Make new foes, but keep the old, for one is silver, the other gold.

Happy middle of the week, my chili cheese blogs!

Some pretty interesting happenings today, my readers. So the day began like any other, I was down in the lab try to hybridize a cactus with a bald eagle in a half-hearted feat of mad science driven mostly by boredom.

*Yawn* Throw the switch, Igor. Or not. Whatever.

I had just finished synthesizing the necessary restriction endonuclease enzymes and was prepping the centrifuge (What you didn't think mad science involved science?), when I decided that I would take a quick break and cool off with a refreshing glass of iced tea. While I was enjoying my cool beverage, I heard something outside, a raucous, or possibly a commotion. It was coming from across the street. I could hear a truck backing up, the beep-beep-beep over the sound of people loudly talking. I rushed upstairs to the lookout tower and surveyed the scene. I smiled, It was just as I'd thought: Movers.

Those Nazis at the zoning board never had a chance.

But before I tell this story I should give you a little background information. You see before this new family,  moved into the neighborhood, the house across the street used to belong to a Dr. Armageddon, my former arch-nemesis.

Pictured: Dr. Harold M. Armageddon P.H.D., dermatologist.

A formidable foe, he was always foiling my schemes and I, his. I terrorize the neighborhood with my doom ray, he calls the police. I unleash the virulent Pathogen X into the water supply, he calls the police. I steal the world's supply of silicon, he calls the police. Though to be fair, I dished it out, as well as I got it. Like the time he was "planting azaleas" in his "garden". Obviously some plot to release mind-controlling spores into the air, so I burnt down his front porch and salted the earth. Well for reasons unspecified he moved out his home last month...

 Seven or eight swarms of reasons unspecified.

...and since then his house just sits there, empty. A constant reminder of better days. Since then it seems that I haven't been able to get any of my usual mad sciencing done.You see reader, a nemesis isn't just someone who thwarts your plans or blows up your underwater base of operations. No, a nemesis is someone who drives you to be your best, that irritating grain of sand, whose constant annoyance results in a glimmering pearl. The grain of sand that I lost last month...

But now these people, they can be my new nemeses! First and foremost, I'll need to do some intel on these people, find out exactly who I'll be pitting my wits against. Fortunately  was able to reach them before any of my other neighbors could, who probably would've turned them against me immediately with their crazy stories of what I did yesterday.

Ok, this is at most only 40% my fault.

So I invited them over for a welcoming dinner. Over a delicious meal of macaroni and cheese I was able to find out that my new neighbors refer to themselves collectively as "The Wilkins". At first I surmised they might have been some form of hive mind, but after failing to find any of the interconnecting tubes commonly associated with hive minds I abandoned this theory.

Other facts I have learned about this family unit are that it consists of 3 primary members. Frank, the father works as a paralegal downtown, he enjoys bass fishing. The mother, Diane, actively collects cat figurines, she works as a as a school nurse at the local elementary school which is also attended by the daughter, Little Suzie Wilkins, a 3rd grader who like fuzzy stickers and "Shrek". They hail from Arizona, suggesting they have a high tolerance for heat and boredom.

 They must possess formidable survival training to live in such a desolate wasteland.

Unfortunately I was unable to ascertain any information on other vital subjects, those Wilkins are far more cunning than they appear.Here is a short transcript of what happened that dinner.


Gary: So, Wilkins Family.How are you enjoying life in the neighborhood

Diane: Well we just got here, but it's certainly different from Arizona, I'll say that much

*Amicable laughter had by all*

Gary: So now that we have gotten acquainted, let us play a party game.

Frank: Well that sounds...alright. Do you have pictiona-

Gary: We will be playing fill-in-the-blanks. A game of my own creation. Franklin Wilkins, (blank) is my secret irrational phobia. Fill in the blank.

Frank: Uh, what?

Gary: We will skip your turn. Diane Wilkins, (blank) can be considered my greatest and most exploitable weakness. Fill in the blank.

Diane: *uncomfortable chucking* Well I'd have to say- OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?!?

Suzie: Mommy, I'm scared.

Gary: Do not be afraid Wilkins Family, that is Mr. Scruffaduff, he is only trained to attack is you provoke him. He considers blinking provocation.

