after the hippie-generation became jaded and addicted but well before things got all gay and make-upy. Highlights - "Rocks Off", "Tumbling Dice", "Torn and Frayed", "Shine a Light".

Tattoo You - We know everyone is sick of hearing "Start Me Up" but the other ten songs on this album are pretty damn good. Most people probably put Some Girls or Let it Bleed ahead of this one, but we hate the songs "Respectable" and "Shattered" (really, really hate, to the point where we get mad just thinking about them) from the former and could do without "Country Honk" and "You Got the Silver", both throw-away country nonsense, from the latter. In contrast, every track on Tattoo You is solid and "Waiting on a Friend" is one of the best, most-overlooked Stones' ballads of all time.

Bad Buys (Volume 3)

2007-03-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

The Rolling Stones are a great rock n' roll band. Some would say the greatest...

...to which others would then say "No, the Beatles are the greatest"

It is a debate which has raged over four decades, caused a million drunken arguments, and spawned a slew of unnecessary "Beatles/Stones Rock-Off's" on local radio stations. (Honestly, how many fucking times can a person listen to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "She Loves You"?)

The Awkward Toad has no official stance on the debate, except that we think it's sort-of pointless.

Whenever it comes up, however, we enjoy playing the devil's advocate, as we know an awful lot about these two bands, probably more than any living being or even supernatural deity should.

First, we always like to point out that the Stones produced what is possibly rock n' roll's best record, 1972's Exile on Main Street.

However, we then say, it is the Beatles, not the Stones, who have a better overall catalog, with only one glaring detraction, 1969's Yellow Submarine, which was really just a soundtrack to their cartoon of the same name with a long George Martin score on side two, but which is considered a full album because of the four new tracks included on side one, all of which are pretty worthless.

The Rolling Stones' overall catalog, on the other hand, is anything but stellar.

Which brings us to our third installment of our Bad Buys series, which we are calling...

CRAP STONES ALBUMS

Black and Blue - Released in 1976, after a two-year hiatus and the departure of guitarist Mick Taylor, Black and Blue has two quality songs, "Memory Motel", which was later made famous on the No Security live disc, with Dave Matthews playing guitar and singing half of the vocals, and "Fool to Cry", which we consider to be the absolute most disposable of all the band's mega-hits. The rest of the album is described by AllMusic as an audition piece for their new guitar player Ron Wood and this seems pretty right. You always know that a Stones' record will be sub par when the song titles resemble the ones here - "Hot Stuff", "Hey Negrita", "Crazy Mama."

Emotional Rescue - Sandwiched between 78's Some Girls and 81's Tattoo You, both classics, Emotional Rescue's disco-rock fusion is pretty much unlistenable. It's obvious that the Stones', not too mention the world's, affliction of Saturday Night Fever was coming to an end, and this disc documents the final stages of the virus. Has there ever been a more annoying "radio-friendly" track than "She's So Cold"? Maybe something by ABBA.

Undercover - Again, the titles tell you all you need to know - "She Was Hot", "Tie You Up (The Pain of Love", "Too Tough", "It Must Be Hell" - these are bad songs. On the verge of a breakup and disgustingly addicted to drugs, 1983's Undercover was Mick and company's last ditch effort to keep it together before rehab claimed most of them and the allure of a solo career claimed their limber front man. There's only one good track, the first one, "Undercover of the Night", which sounds like it could have been on Sticky Fingers, if not for the overly-crisp 80's production.

Dirty Work - If you thought Undercover was bad, then you weren't ready for this 1986 reunion album. You know things are taking a turn for the worse when the featured tracks are "One Hit (To the Body)" and "Winning Ugly". The weight of inner-band tensions, the death of their road-manager Ian Stewart, and heavy drug-addiction (to the point where Jagger refused to tour in support of the album, mostly because he didn't care about it, but also because he knew Richards and Wood wouldn't make it back) finally collapsed the band.

Steel Wheels - Some might argue with this last pick. For many, Steel Wheels has nostalgia value, as it marked the rebirth of The Rolling Stones as we now know them, a hobbling band of overworked geezers who refuse to retire or die. After Jagger and Richards put their differences aside, injected each other, and decided to soldier on, they recorded this 12-song album and toured the world. Unfortunately, "Slipping Away" is the only really good track, and most of the hard rock songs feel rote and by the numbers. The Toad will take 1995's Voodoo Lounge ("Love is Strong", "You Got Me Rocking", "Out of Tears", "Suck on the Jugular") or even 1997's ambitious if ill-conceived Bridges to Babylon ("Anybody Seen My Baby", "Out of Control") over this lump of lame hard-rock riffing.

(Warning: 2005's "A Bigger Bang" is not included here because we don't know anything about it - It seems somewhere around the turn of the century we finally learned our lesson and stopped buying new Rolling Stones' albums. Whew.)

Steve Nash - Gassed

2007-03-07T16:11:00.002-05:00

Some of you may already have read this on Deadspin. If so, see your Bonus Post below. As for the rest of you, please enjoy Steve Nash's post-game interview with ESPN's Michelle Tafoya.

Tafoya: Steve Nash shot 2 of 11 in the first half. You said to me at halftime you were sloppy. Came out and shot about 7 of 10 in the second half. What changed?

Nash: I dunno. I just kind of got my rhythm going. I felt good in the first half. Maybe, uh, it's the diarrhea. I was in the bathroom most of warm ups.

Tafoya: Were you really?

Nash: Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't say that on TV. It's brunch in Hawaii, isn't it? Gotta keep that to myself.

Tafoya: No, we appreciate your candidness.

This is why we watch.

Bonus Post

2007-03-07T16:11:00.001-05:00

Finish Him Everett! Finish Him!

The Next Bond Villain?

2007-03-06T20:02:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else noticed that the government of Russia is living in some kind of backwards James Bond movie?

The government keeps (allegedly) killing these people who are planning to report evidence against the country or its President Vladimir Putin. Not a bad idea, per se, except that instead of silencing their message, the murders only serve to turn what would have merely been a front page story for about a week in Easter Europe into a giant international scandal.

Of course, the most noteworthy (read: coolest) example of this was the death of ex-KGB agent and Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who drank Polonium-210 and, on his death bed, accused the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin by name, of trying to get rid of him.

Leonid Nevzlin, a former shareholder in one of Russia's major industries, the Yukos Oil Company, says Litivinenko had been making inquires into criminal charges brought by Russian prosecutors against top employees of the company and people connected therewith. (What a shock, an oil company is involved.) The former head of that company and Russia's wealthiest businessman, Mikhail Khordorkovsky, is currently imprisoned in Siberia - the same shackling prison whose wintry embrace was once shed by the Awkward Toad himself as Trevelyan in the 1997 Nintendo64 video game "OO7". Coincidence?

A more recent instance was the untimely demise of Ivan Safronov, who apparently decided it would be a good idea to jump out of a fifth-floor window in Moscow after calling his newspaper, the Kommersant, and saying he had "received information" about a Russian sale of Sukhoi-34 fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles.

What country did they sell to, you ask?

Just Belarus. No big deal. We're not even sure where that is...

...except...

Belarus then sold those weapons to Syria and Iran. So. Fuck.

Of course, Putin has not been implicated personally in the reporter's death, but the hurried government conclusion, that Safronov committed suicide, and its categorical rejection by the Kommersant and most of the press at large, as well as other lingering questions about the FSB's (basically Russia's secret service) previous attempts to silence the man, have led many to wonder just who is running a country that, five years ago, was well on its way to being considered a cornerstone of freedom, transparency, and democracy.

Mr. Putin, if we may, we think someone should probably watch Rocky IV again...

That someone is you. You're the someone, Mr. Putin. In case that was unclear.

Jeff Tweedy

2007-03-05T15:49:00.001-05:00

Another Political Blog You're Not Gonna Read

2007-03-04T20:44:00.000-05:00

While we all know the list of candidates for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination this year (Girl vs. Black Guy vs. John Edwards), barely anyone is mentioning the Republican hopefuls. So the Awkward Toad thought it prudent to give you a quick introduction to some of the leading candidates.

This is mainly because the video from YouTube with Matt Lauer interviewing/hitting on the teacher from Florida that had sex her student won't upload onto the blogsite.

(Our favorite line, when asked if she was worried people would find out about her affair after having sex with the boy in the backseat of her SUV while his friends watched, she says no, it didn't even cross her mind, and that all his friends were giving him high five's and slapping him on the back. Also funny, at one point she says the phrase "we didn't want to piss off our parents" and then looks around and apologizes for swearing - this is America, where people don't know if it's bad to have sex with 14 year old kids, but they do know you can't say "piss-off" on network television. Here is a picture of her just for fun.)

Anyway, without further ado -

Sam Brownback - The "gold standard" for a fundamentalist presidential candidate, Brownback describes himself as an "economic, fiscal, social, and compassionate conservative," So! If you are a fan of God, an opponent of cancer (which he has pledged to eliminate in ten years), paying less money to the federal government, not liking people that are different from you, and Domino's Pizza (a major campaign contributor) here's your guy. Too bad he's not gonna win.

Newt Gingrich - It wasn't too long ago that the former Speaker of the House had a "Contract with America," so pull the blinds and cut the lights because now he's coming to collect. He supports a "guest worker program" for illegal immigrants, (which puts him at odds with many in his party), a citizen's unhindered right to bear arms, international free trade without protectionism and is rumored to eat his offspring to ensure that none will become more powerful than he.

Rudy Giuliani - Famous for his leadership during 9/11 and an odd, pro-choice, pro-stem cell, pro civil-unions, pro-divorce (he's been married three times, once to his second-cousin) Catholic conservative, Giuliani is Italian and therefore probably in the mafia, although he gained early recognition for prosecuting high-profile organized crime cases, which means that not only is he a criminal, but also a rat. He is described by Atlantic magazine as a "maximalist" on the War on Terror and is responsible for the disappearance of all the homeless people in New York City. We don't know where they went, but we thank him.

John McCain - Probably the most high-profile of all the Republican candidates, this former prisoner of war and decorated military officer would be the oldest person in history to assume the presidency. He supports a guest worker program, courage (which he wrote an entire book in favor of), a hard-line approach to Iran, and the Iraq War. In 1998 McCain found himself in hot water after telling a joke at a Republican fund-raiser about Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, saying "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Mitt Romney - Oddly, Mitt Romney is most famous for delivering universal health care to the gun-toting, fatigues-wearing populous of that bastion of conservative politics, Massachusettes? He is a Mormon and, with the help of John Smith, Romney is apparently going to provide basic minimum health coverage to every single person in America without raising taxes. Just kidding, he's not gonna win either.

None of these guys are. Obama v. Clinton. Choose your weapons.

Top Ten Albums of 2006

2007-03-03T16:58:00.000-05:00

We've listened to every album released last year. Here are the ten best.

#1. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

#2. The Twilight Singers - Powder Burns

#3. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

#4. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam

#5. M. Ward - Post War

#6. Midlake - The Trials of van Occupanther

#7. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country

#8. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

#9. The Roots - Game Theory

#10. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers

Yo Blair!

2007-03-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

We are rather busy today, you wankers, so enjoy this photo of a young Tony Blair during his time at Oxford University.

CHEERS!

Bad Buys (Volume 2)

2007-03-01T13:40:00.000-05:00

Once again, 5 garbage albums we have purchased:

Todays installment will focus on our guitar hero years.

It was a younger, more innocent time, that found a little Awkward Toad traveling the rolling hills of Limestone, a candy red Fender Stratocaster strapped across his tiny back, quietly assured of a lucrative, ax-shredding future of rock superstardom. (It was an Amercian Standard Strat, mind you, no Mexican made, poorly constructed, second-rate nonsense for the son of Marion and Scotty.)

He was on his way to guitar lessons, where he weekly sat in a smoky basement and watched his neighbor Steve needle around the guitar neck for twenty minutes then hand it to the Toad and quickly teach him how to play "Smoke on the Water" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" before collecting $20 dollars of his parents money. It may seem like it was a scam, until you realize that the University of the Arts got upwards of 40 grand from Mom and Pop Toad for doing about the same thing.

