Stalag 17

We're going to do what every young n' sexy couple does on their seventeenth anniversary: sit on the couch and watch DVDs while taking turns yelling at the kids to shut the fuck up infomercials until 3am in tribute to the world's greatest snake oil salesman that didn't hold public office.

As for the next seventeen years, what awaits?



I kid. Probably. Though if I suddenly disappear from the internets, well, draw your own conclusions.

Could you say that a little more sexfully?

"Not now, Harry, I just had a lot of work done."

Surprise! You're Dead!

Hey, appear on The Simpsons, and you die. Your own fault,














Ed,













Jacko.

Farrah throws a monkey wrench in said theory, but I'm sure someone even lazier than I can Kevin Baconize her.

Surprise, surprise!

"PYLE!"
"Golly, Sgt. Carter, why do you want me to put these in order from most to least surprising?"
"It's a test of your limited mental capacity, Pyle! Now get moving!"

1) United States 2, #1 world ranked Spain 0, their first loss in 35 matches.












"I guess that's what those Spaniards get for taking the land of our sixteenth-century white, Christian ancestors, right Sgt. Carter? Shame, shame, shame."

2) Shaquille O'Neal is traded to the Cavs for a second round pick, spare tank parts and an extra sandwich from the mess hall.



"Tony Danza? Dick Butkus? I'm confused Sgt. Carter!"

3) National Lampoon's Afghan Vacation















"Shazam! I think I finally understand this terrorism thing, Sgt. Carter!"













"Try again, Pyle!"















"Extra credit for Übermilf! Pyle, drop and give me twenty!"

Going to California Ohio

See, left coast potheads, you're not the only member of the union whose economizing is in a severe state of broke down fuckery. But our own Governator, admittedly not as steroided as Ah-nold -- of course, he also didn't take part in Batman & Robin, so score one for the Buckeye -- has found the perfect solution for the impending round of budget cuts that, sadly, doesn't involve growing pot nor Mary Louise Parker coming over chez Randal to be my dealer of love.














Oh Randal, let's bake.

"Wake up."

Huh? Oh yeah, the answer to our prayers:














Well, library patrons, there's always browsing copies of People at the local convenient store. One humbug!

Good luck not breaking down during the next minute, mentally ill. Two humbugs!

Latchkey preschoolers, mom just left for her minimum wage job, so here's your chance to run with scissors. Three humbugs! I won! I won!

What, like Strickland, an American governor of an American state in America was gonna reverse the Bobby Taft, American/Ken Doll, American tax cuts?

















Maybe you want that oversize novelty check in the hands of anti-competition socialist commie homersexual jihadists, but I still love this country, dammit.

Title of post

1) Eye-catching introductory paragraph so overflowing with witticisms that it'll feel like someone took a wizz on your Hush Puppies.

2) Series of tangentially related anecdotes that may or may not include Tales From The Wheelie Bus.


















3) Sublimely crafted conclusion that determines the current tide of insanity engulfing both here and abroad can only mean one thing: that our miserable species has been stricken with the triumphant mark of Satan! Woe is us and such.


















I eat imaginary entities for breakfast! And also eggs!

"I didn't know Cthulhu had vocal cords."

Oh sure, but he's a quiet kind of slime. Generally keeps to himself when not devouring civilizations.

"That's nice, but one of your posts just isn't complete without you know what."

A death metal YouTube?

"No, dumbass."












Ha ha, fooled you. Did we start bombing Iran yet? Like anyone gives a rat's ass about Afghanistan. We gotta bomb someone worthy of scorn. Revolutionizing is for Real Patriots, you effete Orientals. Speaking of Real Patriots --


















"Grrr. Brilliant idea. Why I not think that? Grrr. Three grand buy lunch of third world children. Grrr."

Great. Cheney's been reactivated. There goes my plans to hike the Appalachian trail without fear of buckshot.













"Go on and hike, filthy hippie, I'll be safe behind my hi-tech shield!"

I know that if I were truly serious about security, I'd see about attaching a rider to the next bill outfitting members of Congress with their own, personalized Popemobile. And when they're on the floor ranting and/or raving, or crying if they're John Boehner, they should have to don a suit of armor. Never know when some bomb-thrower will be in the stands.














Don't forget to take into account wind resistance and gravity, otherwise all you'll do is nuke the poor clerk.

What is it, boy? Fire? Earthquake? Hippies?

