Balls and Walnuts
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A joyous blog meme; Jake & Doug’s near death experience
Gabriele has tagged me. Now we’re even.
This one looks kinda fun . . .
IIPM is listening
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) story, detailed in full at expressindia.com, has dominated Technorati’s “top searches” board for over a week.
It’s pissing me off. How do you create humorous riffs on an acronym?
Alzheimer’s victim Judith Miller, best known as John Tierney‘s love slave, well, she’s a walking joke. The latest: Judith Miller will be leading the planned Nazi march in Toledo.
I’m kidding. As for Judy Miller‘s memory loss, I wish I were kidding. If that were a joke, it would be in extremely poor taste. Here in the New York Times, she has the nerve to claim she forgot her source. The woman has the credibility of Fletcher Reede.
Awright, awright, that’s enough whoring for the weekend. If I do any more of this, I’ll end up with testalgia. Ask Beth, she knows what it means.
D.
Two penis anecdotes from the hallowed halls
Today, Beth wrote about her new doctor, who sounds like my kinda gal (professionally speaking). I considered blogging on my philosophy of patient care, but then I thought, Naaaw. I’m gonna tell two dick stories.
Both tales come from a year I revisit in nightmares: internship.
Contest Redux
Before I forget to mention it, make sure you take the poll (below this post). Inquiring minds want to know! Also, if you feel cheated by this morning’s redux, scroll down below the poll, because I posted yesterday evening. That’s where you’ll find your Duggar update. I’m sure you’ll all be delighted to hear that Number Sixteen (“Numsixteenie,” that’s what Ma and Pa Duggar have nicknamed her) is doing great, taking the nipple like a true Duggar.
My psychic twin Kate pointed out that my last Contest post had a hopelessly muddled preamble, which doubtless scared some folks away. Here are the rules, sans other BS.
A. This is the Good Bad Sex Challenge. See the last Contest post if you want amplification (and examples). In brief, the point is to write about sex in the worst possible way. Mixed and inappropriate metaphors, similes so malodorous they make you weep — got it?
You don’t even have to write a complete scene. Give me a sentence. A sentence fragment. Like that one. Or this one. Just make it reek to high heaven, okay? It’s like the Bad Hemingway contest without the machisimo. Or maybe with the machisimo, if that’s what floats your boat.
B. Two hundred words or less. Don’t get carried away or I’ll hurt you.
C. Use this post for entries only. I will post a chat thread below this one for comments and questions.
D. The prize: a $20 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble books, BUT: if you promote this contest on your blog or website, AND if you win, I’ll make it a $30 gift certificate. (When you post your entry, tell me where you have posted your promo.)
E. Entries will be judged by my ten-year-old son Jake.
F. Just kidding! Jeez, that would be a total buzz kill, eh? No, we’ll judge this like we do at the Writers BBS. Email me your votes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. You may not vote for yourself. Scoring will be based on a point system: 1st place is 5 points, 2nd is 3 points, and 3rd is one point.
G. Multiple entries are allowed. In fact, multiple entries are usually necessary to achieve optimal results. *um, sorry, couldn’t help myself*
H. Contest begins: NOW!
I. Contest ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, October 18th.
J. Voting begins: immediately after the contest ends.
K. Voting ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, October 20th.
L. You must enter the contest to vote. Sorry, but if any of y’all are as Type A as I am, you’ll probably end up paying winos to go to their local libraries, hop on the computer, and vote for you, just so you’ll win some dumb gift certificate. And besides, I’m trying to encourage entries.
New!!! M. You may enter as many times as you like.
Enjoy!
D.
Harriet Miers has a blog, Michelle Duggar fulfills her destiny yet again, & more linkage
File this under: Damn, why didn’t I think of that first?
I’ve been pissing myself laughing for the last half hour reading the Harriet Miers blog. For you non-Americans, Harriet Miers is Dubya’s most recent pick for U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Her main qualification seems to be her near total lack of qualifications. But who knew she had a blog?
Elsewhere in the political humor realm: Jurassic Pork has hatched a great meme in today’s President Magoo post. Bush as Magoo: blindness explains a great deal. JP’s Assclowns of the Week (yesterday’s post) is a fine read, too.
Note to any newbies: I’m a Berkeley boy, and my political leanings are a bit to the left of Ted Kennedy. If you’re at the opposite end of the spectrum, don’t bother to follow those links. It’ll only piss you off.
The next ones are filed under: Hey, that ain’t funny, that’s serious!
My beloved added to her blog last night with Burning Bush (sorry, no sexual double entendres there).
Last but not least, if any of you haven’t checked out Jeff Huber’s blog Pen and Sword, today’s post is excellent: Taking Back Our Country.
