the moon is made of soylent green

There is a commercial that's been running rather frequently, you've probably seen it, in which a gentleman is holding a large cheese wheel and saying something very like:

"Everyone knows that milk comes from cows. But cheese comes from people".

Eeeeeeew! This is not the cheese we want to purchase and eat, mister.

I find myself saying this about things all the time*, but in my experience working for corporations, nothing's done until there is meeting after meeting to discuss it. Was there really not one person who spoke up and said "do we really want to say that we're selling people-cheese"?

*Some other examples: a kid's play set that was like Colorforms but with felt pieces, called Felt Kids; Christopher Reeve's memoir, entitled Still Me; Aquapets.

they got too many snakes or somethin', right?

President Bush has a reputation for being insulated and out of touch with reality, but in today's speech to the UN, hear how adroitly he sums up the mood of the nation:

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma".

That's "sit-chu-AY-shun".

loose change got rained on with his own .38

Here's some good reading for you fine folks:

Douglas Rushkoff on why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are whack. He says it better, natch.

And if you are an adherent to those 9/11 stories, I have some swampland in Florida for you, here.

I dreamed I held you in my nuclear arms

Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."

Glad to see the Dadaists showed up.

I say let Richard Branson go find him

Not only are your taxes paying to find a missing multimillionaire who couldn't be bothered to file a flight plan, but now you can help from yer very own 'pooter! Flyin' Fossett Junior Rangers ready for action, sir!

Think of this next time some right-winger gets onto food stamp fraud or whatever anecdotal bullshit they like to spew about social programs. How much are we spending to dig up missing Richie Rich flyboys?

Forget it, Jake. It's Corntown.

The family and I went to one of these no-frills supermarkets last weekend, where they have all the products disguised to look like well-known brands, like if you squint you'll think you're actually putting A-1 Steak Sauce on your hamburger, not AL-STEAK sauce- you get the idea.

Anyway, I didn't really want to go. The missus insisted we go there to buy certain things, as she insists that we are poor. She could be right about that, but I insist that poor is a state of mind, and that in my mind I am a gazillionaire.

So, I was along reluctantly- we brought our own grocery bags so we wouldn't have to buy them at the store but we don't own a cart so we still had to rent one- all of this no-frillery made me slightly grumpy.

However, my mood soon lightened as I spotted a box of microwave popcorn with the brand-name, in carnivalesque font:
CORNTOWN!

Did I say my mood lightened? I should say I was in hysterics. All I could do was point and guffaw. Now it was the wife's turn to be grumpy. She tried to pretend she didn't know me.

It's been kind of a running gag for the past week. Corntown!
And, added bonus! Popcorn lung comes along to sweeten the pot! Now I could entertain myself and annoy the missus with my little playlet, performed in the bathroom as I was flossing:

Narrator: Corntown, USA. A town with no future, the only employment available a dead-end job in the popcorn mines. But some hope to escape the fate of previous generations.

Young Davey: Me, I'm gettin' out of Corntown. I ain't gon' die from the popcorn lung like my daddy and his daddy before him. I can still remember Pappy on his deathbed. We knew he was about to go when his coughs slowed down to two or three per minute...

fat jokes in 3,2,1...

Luciano Pavarotti died today. You may remember him from the Three Tenors. He was two of them.
He was known as "king of the high Cs", but was also frequently mistaken for the Queen Mary.
I don't want to say Pavarotti was fat, but when he sat around the opera house...

nobody's gonna slap o'l Griz with a libel suit

So I'm currently hating on a certain company. I won't tell you which one, but they're an insurance provider and their name rhymes with "sweat-na".
And boy, do they suck. They've raised the art of strategic incompetence to heights I never before imagined.

In preparation for a time when my daughter starts talking, I'm trying to start using substitutes for some of my favorite swears. Por ejemple, I really like to call people douchebags. Don't know why, I just do. Now I call those people juice boxes. Sometimes, flugelhorn juice boxes.

Sweat-na? Buncha flugelhorn juice boxes.