The following five albums appeared in the collection during this phase:

David Lee Roth - Eat 'Em and Smile - Steve Vai plays lead guitar on this '80's gem, Diamond Dave's second post-Van Halen effort. What's that? You can't believe Diamond Dave had post-Van Halen efforts? Well, apparently, you didn't come of age in the 1980's, possibly the worst era for popular music in recorded history. (Close rival: 1590's - William Byrd hits a sophmore slump with Cantiones Sancrea II his totally overblown and self indulgent follow-up to the hugely popular Cantiones Sancrea I.) Highlights off Eat 'Em and Smile include the first single "Yankee Rose," which features a wailing, guitar/vocal call and response between Dave and Vai and the album cover art, which gives us Dave dressed in some unidentifiable, vaguely tribal face paint.

Eric Johnson - Tones - We actually own three Eric Johnson albums (the other two have way worse names - "Ah! Via Musicom" and "Venus Isle") but we chose to feature Tones because, well, it has a picture of the dude on the cover. Vaguely Rod Stewart without the Rod Stewart-quality, Johnson is revered by guitar magazines for his pristine tone, which, we have to say, is exceptional. Unfortunately, the songs themselves put you to sleep, especially on the tracks where he tries to sing. (Think late-era Eric Clapton as sung by Barry Manilow with a fifteen minute guitar solo in the Dorian mode.) All this being said, "Cliffs of Dover" is a hot track. You should download it.

Joe Satriani - Dreaming #11 - Look, some Joe Satriani albums are good, or at least interesting. The problem is that the Toad bought all of Joe Satriani's albums and tried vainly to learn the guitar solos from them. This one, an Ep released in 1988 after his breakthrough album Surfing with the Alien is described by AllMusic.com as "a recommended disc for musicians and fans, but not essential to the casual collector." Removed from our guitar hero days, we now feel that nothing by Joe Satriani is essential, music-wise. However, fashion-wise, Satch's jacket on Dreaming #11's cover could be a must-have this coming spring.

Van Halen - OU812 - At this point, picking on Van Halen feels a bit like throwing food at the kid sitting by himself at lunch. It's easy and it's mean, but it must be done. (Or at least it seemed like it had to be done, because every day of high school the Toad would get at least a few fries in the back.) We had a hard time deciding which album to include. OU812 gets the nod because of its ridiculous title, lame "family portrait" album cover, and completely unmemorable track list. Unlike most Halen records, which generally contain at least one tune that sticks in your head (sometimes to the point where you are pounding it against the pavement trying to forget the finger-tapping solo ) the cuts on Sammy Hagar's second effort with the group are tremendously unremarkable. We are looking at the track list and cannot conjure a single memory of any of these songs. "Source of Infection", "Finish What Ya Started", "Black and Blue"? Does anyone remember these things?

Yngwie J. Malmsteen - The Yngwie J. Malmsteen Collection - "Black Star", the Malmsteen collection's lead-off number, is pure guitar hero brilliance. It's 5 minutes of astonishingly pristine metal/classical shredding over a minimal, almost heartbeat-like drum and bass backing track. Anyone who can play 5 runs from this thing is a guitar god as far as we are concerned. Unfortunately, Yngwie's taste for pop music isn't quite so good. For most of the other tracks, he adds some lame metal crooner and wanks up and down the fretboard in between cliche lyrics like "Why did you turn away/Let your love fade away and die/You became so cold/You made me feel so old/You don't remember/I'll never forget!" Neither will we Yngwie, but we sure wish we could. Ohhh! Blaoww! Deal with that!

More to come...

It's the Return...

2007-02-28T20:58:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone.

It's been a long winter. Nice to see you all again.

A lot has happened since we left you.

Let's recap:

The Indianapolis Colts destroy the Chicago Bears in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl, after both teams turn the ball over at least three times in the first half. All of this takes a backseat to the halftime show, which features Prince covering a Foo Fighters track and playing "Purple Rain" in a torrential downpour.

In a daring show of solidarity with well-regarded (read: totally gay) media mogul David Geffen and his attack on Hilary Clinton, both Britney Spears and Jack Nicholson shave their heads.

(In a related story, I fail to find a solo picture of Jack Nicholson's shaved head on the internet after searching for a whole five minutes)

One of Delaware's most prominent, up-and-coming entrepreneurs, Jacob Theodore Czerwin, disappears from his own birthday party at the MGM Grand. Gossip columns claim he was locked away in a public bathroom with his former accountant, but these rumors are yet to be confirmed.

Some astronaut drives halfway across the country in a diaper and ends up killing Anna Nicole Smith because another astronaut was banging her astronaut.

The Departed, a great one and half hour movie that somehow lasted for two and a half hours, wins the Oscar for Best Picture and Al Gore's super-serial global warming lecture "An Inconvenient Truth" nabs the Best Documentary statue. Also, everyone bitches about how long and boring the Oscars are. Again. Just like last year. And the year before that. And always.

Nirvana finally takes the corporate plunge and licenses the song "Breed" to MLB 2007. The forthcoming video game also features cuts from The Pixies, Tapes N' Tapes, and The Stooges.

Ok. I think that's it...

Oh yeah, also, we showed our wang to about 4000 more people.

And now we are pledging one post a day for 31 days. NOTE: WE ARE NOT SAYING THEY WILL ALL BE GOOD (Take this one for example). We are only saying something new will be on here everyday.

Can we do it?

2007-02-01T15:32:00.000-05:00

Bad Buys (Volume 1)

2006-12-19T15:35:00.000-05:00

The Awkward Toad buys bad CD's.

In fact, we've bought so many bad CD's that it would take us a very long time to list them all in one blog.

Also, since the Awkward Toad's family has migrated north to Pennsylvania, most of those CD's remain packed away in some box that will probably never see the light of day.

So.

How about this: We will intermittently write blogs about five bad CD's we have purchased as they occur to us.

(Disclaimer: "Why buying bad is good." - The Toad is artistically curious. He makes many ill-advised purchases, but some times these risks turn up gold. The most outstanding cases at the present are Wilco's "Summerteeth", which was purchased by the Toad during the summer of his sophmore year in high school on a complete whim (Irving Longface can corroborate this.) and Queens of the Stone Age's "Rated R" which was also purchased for no good reason by the Toad during the summer after his first year in college (Mofo, holla atcha boy.). Buying bad is good because buying bad means buying blind, instead of just always getting the album all your friends listen to. In short, I regret nothing.)

Now, getting into the really bad stuff...

Emerson, Lake, & Palmer - Return of the Manticore - We'll start with the mother load. A comprehensive, four disc retrospective spanning the entire career of the late seventies prog rock trio Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. This box contains all the ELP you'll need (the songs "Lucky Man", "From the Beginning") and all the ELP you never could have imagined existed. Studio albums, rarities, extended versions (mind you, their songs are already hours long) new tracks recorded for the box ("I Believe in Father Christmas" a true highlight) as well as over 20 pages of liner notes. Probably the worst consumer decision the Toad has made in our 25 years on this planet.

New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too - This purchase was inspired by the single "You Get What You Give". The Toad believed the singer sounded like a young Mick Jagger and was throughly convinced (brainwashed?) after repeated spins on Top 40 radio that he did indeed have the music in him. Unfortunately it must have escaped before he recorded the rest of the album, or the awful video for the single, or decided on the bright yellow cover design.

Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience - The title says it all. Come on, you know this one. You may even own it. Remember "Tell me do you think it'd be alright/If I could just crash hear tonight/You see I'm in no shape for driving/And anyway I got no place to go?/HEY JEALOUSY! This winner came to the Toad packaged with 11 other CD's (including Pearl Jam's "Ten" and Soundgarden's "Superunknown") in one of those BMG 12 CD's for a penny deals. Of course, you know the deal with BMG, they continue sending you CD's you didn't ask for and you keep paying for them because it is less work than sending them back and you think maybe they might be interesting...

...which leads us too why we own...
Helmet - Betty - Don't let the cute girl with flowers on the cover fool you, this is metal. Isn't that so hard? To put a girl with flowers on the cover of a metal record? God that is so hard. (The highlight of the album is a song called "Milquetoast". Don't listen to it.)

And finally...

Aerosmith - Nine Lives - Sure, the Toad went through an Aerosmith phase. In fact, it wasn't until we saw them performing with Britany Spear's during the half-time show of the Super Bowl in 2001 that we realized just how lame they are. This masterpiece, Aerosmith's late nineties "return to form." is called Nine Lives and includes the tracks "Falling in Love (Is Hard of the Knees)" which makes a profound statement about young romance and "Pink" which makes a equally profound statement about the color everyone knows is gay but won't admit it.

More to come...

2006-12-12T13:18:00.000-05:00

Allen Iverson Top 10

Amercia, Back on Track

2006-12-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Meet Texas Representative Silvestre Reyes.

He has been picked by Nancy Pelosi as the next head of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House of Representatives.

Yesterday, it was reported that in a recent interview with Congressional Quarterly, Mr. Reyes was asked if the terrorist network Al Quada was comprised primarily of Shiites or Sunnis.

He had a 50/50 chance.

He got it wrong.

First he said, "They are probably both." - That's wrong.

Then he said, "Predominantly - probably Shiite." - That's also wrong.

Al Quada is the terror network led by Osama Bin Laden and they are Sunnis who abhor religious deviation and consider Shiites heretics. (At the moment, I'm taking that information from CNN online and Reuters online, but literally it's in any book you read about the Middle East.)

Also, when asked to describe the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, (you know, Hezbollah, the group that was on TV during that little war with Israel all of last summer) this dude apparently said "Hezbollah, Uh Hezbollah...Why do you ask me these questions at 5 o'clock."

May we also mention that Reyes was a senior member of the Armed Services and Select Intelligence committees?

Now he will be the HEAD of the INTELLIGENCE committee.

Awesome.

A.O. Let's Go

2006-12-08T20:20:00.000-05:00

Here at The Awkward Toad, we have made it a point not to include too many "reviews" on our blog.

In general, when it comes to art and culture, we are of the mindset that people do far too much reading and not nearly enough thinking. (not you, you're great. other people.)

Living in New York for a year and a half has convinced us that a solid majority of the city's intellectual and artistic elite daily read their opinions in the New York Times.

(How else can you explain Ben Brantley having what seems to be the final say on whether a Broadway show plays to a consistently packed house for an extended run or closes shortly after a poorly reviewed opening?)

Now, for some odd reason, this storied periodical has been magically arriving on our doorstep free-of-charge for about a week.

At first, we thought we might be "accidentally" stealing it from one of the other residents of our lavish, newly refurbished apartment paradise (read: run-down, over-priced, bug-infested shit hole.)

The past two days, however, we have let the paper sit outside until well after 6 o'clock (read: 6:01) before staking our claim. We can only assume it does not belong to anyone in the building.

This evening's perusal of the Weekend Arts Section has brought about a particular concern.

We feel there is serious issue to be taken with the New York Times cover review of Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" by A.O. Scott.

The Toad attended a matinée screening of the film at the Regal Theater Multiplex across the street from our beautiful apartment thanks to a discounted ticket purchased for him at the Cosco Superstore in Wilmington, Delaware by his aunt last winter. (Thanks!)

The review can be read here: http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/movies/08apoc.html?8dpc

In it, Mr. Scott's paints "Apocalypto" as a typical Hollywood film handsomely attired with an atypical setting. He makes a case that the film has very little too offer, outside of its finely crafted action sequences and ability to divert and entertain its audience.

In this vain, he writes:

"Once you get past the costumes and the subtitles, the most striking thing about “Apocalypto” is how comfortably it sits within the conventions of mainstream moviemaking"

As well as...

"It is, all in all, a pretty good show. (Mr. Gibson is a) shrewd and bloody-minded filmmaker. He is an entertainer. He will be publicized, and he will be paid."

Look.

We feel the idea that "Apocalypto" fits "within the conventions of mainstream moviemaking" is short-sighted. (We originally wrote asinine but that seemed a little harsh.)

Rather, it fits within the conventions of good old, time-honored storytelling. And stories were stories long before Hollywood had anything to do with it.

Typical stories are told and retold because something universal and/or transcendent can be found within them. Hollywood uses these stories in the same way William Shakespeare used them during the Renaissance and the same way Walt Disney used them during the dawn of animation.

What makes "Apocalypto" refreshing is a lack of conventionality which typical Hollywood films seem unable or unwilling to avoid.

And here we don't mean "conventionality" in terms of cinematic conceits. Mel Gibson's film is without question an action movie (and a damn good one), with a decent bit of debatable history and an astonishing amount of amazing visuals thrown in.

However, unlike the typical big-budget mess Hollywood studios generally churn out, "Apocalypto" has...

