My dorm was never this much fun
At the University of Western Ontario, the now notorious Saugeen Stripper hosted a lap dance for several of her male dormie friends.
By the way — that link? Not work-safe.
Tickle me, Elmo. You know how I like it.
I lived in a co-ed dorm at Berkeley, and I’m telling you, no one got laid, except maybe my roommate, and from the way his girl whimpered afterwards, I’m not sure anything really happened. There may have been a wee bit too much alcohol involved. (Oh — how do I know this? They thought I was asleep. Riiiight.)
But no one got laid at the University of Western Ontario strip tease, as far as we know, so perhaps I’m asking too much from my college memories. Then again . . . damn. We didn’t even play strip poker. We played Spades and Bridge, that’s how boring we were. The deliciously zaftig Andrea gave out hugs to any guy who looked pathetic enough to need one; that’s the closest we ever came to a strip tease.
Oh, wait. I’m remembering something else. Once, when some drunk-off-his-ass jerk set off the fire alarm in the middle of the night and we all rushed downstairs in the cold of winter, J., the girl I lost to Mr. Blue-Eyed Jesus, had wrapped herself in a bathrobe — too hastily, it seems, since my friend Stan got an eyeful of her booty and told me about it in the morning. That was my second-biggest dorm thrill, next to free hugs from Andrea.
Poor “I Wuv Punk” Russell, he desperately wanted to get laid, but his was a hopeless case. Remember Peter Billingsley, the kid who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story? Picture a six-foot-tall Ralphie. Yes, every bit as geeky-looking as Ralphie, and with a voice that cracked on every other word. Russell got nowhere. Not even Andrea would hug him. I think they based The 40 Year Old Virgin on Russell.
So, high school seniors, don’t get fooled into thinking co-ed dorms are an E-ticket to hot strip tease shows and unlimited mind-blowing sex. They’re not.
Or maybe that was just Berkeley’s problem.
D.
Feeling sluggish today
Remember the old (really old) Saturday Night Live skit about Puppy Uppers and Doggy Downers? I need some Puppy Uppers. One mug of coffee and too much Christmas chocolate to mention — well, it’s just not cutting it.
This day seems like it’s lasting forever.
Best line of the day:
I ask my pediatric patient if he has any more questions.
Patient: “Yeah. Where do kitties come from?”
Me: “Mama cats.”
Patient: “Cool!”
I thought about doing the old, “The mama cat and the daddy cat loved each other very, very much” routine, but then I would have started imitating cats having sex (“Rrooowerrrowr yeeeow rrowllllreeeeer yowelllrrowl!”) and someone would have reported me to the State Board for sure.
It’s only a matter of time.
D.
PS: Oy. I’ve been edged out of the BlogTopSites #22 spot by a blogger who posts shopping lists. Shopping lists.
Ching ching
Karen’s watching Law and Order.
Again.
If I confront her on this, I know what she’ll say. “There’s nothing else on.” But I know the truth. We all know the truth, the unspeakable, shameful truth: Karen is a Law and Order addict.
A moment ago, desperate for some shred of hope, I googled support group for Law and Order addicts, and found this page. Here are some excerpts:
“but there i was, again, glued to the TV for what seems like an endless parade of episodes of Law & Order. i’m beginning to realize that you can see this wonderful, wonderful show (or one of it’s spinoffs) at almost any time during the day or night on one channel or another.”
“I wish there were something like a methadone clinic for us addicts.”
“When I found out that TNT and USA were playing different episodes at the same time, I couldn’t handle it. I cracked. I sold my baby girl into white slavery and used the money to buy a second TV.”
Okay, I made that last one up, but can we at least begin to talk about Chronic Ohrbachitis and the dreaded Waterston Ache? (Yes, it’s true: Law and Order addiction is no innocent dependency; it’s a disease.) Even CNN.com acknowledges the seriousness of this problem.
Are you an addict? Take this simple test. Read the first the first five words of the next paragraph, and then close your eyes. If you can finish the paragraph without peeking, you’re an addict.