I’m not feeling terribly creative tonight. I had to run in to the hospital at 3:30 AM to take care of an emergency, so I’m feeling a wee bit post-call. I really really hope my patient doesn’t give me a repeat performance tonight, for her sake and mine.
Today is Yom Kippur. There’s a Jewish concept, pikuakh nefesh, which means “to save a soul”. It’s a great loophole for doctors. It means we can work on holidays and the Sabbath if we’re saving lives, because life is more important than the law (which is to say, The Law).
If you’re a regular here, you know what a half-assed Jew I am. While I might be able to justify working on Yom Kippur, I can’t justify fressing all day. It would take a lawyer of Talmudic proportions to claim I had to eat those coconut-covered brownies to keep up my strength, right? Right.
Half-assed or full-assed, I’m aware of the holiday nonetheless, and atonement is on my mind. I’d thought about blogging on my inability to let go of grudges, which I suspect is one of my nastier sins. I may still do that some day soon. Consider it a belated Yom Kippur post. For now, I’m more focused on eating dinner, waiting the requisite three hours, and then going to sleep.
Have I mentioned that I’m thinking of NaNoWriMoing? I’d like to blame it on peer pressure, but to be truthful, I’d rather be writing new stuff than editing my BFN (Big Fat Novel, which sounds a whole lot less stuck-up than magnum opus).
Anyone else doing the NaNoWriMo shuffle? We ought to cheer each other on.
Michelle Duggar, she of the iron uterus, popped today. Remember the Duggars? Johanna Faith Duggar is number sixteen. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer article (Intelligencer. WTF kinda word is that?):
“Their children include two sets of twins, and each child has a name beginning with the letter “J”: Joshua, 17; John David, 15; Janna, 15; Jill, 14; Jessa, 12; Jinger, 11; Joseph, 10; Josiah, 9; Joy-Anna, 8; Jeremiah, 6; Jedidiah, 6; Jason, 5; James, 4; Justin, 2; Jackson Levi, 1; and now Johannah.”
Look carefully at that list: Janna, Joy-Anna, Johannah. They’re not even trying to come up with unique J names for their girls.
Reminds me of our friend Kira, who used to call her parents “parental units”. I think the Duggars need to be honest and call their daughters “reproductive unit [number]”, in which case Johanna Faith is reproductive unit 6. Oops, I mean 7. I forgot Mrs. Duggar — she’s not done yet!
D,
The New Good Bad Sex Contest
Props to Gabriele for pointing me to this Guardian Unlimited article on the Bad Sex Award. Pub date may have been December, 2004, but it was news to me.
(Folks who want to cut to the chase (foreplay haters!) scroll down to The Contest in big, bold letters below.)
Here’s a snip from the first place award winner, Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons:
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog. . .
You can read the rest of it (and more!) at the Guardian Unlimited link. For now, I have one comment before I get to the contest.
Otorhinolarynological?
Us ear, nose, and throat doctors don’t even use that word. Even its simpler form, otolaryngologist, is anathema. No one can pronounce it. I had to go through five years of residency to learn to pronounce it. It’s true!
Here’s the deal. We used to be ear, nose, and throat doctors. Then the general surgeons started calling us booger-pickers and snot docs, and we decided a la Rodney Dangerfield that we don’t get no respect, no respect at all. Some wag got out his Greek dictionary and figured out,
oto = ear
rhino = nose
laryng = throat
and we became otorhinolaryngologists.
Instant disaster. The Yellow Pages started charging us for the extra letters. ENTs began committing seppuku because, in addition to “Hey, can you see through to the other side?”* and “Huh?”** we now had to hear “How do you pronounce that?” TWENTY TIMES A DAY.
It didn’t help when we became otolaryngologists. If anything, life became worse. The word was slightly smaller than otorhinolaryngologist, having lost the rhino, and some folks thought perhaps they could pronounce it now. They couldn’t.
Some European dude thought ORL would be better. Catchy, easy to pronounce. Everyone loves acronyms. But then some American dude said, “Hey, wait a second. We do a lot more than ears, nose, and throat. We do cancer surgery, too! We’re head and neck surgeons. We’re ORL-HNS!”
Someone, probably a small town private practice doc like me, had the bright idea of going back to ENT, and we lived happily ever after.
So, what’s up with Tom Wolfe’s use of ‘otorhinolaryngological’? I think Mr. Wolfe is trying to say that sex is an ungainly, awkward, breathless experience, rather like saying otorhinolaryngological. And if we say pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, we may even need to change our underwear.