Real America® being far too occupied with the ritual gathering of cheap fireworks, charcoal briquets and Busch Light while coveting the neighbor's wife and/or goodies and/or the goodies of the neighbor's wife to notice such blasphemy, I on the other hand am well aware that every coastal neighborhood situated outside that holy and righteous enclave of breadbaskets and tax-exempt churchery will be saturated with naked pagan fire dancing tomorrow evening in celebration of the summer solstice through the reenacting of traditional heathen favorites like out-of-wedlock fornication, blood sacrifice and painting the town green as a sign of solidarity or some other worthless crap.

"Actually, tonight is more likely. Even naked pagans have work on Monday."

True, but I can still take solace in the fact that their beloved longest day of the year marks the triumphant (for me) beginning of oh so precious daylight being stripped from the endless cavalcade of sweaty sacks n' racks --











-- yes, it is -- through the slow creep of cold shadow and shadowy cold, muahahahahaha, etc. So get your hedonistic and illegal public displays in while you can, filthy witches, 'cause guess what's just around the corner?


















No, not that --













That.

"It's still June, dumbass."

Shut your noisehole. I take my joys where I can find them make them up.

Accident of Birth

Once again, sharp, timely commentary about current events was rattling 'bout my bus-travelin' head this morning, the necessary ingredients to skillfully bake comedic (and tasty) peanut butter cookies about our continuing Rock Star Energy Drink® Blowed Up Real Good tour skying its way through the wilds of Waziristan, whereby I smarmily point out that if you dozens of Afghan Wigs didn't want to be unmanned surveillance aircrafted to death, you should have been born a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Murkan cracker chick, but then I remembered that once upon a time, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Murkan cracker chick was abducted, which was like the greatest national tragedy since 9/11 according to the nice teevee man with well-coiffed noggin so I guess it does suck to be you after all, although I believe yesterday's attack did get Al-Qaeda #76, #77, you're up, what kind of lunch meat would you like we're out of maple ham I'm sorry, but I couldn't make said commentary rise to poorly-written, coherent invective, so you get poorly-written, incoherent invective instead, nothing honestly but weak justification to post some ever topical, skullcrushing (and wicked) riffwork because I know how much you all hate the metal.

Sorry to drone on.















Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Yeah, I know today's Friday. It takes me four days to come up with material this bad.

Speaking of bad, and despite my impeccable patriotic credentials, I must grudgingly give some credit to the Ayatollah of the Fourth Reich. I don't recall Chimpy and his Puppetmasters demanding that we stay off the street or we'd pay, don't think we won't pay, way back in 2000.

"That's because no one was on the street except the bums that were there the previous November."

Jawohl, but I don't remember state-sponsored armed thugs getting their gun on inside dorm rooms either. Now that's fucking hardcore. America, when did you turn into a nation of candyasses?


















See, this old lady is throwing the horns. What's your excuse, wuss? Well, off to apply for Froomkin's WaPo slot. Hope they permit swearing. Rock on.

Periodically

One of the perks of being employed by the American system of French bibliothèques is the magazine selection. Instead of shelling out a few quid for a year's subscription to Pretending You're An Intellectual Monthly, I can simply peruse our copy, cut out the pictures of scantily-clad ladies, and save my not-really-earned scratch for more booze paying bills.

Of course, libraries cannot subscribe to all the magazines in the world, for that would require pallets of greenbacks and we lost most of ours scarfing down corn dogs and guzzling poisoned Pepsi while avoiding electrocution and/or swarms of IEDs while on vacation at Saddam's Sunni World. Half off with an annual KBR Green Zone Fun Pass! So many memories.


















Of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is, of course, we subscribe to some of these all magazines chez moi, sometimes via nameless benefactor. For lo, and perhaps, behold, many moons ago, last autumn I believe, I started receiving Rolling Stone. Don't know why, but if I wanted to read a collection of three-star reviews (five-star, if it's a new album of Dylan farting or some blathering U2 stadium rock crap) on hipster shit, I could instead simply descend to the basement and set myself on fire.


















Back in the late 1980s before the advent of the internets as we know them -- shut up Usenut nuts, I don't care -- we, that is, me, used to get Electronic Gaming Monthly. Then I stopped for a bit when I had no loot. Then I got hitched and had a kid. Then I needed more loot. So I got a job which paid more loot. Which I spent on those cash vacuums, but I kept a small stash to resubscribe to EGM. For some reason, likely because she wrote out the check, the subscription was in the name of my sometimes-better-half. She's geeky, too. One of the reasons we haven't stabbed each other to death, I suppose.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer -- don't worry, cleavage is on the way -- she let the subscription lapse because all the video gaming news was found more quickly (and more cheaply) on the internets (thank you grownup Usenut nuts). That still doesn't mean I don't harbor a searing hatred for Kindle. Lo, and behold a second time, yesterday my sometimes-better-half began receiving a new title, ostensibly paid for by the remaining amount of the subscription to EGM (which lapsed a few years ago) at least according to the sticker affixed to the cover. Oooh, a mystery.


