(Twenty seconds later)

Gary: It was a joke. I am joking.You are now free to leave. If you enjoy having your hands I would not touch anything on your way out. If you enjoy the company of your legs, I would not walk on the lawn.

They left as quickly as they arrived. The Wilkins: A riddle wrapped in a  mystery wrapped in an enigma. Luckily thanks in part to Mr. Scruffaduff, I was able to get several blood, hair, skin, and bits of teeth samples from each family member; which should help me fill in the blanks from dinner. Wilkins Family, I may have just met you, but I already know, you will be my greatest arch-enemies yet. The only question now is who'll make the first move?



















Me. It will be me.

 I'm not sure how yet, but this will feature heavily in my next scheme

BTSUCCWDPRS #1: Jiffy Pop

Happy days! my Bloguna beaches,

Now today, I'd like to introduce a new segment on this blog I'm calling "Behind-the-scenes undercover consumer watchdog protection report...squad";a little segment where I help you find out which companies are secretly screwing you out of your hard earned rupiah (the majority of this blog's readership consists of a small village in Indonesia) with shoddy second-rate products that aren't fit for an anjing!

My readers and I at last year's blogiversary picnic. See if you can find me.

Product:Jiffy Pop

For those of you unaware, Jiffy Pop is brand of instant popcorn that's unique in that it's cooked on a stove-top, rather than a microwave. Still despite Jiffy Pop's quaint image of old-fashioned stove-top popcorn, it should be recognized as what it is: a veritable titan of the popcorn market. But has the success they've enjoyed blinded the makers of Jiffy Pop? Has it left them greedy, making promises they know they can't keep? Is Jiffy Pop a delicious corn based treat or is it just a hot buttery foil-bag of lies?  The answers to these questions are "yes, yes and hot buttery foil-bag of lies."

 This should be the face you're making. If not, make this face.

 While Jiffy Pop brand popping corn, does both contain corn and pop during its cooking, sadly it fails to satisfy it's third requirement, and being someone who frequently fails to satisfy things, I know what I'm talking about.

Well Janet, maybe I could get you "hot", if you weren't such a frigid bitch

I am, of course, talking about the jiffy in Jiffy pop. By the placement of  "Jiffy" as the first word in the product name, one can assume that the company is promising that popcorn will be cooked in a jiffy. Now speaking in terms of quantum physics, a "jiffy" constitutes a very small period of time. How small you ask? Really small.Really really really small. So small that you don't even. A jiffy is another word for a unit of Planck time a.k.a. the smallest amount that can be observed in the physical universe. Damn. You sure set the bar high don't you Jiffy Pop.




Wait, go back a couple seconds.

Huh, that's odd.5-8 minutes popping time? Well that's certainly more than a jiffy. But then again you have to take into account that this commercial is from the 80s; surely in the 30 or so years it's been since there, the fine folks of Jiffy Pop have innovated/improved their corn based technologies.

 Maybe if we invert the kernel matrix, it won't reject the husk algorithm

So I dug around on Youtube until I could find another more recent Jiffy Pop video.





Damn, still not even close. Well, I figure there's one last thing we could try; even if it is a tad far-fetched. Now I suppose if we were to cook the Jiffy pop using something other than the heating element in a stove, we may get different results. As I mentioned earlier, a Jiffy is a unit of time primarily used in quantum physics,so it would only be appropriate to pop the popcorn in the highest concentration of physics on the planet: The Large Hadron Collider.

So I set off taking the private jet to Austria, where I disembarked took the private train to Zürich, before finally taking the private car to Geneva (God, I'm lonely). I arrived in Geneva in the late afternoon, was at the CERN centre by nightfall. Under the cover of night,  I made my way underground though a broken maintenance entrance. I jimmied open a hatch on one of the collision tunnel and placed the Jiffy Pop inside.

How was I able to walk around so freely inside of an  international multi-billion dollar scientific construct  with such little resistance you ask? Well while particle physicists are adept at a great deal of things, brazillian knife fightning isn't one them.

 Awful stance, terrible form and really, a plastic knife handle?