...no ego maniacal actors attempting to steal the film from their ensemble and, in the process, undermining the importance of the central storyline...

...no miscast or flat-out untalented "stars" included at the behest of a studio attempting to drum up name-recognition box office...

...no veiled or impassioned pleas to some kind of vaguely considered conventional morality...

...And no hypocritical guilt trips in store for its audience, as seems to be the case with the other major release of this weekend, Edward Zwick's "Blood Diamond." (The hot and dreamy Leonardo DiCaprio inks a multi-million dollar deal to find redemption against the back drop of a thinly conceived African culture which has been brutally repressed thanks to you, the comfortable, unaware middle-class viewer.)

(Devil's Advocate says: Perhaps there is a small suggestion of the standard "religious faith as redemptive power" theme in "Apocalypto", but we are of the opinion that this would not seem nearly as considerable if it's auteur's private-life weren't so familiar.)

And for the record, we are not defending Mel Gibson. We are only defending the film. Frankly, we think Mel Gibson a bit of a wack-job. (But are you going to tell us that Walt Disney wasn't a little bit nuts, or Truman Capote, or Ernest Hemingway, or...you get the point.)

Good stories are good stories.

For our money, it's nice to see a big-budget film tell one in a simple, well-fashioned style without the usual display of self-aggrandizing nonsense.

(Also, the part where the cougar eats the guys head is really cool.)

We Are the Plastic Ono Band

2006-12-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

Here at the Awkward Toad, we've always believed that John Lennon turned into a bit of a lunatic after he left the Beatles.

During our youth, an ill-advised purchase of "Unfinished Music: Vol. 1: Two Virgins", Lennon's first solo album, served only to reaffirm that theory.

(The cover of that album is John Lennon and Yoko Ono nude. I was gonna put a picture up but this is a family site and no family should have to see that.)

Here is how "Two Virgins" is described by allmusic.com which gives it a one and a half star rating: "The record is not unlike what you might get if you turned on a tape recorder for a random half-hour in your home -- snatches of inaudible conversation far away from the microphone, footsteps, wind, and so on."

In reality, it is even more boring than that makes it sound.

However, The Awkward Toad has decided that we really like the album "Plastic Ono Band"and wanted to invite anyone else that was scared off by Lennon's nude album covers, curious sonic experiments, or, let's be honest, cult-like obsession with Yoko Ono, to give it a listen.

That's all.

(Oh yeah! We do not like the songs "Power to the People" and "Do the Oz" which have been included as bonus tracks on the CD version of "Plastic Ono Band". These songs are obviously recorded in a different vain than the rest of the album and stand out as particularly sub-par. We blame Yoko Ono for their inclusion. And for the break up of the Beatles. And for "Instant Karma" being used in a car commercial. And for global warming.)

Also, if you've never seen this picture, it is John Lennon with Mark David Chapman.

Chapman camped outside Lennon's New York hotel and got this autograph.

Later in the evening, as Lennon was returning home, he assassinated him.

Pretty spooky, huh?

(P.S. - We are continually impressed with how quickly the Google ad at the top of this page changes to reflect the content of the blog. It only took them one day to switch it from selling the Beatles' new "Love" CD (for the Beatles Paul is Dead post) to an ad for tickets to the Iowa vs. Iowa St. game (for the Tom Vilsack post.)

Corporate America. You're good. You. You are good.)

Tom Vilsack

2006-12-01T18:40:00.000-05:00

If you are looking to vote for the opposite of George W. Bush in November of 2008, Tom Vilsack might be a viable candidate.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tom Vilsack's was orphaned at birth and adopted by a Roman Catholic working class family.

His adoptive father was a real-estate agent and insurance salesman.

He has admitted that his adoptive mother has battled alcohol and drug addiction.

He graduated from Hamilton College in New York and received a J.D. from Albany Law School.

After college, he moved with his wife to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and joined his father-in-law's legal practice.

As a member of the Iowa State Senate, Vilsack passed legislation holding Iowa's tax-funded corporations responsible for providing their employees with competitive pay and benefits.

He helped pass legislation that provided health coverage to workers changing jobs and updated Iowa's Workforce Development Department.

Later, Vilsack became the first Democratic Governor of Iowa in 30 years.

As governor, Vilsack began the Grow Iowa Values Fund, which appropriated millions of dollars to boost the Iowa economy by offering grants to corporations and creating initiatives which would lead to the development higher-income jobs.

"In June of 2006, Vilsack received a standing ovation from the 5,000 attendees at the Windpower 2006 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA, for speaking out for a progressive energy policy for the USA, and increasing the use of renewable energy, such as wind generation of electricity. Iowa, in recent years, has become one of the nation's leading states in development of wind energy."

A strong part of Vilsack's platform is curtailing America's reliance on foreign oil and funding programs to develop new forms of renewable energy.

Vilsack's last name rhymes with Ballsack.

(Last I checked, the opposite of Bush.)

2006-11-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

Turn Me On, Dead Man

2006-11-20T11:09:00.000-05:00

I had an idea to write about the "Paul is Dead" rumors from the late 1960's.

Unfortunately, I read about it and concluded that it is far and away the dumbest conspiracy theory of all.

Usually, when I write about this counter-culture stuff (crap), I like to frame the beliefs in such a manner that they seem somewhat plausible.

I don't think I can do that here.

So, I'll just list the evidence.

If you hold the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover up to a mirror, the end "Lonely Hearts" part of the sign reads "He Die" and allegedly points to Paul.

On the back cover of Sgt. Pepper's Paul faces backwards, while the rest of the band members face forwards and George Harrison is pointing to the lyric "Wednesday morning at five o'clock" from the song A Day in the Life, which is supposedly the time when McCartney, leaving the studio after an argument with the band, crashed his car.

The Sgt. Pepper's cover is supposed to be a funeral for McCartney. There are lots of little "clues" that I don't feel like naming because they are so dumb.

There is actual backward masking on Sgt. Pepper's. After the final track "A Day in the Life," a brief, unintelligible blur of sound plays. It is included on the CD version as well. According the McCartney when played backwards it says "We'll fuck you like a superman." (The Beatles were on a lot of drugs.)

(It should be pointed out here that, for some, the McCartney is Dead belief was very real. In the late 60's and early 70's, it acquired a lot of momentum and was talked about excessively on the radio and written about in magazines. The Beatles themselves have referenced it a number of times. McCartney released an album entitled Paul is Live in 1993 and John Lennon talked at length about the rumor in interviews after the band split. In his song, "How Do You Sleep", which is about McCartney, he sings "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead.")

Now, getting back to how dumb it is... In the middle spread of the Magical Mystery Tour album, there is a picture of Paul barefoot. His shoes are next to Ringo's bass drum which says "Love the 3 Beatles." (The shoes thing would come up again on the Abbey Road cover.) Also, in an image reproduced from the Magical Mystery Tour film, Paul wears a black carnation on his white suit while the other Beatles wear red. (I know, so what, I know...look I'm out of ideas.)

Did You Know - In the Magical Mystery Tour film, Vivian Stanshall from the Bonzo Dog Band plays a song called "Death Cab for Cutie" which is about a fatal car accident. This added fuel to the rumor that McCartney had died in a car crash (I think we can all agree Paul was the cute one) and provided the name of the current "Death Cab for Cutie" of Orange County fame.

There is some talk of backward masking on Magical Mystery Tour, but none that seems very credible. Some people think Lennon yells "I buried Paul" during "Strawberry Fields Forever", which led to the great Simpson's joke of Homer yelling "I buried Flanders" during the opening credits of the "D'oh-in the Wind" episode.

The White Album is the Beatles work that has caused the most controversy. (And not just in this area. Compared with Charles Manson hearing apocalyptic sermons about an upcoming race war in the songs "Helter Skelter" and "Revolution 9", the Paul is Dead idea seems rather tame.)

There is without question backward masking on the song "I'm So Tired". The backwards gibberish is easily apparent at the end of the song if you just listen to it normally. Supposedly played in reverse it says "Paul is dead, man. Miss him, miss him, miss him."

The song "Revolution 9" is rife with backward masking or at least theories of it. The repetition "number 9, number 9" throughout the song becomes "turn me on, dead man" played backwards. (That one is the most popular "clue".) "...you become naked" backwards is "Satan look at me." (This one is accepted as true, although it has nothing to do with Paul being dead.) There are also sounds of a car crash, a voice yelling "Get me out, Get me out" and other instances of chatter that are sometimes identified as references to Paul's death. (The most repeated one seems to be John Lennon saying ""...Yoko, you better go to see he's dead...")

The Beatles were on a lot of drugs.

Another Did You Know - McCartney and producer George Martin fought to keep "Revolution 9" off the album but John and Yoko won out. Maybe if McCartney had been successful we wouldn't know who Charles Manson is?

The cover of Abbey Road is supposed to be a funeral procession with John as the priest, Ringo as the passable drummer along for the ride, Paul as the dead guy, and George as the gravedigger. Again, McCartney wears no shoes and holds a cigarette in his RIGHT hand even though the REAL Paul was LEFT handed. (I mean, granted, you wouldn't be able to SEE the cigarette if it were in his left hand, but that reasoning is much too logical.) McCartney is out of step with the other three. The license plate on the car on the left reads 281f, which has been interpreted as 28 If, as in, Paul would be 28 if he had lived. The car that is driving down the road in the background is in line to have hit McCartney.

What's amazing to me is that the Beatles were only in their late 20's when they recorded Abbey Road.

During the ad campaign for Abbey Road, the Beatles released a poster with four candles in a holder. Three were lit and one was recently extinguished. It was a humorous allusion to the Paul is Dead rumor by the Beatles themselves, leading some to speculate that the entire cover of the album was the same.

Finally, on the Let It Be cover, John, Ringo, and George are facing left with white backgrounds and Paul is facing forward with red. Obviously this means he died.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

McCartney was supposedly replaced by some dude named Billy Shepard.

Here is a website with the full story and lots of photographic "evidence": http://digilander.libero.it/p_truth/

2006-11-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

Bank of America

2006-11-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

Stuff and Nonsense

Good Grief

2006-11-11T14:58:00.000-05:00

I think, by now, we all agree that television network execs have absolutely no idea what they are doing. (I mean, I'm still doing theater for Godsakes. What is the matter with these people?)

However, in case you need more proof, check out this write up I came across about the original Charlie Brown Christmas special, called A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was the first time the lovably disgruntled character appeared on network television.

"Network executives were not at all keen on several aspects of the show, forcing Schulz and Melendez to wage some serious battles to preserve their vision.

The executives did not want to have Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke (Lk 2:8-14); the network orthodoxy of the time assumed that viewers would not want to sit through passages of the King James Version of the Bible.

Another complaint was the absence of a laugh track, a common element of children's cartoons at the time. Schulz maintained that the audience should be able to enjoy the show at their own pace, without being cued when to laugh. (CBS did create a version of the show with the laugh track added, just in case Schulz changed his mind. This version remains unavailable.)

A third complaint was the use of children to do the voice acting, instead of employing adult actors. Finally, the executives thought that the jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi would not work well for a children's program.

When executives saw the final product, they were horrified and believed the special would be a complete flop. "

Of course, the program became a huge hit, with the original broadcast being tuned into by more than half the television sets in the United States. It won an Emmy, a Peabody, and spawned numerous sequels as well as subsequent networks specials and an animated series called Peanuts.

Another interesting fact about A Charlie Brown Christmas are the shots that have been edited out of the show since its original airing.

- The main titles have Linus crashing into a Coca-Cola sign after Snoopy has spun both him and Charlie Brown around with Linus's blanket. In the versions currently available, the viewer never sees where Linus' trajectory lands him.

- In the "fence" scene, where several of the Peanuts gang are attempting to knock cans off a fence with snowballs, Linus is seen knocking down a can with his blanket. In the original airing, this is a Coke can, but was later replaced with a nondescript can.

- The final end credit originally had text and graphics wishing the viewer a "Merry Christmas from your local Coca-Cola bottler." This is why the "Hark!" chorus sung at the end trails off oddly before the song would normally end, as an announcer originally did a voice over at this point in the credits to repeat and reemphasize the local bottler's well wishes to the TV audience.

Considering the show's anti-commercialization theme, I imagine these sequences must have seemed a little off-putting and ironic.

Robby Gates

2006-11-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

Absolutely everything it is important to know about the President’s candidate to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Thanks Wikipedia.

Robert Gates is from Wichita, Kansas.

He was an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.