One I cannot solve because, after I'm done ogling scantily-clad Jennifer Love Hewitt, I have to set myself on fire after offending all good sense by reading some of their edgy articleing on How To Be A Douchebag, But A Cool Douchebag. Forgive me, Cthulhu. Bonus points for the piece on National Lampoon's Vacation, though. I'll only use lighter fluid instead of rocket fuel. Less explodey.

The above is assuming, of course, that this isn't a devious plot cooked up by my sometimes-better-half to catch me ogling scantily-clad ladies in print media. I'm not that paranoid. I mean, I only buy 44% of the Roswell coverup and 68% of the JFK.

Keep watching slightly less than one half of the skies!

Sheer madness

This is national security.














This is national security on transparency.

Any questions?

This message brought to you by

Dueling banjos

Dammit, entertainment wing of the military/industrial complex, you're doing it again. It isn't a duel unless there's blood.














"There's been blood."

Well then, carry on. Remember the Alamo what Rummy said.

"Democracy is messy?"

No -- turn and snap at ten paces.

Lost In Translation

Pestilence. War. Famine. Death.

These ancient horrors pale before --


















Foreign language citations either in-text or in end-/footnotes that are left untranslated for us mono-and-a-half linguists!

The other day, Sherry whipped up a post reviewing the new book by noted Biblical scholar and sometime teevee talking head Bart Ehrman, and this got me thinking of stuff that I enjoy reading, which is, like the Prankster's Bible itself and the characters within -- and some are quite the character. Oh, Yahweh, you little narcissist scamp with all your incessant smiting -- generally old.


















Sniff.

Oh no, not you, big cheesy. Did I say Yahweh? I meant Methuselah.

I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah so long ago.

No, don't be silly! You're quite the spry deity. In fact, you're a spring chicken.

That's just what every imaginary sky fairy longs to hear.

Relax. I know what the problem is. Gents?



Betcha feel better now, huh.















See, big guy, it'll be alright. Look at that youthful mane. You'll be chatting up the cheerleaders in no time. No last temptation for you, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Now that I've dazzled you with purty pictures, here's a bunch of whiny, boring words giving you the chance to escape to sexier pastures. And you people think I'm as cold and heartless as Yahweh.

Specialist texts are the worst for obvious and completely expected reasons, but there are a few kind souls (thank you, Ashgate) that usually translate or at least summarize these bits and pieces. French I can manage, as long as I have mon dictionnaire that's wearing its taped-up-Rocky treatment surprisingly well after years of abuse. It's a miracle!

Latin? The faintest whiff of eons-ago semesters, the Wheelock and dictionary on the shelf, and my increasingly ineffectual noodle make a four-course meal low in sodium and high on migraines. Lucky for me that the English language is one of the world's most accomplished kleptomaniacs, rivaling Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Dick Cheney.

The only German I know outside of 101 phrases (guten tag, danke, auf wiedersehen, achtung, schnell, Heil Hitler) is this list of likely incorrect sentences leftover from high school: Wo ist meine brieftasche? Ingo ist mein Freund. Ich gehe in die Stadt. Good times watching those theoretically educational 1960s black and white shorts. The first of the three was uttered by a penguin in the lobby of a sparse, noirish hotel towards a quite dapper clerk played by an actor who was obviously high or rivalled Sean Penn's masterful take on Jeff Spicoli. And you thought Deutschland lost its sense of humor while rebelling against The Man with that whole awkward Nazi phase.

Don't even get me started on fucking Arabic. Since Hussein X, Stringy Puppet of the impending Caliphate, is a fluent speaker, I'd give him a call, but he's real busy doing exactly what an American Pretzeldent, regardless of party, is supposed to do. You know, racking up our deepest regrets during The Global War on the Communist Islamic Threat of the Month and sticking it to everyone not currently running a bank or strapping electrodes to a prisoner's nutsack for the fun of just following imperial orders, all while filling the airwaves with nougat goodness.

Let's compare past candy bars, shall we?

Reagan's chewy center: Latin American death squads, Brylcreem and what's a treason?
Bush the Smarter's whipped goo: vomit, video wargaming and Uncle Clarence.
Bubba's caramel goodness: pasty sexcapades, let's let Rupert own everything and gays? ewww!
Chimpy's peanuts: bathtub social engineering, fields of corpses decomposing in the sun and oops! I lost all the money!

At least those jokers made up for such unhealthy ingredients by being near inexhaustible reservoirs of comedy. I can't say the same for our current overlord and, frankly, that's what really galls my bladder.