“In the criminal justice system, [OKAY, CLOSE ‘EM!] the people are represented by two separate, yet equally-important groups — the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.â€
And who, Mr. Know-it-all Unseen Voice, Mr. “I hyphenate adverb-adjective pairings,” who represents the spouses of Law and Order addicts?
Then, a few years ago, the cancer metastasized. Law and Order begat CI, CSI, SVU, SUV, FBI, IOU, and ESP. With each of these spinoffs ripping their stories fresh from the headlines, what will we do when there are no headlines left to rip?
D.
Just a piece of paper
(Update from Blue Gal:
“Posted this story to Daily Kos and immediately got 8 or 9 comments asking me to delete my post because CapitolBlue is not a reliable source, fwiw. Standing by my own comments, though.”
Guess we’ll know in the next day or two if this story has legs.)
Blue Gal, I don’t know how you do it, but this story you’ve sniffed out is truly remarkable.
From Doug Thompson’s post (Capitol Hill Blue):
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,†Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.â€
“Mr. President,†one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.â€
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,†Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!â€
Be sure to read Thompson’s whole story, as well as Blue Gal’s commentary (both linked above). I’ve been too busy to see if Kos & the rest have picked this up yet, but . . . amazing, if true.
So . . . consider this story as a thoroughly unverified allegation. I’ll yank it if the story falls through.
D.
Bad Mojo: that other Kafka game
Bad Mojo hit the shelves in 1996. Karen and I, sick puppies that we were, instantly got hooked. There’s just something unspeakably special about pretending to be Gregor Samsa, you know?
Yup, that’s the premise: you’ve been magically transformed into a cockroach (by the ghost of your dead mother, no less) and you must navigate through an ultra-grungy apartment complex to learn the secrets of your existence. You must unravel your own personal mystery to become human yet again.
Despite the superficial resemblance to “The Metamorphosis,” precious little in Bad Mojo invokes the words or themes of Kafka. A Berkeley research associate rips off his lab and plans on driving to Mexico with the loot. Before he can make his getaway, his mother’s locket transforms him into a cockroach. Ultimately, Bad Mojo becomes a story of redemption, one that probably would not have sat well with Kafka.
Hmm. Perhaps I’m wrong. Ever read “In the Penal Colony”? It’s an unpleasant, nasty, violent tale of punishment and redemption. I hated it when I read it in high school, but it has stuck with me over the years. Can’t say the same for Don Quixote.
Bad Mojo has been re-released as Bad Mojo Redux (that link will take you to the video trailer, too), with more than a few extras:
A bonus DVD packs in a couple hours’ worth of extras, including a fascinating making-of documentary (with audition scenes and refreshingly honest creator interviews); developer commentary on the game’s FMV movies; concept art and storyboards; and video hints for solving the puzzles.
I’m not enough of a fanboy to pick up the Redux, but I’ve replayed it a few times, and if they release Bad Mojo 2, I’m buying.
D.
Of course it’s pointless. That’s the point.
Because every kind shout deserves a great shout-back, and because most of y’all are literary types anyway . . .
Props to YesButNoButYes (or, as I like to call them, WhoNeedsBoingBoing) for finding this cool Kafka game, Kafkamesto. Earlier this evening, I played Kafkamesto for about an hour before realizing that if I could win, it wouldn’t be a Kafka game!
But I’m too much a Type A whack job not to keep trying. I’ve already googled for a walkthrough, but the best I’ve managed is this message board.
I’m sick. Sick as Kafka.
D.
The Strip beckons
Oy, I’m tired. We’ve been squeezing patients into the schedule so that the boy and I can get out of town at the end of the year. It seems like I spent eight hours today shoveling ear wax, which is exhausting, no matter what you might think.
Stick around to the end, and I’ll tell you one of my favorite ear wax stories.
I grew up in a teaching family, which meant my dad had his summers off. Half the time, we vacationed “back East,” visiting relatives in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The other half of the time, we went to Vegas.