Well I started up the proton beam on the highest setting they had, counted out a jiffy on my watch and headed back to the collision tunnel, taking care not to step on the several unconscious physicists as I made my way .What I found within the tunnel was...unexpected.

Damn it, why couldn't I have accidentally made Flubber.

I'm not sure what it is really. From sight alone, it appears to be sphere of luminous gas about 3 inches across, though this seems to be just one of the forms it can take, it rapidly shifts in between the four states of matter,  solid one second and ionized plasma the next. It emits a harsh blinking light that changes hue and frequency every few minutes are so.My attempts to gather further information have been thwarted by what seems to be an EM-field emitted by the sphere, any electronic equipment shorts out when placed within 4 feet of the anomaly. It also has the fairly disturbing ability to disintegrate any matter that placed inside of it. I am fairly certain it isn't Jiffy Pop.

 .

Not entirely sure what to do with it, I carefully resealed the entity inside of a Jiffy Pop container and sent it back to Jiffy Pop's parent company, Con Agra, with a note about the product being faulty. Hopefully they'll send me my money back, but I'd be fine with some vouchers too.

Well that ends my first ever segment of "Behind-the-scenes undercover consumer watchdog protection report...squad" As for Jiffy Pop, despite it been fully suitable as popcorn, it can't cash the cheque it's makers write and if there's one thing I hate it's cheques. So, I'm afraid I'll have to give them my lowest (and highest) score ever.

2/5 Snuffaluffagusses: Not up to snuff.

27:Bashing Trailer Trash

Happy Monday to you all, my gublog work camps!

Now readers, as you know, I'm not an unnecessarily angry person; I'm pretty mellowed out. If anyone cares to disagree with that statement, just leave your name and address in the comment section and I'll be over shortly with a sock full of batteries.
 

 I'm going to need a bigger sock.

But there comes a time when even my patience wears thin. So what am I so angry about I have to bitch it out for all the internet to hear? Ke$ha (the dollar sign makes it Cla$$y) and her song "Tik Tok". I have had to listen to this train-wreck abortion (band name up for grabs) no fewer than 20 times in the last 2 weeks.

"Well this hardly qualifies as a problem", you might say, cracking open another puppy skull and slurping down the contents like a giant oyster. But you'd be wrong. Of the two dozen or so times I have been subjected to this musical malady, I was given no choice in the matter. It seems no matter where I go I hear this goddamn  song. I wake up in the morning (decidedly not feeling like P-Diddy) and it's playing on the radio station I set my alarm to. I  pop by the corner store to pick up some groceries and it's playing over the loudspeakers. I get home and decide to catch an episode of The Simpsons.





So naturally I did what I always do in times of crisis. Something bat-shit insane. But that didn't exactly pan-out. Needless to say halfway up a radio broadcasting antennae with a hacksaw between your teeth, isn't the easiest situation to talk your way out out.

 The gorilla suit didn't help either.

Now I've dealt with my fair share of ear-worms, catchy little ditties with a cool beat and no real meaning. They come and go, in one ear and out the other, as it were. But this is different. This particular song has been played so many times, that its starting to sink into my brain. I...I..actually know the words to "Tik Tok".

Ever since I came to the realization, trying to jab the lyrics out of my brain with a Q-tip, but no dice. I occasionally get up to head-butt the wall in front of me, but for the love of god I can't shake these words free. Right now I'm just wondering how many tiny jars of white-out I'd need to huff to blank out these memories.

Not so great in coffee though.

  While I bulk order crates of liquid paper online, let's in the mean time discuss the lyrics to Tik Tok, because like a raging case of the Ebola,  if you can't cure it, the next best thing is to spread it to a bunch of people you don't like. So the music starts in and Ke$ha hits us with this little nugget.

Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy
(Hey, what up girl?)
Grab my glasses, I'm out the door, I'm gonna hit this city
(Lets go)
Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
'Cause when I leave for the night, I ain't coming back

While I'm sure, Ke$ha has everything in the world with Hip-hop and R&B idol Sean "Puffy" Combs, it's really the second-to-last line that bothers me. Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack. Now that can't possibly be good for your teeth. Especially since cheap whiskeys are generally loaded with tooth-rottingly high amounts of sugar.So as a favour to her, I've prepared this handy chart on the benefits of brushing your teeth with Crest over a bottle of Jack.