Stupid Pretzeldent. Be more funny!

Oh, what the hell. Here's a pic of Scarlett Johansson from that flick. No, not the German one. I don't want to be accused of false advertising.



















Almost makes me wanna take up smoking.

Mahmoud and the Chocolate Factory

"I got the last golden ticket!"

Celebration Day

Oooh, splish splash.

Oh yeah, some more.

Want me to pop another?












Champagne, you deviants. Put whatever paraphilia that warps your mind and reaps your soul back in your unmentionables. Celebrate good times. C'mon.

Yesterday, unless my adult beverage was spiked, always a possibility given who I shack up with, I believe that I actually finished one entire stanza (woo) for the first time in nearly two months. At least that's what the ink-stained paper was telling me in between fits of laughter at its poor quality, the witless foil to the good pieces that I, um, will certainly pilfer write someday, but more examinations not tested on animals might be necessary. Yes, this is what passes for thrill-a-minute excitement in my shadowy, cobwebbed corner of the space-time continuum. A shame it's about as lovely as moldy bread. Perhaps I should compose a paean to moldy bread.

















Man is a creature who lives not on bread
Alone, sans rhizophus stolonifer
And her fuzzy, verdant fur, as it were;
Oh, sweet mycotoxin, don't leave me dead!

For how can these loaves drown my heaving head
Without more unseasoned spores? Enzymes, come!
Fungi fun, this whole greater than our sum!
Joyous colony, you heard what I said;

Medical warnings? I don't give a fig.
Your divinity I devour again.
Sharp, anguished malady? On second thought,

Asexuality just ain't my gig.
Ouch! Stomach, writhing in exquisite pain --
Oh fierce, terrible mold, what hath thee wrought?*

There. That should complete the mojo jumpstart (and you thought I was getting soft). Thanks for reading, but I gotta go. Hope I can avoid becoming the newest collateral damage installment of my friendly neighborhood unhinged cracker terrorist imperialist socialist caliph crazy library patron. Wish me luck.

*For novelty purposes only. Don't eat moldy bread at home. Eat it at a restaurant, then after you get sick, you can sue and live large, spending your legally-stolen stash on fancy bakery products shipped overnight from Old Europe.

Green onions, with a magic mushroom chaser

No, not those kind.














These kind.

Dear Fellow Public Transportationistas,

After a tastelicious breakfast of garlic mushrooms with a side of green onionized scrambled eggs -- and tastelicious it is, for I made some myself just yesterday, would you look at that, I said look, goddammit, yum! -- it would be to the benefit of all humans, especially those of us seated nearby, if you would kindly support good personal hygiene with all of your cold, rancid heart by cleaning your noisehole with an ADA-approved paste and brush combo. I did, and that's why my sometimes-better-half cringed a bit less than she normally would when I asked her to pucker up.













The Halitosis Clinic thanks you for your concern.

Sincerely,

Randal

A hunka hunka burnin' crap

"Pourquoi est-ce que je dois être si court?"

Using The Google to locate choice imagery to couple with my expertly crafted prose, my original plan was to create a masterpiece of comedy chronicling the America! Yay! jaunt of Hussein X through the foetid backwater that is Old Europe, skillfully uniting the visual, the literary and the humorous, a disparate trinity cycling into a cohesive whole not seen since the days when the works of Aristophanes were fresh upon the stage.

Then I remembered that I suck. Then I remembered that I'm perilously close to the edge of bloggy burnout. So you get a video of an exploding head instead.

In America, you blog on internet.

In Russia, internet blogs on you!

Komrades! Party commissar demands Kreative Great Blogging!

I used to be fond of memes (you know, yesterday) since they nearly always write themselves, thus leaving me more precious time cultivating unspoken disdain for so many with the aid of amplified, sheet metal violence, but ones like this, wherein I'm supposed to unveil a bit of the dime-store mystery that is me, pain my soul. Thus, unspoken disdain for one, now spoken. Typed. Whatever. C'mon, Nunly, if I spill all of my secrets, people will only stop by to mock and laugh, only moreso, and I can get that at home.











I'm supposed to list seven spirits in the material world that I dig, so vive le capitalisme! I mean, может капитализм иметь длинную жизнь!

1. My CDs. Life without music? Inconceivable.

2. My books. Life without words? Inconceivable.

3. My DVDs. Life without couch potatoing? Inconceivable.

4. My video games. Life without more couch potatoing, though the floor is an acceptable substitute? Inconceivable.

5. My mp3 player. Life without music on a wheelie bus? Conceivable, but not recommended.

6. My black sweat jacket. Because my bicycle is broken and I can't think of anything else.











7. My most recent material acquisition via a best-of-luck internet contest, an autographed photo of lovely and talented Sarah-Jane Redmond, most famous, to me, anyway, for her brilliant portrayal of the diabolical Lucy Butler on teevee's Millennium.