He received a Bachelor’s Degree from The College of William & Mary(!!)

While obtaining his Master’s Degree from Indiana University, he was recruited to join the CIA.

In 1987, he was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence but the nomination was withdrawn after it became clear he would not be confirmed by the Senate.

BECAUSE…

His senior status in the CIA made it extremely possible that Gates was either involved with the Iran-Contra scandal or at the very least “knew many figures that played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities”

In 1991, after all of that nonsense had blown over, Gates was again nominated to be the head of Central Intelligence under George H. W. Bush and was approved.

He is the only person in the history of the CIA to rise from an entry-level position to Director.

He served in this position for two years.

Afterwards, he published a book of memoirs about the Cold War, served on the board of trustees at Fidelity Investments, on the board of directors at NACCO industries Inc, Brinker International Inc, and Parker Drilling Company. (I wonder what they do.)

He also served as the President of the National Eagle Scout Association. (Aww.)

Before accepting the nomination for Secretary of Defense, Baker was the President of Texas A & M University.

(An aside that has nothing to do with this dude - Don't be fooled by the previews for the upcoming movie about Robert F. Kennedy called "Bobby". It was directed by Emilio Esteves. Now, I don't want to disparage the other film making attempts by the Latin son of Martin Sheen, so I will just name them. "Rated X"; "The War at Home"; "Men at Work"; "Wisdom".)

Deadspin

2006-11-07T19:52:00.000-05:00

Are you like me?

Are you obsessed with professional sports despite the fact that you haven’t played in an organized league since you were 15 years old?

Do you find yourself watching ESPN at odd hours of the day, railing aloud at some bonehead comment by Merill Hoge, while he breaks down film of last Sunday’s Tampa Bay vs. Detroit match-up?

Do you know way too much about the Tour De Force doping scandal even though you probably couldn’t ride a bike 15 miles?

Do you wonder why Tony Kornheiser and Joe Theisman seem so odd together on Monday Night Football? Or why Harold Reynolds is no longer on Baseball Tonight? Or why there are so many shows about athlete’s private lives, which, from what I can tell, consist mostly of buying expensive cars, gambling, playing video games, and having absurd amounts of promiscuous sex? (Ok maybe I understand that one.)

Do you wonder why Sean Salsbury has a job that doesn’t involve asking his manager if he can knock down the price of a 1994 Chevy Cavalier and throw in a 3 year service plan if you sign the papers today?

Well, for a long time you may have thought you were a lone voice in the wilderness.

I know I did.

However, on my last four trips to Delaware my friend Jake has turned to me and asked a question that began with the phrase “Hey, Toady, did you see on Deadspin…”

And I replied “What’s Deadspin?”

And he told me.

And I forgot.

BUT

I finally remembered to visit this website last night during the Seattle Seahawks “victory” over the Oakland Raiders (Although, after seeing the Raiders play a game, I am of the opinion that no team should get credit for beating them by anything less than 50 points.)

Deadspin is an informed sport’s fan’s dream come true. That sounds lame but it is accurate.

Deadspin is funny, insightful, and oft-updated.

It has news stories from all over the country.

It has a wry, personal, and intelligent point of view.

And it’s really great ok so just visit it already at http://www.deadspin.com/

John Kerry and Other Things That Seem Odd to Me

2006-11-01T20:05:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think John Kerry is secretly working for the Republican party.

There is apparently a show on tv about people competing to lose weight.

There was a dude at the Halloween party I attended in a skin tight Mr. Incredible outfit.

The entire cast of the show My Name is Earl are Scientologists.

In Tennessee, there is a radio advertisement for a Republican Senator that somehow mentions his opponents race (black) six times.

The Current Top Ten Albums according to Billboard Magazine belong to Diddy, Evanescence, JoJo, Justin Timberlake, Dierks Bently (whoever the hell that is), Rod Stewart, Hinder, Reuben Studdard, Tony Bennett, and The Killers (From 1 to 10)

Paris Hiltons debut album, Paris, recieved four and a half stars (out of five) on All Music.com.

The current Heavyweight Champion of professional boxing is a Russian named Nikolai Valuev.

2006-10-25T17:02:00.000-04:00

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog

2006-10-24T19:27:00.000-04:00

SouthPark - Make Love Not Warcraft Full Episode

For the OMI.

"No Blood for Oil" - The Cliff's Notes

2006-10-24T17:04:00.000-04:00

It happens.

You’re at a party. (And by party we mean 8 of you in a basement playing beer pong and drinking shots of Jaeger.) People are drunk. (And by drunk we mean puking in Skelly’s hair.) They start talking about politics. (And by talking, we mean yelling. Especially us.)

Then someone drops it. “The Iraq war is all about oil.”

Now, as you know, we here at the Awkward Toad have no political affiliation. We have no beliefs, doctrines, or ideals, outside of being really awkward and really toad.

We did, however, put together something we are referring to as the “No Blood for Oil” Cliffs Notes.

It is a quick synopsis of the Western-oil-domination theory and the history surrounding it.

Read it.

And next time your party is threatened by an “Iraq War argument”…

...you can put the liberal hippie douche in his place...

...or show the ignorant red-neck asshole how dumb he is...

...or impress a drunk girl or guy with how smart you are...

...or shut everyone up so you can get back to the beer pong game and run the table. (Unless we're playing, in which case you are toast. Toast.)

Here it is, quick and easy, just the way she tells me she likes it.

(Remember, this is not the work of a reporter, it is the work of a toad. If there are minor details that are wrong, we apologize. And we know, it is overly simplified and we aren't saying we believe it. Just that this is a brief account of the theory. Please don't write "Love it or leave it" in the comments section.)

"NO BLOOD FOR OIL" - The Cliff's Notes

In the 1950's all was well in Iran.

Unfortunately, its anti-Western leader threatened to nationalize the Iranian oil industry.

The CIA (this is not disputed by our government) engineered a revolution in Iran, overthrew Mussadeq and installed a man named Mohammed Reza Pahlevi as Shah (or King).

The Shah was much better for the U.S. He was a pro-Western, liberal ruler that encouraged free-trade. (He also consolidated wealth at the top and treated the general Iranian population like garbage. But whatever.)

In the 1970’s, the Iranian people, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini revolted against the Shah and installed an Islamic Republic. In general, they were nicer to the Iranian people, unless you were a women and wore a short skirt.

They nationalized the oil industry and cut out the United States.

Meanwhile…

In 1963 the Kassan regime in Iraq threatened to nationalize part of their oil industry.

They also were overthrown. Somehow.

Saddam Hussein’s Baathist’s party took control for good in 1968 and immediately began gassing the shit out of the Kurds in northern Iraq. (Keep in mind, this was what he was eventually put on trial for after the U.S. invasion.)

A few years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, Saddam decided it would be a good idea to go to war with them.

Somebody with a lot of available weapons (I wonder who it could be) must have agreed because he was able to carry out massive assaults on the Iraqi-Iranian border through almost the entire decade of the 80’s.

(Oh yeah, in 1982 the U.S. officially took Saddam’s Iraq off the terrorism watch list, which effectively removed trade sanctions b/n our countries. This was while he was using mustard gas and other chemical weapons.)

Iran managed to resists Saddam’s offensive and continued to develop their Islamic government.

Saddam continued to be rich and gas Kurds. He also did something he should have known better than to do. He threatened to nationalize his oil industry AND start trading oil in euros instead of dollars. (This may have been good for the Iraqi people, or at least the Iraqi people Saddam liked, but it would not have been good for other people in the world, like me.)

There is a lot of oil in Kuwait. People in Iraq believe part of Kuwait (the part with the oil) actually belongs to them. Saddam threatened to invade Kuwait.

The U.S. issued what appeared to be a statement of neutrality regarding the issue.

Saddam is supposedly on record as saying he believe the U.S. was giving him the greenlight, just as it had with his Iran invasion.

Saddam invades.

The U.S. attacks.

Operation Desert Storm. (Remember we saw it on TV. With the lights in the sky. Pretty cool.)

The U.S. beats Saddam back.

They prompt the Shiite majority of Iraq to revolt.

They revolt.

The U.S. does not back them.

They get slaughtered.

(People believe there was not enough political capital behind funding a revolution because there was too much of a chance the Shiites, if successful, would join with Iran and form a giant anti-Western Islamic republic. Perhaps part of the reason it is so damn hard to establish an Iraqi government today?)

The war ends.

The U.S. under Bill Clinton puts heavy sanctions on Iraq, which decimates the country’s population.

The U.S. government establishes No-Fly Zones in Iraq, which allows them to drop bombs on just about any target at just about any time. (Like say, for instance, the morning after you are in trouble for getting a blow job from some hot, or, well, at least young, girl.)

George W. Bush is elected President in the U.S.

A bunch of dudes from Afghanistan hijack airplanes and run them into the WTC.

Saudi Arabia, for the first time, begins bowing to outside Islamic influence.

The United States invades Iraq and arrests Saddam Hussein.

So, the theory goes that there was a long term strategy to neutralize Iraq so the U.S. could topple Saddam and set up a pro Western government that would allow free trade and perhaps break apart the beguiling Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The events of 9/11 sped up a plan that was already in place. Anytime a nation in the Middle East threatens to nationalize their oil industry we respond with force. That's the theory.

2006-10-24T15:31:00.000-04:00

The Office - David Brent Dance

If it was dancing you wanted, you should have come to me.

Things I Like

2006-10-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

For no good reason:

Here are some things I have encountered recently that I enjoyed.

(The guys who do the Google ads that I never actually make money from at the top of this page will love this. At least they will be putting ads up for stuff people might buy instead of the "Acting Lessons" ad that was up there after I wrote the post about Cape Cod or the rare Buffalo coin ad that is there now.)

In no particular order…

The Road – by Cormac McCarthy – Recently published novel by the author of Blood Meridian. Possibly a masterpiece.

The Wire – Season 1 – The Netflix envelopes can’t arrive fast enough. Good writing, interesting characters and a different locale (downtown Baltimore) put the first season of The Wire up there with the best television has to offer.

The Rosebuds – Birds Make Good Neighbors – The second album from this Brooklyn (?) New York duo has played non-stop in the Toad’s Accord since he returned to Delaware earlier in the week. I hesitate to call it a rock/folk mix because that makes it sound boring, but I don’t know another way to describe it. Solid 11 cuts. All listenable. Highly recommend.

Desperate Networks – Bill Carter – This industry expose by the famed New York Times columnist will make you interested in network television again, if not exactly entertained by it. The early numbers on the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother have never meant so much to me.

TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain – I’m sure this album is really weird. It might also be really great.

South Park – Season 10 – Make Love, Not Warcraft – Up there with the best South Park episodes of all time.

Big Jim

2006-10-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

For anyone that ever said baseball managers don't matter...

...this could have been a Phillies jersey.

2006-10-05T03:03:00.000-04:00

30 Rock -- Exclusive Scene -- Episode 2

Token acts somebody.

Scott Tenerman On Demand

2006-09-21T17:30:00.000-04:00

South Park Season 5, Episode 1

Heddy, heddy, heddy, how's it goin guys.

Calm Like a ?

2006-09-13T00:42:00.000-04:00

AWKWARD TOAD CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(It's like Deal or No Deal except without the money or the hot girls or Howie Mandel.)

The first person to guess the other (more popular) name for this essay, Industrial Society and Its Future, will be the first person to guess the other name for this essay!!

Read it here: http://www.dtext.com/transition/kaczynski/kaczynski2.html

I know, it's easy. You probably didn't even have to click the link. God you are smart.

(The thing is, if the author got his way, I would never have read it. But I guess that would be ok because I would be too busy satisfying my own personal power struggle by killing animals and mating.)

That being said, it is REAL FUCKIN' INTERESTING, JER.

(It's also fuckin' long, so if you are interested, don't try to read it all at once. And if you are not interested, feel free to say so with a sarcastic comment in the comments section. I promise not to send you any threatening mail.)

=

Labor Day

2006-09-09T17:35:00.000-04:00

Each year, without knowing it, Americans take a day off to celebrate Socialism.

(God, we are such commie bastards.)

On September 4, the workers of our glorious nation relax, drink beer, eat barbecue, and don't think about how their long hours of toil for meager wages are being systematically exploited to produce great wealth for less than 1% of the population.

The rest of the world does this on May 1st, but the rest of the world are fucking retards.