I come from a long line of poker players, folks who have (or had) the knack of making money at the table every time. Bliss to my father is an afternoon playing low ball, then coming home forty or fifty bucks in the black. I’m not sure why he avoids the higher stakes table, but soon, I’ll have the opportunity to ask him.
Yup, we’re going to Vegas.
My parents retired to Las Vegas. I wish they would have retired to Maui, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, but no, they retired to Vegas. Thus, even though I’m all grown up, half of my vacations still find me in Vegas.
In case you’ve never been, this is what Las Vegas is all about:
Leaving casinos reeking of cigarette smoke, buzzed on other people’s nicotine, tinnitus amped up a few dozen notches thanks to the slot machine noise;
Walnut-brained casino employees chasing us away from one area after another because I have my underage son in tow;
All you can eat buffets where ugly excuse me handsome Americans pile their dishes eighteen inches high with king crab claws (because, after all, it takes energy to go back for fourths and fifths);
Traffic that makes me homesick for Los Angeles;
Freezing cold winters, blistering hot summers.
Why did they retire there?
Anyway, I can’t complain*. They’re flying me and Jake out on their dime, thanks to the fact that our money pit of a house has left us nearly broke. We’ll be there from the 26th to the 1st, so if any of y’all are going to be there, let me know. We can score some free watered-down drinks at Slots-o-fun and flirt with the mini-skirted seventy-year-old hostesses.
Karen gets a pass this time. She’s recovering from a nasty crud, and doesn’t want to get sick so soon after this last illness.
A mom brings her sixteen-year-0ld girl in for an ear cleaning. The second I start scooping brown gold from her canal, she begins moaning like Meg Ryan.
Now Mom’s laughing, my office staff is wondering what the hell I’m doing back there, I’m squirming (thanking my stars I don’t have to stand to clean ear wax), and, unbeknownst to me, a little old lady totters up to our front desk.
“Excuse me, dear,” she says. “Does Dr. Hoffman clean ear wax?”
And my receptionist is trying very hard not to say, “Does he ever!”
D.
*Hah! What am I saying? I live to complain.
The prostitute joke
The most striking thing about Wikipedia‘s World’s Funniest Joke entry is just how unfunny the joke is. The runner-up isn’t much better.
The entry may lack humor, but it’s not entirely wanting in meat. The ‘world’s funniest joke’ stems from a 2002 study by the University of Hertfordshire’s Richard Wiseman. Wiseman wanted to find out what jokes had the greatest appeal across cultural and demographic boundaries:
The study documented regional differences in humour, as well as variations between the sexes. Men preferred more aggressive jokes, as well as sexual innuendo, while women preferred word play.
I’m partial the shaggy dog story, which Wikipedia defines as “an extremely long and involved joke with a weak or completely nonexistent punchline. The humor lies in building up the audience’s anticipation and then letting them down completely.”
The humor also derives from the delivery — which is, after all, the whole point of The Aristocrats. One of the tricky things about blog humor is that body language is, with rare exception, impossible.
Anyway, I thought the following joke was pretty damned funny.
You know your blog is on the map when . . .
Wikipedia picks you up. (Look under Influences, Books, etc.)
Veterans to my blog might remember my not-so-memorable review of John Scalzi’s novel Old Man’s War. That review barely made a splash on the blogosphere. But then Karen read Scalzi’s novel, had a fit, and convinced me to post her scathing opinions. The author weighed in (see the comments), shouted it out on his blog, and the whole thing drummed up more than a little traffic for me.
A few months ago, I began noticing a steady trickle of hits from folks coming to me via Wikipedia. At the time, it struck me as kind of neat — sort of like seeing your name mentioned in the paper. I never bothered to blog about it until now.
Why? Because Wikipedia is one of the top search terms over at Technorati, and I’m feeling mighty slutty right about now.
More later. I promise. Gotta go watch The Daily Show & Colbert, then clean the kitchen first.
D.
Technorati tag: Wikipedia
