Inappropriate Seasonal Symbols

Too much candy! It's a powerful lesson to learn as a child, since perhaps up to the moment of barfing, there is a belief that there can never be too much candy. Oh, how we learn.

I got 15 inches of snow up at New Gondolin! It was amazing/depressing. I've never seen such a display of colors - the reds and yellows and brown fall leaves with green pines and white, white, white everywhere. It looked like Fruity Pebbles in milk. I'm not a fan of winter, but I have to accept it. Maine, and all.

Still, death to all snowmen!

Inappropriate Gifts

This was a real thing! Blow up sex dolls repurposed as Superman for bed time fun! What a great gift for any kid.

How about a nice candle?

Not sure how you play with Squirt Wrestler. Not my thing.

Choose Cookies.

Jar Jar Binks Tongue Candy

Literally. I mean, yes, look at it - I believe you were supposed to suck Jar Jar's tongue for Forceful flavor. Or something. Maybe it was a flashlight? I have no idea where I got this photo. Feels like China though.

Lucas Balloon

And the balloon will only get bigger and bigger till it one day pops.Until then, all hail Lucas, Creator of Star Wars, Fictional Home to Countless Nerds.

Kitty Ali

Of course the fight (Ali v. Liston) was fixed - could you hit a kitty in the face? Also, this was the only Heavyweight title fight ever held in the state of Maine. Lewiston, if you can believe it! I hardly can.

Living in America HAHA

Let's tell a story! This guy:

Loved America, clearly. Alas, he fought and died at the hands of this guy:

Grace Jones had nothing to do with this tale - but maybe some other day... Anyways, with Apollo Creed dead, there was only one way for this to go:

Which of course led to:

Yay, America! I don't think it's a co-incidence that soon after Rocky 4 hit the big screen the USSR - realizing their vaunted boxing machine men were no match for American Grit - collapsed and FREEDOM rained across the World. 

Rocky liked to fight, as that's who he was. What he did. What made him up. That was the whole point! Like:

Don't remember that, do you? And also:

Clubber Lang. Or his other acting name, Mr. T.. Who looks like this now adays:

I seriously doubt that's a solid gold frying pan. But you never know.... Anyways, the end of my story:

WrestleMania I. It was 1984, and everything was possible - like, the greatest wrestling event of all time. And it was! I don't want to use any hyperbole, but it might have been the greatest event in human history. Check out the wiki - it's like some weird soap opera where instead of romance and a'cheatin', it's men fake fighting. 

Yay, America. Ain't FREEDOM grand?

Are you in or are you out?

The Tribe, that is. The Right one. The correct one. Not those stupid other tribes. You shall know the True Tribe by its colors:

And you shall know the members of the True Tribe by their willingness to wear Her Colors as articles of clothing. Patriots!

Would you consider wearing the American Flag as part of an article of clothing? If you're reading this blog, probably not, you damn hippies! That's why you - we - are not in the True Tribe. And it's true: The more flags you wear, the bigger the Patriot you are:

Have you ever heard of the "Flag Code"? Look it up! All kinds of rules n' shit about the flag, many of which are broken by these "Patriots". It's amusing - their understanding, or lack thereof, of the Flag Code mirrors their understanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the founding of America, Democracy, etc.

Freedom, bitches!

It's like an anti-boo shield. Y'all can't boo me! I'm wearing a FLAG!

We write the Book

History is written by the winners, so they say. And America was winning for a long time - it was a good run. Remember the fun days of the Cold War?

Take that, Communism! But alas! Now we've willingly destroyed the very things that once made us great, and some (Repuglicans) are hell bent on destroying the rest. Propaganda, fear, debt, greed, and pure tribalism is enough to rot an empire within. No foreign enemy necessary.

But it's always good to take out others while we can. Yay, dead dictator! As we're (America, Fuck Yeah!) the ones telling the tale. Others - the various recipients of our tax payer missiles around the world - may disagree.

You are your face

Note the crybaby face on Jay Cutler - NFL Quarterback. As a starting NFL QB, he is an elite member of the elite, one of few people on earth who can claim such a thing. He's a King of the Jocks, BMOC that is the campus of our society. And yet, the constant crybaby face, and as such, no matter how elite he is, he's an object of mockery, of scorn, of derision and sacks. No one likes him, and it's entirely because of his face. Look at the Ref's face.

The lesson! To most everyone else in this world, you are your face. And not just looks, but how you wear it - always frowning? Always mad? Always eyes darting around and around? This is how the world sees you, and thus judges you, no matter what you truly are. So consider the well the face you show the world, for it is your basic currency.