Also, it's only been what? Three lines? Since you woke up and you're already hitting the bottle? There's a fine line between social drinking and alcoholism, you threw up on it about a mile back. Then she ends the verse with 'Cause when I leave for the night, I ain't coming back. Sadly, this proves to be an empty promise. Although we hope that she won't, she will be coming back, not unlike the Herp.

I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes
Trying on all our clothes, clothes
Boys blowing up our phones, phones
Drop-topping, playing our favorite CDs
Pulling up to the parties
Trying to get a little bit tipsy

 Now I could go after the vain ideals she sets out in this verse, but that would be a little hypocritical what with my daily white-rhino placenta face masks, and youth elixirs made from tears of a mother bear that has seen her cubs captured and sold to the circus. 

So instead I'll go after the fact that she repeats herself at the end of every line. Did she already use up all 50 words she knows?  Did she stroke out sometime between the first and second verses? What happened? PS: That's probably not so much the boys as a faulty cellphone battery. 


Now for what I consider to be the crown jewel of stupidity:

And now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger
But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger

Now let's be honest Ke$ha, you just wanted a rhyme for swagger, didn't you. So you loaded up Rhymezone.com typed in "swagger" and just picked the first word in the list.  How do I know this? I've seen Mick Jagger. You can too, all it takes is a simple Google Image search, my dear.

 Hello ladies...
 

This is the man you'd want to meet when you're out at the club with your friends. Look at that picture. No don't turn away! LOOK AT IT! Next time in between applying the 3rd and 4th auto-tune filters, you may want to check if your lyrics actually make any goddamn sense. On a side note, there is a disturbingly high occurrence of people googling whether or not Mick Jagger is Ke$ha's father. 

I'm talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk
Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk
Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk

Now, now, we go until they kick us out, out
Or the police shut us down, down
Police shut us down, down
Po-po shut us

 

Finally she winds it down with some more aneurysm induced stuttering and and some meaningful thought provoking prose, such as excessive drinking and boys trying to touch her junk.

Pictured: Ke$ha's Junk

So yeah then then police come and with the end of the party comes the end of this Homeric Epic, but not before they shove the chorus down our ears a fifth time. Presumably her next song will involve being in a Wendy's at 3AM, loudly complaining about "those fucking pigs" while screeching at her boyfriend through her cell phone to pick her up.

Well there you go readers, what some could consider a "review" of the musical stylings of Ke$ha. Now while this is the 2nd musical artist I've ripped on, this is by no means a sign of things to come; that this blog is slowly becoming a Perez Hilton knock-off. This is just something that has been really annoying me for the last little while. So, with my rage-bladder finally emptied, this is me signing off. So until next time, here's another picture of  Mick Jagger

She's not heavy she's my mother OR Yo momma so respected, she....

How it's hanging, my blog flumes,

Now for those of you still unaware, this Sunday is a very special day for  Mothers the world over. That's right! It's the birthday of Wu-Tang Clan member and associate Ghostface Killah. Which I believe people celebrate by driving into the suburbs and terrorizing the upper-middle class whities or UMCW. It's also Mother's Day.

Not to be confused with Mothra's Day. That's something completely different.

Now whether or not you believe that Mother's Day is just another Hallmark Holiday, you can't deny the face that without her and by extension her uterus, you wouldn't be here. So I figure that deserves at least day of recognition.  I mean you get a party every year just for bursting out of her.

No comment.

Haunting mental images aside, it also can't be denied that a mother plays an important role in her children's lives.  A mother is a nurturer, a teacher, and a role model,  she helps impart onto us our morals and values. . She also occasionally tries to drive us bat-shit insane and has more than once had us wonder what a bus ticket to Mexico would set us back. Still, although we may have our issues with her, in the long run she's done us more good than bad, right?

