Wasted Time

(Tweet of the Week by Matthew Taff on Twitter @MattTaff)

I hate the moment when you realize that you are reading something worthless. That your time has been wasted. That moment is now.

Vampirella in Neon Lights

(Image by Chris Benedetto, visit his site Honest Propaganda)


Here's another image by Chris Benedetto that caught my eye.


He says, "I had just installed the software so I was looking through my collection of random pics when I came across this pic, it was a woman at a comic convention dressed as Vampirella so I just screwed around with the  color/contrast, I even embossed it at one point."

F.W.D.= Freakin' Witless Denizens!

(by Hex-Girlfriend, visit her blog Hexus-Nexus)

To the Witless Denizens Who Insist on Abusing the "FWD" feature:

Yes, that's right - "Freakin' Witless Denizens" is how you will be defined when you assault my mailbox with your mindless use of that God-forsaken "Forward" button.  I liken this feature of email to a pestilent syndrome with its unbiased destruction of healthy, smart neurons replacing them with massive areas of dead-zone, zombie-cerebrums.  Can you think of a more witless act than the brain-numbing use of the "Forward" button?

I will no longer pay any mind to the malignant chain-mail invitations as God and the Essence of Humanity truly does not care if I delete "The Lord's Prayer" or the "Prayer for the Soldier", “"St. Peter's Wish" or the countless “inspirational” Power Point presentations and He will not cast me into the fires of hell for not forwarding these items to every contact in my address book.  No, I will not have 10 years of bad luck or a shriveled heart for ignoring the aforementioned items.  The only “inspiration” that will hit me will be to DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!  In my humble opinion, this is the smartest feature ever created for email.

“My Inbox is NOW PURGED of all EVIL!!  Hallelujah!”  Now, isn’t that a great feeling? 

Do not even get me started on the Amber-Alert emails preying on the worried-mothers who have nothing better to do in their trailer-park, gossip-mongering, talk-show-watching existence than click the "Forward" button while simultaneously being glued to OWN in the hopes of saving a stolen child.  Have they never heard of Snopes, Google or God-forbid the NEWS?  How about picking up a telephone and confirming the facts with the appropriate County's Sherrif's Department?? I liken the blatant lack of fact-checking (or blatant ignorance, if you ask me) nowadays to deeee-licious potential fodder for a civil suit. Perhaps this need to abuse that “Forward” button is a simply an indicator of a deep-seated brain/personality defect.  Not sure which option rings more appropriate.

You see, it does not do anything to "forward" my thinking or my station in life to read and send onward the countless emails which plead with me to wait and see what happens at 11:15 AM the day after sending this malignancy onward to the required allotment of contacts; or to have a heart and send to as many as possible in the next hour so Bill Gates can donate $1 for every email to a kid with cancer in Florida, Philly, Kansas or Katmandu.

I will also not be any smarter, luckier, kinder or richer for doing so - this is a bold-face lie which plays on the human need for validation.

But I do not need to be validated via my email inbox and all the contacts it contains.  Email was created as a convenient, stamp-saving, tree-hugging alternative to paper snail-mail.  How many of us would DARE send a chain-letter onward to all of our friends & family members by SNAIL-MAIL??  Would any of us even think to write down stuff we heard on a late-night info-mercial and mail it to all of our contacts via the USPS?? The newest Maxine we read in the Sunday-paper?? REALLY, PEOPLE!!??

And why do you think that is?

You see, calling it a "Forward" button is an oxymoron if you stop and think about it:  It does not bring or move you toward a position in front.  It will not move you in a prescribed direction or order for "normal use" and it surely does not help advance or promote you in the eyes of the recipients of your misguided "Forwards".

So you're reading this and are either one of 2 things - insulted at the mere suggestion that forwarding emails is stupid and pointless.  Or you're sitting there trepidatiously considering forwarding this post to all of your contacts because maybe it makes a valid point.  Just consider it carefully before you click "Send".

Thank you, 
L

The Problem with Lying

(by Pete Lopez. Read his blog Road to Absolute Zero.)

The trouble that comes to mind after reading the title is probably a morality principle. Lying is evil and a gateway sin to a life of murder and treason. Honesty however, is the best policy and escorts you to the gates of heaven. Truthfulness is the fabric that holds society together but discussing that any further is about as exciting as a head of lettuce. Instead, I prefer to preach my thoughts on the pros and cons of lying. 

I believe there are many benefits of fibbing that are often overlooked. One is to be a hero and rescue an individual from shear humiliation. We all have a friend or coworker that has a great heart, but is annoying to be around. If this person invites you to the opera or a box social, the immediate thought is how to escape without hurting their feelings. Well that is when super lie saves the day. A simple, “Oh, I have baseball tickets that evening” or “Damn, I have open heart surgery that afternoon.” 

Now the problem was averted and everyone is still smiling. There is a small chance that the victim will research to find that the baseball team was off that evening or request to see your surgical scar but taking the coward way out is well worth the risk. If it backfires and you never regain speaking terms, it wasn’t really that much of loss. That person was irritating anyway.

Another advantage of an untruth is keeping self-esteem. There are plenty of times when you’re caught chatting with a casual acquaintance and it’s better to salvage dignity as an alternative to spilling the pathetic facts. Let’s say hypothetically I took a two week vacation but nothing significant ensued. Replacing passports, souvenirs and tan lines were the more lackluster refrigerator cleaning*, daylight naps and cable TV movies. Things that aren’t noteworthy and seem like they were a senseless waste time off.

Eventually my meaningless vacation ended and I headed back into the pants and outside world. For my first lunch break, I returned to the local deli nearby my office. As a result of my frequent visits, I became familiar with the staff and we often engaged in small talk. It never escalated to discussing politics or infected rashes but simple stuff like the weather and hating Mondays. 