Labor Day traces its roots back to the Knights of Labor, who began the holiday by parading around the streets of New York City in 1882. (And yes, those Knights were affiliated with that other group of Knights, although they kind of shot themselves in the foot because once Labor Day was established as a holiday, their uniform became oddly unfashionable for the next four months.)

These days, Labor Day is known as a time of heavy travel and traffic, as folks fill their SUV's with ethanol-enhanced gasoline and drive to the beach for a final time before saying so long to summer.

(Aside - Click this link to find out why the law mandating ethanol-enhanced gasoline is stupid. http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/apr2006/bw20060427_493909.htm
I thought people voted for Republicans because they don't pass laws regulating free trade and they hate gay people not just because they hate gay people.)

This year, 93.3 WMMR, which was once Philadelphia's best choice for rock and roll and is now Philadelphia's only choice for rock and roll, aired a four day A-Z countdown of the “Greatest Songs Ever Written.”

The Toad happened to catch a few hours of this broadcast as he migrated north along the New Jersey Turnpike.

Included in the countdown were:

“Minority” by Green Day

“Machine Head” by Bush

“Lump” by The Presidents of the United States of America

“Modern Day Cowboy” by Tesla

2 songs by The Pretenders that I didn’t know

And some odd, guitar-wanking cover of “Lowrider”

Truly, some of the “Greatest Songs Ever Written.”

9/10's of the Law

2006-08-29T14:07:00.000-04:00

A senior official at the Vatican has claimed that both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the devil.

“I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed,” said Father Gabriele Amorth “All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil. You can tell by their behavior and their actions, from the horrors they committed and the atrocities that were committed on their orders. That's why we need to defend society from demons."

No word yet on whether or not Father Amorth believes the crusaders under Alexis the First were possessed when they assaulted the Seljuk Turks and massacred the population of Jerusalem in the 11th century. Or if the atrocities against German and Hungarian Jews by Christians during subsequent crusades were the result of possession. Or the invasion of Mexico and enslavement of the Mayans in the name of Christianity in the 16th Century. Or the carnage of Pizarro and the other Spanish conquistadors. Or Columbus. Or…whatever, you see where this is going.

Father Amorth is one of the Church's chief proponents of the “crusade” against J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter novels, claiming that the author herself may be possessed and that her books teach children to dabble in the occult and black magic, which leads them astray from their faith and makes them susceptible to demonic possession.

Maybe next he will speak out against history books?

I Read the News Today.

2006-08-29T13:06:00.000-04:00

Oh boy.

On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace, formerly known as The Notorious B.I.G, asked Delaware Senator Joseph Biden how “a Northeast liberal like (him) would stand in the South if (he) were running against Southerners like Mark Warner and John Edwards.

Biden’s response?

“You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything but a Northeast liberal state.”

A small article about this was printed in Tuesday’s edition of Delaware’s News Journal with the headline “Biden’s ability to court South questioned,” which, I’m pretty sure, is not the crux of the story.

Laugh at This

2006-08-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

Colbert Breaks

If you are pressed for time fast forward this to minute 2:oo

RELAY the Message

2006-07-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

Vote for THE RELAY!

Delaware's hottest rock band featuring Neil Kremer on guitar, Richard Derke on bass, and "Billy" Clint Hoffman on drums.

Vote now on the WSTW website for THE RELAY to open for the Spin Doctors at SUMMERFEST, a Delaware concert event.

You can check out THE RELAY's tunes on Myspace music or their website www.therelayrock.com.

Go to http://www.wstw.com/index.php and vote. The voting box is on the left. Click on the band name and then click vote.

So, if you...want to see THE RELAY...just go ahead now...

A Lack of Toad

2006-07-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

(By way of explaining my absence, I am working on Red Light Winter in Boston. This is a copy of an interview with the playwright, Adam Rapp, which appeared in today's Boston Globe along with a picture of myself and the other two cast members. According to this, I am playing the embodiment of a "certain kind of Gen-X-er." Odd, considering I am not, myself, a Gen-X-er.)

A `Red Light' Rapp on love, sex, friendship
By Catherine Foster, Globe Staff July 14, 2006

Adam Rapp's ``Red Light Winter" is about the night two guys share an Amsterdam ``window prostitute" and the lasting effects that encounter has on their lives. The play, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize, was first performed by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, then in New York. It begins previews at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on Thursday. Rapp recently spoke about the play by cellphone from a train.

What's the history of this play?

I wrote it in 2003. I was on the West Coast, auditioning people for my first film. For some reason I started reminiscing about the time I spent with a best friend in Amsterdam back in 1997. My friend was very depressed and was having a hard time connecting to the world. He'd lost a girlfriend. In Amsterdam I thought it would be good for him to get back on the horse. So I went window-shopping in the red light district for a woman for him. I met a woman, we slept together, and I gave her more money so I could send my friend to her, too. She was a Greek premed student, purportedly, very beautiful and sweet. He had an amazing time and developed an irrational obsession with her. In LA, I went back to my hotel room and started writing a play about two friends who both sleep with the same prostitute. The play is very much fiction. People want to believe it's directly autobiographical, but I just borrowed the triangle.

Davis -- the guy who hires the prostitute -- is a powerful, charismatic figure. Christina is attracted to him, and the friend, Matt, seems under his thrall. Davis seems similar to the unfeeling, egotistical men in Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men." Is Davis the embodiment of a certain kind of Gen X-er?

I think that's probably accurate. My only relationship to Davis is that I played basketball in a competitive college environment with alpha males. They seemed to rise to the top. Davis is a triple threat: He's intellectually capable, athletically capable, and sexually capable. Casting him is tricky. You have to find someone who can not only charm the two people in the play but the entire audience as well. The audience has to fall in love with him to understand why Christina would.

In the script, I didn't like him at all.

I don't either.

The play contains nudity and very sexually explicit stage directions. How did the Chicago and New York productions interpret them? Is there real sex going on onstage?

No, but it really looks like it. I directed those productions, so I'm in control of the sexual content. There was a wash of red light at those moments, and it was dimly lit. They were certainly naked with each other. We had to do all sorts of masking and tricks. It's all about developing trust with the actors and with each other. But all the emotional things going on have to be convincing for it to work. The play is actually less about sex than it is about unrequited love, loneliness, and the gulf between those who feel successful and those who do not. I never thought of this play as a pornographic play. It's about heartbreak, irrational love, unrequited love. When I was in LA, I saw a production of ``The Seagull." I was so moved by that. The friend I was with said, `How come you don't write about love?' I thought this would be a good rabbit hole to disappear into and challenge myself. The most important thing is dealing with this irrational connection we put on people when we have a small moment with them. And how that can change our lives.

"Red Light Winter" runs Thursday through Aug. 12. $12-$27. 508-349-9428, www.what.org.

The Death of the Internet

2006-06-22T14:05:00.000-04:00

The Flaming Lips are my close Myspace friends. They sent me this video. It's important. They are celebrities.

This is the World We Live In...

2006-06-09T16:11:00.000-04:00

And these are the creepy robotic hands we’ve been given.

From the BBC news…

Scientists have discovered a way to reproduce the acute sensitivity of human touch in robotic hands. Through a process I don’t pretend to understand (that is, science), professors at the University of Nebraska have finally surmounted one of the greatest hurdles on the path to our own destruction and domination.

By way of demonstration, the pair of hell-bent researchers used their device to touch a penny and it registered the grooves that comprised Abe Lincoln’s clothes and the “TY” in “Liberty.”

For this blogger, the development of robot hands seems to be the next logical step down the road toward human supplication by a race of power-driven robots fueled by a self-evolving artificial intelligence.

One researcher, however, does not see these dire consequences.

In a conference call, philosopher and sometime geologist Dr. Matthew McConnell called this theory “a piece of trash” and postulated that “his boy Bricker” could “get a robot to tap out in ten seconds.” He sees no evidence for the development of A.I and does not worry for the human species.

When he pressed for details, the interviewer was called a “fucking retard” and challenged to a match of foosball which he respectfully declined.

The call was ended when the slurred voice of an unidentified female was heard in the background, speaking loudly and warning the interviewer that the man he was talking to “knows absolutely nothing about running. NOTHING!” This voice, however, was silenced by the click of the telephone receiver.

We do not know where Brett the Mad Scientist, stands on this issue as he could not be reached for comment (read: I don't have his phone number), but our guess would be his theory is something soulless and spirit-killing.

Developing…

Apocalypse

2006-06-08T00:39:00.000-04:00

The passing of 6/6/06 didn’t bring the four horsemen but did allow the four major media news networks to avoid covering the Islamic Courts Union’s consolidating control over Mogadishu, (which would have forced them to admit The Inconvenient Truth that the United States government is funding tribal warlords in Somalia) and instead gave them carte blanche to shill for 20th Century Fox’s The Omen (starring Live Schreiber who was brilliant in Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway but for some reason sucks in movies, Sphere anyone? 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes)

6/6/06 did also bring one other interesting development.

A press release.

From NASCAR.

Stating:

“L. Ron Hubbard’s bestseller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health has, for 56 years, been a pacesetter for those seeking to get rid of stress and “ignite the potential” of the human mind. And in a year in which it has sparked more grassroots interest than ever before, a Dianetics racing team announced its entrance into one of the world’s most popular sports, joining the NASCAR family.”

Full Press release here: http://www.irwindalespeedway.com/pressdetail.asp?pressid=843

Driver Kenton Gary says the techniques he learned from Hubbard’s book have improved his concentration and helped him surmount many obstacles in his personal life.

Put in Scientology terms, Gary has submitted himself to the process of auditing, thereby ridding himself of Engrams and Implants to reach the state of Clear, from which he can now work toward the level of Operating Thetan.

No word yet on Gary’s reaction to the revelation that Xenu’s Galactic Confederacy is indeed responsible for clouding the human psyche with harmful Body Thetans. (Am I getting this right? I always lose the strain once I get past the third or fourth Operating Level.)

There has been no official reaction from the redneck community but it is a safe bet that hundreds of hard-working Americans are currently lamenting the loss of their final cultural refuge in a twelve-pack of Miller High Life and a slowly dwindling bag of methamphetamines.

First Blue Collar TV goes off the air and now this!

Music

2006-05-21T17:09:00.000-04:00

Allow Me to Recommend...

Worth another listen...

A Sincere Apology

2006-05-21T16:18:00.000-04:00

I heard a story about David Blaine that made me wish I hadn't written that last post.

Here it is:

Mr. Blaine was a student at the Neighborhood Playhouse, a school where The Awkward Toad takes night class in New York. During his time there, he was apparently not very interested in the acting training but he did manage to leave a rather mysterious mark. (I apologize if this is bad writing. I am hungover.)

One night a peer of David's threw a party for his entire acting class, about 15 kids.

During the course of the evening, David Blaine silenced the room, asking the students to sit in front of him in a semicircle.

He took out of his front shirt pocket an imaginary deck of playing cards. Unwrapped the imaginary deck. Shuffled it. Then fanned it out in front of him and asked the students to each pick an imaginary card, picture it in their mind, and put it back in the deck. He then reshuffled the deck. Set it aside. And named each card the students had imagined. 9 of clubs, 6 of diamonds etc...

He then left the party in stunned silence. (This story can be corroborated by a teacher at the Playhouse, who I won't name here, but was present at that night's party.)

So you can say that the levitating in his videos is fake. You can say that the people reacting to his tricks are actors. But there was no reason for the people telling me that story to lie.

The man is a sorceror. And he scares me.

A Salty Salute

2006-05-08T13:53:00.000-04:00

It has been brought to our attention that the ABC television network plans to air a two-hour special tonight called “David Blaine: Drowned Alive.”

The Awkward Toad and his staff applaud this effort by ABC to bring quality programming to the mass media.

We, first of all, acknowledge how easy it would have been for the folks at the American Broadcasting Company to go crass with this one. A few of our staffers here are still salivating over the idea of “David Blaine: Burned to a Crisp” or “David Blaine: Guillotined.” We also believe it would have been great fun to watch the pompous magician scream in overwhelming agony as each of his fingers is brutally circumcised (one for each letter in Fiona Apple’s name) in “David Blaine: AHHHHH!.” Think of the ratings!

But, thankfully, ABC has opted to keep this one classy. Drowning, after all, does seem to be a fair compromise. We will still be able to watch Blaine writhe and gasp helplessly as he searches for a pocket of air that we all know isn’t forthcoming, but the water will softly silence his screams of pain and desperate pleas for life. If all goes to plan, his final expiration will look almost as peaceful as a sunset with Blaine collapsing from exhaustion and his lungs slowly filling with water.