Also I feel it worth mentioning that while most of us celebrate Mother's Day, a much smaller percentage of that can agree on what a mother actually is. A mom may a mom in the traditional sense, or your mom may just be the person who gave you half your genome (surrogate), she might be one who raised you (adoptive) or she might total bitch (raised by wolves). Some of us even have two moms (like Heather) or three moms (like Heather in the sequel)

So I don't think it would hurt you in anyway to do your darndest in paying her back this Mother's Day with some good old fashioned recognition and on that note I'd like to present...

How not to suck at Mother's Day
So it's Mother's Day, whatchu gonna do about it? Now for those of you who didn't just immediately take off out the door, praying that the Gas-n-Go sells flowers, I'm here to help you have the best mother's day ever, with a hearty bowl of unwarranted criticism of every decision you've made thus far. Ahh, just like mom used to make.

Gift: Mother's Day coupons
Quality: *
And you wonder why you're the least favorite.  For those of you who don't know what a Mother's Day Coupon is, it's last minute gift where you jot down various menial chores on a sheet of loose-leaf, which your mother can cash it at any time. It is also a sham of a travesty of an
abomination. It's a bad gift is what I'm saying.You're essentially giving them a voucher for some you should probably already be doing.  Just for a second imagine if the situation were reversed and your mom gave you a gift certificate for "cooking dinner tonight" for your birthday. Yeah stings doesn't it? The only thing Mother's Day coupons are good for are seeing if you can get your mom to punch you in the face.

Better Gift: Actual coupons
Well you set the bar preeetty low there skipper, so pretty much anything would be a better gift. Here are three reasons right off the bat, why coupons beat gift coupons every time.

• Store won't ever be "too busy with important stuff" to honour them
• Regular coupons comes every week, as opposed to once a year
• 2-for-1 on Fro-Yo. Dude, TWO FOR ONE.
  

Gift: Flowers and a nice card
Quality:**
While flowers and a card are miles ahead of the last "gift" idea. They are also fairly low ranking in terms of gift quality. Technically sufficient, but boring, the flowers with a card are the missionary position of Mother's Day gifts. Not to mention any connotations that flowers might be carrying. Think for a second, when else do you give someone flowers? Valentine's days and anniversaries come for sure, but also hopsital visits and funerals. So what exactly are your intentions there, mister. Are you an Oedipus Rex or a Norman Bates?

Better Gift: Candy
Candy: A terrific stripper's name and even better gift. Often accompanied by the two schmucks above, Candy is clearly the alpha-dog in that pack, the Alec of the Baldwin brothers if you will. Also it's pretty darn hard to screw up. With just a single box of chocolates, you have like 20 chances that she'll find at least one flavour she likes. But what if your mom isn't a fan of sweets or worse, she has the diabeeetus. Well first of all, Mr. Brimley please get off my blog, you're no longer welcome here after the last incident. Secondly if that should be the case we simply take the central "sampler" idea of the box of chocolates and apply it another food group. Smoked meat basket, anyone?

Gift: Breakfast in bed
Quality: ***
Ah, Breakfast in bed, an classic stand-by. A trifle unoriginal, but it does showthat you're willing to put in work to make your mom happy, and that's a nice sentiment. Having to wake up in the morning extra early, grabbing stuff out of the cupboards and fridge, while trying your hardest not to make a peep, so mom could sleep in.You might've burnt the french toast a bit, or forgotten to de-pulp the orange juice, but mom never seemed to mind.

Better Gift: Brunch
Like the unicorn, Brunch is a combination of two lesser entities to create a whole greater than the sum of it's parts. Brunch, it sits atop the meal hierarchy ruling it's subjects with smug air of self-satisfaction. Where as breakfast has bacon and eggs, Brunch will not sully it's hand with anything less than lobster and champagne. Now the more astute of you will have noticed, I don't mention anything about Brunch being in bed. That is of course because a meal like Brunch can only be enjoyed in surroundings of equal or greater fancitude.A hot air balloon above the Himalayas, a bathtub filled with Perrier, atop the Queen of England's shoulders as she gives you a piggyback ride. These are the places where people brunch.