After my elongated absence the staff inquired of my whereabouts. This is when White Knight Lie bailed me from conversing about my uneventful time away. I randomly replied “I was in Carolina visiting some family.” 

In actuality, I did not travel there nor do I have any family residing in either Carolina but it did give the illusion that my vacation was well spent. I was praised for being a family man and avoided being teased for my solitary confinement. 

Upon exiting with my lunch, I did realize a hole my lie was prone to. Any of the employees could have been raised or familiar with the state. If one proceeded to make a deeper inquiry then my response would have likely been a blank stare. Alas that did not happen and I was safe not knowing that South Carolina’s state bird was the wren. Although I did get lucky, I would have taken the risk regardless because I’m sure the chef would have put less care into preparing my sandwich if he thought I was a hermit. 

Well I could carry on with more examples such as “Baby, you don’t look fat in those pants” or “No, this chicken tastes nothing like rubber” but enough viable cases of admirable lying have been shared. In fairness, before concluding I should discuss a drawback I learned from dwelling in false land. It’s not from feeling dirty inside and the lies were eating away at my soul. It’s that if I consistently spit out untruths then I begin doubting the legitimacy of what others say to me. If I’m lying, then I start assuming everyone is lying to me. 

My skeptical mind questions every generic offering that others tell me such as “Did so and so really grow these tomatoes in their garden or are they lying and they’re from the market?” The constant untrusting of humanity is disturbing so for selfish reasons I keep lying to a minimum. 

To accomplish this, I have instituted a clause that each white lie possesses a 24 hour window where it can be retracted. It’s a reasonable amount of time for someone who has manipulated the truth to recant without fearing consequences. Withdrawing a lie to a person is difficult and if it’s done within a short frame, it shows there was guilt felt about the incident. 

As final tip, the above rule only pertains to lies on a small scale. I am trying to change my bad habit of telling people I enjoyed a roasted hen with applewood bacon for dinner when I really had leftover pizza from the floor. If you cheated on your significant other or used “creative” accounting for a tax refund, it may be in your best interest to keep denying it. 

Alright, I must cut this essay short. I am off to donate blood followed by reading fairy tales to unfortunate children at the orphanage. Just do me a favor and be around within the next 24 hours, there may be something I need to tell you…... Farewell and lie safely


* refrigerator cleaning is code for finishing the remaining beers in the fridge

Oh God

(Tweet of the Week by Matthew Taff on Twitter @MattTaff)


God never closes a door without opening a window. We are worried he may have OCD.

Dr. Pedophilo

(by Doctor Dick)

Dr. Pedophilo had been distracted by his wife's call requesting that he pick up several food items before returning home that evening.

He had been busy focusing on the scantily clad pre-pubescent boys in the Pool Section section of Young Boy's Life... and now yet another distraction from his receptionist saying his Eleven-o-clock had arrived.  No sooner had she said it than the fat sweating client was settling onto the couch.  Don't sweat on my couch yelled the psych doc in his mind and then went back to trying to remember what his wife had said to get...

"I tell you Doc this girl who lives in the apartment next to me is driving me fucking crazy!  I just want to tear her clothes off and rape the fucking shit outa her!"

Bread, eggs... milk, cheese...

"Doc, she got nipples on her titties as big as a thumb. And Doc... her ass!  Just looking at her ass would make a dead man cum... and her mouth... Doc... she looks like she has a second vagina right on her face..."

Was that two dozen eggs or just one...?

"I tell you Doc... someday... someday...  I'm just gonna go over their and fuck her so hard and so fast up the ass that my cum shoots right outa her mouth..."

Uh... what was that thing about the 'mouth'?

"Shoot cum outa it... you know... from fuckin' her up the ass...?"

And whose ass is this?

"My neighbor's... God... Doc... haven't you been listening?!"

Well, you do know that's a medical impossibility... ejaculating through a mouth during anal sex.

"Yeah... Doc... it's a metaphor."

I'm glad you said that so you will understand that the neighbor you want to fuck in the ass is symbolically-- metaphorically speaking-- your mother.

"What!"

That's right.. I want you to go back to work... and think about that and also consider very carefully where that sperm will land when it's ejaculated from your "Mom's" mouth.  It's very important for you to know the place where it will land.  Now I think we've achieved a very important therapeutic milestone today.  I'll see you next week at the same time.

British English versus American English

(Language Laughs)

As an American I've always pictured the British as being so perfectly proper. It seems that over the years we Americans have been messing up their lovely English language.

Here's a quick primer on how convert our bastardized American words to their British correctness. For the most part we just need to throw in an extra letter or two. Instead of a simple O, they use OU. Color, favorite, and honor become colour, favourite, and honour. G becomes GUE. So analog, dialog, and catalog become analogue, dialogue, and catalogue. K becomes QUE so bank and check become banque and cheque. It's often good to throw in an E for good measure so aging, argument, and judgment become ageing, arguement, and judgement. Instead of using a simple E it is often good to go with AE such that words like encyclopedia and medieval become encyclopaedia and mediaeval. Then there are other random cases where you toss in extra letters such that jewelry, draft, plow, and program become jewellery, draught, plough, and programme.

Learning how to spell like the British is great, but in order to really entrench oneself in the British language the American must also come to grips with their different usage of words. For example, we might 'ride an elevator' but in England the would 'take the lift'. We 'take a vacation' from work while they 'go on holiday'. If you ask to see a football game you'll be shown a soccer match. Two weeks is a fortnight. If someone needs quid they're just asking for money. You live in a flat and use a torch (flashlight) if the lights go out.

I hope you all have had a jolly good time learning British English. Cheerio.

I used the following page to get the British Word Spellings.