A number of us are going down to Columbus Circle (9th Avenue b/n 63rd and 64th Street) to witness Blaine's demise in person. We have a keg of Bud Light and will be picking up a bag of subs from Quizno's on the way. If you are interested, it's $5 dollars all you can eat and all you can drink, plus an extra $10 if you want an official "I watched David Blaine die" t-shirt. Should be good times.

Once again, from all of us here at The Awkward Toad to all of you at ABC, kudos.

Consume This

2006-05-02T14:03:00.000-04:00

New Pearl Jam Album

In the Meantime...

2006-04-21T13:20:00.000-04:00

Britain's Labour party reported today that it spent a total of $13,700 in hairstyling costs for Tony Blaire's wife, Cherie, during last year's reelection campaign.

I could live on that money for a year and a half. Give it to me. I'll prove it. I'm cheap.

Apparently, this figure does not include costs Mrs. Blaire shouldered herself. She claims to have payed her hairstylist, Andre Suard, out of her own pocket when she took him on government trips. (Where did the money in her pocket come from? She is an unemployed spouse of an elected official that is paid with public dollars, euros, whatever they use over there, tea leaves.)

You have to love the Labour party's response to this "accusation." An unnamed official, in a public interview, is quoted as saying,

"So what?"

Cherie Blaire has good and bad (hair) days...

Why Did I Do This?

2006-04-19T23:44:00.000-04:00

I know far too much about the John F. Kennedy assassination. Here is proof.

The Kennedy Assassination: A- Z

Alex Hidell - One of L. H. Oswald’s aliases. This name was used to order the Mannlicher rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository. The alias was easily traceable to Lee, leading conspiracy buffs to conclude it was used purposefully in order to frame him. Lone Gunmen theorists suggest it was a part of Oswald’s plan to gain renown after the assassination.

Book Depository – Oswald was working at the Texas School Book Depository, stacking texts for roughly minimum wage on November 23, 1963. From the Sixth floor of this building, he allegedly fired three shots into John F. Kennedy, the first piercing his throat and the third ripping off his head.

Clay Shaw - The only man to be indicted as a conspirator in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Shaw was best known as the director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart. Years after his trial, it was revealed that he was, in fact, a covert agent working in New Orleans for the CIA. The case against Shaw as a conspirator was weak at best, based on suspect eyewitness accounts of his ties to the New Orleans homosexual underworld and specifically to his acquaintance with David Ferrie, an active member of the campaign to overthrow Fidel Castro with Lee Harvey Oswald. Clay Shaw is terrifying looking.

David Ferrie – Allegedly a big part of Jim Garrison’s case to convict Clay Shaw, Ferrie was a pilot and flying instructor in Louisiana. He died a few months before the trial took place. His connection to the assassination is confusing. Ferrie was undoubtedly involved in some very illicit dealings, and seems almost indisputably to be linked with the CIA. He was a part of Operation Mongoose, a campaign to train Cuban refugees to reinvade Cuba after the Bay of Pigs failure, which was shut down by Kennedy in ’62. A known homosexual who was defrocked by the Catholic church after his orientation was made plain, Ferry’s connection to Garrison’s case seems to come mostly from his homosexual dealings and his aforementioned connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, who served in a squadron that Ferrie taught at Moisant Airport. He also worked for the attorney of Carlos Marcello. A friend of Guy Bannister, the New Orleans P.I. that seems to be another link between the Office of Naval Intelligence, the CIA, and the N.O. underground, told reporters and the FBI that he believed David Ferrie hypnotized Lee Harvey Oswald and convinced him to murder JFK. David Ferrie is very weird looking.

Electrical failure – Some workers at the Book Depository where Oswald worked and some Dallas Policemen claim that at the time of the assassination the power in the building went dead and Channel One, the channel the DPD was using to coordinate motorcade protection was suddenly immobilized.

Fidel Castro – Many conspiracy theorists believe the undying Cuban dictator was behind the plot to assassinate Kennedy. In the early 1960’s, Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General under his brother, was waging a full-on campaign to unseat the bearded wonder in anyway possible. The most famous example of this was the “exploding cigar” incident. Some conspiracy buffs believe Oswald was working covertly for Cuba when he shot Kennedy. They sight a trip he took 6 months prior to the assassination to Mexico City where he allegedly met with officials from Cuba. The House Select Committee that investigated the assassination in the 70’s claimed to find no evidence that Oswald met with anyone from Cuba during this trip. They declined, however, to say just what he did do in Mexico. For his part, Castro has denied any involvement, saying that he would have essentially signed Cuba’s death warrant by killing the commander-in-chief of its greatest enemy.

Garrison, Jim – The only man to bring a case in the murder of JFK, Garrison was immortalized in Oliver Stone’s film. The portrait painted there is, of course, quite flattering, but there are other aspects of Garrison’s personality worth exploring. In numerous taped interviews, Garrison comes of as a bit of an egotist, convinced he knows exactly what happened in Dallas, and talking very big, obviously looking to make a name for himself. He began his investigation convinced that the assassination was a “homosexual thrill-killing” perpetrated by New Orleans gays. His theory grew and grew until the entire U.S. Government seemed to be implicated. Unfortunately, he was unable to muster very much proof and his case failed after a jury took less than 2 hours to acquit Clay Shaw. He is the author of the book On the Trial of the Assassins and served for a long time after the trial on the Louisiana Court of Appeal, elected to two ten year terms.

Howard Hunt – The “mastermind” behind the Watergate break-in during the Nixon Administration, some conspiracy buffs fancy Hunt is one of the “hobos” being led to a Dallas Police Jail on the morning of the assassination. Here are pictures of them. You decide. (Hunt is top left - apparently the other comparisons are of other CIA/Washington people and hobos that were arrested that day.)

Intelligence agencies – Many people surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald were connected to some kind of intelligence agency. His wife’s father was a part of the Russian Ministry of the Interior and possibly connected to the KGB. Oswald himself was a radar operator for the U.S. Military and some believe he used secrets about Gary Power’s U2 spy plane to gain entry to Russia during his brief defection. His main contact in New Orleans after his return to the U.S. was George de Mohrenschildt who has, on separate occasions in history, been linked to French Intelligence, Post-War German Intelligence, a pro-Nazi campaign to kill Joseph Stalin, and the oil interests of Prescott Bush. (This sentence is from Wikipedia: On March 29, 1977, while on a break from the interview, de Mohrenschildt received a card from Gaeton Fonzi an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. That afternoon he committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a shotgun..) Oswald shared an office in New Orleans with Guy Bannister, a former ONI officer, CIA contact, and aid to the anti-Castro Cubans. David Ferrie trained Oswald as a pilot. He is linked to Bannister and various government attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro or overthrow the Cuban dictator.

Joe Kennedy – The Kennedy family patriarch, Joe Kennedy was the son of Irish immigrants. He built the family from nothing, exploiting every crevice of the American capitalist system. He bootlegged liquor during Prohibition, dealt hand-in-hand with the Chicago mafia, and inflated the price of stocks on an unregulated Wall Street before the Great Depression. Some have speculated that Joe’s blind ambition put a curse on his family that survives to this day. The curse was an idea even Jackie Kennedy believed in. Joe’s final ambition for himself was to be U.S. President, but that dream ended with his profoundly isolationist views during the beginning of the Second World War and rumors tying him to the Nazi party and Communism. When his eldest son, Joe Jr., was killed in an air attack during the war, the task of becoming President fell to his second son, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Knoll – As in “Grassy.” The subject of much debate, many people believe there was a second gunman that fired at Kennedy from this position. During the House Select Committee’s investigation into the assassination during the late 70’s, forensic scientists thought they had proved the existence of a second shooter by examining the tape evidence of a Dallas Police Officer, who had left his radio switched on during the attack. They convinced the Committee that there were, in fact, 4 shots fired that day, leading many to conclude at least one must have come from the Grassy Knoll. This evidence was later disputed, however, and to this day remains inconclusive. Testimony by a Railroad Supervisor named Lee Bowers Jr. and other witness indicate suspicious activity on the Knoll before the shooting, but much of it seems just as likely to have been Secret Service protection procedures as it was preparation by would-be assassins.

L. Fletcher Prouty – After a 23 year military career, where he rose to the rank of colonel and served with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fletcher Prouty wrote two books. One called The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World and another called JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. He is a vocal opponent of the CIA and argues the postulation of a “global elite” that controls world affairs. He is purportedly the inspiration for the Mr. X character in Oliver Stone’s film JFK.

Marcello, Carlos – The target of a very active and public war against the mafia by JFK’s Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Carlos Marcello was the kingpin of the south, allegedly gaining power under Huey Long and exploiting it through racketeering, prostitution and the drug trade. An illegal alien, Marcello was deported by the U.S. government in the early 60’s after staying in the country illegally for two decades. He was dropped by helicopter into the middle of a jungle in Guatemala and left to his own devices. Marcello swore retribution against the Kennedy’s, whom he blamed for his deportation and the crackdown on his business. He also allegedly found the Kennedy family ungrateful, stating that Joe Kennedy, JFK’s father, had used his mafia connections in the North to get his son elected. In a conversation concerning RFK, he is quoted as saying, “You cut off the head, the tail dies,” obviously suggesting that by killing the President you could neutralize his brother.

(N-Z coming someday...)

Pardon Me, While I Burst Into Flames

2006-04-07T01:10:00.000-04:00

“When I got in through the window I found the body of a tramp named Bailey laying at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor.[1] He was lying partly on his left side. There was a four-inch slit in his abdomen from which was issuing, at force, a blue flame. The flame was beginning to burn the wooden stairs. We extinguished the flames by playing a hose into the abdominal cavity. Bailey was alive when he started burning. He must have been in terrible pain. His teeth were sunk into the mahogany newel post of the staircase. I had to prise his jaws apart to release the body. The fire was coming from within the abdomen of his body.”
- 13 September 1967

This quotation is taken from the eyewitness account of Police Station Officer Jack Stacey, the man that found the remains of Robert Francis Bailey, one of the few known individuals whose death has been associated with Spontaneous Human Combustion.

For his part, Officer Stacey did not attribute the tramp’s death to the alleged phenomenon. He believed the man, whose body showed obvious signs of alcohol abuse, was a meth drinker, and had consumed enough meth that evening that his body literally caught on fire from the inside out.

Scientists, while for the most part extremely skeptical of Spontaneous Human Combustion, lend even less credence to Stacey’s theory, leaving the Bailey case unexplained.

The idea of Spontaneous Human Combustion, abbreviated SHC, has been around for centuries. When asked for his opinion of the unexplained phenomenon, British author and inventor Arthur C. Clarke had this to say,

“There's one mystery I'm asked about more than any other: spontaneous human combustion. Some cases seem to defy explanation, and leave me with a creepy and very unscientific feeling. If there's anything more to SHC, I simply don't want to know."

The Wikipedia credits Christina Paul as saying, “Spontaneous combustion is completely random. Imagine if your professor spontaneously combusted in the middle of a lecture." This is a dumb quote and should be removed from the Wikipedia by someone with more nerve than me.

Many of the alleged cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion are, at best, a gigantic reach. Often the accounts include some kind of device, i.e. a pipe or cigarette that could easily ignite the victim.

As far as eyewitness proof goes, Jeannie Saffin’s case takes the charred cake. A mental deficient, Saffin was terrified of fire since childhood. Her father, 82 year-old Jack Saffin, watched his daughter burst into flames in front of his own eyes. Police and fire respondents reported no damage to the room Jeannie was in and no left-over smoke. An investigation into a possible murder by Mr. Saffin or his wife was conducted and both were released from suspicion. The official cause of death was listed as “misadventure.”

Another of the more interesting cases is Mary Hardy Reeser, later dubbed “The Cinder Lady,” by “clever” local media in St. Petersburg, Florida. Wilton M. Krogman PhD. Physical anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania was asked to review the case by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His analysis marks this incident quite ponderous indeed.

Mrs. Reeser burned to death while sitting in her rocking chair. Though her body was almost entirely incinerated, the chair and the rest of her surroundings remained basically intact. Also, her charred skull had somehow managed to shrink to the size of a “tea cup.”