Anyway, let’s talk about sex. Let’s do better than talk about it; let’s have a contest! Yes, I’m shamelessly copycatting. The Smart Bitches held one not long ago. Demented Michelle has a cool Halloween contest at her place. Mine, naturally, will be about Le Bad Sex.
A. You don’t even have to write a complete scene. Give me a sentence. A sentence fragment. Like that one. Or this one. Just make it reek to high heaven, okay? It’s like the Bad Hemingway contest without the machisimo. Or maybe with the machisimo, if that’s what floats your boat.
B. Two hundred words or less. Don’t get carried away or I’ll hurt you.
C. Use this post for entries only. I will post a chat thread below this one for comments and questions.
D. The prize: a $20 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble books, BUT: if you promote this contest on your blog or website, AND if you win, I’ll make it a $30 gift certificate. (When you post your entry, tell me where you have posted your promo.)
E. Entries will be judged by my ten-year-old son Jake.
F. Just kidding! Jeez, that would be a total buzz kill, eh? No, we’ll judge this like we do at the Writers BBS. Email me your votes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. You may not vote for yourself. Scoring will be based on a point system: 1st place is 5 points, 2nd is 3 points, and 3rd is one point.
G. Multiple entries are allowed. In fact, multiple entries are usually necessary to achieve optimal results. *um, sorry, couldn’t help myself*
H. Contest begins: NOW!
I. Contest ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, October 18th.
J. Voting begins: immediately after the contest ends.
K. Voting ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, October 20th.
L. You must enter the contest to vote. Sorry, but if any of y’all are as Type A as I am, you’ll probably end up paying winos to go to their local libraries, hop on the computer, and vote for you, just so you’ll win some dumb gift certificate. And besides, I’m trying to encourage entries.
New!!! M. You may enter as many times as you like.
Enjoy!
D.
*The ENT looks into his patient’s ear.
“Hey, doc, can you see through to the other side?”
“Ya know, I could, except there are these two walnuts rolling around that are getting in the way.”
**The ENT says, “So, Mr. Patient, how’s your hearing?”
“Huh?” (Followed forthwith by eager I’ll bet you never heard that one smile.)
IIPM sends chill through bedrooms everywhere
When the Indian Institute for Planning and Management gets tired of planning and managing, they indulge in their other great mission: harrassing bloggers worldwide.
It ain’t easy being IIPM.
(A note to my regular readers: yes, this is partly a whoring operation, but it’s also great fun to see if I can string all the Technorati top items together into a coherent tale. Try it sometime.)
“IIPM,” she said.
Damn. Helluva way to start the day; my wife was speaking in tongues again. Ever since she visited that locked library at Miskatonic University, it’s been one thing after another. If she’s not channeling Paul Krugman, she’s foaming at the mouth like a yahoo podcast.
It isn’t even limited to her speech centers. This demon can change Karen’s appearance, too. Yesterday, I watched in horror as the words kenyee and serenity etched themselves on her stomach in fiery red Helvetica font. Today, I woke up to someone who looked like a cross between John Tierney and Karl Rove. Imagine my consternation when I went to nuzzle against her now unusually bristly cheek.
It ain’t right. It just ain’t right.
I consulted an exorcist, and he told me what I had to do: capture a flock of mallards and sacrifice them to the earthquake god. What a quack! So I looked up some information on my Web 2.0 platform and figured it all out. Damn. It was so obvious all along.
She needed her coffee.
My John Tierney–Karl Rove hybrid of a wife guzzled down her Kona, the excess flesh melted away, and my beloved was back once again.
D.
Cal-Stanford Big Game, 1982
November 20, 1982: After racing through a sea of red (the Stanford band), Kevin Moen carries the ball into the end zone, making it Cal 25, Stanford 20.
I listened to this on the radio. I don’t even like football, and my heart was in my mouth. Good God. The Stanford band lost them the game!
You can watch the video here, and you can read the transcript of Joe Starkey’s play by play here. Tell me if you don’t feel at least a bit of schadenfreude, thinking about what the team did to the band members after the game. Blow me a tune through that hole, trombonist.
Now meet the Republican party’s version of the Stanford band.
Evangelist James C. Dobson recently opened his trap on the subject of George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers. From the New York Times story:
On his radio program last Wednesday, Mr. Dobson said, “When you know some of the things that I know – that I probably shouldn’t know – you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice.”
Seems Karl Rove has been whispering sweet nothings in Jimmy’s ear. Seems certain Senators, certain powerful Republican Senators like Arlen Specter, ain’t too keen on Amrrrka becoming a theocracy. Seems Jimmy D. might jes have to testify before a whole passel o’ angry Congressmen on this one.
Seems Jimmy D. done run out on the field before the game was up, shore ’nuff.
You can read the New York Times story here.
D.