Gift: Something she actually wants.
Quality:****
 So you actually pay attention to your mother, you've learned about her hobbies, her interest, her secret addiction to tic-tacs and you're sure you've picked out the absolute perfect gift.You've scoured every shop in the city. You've combed every auction on the Electronic Bay. You've done terrible, horrible, unforgivable things to get what you needed. Quite frankly you've gone above and beyond anything that can be expected from any sane person. So you win right? Perfect gift? Top prize? High score?

Better Gift: That same thing, but like, more expensive.
No. None of those things. It doesn't matter what you've found, how perfect it is or how long you spent searching. There will always be a something better that you could've got if you'd dropped more cash . She loves Charles Dickens, so you got her a first edition David Copperfield? With a little more dough, you could have gotten the original manuscript. She enjoys Monet's works, so you got her a print of The Artist's house at Argenteuil, 1873? For a few more ducats, you could've hired professional art thief, Pierre Lestraud, to steal the original. You found the doll from her childhood that she lost, when her family fled occupied Poland? Well, I found the wedding ring your grandmother had to pawn to afford the boat tickets for a new life in America, and it can be yours for a not unreasonable price.

Gift: Some piece of crap you made when you were 5
Quality:*****
As we reach the end of our list, we also approach the pinnacle of Mother's Day gifts. The piece of crap you made when you were 5. Give this to your mom and step back. The moment she is presented with the gift, she will take a trip down memory lane so powerful it will warp the immediate time-space fabric. You will be forced to spend the next several hours relieving the first 10 years of your life through home movies and photo albums, the background noise an unending loop of coos and awws.  Still you'll sit through it, a smile plastered on your face, happy because she's happy.

Better Gift: Sabotage
Now as we discussed, you really can't top this gift. What you can do however is sabotage the gifts of your other siblings, making yours seem even better by compairison. Now if you've been reading my posts, you should probably already have several ideas on how to accomplish this. All I can say is go, where your heart leads you. Also, snakes are fairly easy to smuggle out of the reptile house at the zoo.

Well readers, this ends yet another one of my posts, and having already written so many many words. I'll leave the ending of this post in the very capable hands of my colleage, Mr. Laurence Tureaud. Later.

Entrada en el blog veinticinco!!!!

¡Hola, mes bloguantes!¿Dónde está el burro de Lopez?

  Now for those of you who don't speak the German, I was just welcoming you, my readers, to a very special Cinco de Mayo post! But really what is Cinco de Mayo about? According to the experts at Wikipedia, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla, where the Mexican Army was able to defeat the invading French Army. So every year I faithfully recreate this historic event by downing 7 or 8 bottles of the cheapest tequila food stamps can buy and engaging the local wine shoppe in war games.

They never see me coming, until it's too late.

But this year I'm not quite up for it. I guess I'm not as young as I used to be. Maybe I'll just settle for 3 or 4 bottles and sit on my patio hurling obscenities at anyone wearing a beret. But until then I guess I'll just keep on blogging. So to the Mexican people(Who still haven't visited my blog), I dedicate this post to you.



How to sneak across the border

Sneaking across the border is no easy task, it is both physically and mentally exhausting and there is always some risk that you will not survive the trek.

Crossing by foot is the simplest method, but also by far the most treacherous. You've got to worry about exposure to the elements, hypothermia, heat stroke, dehydration and drowning. Yep, you can die from dehydration and drowning, that's pretty fucked up. Not to mention the border patrol and militia nuts, who won't hesitate to shoot you on sight. You may be able to enlist help from a Coyote, but they're usually dicks.

Look at this asshole; he thinks he's better than you.

Next up in the land column we have automobile. Ah, nothing beats traveling the countryside in a fine automobile, windows down, the warm breeze racing past your head catching your hair,  scented ever so delicately with the aroma of daisy and honey suckle. In front of you nothing but open green pastures and a road that winds all the way to the horizon. Anyways, this is where you'll be sitting.

Before you get settled in, you should probably wait for the 4 other dudes you're bunking with.

Although, it's not really accurate to call it "sitting" when it's more a laying completely motionless in a confined space with limited light, air and "blinking room". I only chose to use the word sitting because there is no word in the English language that encapsulates such an action.Furthermore, it's fitting tha- no wait, dying. That's the word I was looking for, dying.


TO BE CONTINUED