Speaking of faced:

And another face that says it all:

Poor Skins fans. As a Pats fan, it's been so long since I knew anything but excellence, I can only abstractly imagine your woe.

When we were LOST

Remember Lost? It was such a wild ride, I really miss it - the ongoing mystery, the crazy theories, the mad twists. Lost was a modern day epic in the old school Greek tradition, and I am super glad I caught it in real time, since speculation was part of the fun. Also, it was all Vincent's dream.

I was - perhaps sadly - still watching Lost every day up until 3 months ago, while I worked out. But alas, Football season started and there was "research" to be done. Seriously! I take Fantasy very seriously. I dedicate most of my spare time from September through December studying football. Sad! And now awesome:

 Touchdown, Team Jack.

Bad Dogs

As often with dogs, the question here is: "Bad (as in the catch all negative applied to many dog actions or behaviors: "Bad Dog!")", or dumb? Or dogs just being dogs and who are we to judge?

See? Could be a punk dog, or just a puppy playing in typical puppy fashion.

Well, the evidence here seems a little more convincing, right? Bad Dog!

Another bad dog, for sure.

I'm a Survivor

Herewith, I give you the remainder of my Survivor .gif cache:

A clotheslining, by an actual clothesline. Isn't it ironic?

Crystal was a gold medal Olympic winner (some kind of relay race), and yet, was a terrible athlete. It was rather surreal.

Dan was a small man in a very big chair. It was part of an in-show advertisement for Jack Black's "Gulliver's Travels". Which was an instant classic, I hear. I - for truth - enjoy the advertisements in the show, since it's a connection to most other TV game shows. And it's cheezy, and these poor suffering players are amazed by these strange items from a foreign land. Also, there's usually some kind of strategic element to these advertisement segments - winning an expensive car, for example, often would bias the jury against the winner.

Oh yeah. T&A. It's another big factor in the show - for all genders and sexual persuasion. A well proven Survivor maxim: Everyone looks better starving and dirty than fat and covered in makeup and questionable clothes.

Spider dance. Speaking of:

An exploding ball of spiders. Hello!

Two Snakes and an Eel

I think - hope - this is a snake shedding its old skin for some new duds. It's pretty gross. But an apt example of the awesomeness of the TV show "Survivor". It's not a reality show, though it does share some techniques. Rather, it's a psychological study played for money on worldwide broadcast. These pressures - money, fame, the emotions of living a primitive lifestyle surrounded by other people waiting to get you eliminated from the game - create a real world the game players live in (see: Stanford Prison Experiment). They must eat from the land and sea, sleep outdoors in the elements, endure torturous physical tasks. The players of the game Survivor suffer. For our entertainment!

Also, they show lots of cool nature shots. Like:

I think - hope - this is a snake digesting a meal. Otherwise, no idea. It's disturbing regardless.

Here's an eel barfing. Enjoy!

Lots o' Jaws

Afraid of snakes? This one IS COMING AT YOU!!! But truly, you are brother/sister with even the snake, who has rudimentary arms and legs in that elongated vertebrate torso. And a mouth, with fangs. All the better to kiss you with...

A Devonian fish, our ancestor, one of many still this far back - 400 million years ago. Consider though, that complex life on Earth is only 600 million years old, and everything older than that was bacteria and the like. We're new on the scene, especially on dry land - 300 million years ago or so, out of an age of the planet of 4.6 billion years old. Only then did the first creatures - ever - explore the land. Amazing, right?

Leading, eventually, inevitably (in hindsight), to us - masters of Photoshop. Witness the deft and now trifling ability to manipulate any digital image into whatever you wish. Tis the power of a God, this 'shopping power...

That's a Hell Bastard, T-Rex, Great White, Hippo (quite dangerous!), and Crocodile. I quibble with the hippo/croc placement.

OMGOSSUM!!!

Fun fact to know and share: Every animal and fish on this planet - you, me, the birds, the frogs, trout, whales, and even the freaky opossum - is but a modification of the original fish vertebrate that is all our direct ancestor way, way back when - two eyes, two arms, two legs, everything's basically the same, just in different configurations.

Proof enough of evolution, for any doubters, I'd think. But then, no amount of proof is enough for some.

A Study in Fear

A haunted house in Canada has a Flickr stream where they post photos from the scariest part of the tour. Check it out here. A sample:

These photos capture a sincere moment of primal, instinctive fear, and seeing hundreds of people's reactions is fascinating. Seems like good source material for a body language study of the fear response.

Also, go Diversity!