In his report on the case, Dr. Krogman had this to say,

"I cannot conceive of such complete cremation without more burning of the apartment itself. In fact the apartment and everything in it should have been consumed. [...] I regard it as the most amazing thing I have ever seen. As I review it, the short hairs on my neck bristle with vague fear. Were I living in the Middle Ages, I'd mutter something about black magic."

In recent years, science has attributed SHC to something called "the wick effect" which essentially involves human bodies burning quickly and severely due to flames ignited by excess body fat. Read more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158853.stm.

(P.S. I had a lot of cool pictures for this article, really the whole reason I researched and wrote the damn thing, but Blogspot isn't letting me upload them.)

Amphibious Warfare

2006-03-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

The Weatherbug forecast for tomorrow afternoon (this is what I do on Saturday nights, sit home and read the Weatherbug because its so...free):

"Mostly cloudy. Some sun. Slight chance of rain or snow showers in the morning. Highs in the lower 50's."

I've heard of covering all your bases before but I mean COME ON! Am I right? Huh? Am I right or what? I mean it's ridiculous. GOD IT'S ALL SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS!!!!!

Whatcugonnado with all them facts?

2006-03-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

(Note: The article below consists solely of the opinions of its author and is in no way a reflection of the views, opinions, or ideas of, apparently, any one else in the whole world.)

My good friend Brett believes the information swapped on the internet by members of our amazing race is generally useless. While I tend to agree with this evaluation, I find it incumbent on me, being a man of action, to at least do my part and impart (how ‘bout that) some valuable knowledge to people around the globe (or at least around the Northeast.)

For this article I have put aside my normal procedure of copying information from websites and repeating it in an ironic fashion and instead posted something straight from the heart

My great hope is that others will follow suit and that this unrestricted exchange of ideas will trigger a Golden Age for our Civilization. (This is something I know a good deal about, as I have already brought about three Golden Ages for my Roman civilization as we approach the Modern era, as well as produced a large number of great leaders and half of all the Great Wonders on the planet. Granted, I am playing on the Chieften difficulty and automating my workers, but I did it all without employing slavery and limited my warmongering to the destruction of Germany, who had the impunity to settle their capital on my eastern seaboard.)

What follows are a few “power points” I have found helpful for daily living. Enjoy!

- The Song “My Humps” is bad. If you like this song, you need to reevaluate your life. If it is, in fact, “your jam”, I fear we may already be too late.

- I found a great new diet. It’s called the Uganda Diet. It involves not eating. This fab (not fad) diet has been doing wonders in third world countries for decades and has finally made its way across the Atlantic. Check next month’s Cosmo for details.

- You shouldn’t raise children in New York City. If you have a young child and are currently living in Manhattan, move to the suburbs (and lease me your apartment). This way you won’t face questions like “why are there no videos in the video store”, or “why did that man just pee between the subway cars”, (a question I had to ask myself this morning) or “why doesn’t anyone help that man sleeping on the sewer grate,” before an age where you can simply say “because that’s the way the world works.”

- Mexicans should be given free beer. They work hard. Harder than you or me. We get free nachos and salsa at their restaurants. They should get a few free beers after work.

- The boy’s bad news.

- If you are riding the ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty is on your left. If you are riding it from Manhattan to Staten Island then God help you and the Statue of Liberty is on your right. There. Now please stop asking me.

- The guy from Underworld? The dead guy from CSI? A.J. on American Idol? John Stamos? Scott Stapp?!? I find it hard to believe I resemble these people.

- The Fidelity Investments commercial with "Innagoddadavida" playing and swirling LSD-like images in the background is definitive proof that individual people don’t matter.

- A mixed drink shouldn’t cost $11 dollars. I don’t care what city I am in.

- People don’t like to talk about politics. If you want to say something about politics you better make sure it is funny. If it isn’t funny, it will be disregarded. The only time it is acceptable to talk about politics is when you are surrounded by people that already agree with you. People enjoy agreeing with each other. Very liberal people, for instance, all agree George Bush is bad. They enjoy very much to talk about this. Very conservative people all agree that sports are great and money is even greater. They will speak on these topics for hours, all the while devouring the hearts of America’s youth. (Was that funny enough?)

- In a related matter, our Congress has done nothing about lobbying reform. According to Chris Matthews, who wears more make-up than most drag queens, lobbying reform is “losing steam” in the House of Representatives. We should do something about that. Like vote for other people and then ask them to place greater restrictions on themselves.

- I know nothing about college basketball. This is made clear to me every March.

- In any given half-hour time slot, CNN Headline News spends about 10 minutes on actual news. The rest of the time is devoted to sports, entertainment and commercials. Watch it and tell me I’m wrong.

- Electronic music is not good. You shouldn’t have to take drugs in order to enjoy something. (Life, for instance.) Imagine if I fed you a sandwich but told you it would only taste good if you took a pill an hour beforehand. You would say that’s a bad sandwich.

If there is a girl out there that agrees with all of the above (and is hot), will you marry me?

(P.S. There is a show on CBS tonight called “Time Bomb.” Is it about Jake?)

2006-03-13T02:51:00.000-05:00

"Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace."

- Vernor Vinge "The Technological Singularity"

U.S. Slaughters South Africans

2006-03-11T16:13:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Baseball team blanked South Africa and posted 17 runs in a game that ended after 5 innings due to the World Baseball Classic’s mercy rule.

Roger Clemons pitched 4 1/3 scoreless innings and promptly retired from baseball, only to resume his career in the next five minutes. South Africa’s starter, Carl Michaels, somehow contracted HIV during the 2nd inning and was replaced by seventeen year old Jared Eliro, who managed to pitch a scoreless inning against the American fat cats.

During the 4th, apartheid was ended in the homeland of the visiting team, and some of the black players, held in a cell underneath the dugout of Scottsdale Stadium, which usually serves as the spring training facility for the San Francisco Giants and a massive containment unit for Barry Bonds, were released and allowed to play (but not vote.)

With their win over the mineral rich and Western-friendly nation, the U.S. has entered the second-round of play. A shocking loss to lame Canada in the first round made the merciful destruction of South Africa a must for the American Empire.

The team representing the nation blessed by God will meet Japan in the second round on Sunday, assuming, of course, that the Japanese players don’t join an internet-suicide cult and off themselves before the opening pitch. (Read about it: http://www.msnbc.com/news/922190.asp?cp1=1)

Is baseball still the American pastime? Or has it been outsourced like your father's last job?

Let's find out.

Something to Believe In

2006-03-09T01:12:00.000-05:00

Of all the UFO lore that exists in the public sphere,
no incident is more compelling or raises more eyebrows than the Rendlesham Forest Incident.

Sometimes called “Britain’s Rosewell,” the Rendlesham incident took place over the Christmas holiday in 1980 outside a United States Air Force Base in the English countryside . On two consecutive nights, four different U.S. Airmen claim to have witnessed a glowing object that landed in a small field within the forest, a pulsing red light that moved toward them in the distance, and finally a craft in the sky that sent beams of white light down to the earth, many in the vicinity of a nuclear weapons stock that was a then a part of the airbase.

Later, a civilian came forward and claimed to have witnessed a group of military men huddled around the spacecraft, speaking to three tiny alien beings in sign language. (At the risk of being glib and offending Tom Cruise, this guy is pretty obviously full of it and out to make money so his testimonials will be ignored by this article.)

That leaves us with three eyewitness accounts by military personnel (one of the officers has refused to speak publicly), as well as a tape recording made by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt during his encounter with the “craft” and a memo he sent to British authorities two days later that was accompanied by a drawing of what he believed he saw.

The tape recording is by far the most compelling evidence for some kind of encounter at Rendlesham. The embarrassment in Halt’s voice at having to investigate such an outlandish claim in the opening moments of the tape is in stark contrast to the obvious fear he feels as he talks about a “red light” coming towards the men and a bright beam being sent down from a craft in the sky.

Two days later Hart composed a brief memo documenting the encounter.

This memo, sent by Hart to British Intelligence, was somehow intercepted by a local newspaper called “News of the World” which ran an article about a week after the incident headlined “UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK: AND THAT’S OFFICIAL.”

A number of documentaries have been made about the Rendlesham incident. (One of these “UFO Files: Britain’s Rosewell” airs intermittently on the History channel, presumably because it garners higher ratings than actual historical programming)

What makes this particular encounter so compelling is the caliber of the witnesses involved. All three continued to serve in the military after Rendlesham and have now retired. All are reluctant to call their experience a “UFO sighting.” For the most part, they seem to be down-to-earth, reasonable and unassuming. They don’t appear (overly) interested in money. (One of the men, Larry Warren, has published a book with a UFO researcher called "Left at East Gate". His claims are a bit more exaggerated than the other two, hinting at a government cover-up and a threat he received during an OSI investigation, “Bullets are cheap,” which seems to have become a bit of a catch phrase for conspiracists that report on the incident.)

That being said, nothing about their documented accounts or filmed interviews rings decidedly false and there is little evidence of the post-sighting hysteria, obvious exaggeration of facts, or manipulative insinuation that usually accompanies extraterrestrial allegations.

Skeptics of the Rendlesham affair claim it is much ado about little, sighting a lighthouse that stands a few miles from the forest and may have caused an optical illusion that convinced the men they were witnessing some otherworldly phenomenon. (One thing I am learning writing this, we certainly have developed a lot of different ways of calling something “Alien”)

There has also been talk of a meteor that struck the earth that same day, December 26, 1980.

(Cliché UFO documentary ending…)

So, what actually took place that fateful night outside a U.S. Airbase in Great Britain’s quiet backcountry? For now, no one is sure. Our government is silent on the matter. A silence that is read by some, like UFO researcher Georgina Bruni, as an admission of guilt. (Cut to way-too-attractive British author) “People want to know. What are they hiding. And why?” For others, it is simply an oversight. (Cut to old suit in glasses.) “The United States government has better things to do with it’s time and resources than investigate outlandish claims like Rendlesham.” Whatever your belief, one thing is clear. For those involved, the incident at Rendlesham is anything but a closed case. (Cut to UFO winess.) “To this day, it’s something I still think about. I’d like answers.”

Their plea is a plea we can all identify with. Are we alone? Is there something else? An intelligence greater than ours? Do Aliens exist? And if so, did they visit our planet on that cold winter night and brighten the dark sky?

The questions are many. The answers few. But still, we search…

"Highlights" from the 2006 Academy Awards on ABC

2006-03-06T20:22:00.000-05:00

Alright, I guess this one falls to me…

Jessica Alba (let’s just get this out of the way...)

The inclusion of “The Day After Tomorrow” in the “Social Issues” montage. (GLOBAL WARMING IS COMING!)

My good friend's father leaving with only this odd photo to show for it.

"Crash" wins Best Picture. (Have you seen Crash? The white guy is only racist because his dad is dying and a pain in the ass to take care of. In the end, he saves the hot black chick from under the burning car, so he can’t be that bad, right? The Persian shopkeeper, he almost kills a little girl because he is cheap.)

A burning car onstage with slow motion dancing in the background and hollow, lifeless singing in the foreground.

Queen Latifah, quite by accident I’m sure, presents an Oscar to Three 6 Mafia. (Stewart after their acceptance speech: “How come they’re the most excited people here tonight?”)

"Memoirs of a Geisha" wins 3 awards despite the fact no one saw it.

Jon Stewart. He is funny. I like him.

Reese Witherspoon "acts" concerned.

Show posts its second worst rating in nearly two decades.

Pearl Jam accepts award by saying “I don’t know what this means. I don’t think this means anything.” (Wait, that was the Grammy’s…)

Fiona Apple accepts award by saying “All of this is bullshit” (Wait…)

Nothing like that happens.

Damn.

2006-03-01T02:42:00.000-05:00

"Beheading Chic Hits Paris Fashion Week..."

Do I even have to write something derogatory about fashion under this?

Wendy, Give Me the Bat

2006-02-26T19:45:00.000-05:00

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/shining.html

Gretchen Bleiler "Biomug"

2006-02-24T01:53:00.000-05:00

As Requested...

2006-02-23T01:44:00.000-05:00

Where do you rate these Olympic ladies?

Things Don't Bode Well For U.S. at Winter Olympics

2006-02-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

The Winter Olympics have not gone well for the United States.

So far, corporate pitch man, all-time drinker, and sometime skier Bode Miller has failed to win a medal, disappointing legions of fans that logged on to JoinBode.com in the hopes of, (I guess) living vicariously through him. In the past two weeks, Miller has been disqualified from an event, been conspicuously absent from early morning course inspections, and appeared completely exhausted after a second run in the Men's Giant Slalom.