And dammit, since we're on the subject, sign the petitions to bring back said show in some form. They can be found here. I'll wait.

Shoobie doobie doo. Twiddle dee thumbs, twiddle dum thumbs.

Now, don't you feel better having voiced your opinion for something that could actually happen, unlike Maoist/anarchist pipe dream assaults on America, The Self-Interested Empire -- sorry to burst our housing bubble, Hussein X, we're not going to be the first to turn that time-honored mold into shrapnel, but don't worry, once the borrowing spigot is closed, mid-level tourist trap here we come! -- from within?

I hope you, you (lemme guess, this is the kind of meme you won't do) and, oh yeah, you -- after your stern words, I honestly fear for my life -- like stuff, too, you goddamn communists.

Books, books, the musical fruit, the more you read, the more you toot

Yeah, I know it's beans and not books, but I couldn't think of a clever title.

Anyway, ever since I got chopped in half (old school Obituary, fuckers!), thereby forcing me to wave goodbye to my career as the gangly cracker towel collector on the end of an NBA bench who receives his annual two minutes of playing time in the fourth quarter of an April blowout before being released to tend bar as a local semi-celebrity back in Militiaville, Idaho -- every team has to have one, check the collective bargaining agreement -- I got sucked into the geeky yet lusty alternate dimension of bookdom. Smart is sexy, no? I believe that my tagger would agree with me.

"Which begs the question, why did she tag you."

Good point, especially since I had to pilfer from the Simpsons for the 387,446th time. An original thinker I am not, but I play a mean game of paper football when not sprawled out on the couch watching DVDs and stuffing my face with Funyuns.














1. Name a few of your favorite books.

In Search of Lost Time, Les Fleurs Du Mal, The Lord of the Rings, Là-Bas, The Complete Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Salammbô, The Odyssey and a whole bunch more.

2. Is there an author that you don't like, yet so many people seem to love?

Oh hell, I don't know, probably whomever is slotted in the various top ten sales lists, but since I haven't read the vast, vast majority of them, I cannot say yay or nay without accurately being labeled a dirty, filthy liar or a congressman. What I can say is that I doubt I'd be waving the bloody towel for the Tom Clancys of the world or the circus freaks who churn out various permutations of The Secret Path to Quasi-Mystical Happiness Through Better Self-Osmosis and Feng Shui Vegetarian Cookery. Most of the crap I read was written by people who finished their subterranean rotting decades, if not centuries, ago. Now pass that bitter yet tasty plate of charred animal parts.

3. Name a book to film adaptation that you really like. Name one you think was done poorly.

Bram Stoker's Dracula. Fuck you, it's good [insert own Keanu Reeves joke here if so inclined, his performance isn't a dealbreaker for me] and I liked that Anthony Hopkins played Van Helsing a shade over the top. Vampire lore, death, cleavage, exchanges of bodily fluids, a killer score, fabulous visuals, more death, what's not to love? Okay, zero zombies, but no movie is perfect.

Various Stephen King reimaginings have been mediocre, but for some reason, I still harbor a soft spot for the 1979 cut of Salem's Lot with David Soul, James Mason and young n' frisky Bonnie Bedelia.

4. Where do you buy your books?

The internets, Half Price Books, Old Erie Street before they semi-closed. Of course, the truly expensive ones I simply borrow and horde, keeping them from the rest of you.

5. What genre do you read the most?

Swashbuckling tales of ancient derring-do, defiance in the face of those on the throne and the romancing of sultry babes. You know, history. Et bien sûr, fiction and poetry, usually buckets o' nineteenth-century frog stuff.

6. What genre do you dislike?

Current events, for starters. All those unopened covers concealing delicious, antique creative goodness and I'm supposed to waste my time scarfing down shit I read about six months ago in The Google?

7. Is there a book that has changed your life?

They all do, no? Whether the degree of change lasts for five minutes or five years is an entirely different matter. Everything fluctuates. Except the views of a bloodthirsty wingnut or a card-carrying corporate hack of the DLC.

8. Have you ever met an author? What author would you like to meet?

Not any live ones, but Neil Gaiman is coming to Cleveland in October and thankfully not on a Saturday.

Bibliophile powers, activate! Form of, a tag! La Belette Rouge, thatgirl, spartacus (file it away for your triumphant return to online slackerdom)