Furthermore, gold medal hopeful Michelle Kwan injured her groin (Sorry about that, my bad - ed.) and flew back to the United States, her career essentially finished.

The U.S. Hockey team choked in their first tournament match against Finland after scoring hardly any goals in the qualifying rounds.

The Curling team took it in the face from Canada twice in two days.

Some black speedskater won a gold medal but overshadowed his own success by acting like a douche towards his teammates. Or maybe his teammates were doing that to him. Either way, they looked like idiots.

And finally, Lindsey Jacobellis blew a first place finish in a sport we fucking made up not even 10 years ago by showboating on her final jump and falling on her creepy-looking behind.

U.S.A.

Drudging America

2006-02-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

Do you read the Drudge Report?

If so, you are aware that the not-so-hidden secret of inside-the-beltway-reporting is that everyone does, usually a few times a day, and most news stories break there before they ever reach 24-hour news networks or the front page of major newspapers. A clever mix of international politics, Washington rumor-mill, and "human interest" stories, as well as a massive collection of links to almost any website you can think of dealing with politics (Rosie O'Donnell?), the Drudge Report stands as the unchallenged champion of wire-to-net news reporting. (There are a lot of hyphens in that paragraph. - ed)

Even more interesting than the website itself, is the background of its creator, Matt Drudge.

Any biography, no matter how short, that can be found on the world-wide-web about the enigmatic Drudge, begins by describing him as an awkward, lonely, sad and ostracized child. (So this one will do the same. - ed) Most describe him as conservative. Some complain that his views slant his approach to reporting. (I see little evidence of this. - ed) Drudge himself claims to be closer to a libertarian. Details concerning his personal life abound. He did not attend college. (COLLEGE!!!!!! - ed) Various accounts have him formerly employed as a store clerk at a 7-Eleven, a Time/Life phone salesman, again as a clerk in a New York grocery store, and finally as a clerk in the gift shop of CBS Studios in California. Obsessed with a nostalgic view of journalists from the 20's and 30's, Drudge fashions himself a modern day "muckraker" and dresses the part, often appearing to have stepped directly out of a James Cagney film. He earns over a million dollars a year as an internet mogul and has flirted with careers in television and radio. Oh yeah, he also seems to be considered by many to be a homosexual, although he has denied this, and some reports link him romantically to leggy conservative author and "O'Reilly Factor" mouthpiece, Ann Coulter.

Also, it will reported here, probably for the first time, that he looks kind of like David Wain, the guy from the comedy troupe Stella.

While the personal accounts and political views of Mr. Drudge are conflicting and perhaps a bit mysterious, one thing seems abundantly clear...

I need a life.

2006-02-18T14:08:00.000-05:00

In Defense of Swearing

2006-02-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

(Note: This particular blog is extremely preachy. Please understand, up front, that I am fully aware that I know hardly anything and hold only a meaningless degree in an unemployable field. I already regret having written it and promise there will be no more of these in the future.)

Swearing is an important part of social interaction.

Swearing indicates a sense of less-formal, more honest and trustworthy communication.

Swearing says, "listen, now that all those fucking assholes we don't really know are out of the room, we can talk for real."

This basic social assumption is the reason George Bush referred to a reporter as a "major league asshole" to his then running-mate Dick Cheney in the early stages of the 2000 election, but only when he thought no one was listening.

It is the reason Richard Nixon's "shocking" Oval Office tapes, are, in truth, anything but.

It's the reason we laugh when we watch a South Park episode with 100 swear words in it, because we appreciate that they have cut through the ridiculous public filter that envelopes most mainstream media.

Without swearing, there would be no way for a father to tell his son that they are now speaking as men.

Without swearing, there would be no truthful way to describe the sexual indiscretions of America's 42nd President.

Without swearing, there is no way to emphasize importance, exhibit discontent, reveal irony, or fight back with verbal strength.

Without swearing, we are adrift in a sea of politeness, never sure if we are on firm enough ground to admit all sides of our uniquely human personality.

"Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain" sounds, to me, a lot more like, "I will not utilize God's name in order to propagate my own desires (i.e. to mobilize voters in order to win an election; to morally shame others and raise my community standing or make myself feel better; to extract money and/or power from an unsuspecting mass of followers).

I doubt seriously that this commandmant had much to do with a bunch of words that didn't even exist when it was written.

As for people who long for a more innocent time, in a more innocent America, where language was "clean" and values were strong...that time, if it ever existed, is over.

So fucking deal with it.

Blizzard of '06

2006-02-12T23:29:00.000-05:00

Mother Nature blankets the Saturday scene in the East Village...

...and attacks weekend commuters in Times Square...

...leaving city dwellers little choice but to stay inside and ponder the judicial standards of Olympic snowboaring, America's only medal sport in the early rounds of Torino.

I stole this.

2006-02-10T00:57:00.000-05:00

Is it the NFL or is it the NBA?

36 have been accused of spousal abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

19 have been accused of writing bad checks

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71, repeat 71, cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 currently are defendants in lawsuits. and

84 have been arrested for drunk driving
in the last year!!!

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet? . . . Scroll down, citizen!

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

2006-02-08T17:42:00.000-05:00

OVER THE LINE?

2006-02-06T15:30:00.000-05:00

It's weird. I watched the entire Super Bowl. Even the half-time show. (Hands down, the best rendition of "Rough Justice" the Stones have ever done.) For some reason though, I don't remember seeing Ben Rothlisberger score a touchdown. It's recorded in the box score. The outcome suggests he did. But I just can't remember actually SEEING it. Did anyone else? Did I miss something?

Also, didn't Seattle score a touchdown in the second quarter? What happened with that?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs05/columns/story?columnist=smith_michael&id=2320683

Anyway, I hope you were all able to purchase your Jerome Bettis collectible items from the 6 (yes, 6) different channels that were offering Super Bowl XL merchandise following the game. (The NFL has apparently taken a page from the marketing book of Yogurt in Spaceballs. Dink Dink...Dink Dink Dink)

I think it's important to buy memorablia after important events, so that you don't forget to remember them. Last weekend I ordered a hat and a terrible towel from QVC to commemorate the Alito appointment. Then I burned them when he voted against Thomas and Scalia in his first decision, revoking Missouri's God given right to dole out its own version of Rough Justice. Who does this fucker think he is?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020200359_pf.html

(Also, my favorite part of the game was when Hasselback got penalized for tackling a guy. Take that you latte-drinking, tree huging Seattle queers! In football we only allow the quarterback to hit above the waist. That's the way it is. That's the way it has always been. If you don't like it, why don't you take a shower and stage a protest, you bearded hippies. Just like you did outside the World Trade Oraganization meeting in '99. Look how much good that accomplished. SUCKERS!)

2006-02-05T15:29:00.000-05:00

The Jabba Man, Kate, The Godless Scientist, The Awkward Toad, The Patass, The Architect

I'll Show You Mine...

2006-02-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

Get it? She's sad. Hot. And sad. ------

In a shameless ploy to attract female readers to this blog (and my bedroom), I am naming Fiona Apple's 2005 album Extraordinary Machine as the top album release of last year.

The long awaited lp from the most sought after "Criminal" of the late 90's capitalizes on the stellar production of Mike Elizondo.

A previous version of the album was recorded with Jon Brion, who produced her sophmore effort "When the Pawn Hits the Conflit He Thinks Like a King and Titles His Album Some Arty Bullshit That Doesn't Make Any Sense and Turns off 90% of Potential Buyers Simply Because it Makes the Artist Appear Way Too Into Herself and Never Ends and Eventually People Begin Refering to the Album as Something Like When the Pawn I Don't Know Some Fuckin Shit..." Those cuts, however, sat on Epic's shelf for several years, collecting dust and leading some to speculate that the record industry had another Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on its hands. According to my sources (things I read on the internet), the difference here was that the album truly was unlistenable and needed a guiding hand to return the sultry goddess to top from.

Enter Elizondo, who's resume won't be listed here, as it contains a majority of acts that the people reading this blog don't enjoy, and may, in fact, detest. One listen to Extraordinary Machine, however, leaves no doubt that this guy knows what he's doing. The backing tracks immediately hook us in, never overwhelm the vocals and are just unpredictable enough to insure repeated listens. And Fiona is not bad either. Her voice strikes a compelling balance between soulful desperation and truthful, hard-won optimism, with just a hint of sexual healing sprinkled throughout. (Is any of this true...I don't know, it sounds good though. - ed)

So...The Awkward Toad has weighed in.

Although music is not my specialty, I've shown my cards. I've laid it all out on the table.

Because I care...about you...liking me.

I'm giving away free music reviews. And where...is the Longface? Out stomping the grounds of Malaysia searching for some mythical beast? And where is Mofo? Working 5 days a week and taking classes at night? Do they even care about you?

Well, how 'bout it other bloggers I know. Do you Mofo's have any Quibbles with my selection? Let's see yours.

(You too, Mole Man. All those mustaches look the same.)

Flat People

2006-01-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

NASSCOM Chairman Som Mittal

Very rarely do books climb to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list so quickly and remain there for so long that their publishing house is able to include “National Bestseller” on the hardcover edition.

However, this is just what happened to Thomas L. Friendman’s geocorporate (Is this a word? Not according to Microsoft Office. Seems like it should be.) globalization study The World is Flat.

Friedman is unabashedly pro-big business, (Walmart’s much-criticized policy of locking poor Sam and Wilma Hickock from Fairmount, Tennessee, a town I just made up, in the building after closing hours so they won’t be tempted to smoke cigarettes outside or drive to a 24 hour McDonald’s instead of stocking the home appliances section is dismissed by the author as nothing more than a misjudged attempt at cost-cutting.) but he does manage to present the confusing early years of the 21st century in a clear and concise way.

Among the things you will learn in The World is Flat is that the dot-com bubble burst actually served as a spring board for globalization, rather than a deterrent, as most people believe. The millions of miles of fiber optic cable laid ‘round the world has now allowed Ikshu Patel of Nagpur, India to work 19 hour days without a lunch break for an American Software company while the rich, lazy American youth migrate to New York City in a misguided attempt to become actors and spend their unemployed days writing ridiculous blogs for no money about things they don’t really understand and that only a handful of people will read anyway. (Hi Mom.)

Also in the book, Friedman outlines the global policies of America’s increasingly anachronistic political parties and suggests a future course. Once upon a time in America, the Whigs and the Socialist Worker’s Party (which still exists but more in theory than in practice) were replaced by expanded versions of the Democratic and Republican parties.

Now, Friedman suggests, we must make way for the political parties of the future, the Wall Party and the Web Party. (This dude is nothing if not literal.) In his view, the Wall Party will combine the interests of socially conservative Republicans who want the damn Towel Heads to go back to their damn country with the currently deflated interests of American Unions who would like the damn Mexicans to go back to their damn country. This Wall Party will butt electoral heads with the Web Party which, according to Friedman, will combine the interests of the corporate elite, who want the damn Mexicans and Towel Heads to do their damn work for them, with the interests of the social liberals who want the damn hillbillies and rednecks to respect Mexican-Americans and Indian-Americans, as well as the Hollywood liberals, who are basically a bunch of fags that want to love everyone.

These two movements will create policies that eliminate foreign borders and pave the way for a concrete corporate takeover. (Picture a map of the world which denotes the interests of invested capital (i.e. Starbucks country) in place of territorial borders.) This has already happened in The Sunshine State where the Disney Corporation has established it first colony, Celebration, Florida. (For the residents of this toon town, fake snow is manufactured in the winter time and fake joy is manufactured all year.)

The 21st Century has barely begun and already we’ve seen many exciting and profitable developments. No one knows for sure where this amazing journey will lead, but one thing that is certain is that it will be piloted by mainstream American business, which has proven time and time again that it has the personal interests of private citizens close at heart. (See Wikipedia entrees: “Whiskey Rebellion,” “Slavery,” “Plantations,” “Industrial Revolution,” “Railroads.” “Sweatshops,” “Union-busters,” “Boss Tweed,” “Corporate Manslaughter,” “Clearstream,” “ExxonMobile,” “Harken Energy Scandel,” “Tobacco Industry,” “Refco,” “Enron,” “Worldcom,” et al.)

It’s gonna be one sweet ride.

(P.S. There are millions of puns with the word "flat" in them. Got one, Jer? Leave it in the comments section.)

2006-01-25T21:26:00.000-05:00