Big Fat Hairy Living

When I was a teenager, I used to buy Muscle and Fitness magazines and masturbate to the “before” pictures. The “before” pictures were always hotter.

Conservapedia re-invents taxonomy, now with extra racism!

Last week I was asked to write a a Bryant Gumbel memo blaming my counterpart at another division for screwing up on a project we’re both working on. I felt guilty, because I like the guy; he’s a slacker, just like me.

Now I’m in a conference call with a bunch of engineers and assorted middle management functionaries. The business development manager — the one who touches me on my shoulder — is trying to cover his ass, trying to blame us for not knowing all along that what he really wanted was something twice as good and half the cost of what he asked us for.

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I’ve started receiving a new free trade rag at work, the title of which is incredibly ironic:

It’s exactly what you need to survive in the world of electrical engineering.

Stephen Harrell, a 42 year old poor black man, was arrested for wrapping cocaine rocks in resealable plastic bags, placing those bags into a bigger bag, shoving them into his foreskin, and keeping them there for an hour between his arrest and his strip search.

I just took some dimes from my change drawer and tried that. It was strange and I don’t want to do it again. But apparently the police, who one presumes were all circumcised, think he did it. Not that they seem to agree where the crack actually was:

The public defender… [downloaded] some penis diagrams off the Internet and asked [the three police] to show the trial jury where exactly the bulge had been … One said it was at the top, beneath the foreskin proper, while the other two put it further down and to the side. In one diagram the package was almost all the way to the base of the penis — which makes one wonder just how endowed with male genitalia the police officers themselves can have been.

In his foreskin, all the way to the base of his penis. Yeah.

Things took an unexpected turn, however, as a batch of photographs of Harrell’s genitalia was released to the court and appeared to show that he was circumcised … the photographs unleashed a furor in the courtroom and changed the terms of the debate entirely … the defendant was accused of yanking his foreskin back for the camera in an attempt to conceal it.

I was having sex with someone who I sort of didn’t like, and I tried doing “yanking” his foreskin back. He had tight foreskin, so it hurt. He wasn’t happy. But it gets better:

Officer Manning bragged that he knew all about the flexibility of uncircumcised penises because he used to play baseball for the Atlanta Braves … and frequently showered with players from Colombia and Central America who not only had foreskins but were frequently “silly” with them. Manning told the prosecutor he saw players pull down their foreskins and dance around for as long as 20 minutes.

I tried that in high school. I got called a fag.

I think the cops should have shown pictures of their penises.

I managed to discover a page on toilet training for autistic children with lines that read like something out of Handjobs magazine:

… Since he loved diesel trucks, I told him to use his penis as a diesel fuel hose to use to “empty his load” … when the opportunity to use a restroom finally did come, he was easily able to “dump his load” … that may be the key that allows them to “feel it coming” a little more and allowing them more “control over turning their hose on or off” … He often stated that he wanted to be “a trucker”. So, I told him I would buy him “trucker underwear” that he would have to keep clean … I now have dad take him into the men’s restroom … I called it the “trucker’s bathroom” and so he was thrilled to try it out even though it was totally new for him …

Dad takes his son to the trucker bathroom so he can turn on his hose and dump his load. Interesting.

I’ve discovered Conservapedia, a “much-needed alternative to Wikipedia,” which the authors claim is “increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American” — i. e., based on reality. Some of the examples of the horrible anti-Christian, anti-American bias:

Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception.

and

Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American. Look up “Most Favored Nation” on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling “Most Favoured Nation”

Sure, Wikipedia is full of a lot of crap, but complaints like these are laughable. The entries on Conservapedia read like they were written by retarded home-schooled grade three students who’ve spent all their time inside a church:

Quantum Mechanics:

Quantum mechanics forms the basis for all computers and electronic devices today. Unfortunately, the idea of non-determinstic physics runs contrary to the Biblical worldview of an omnipotent diety. Thus, quantum mechanics remains a flawed, ultimately incorrect theory.

How about the page on Canada?

Canada is the second largest country in the world for it’s considerable amount of land. It was named Canada because when an explorer came to a Canadian Indian village he asked what this place was called, and they told him “Kanada”, which means village in their Indian language. It borders the United States, and most of it’s population is in The more southern provinces of Canada.

This is what they say about the Democratic Party:

The major tenets of the modern Democrat platform include cowering to terrorism, treasonous anti-Americanism, and establishment of an amoral, atheistic, Communist state. However, contempt for all the founding principles of America is not yet an official prerequisite for entry into the Democrat party.

Or this tidbit in the three-paragraph entry on the USA:

The United States was founded upon the principles and ideals of Christianity, as demonstrated in the Declaration of Independence … The USA is rightly considered by its patriotic citizens to be the best country in the world.

I wonder what it’s like being stupid.

Hockey referee Dale Neudorf got beaten up during a hockey game and it may have saved his life:

If a player hadn’t cross-checked him in the face with a hockey stick on Sunday and sent him to hospital, doctors may never have discovered the large tumour in his brain. Doctors spotted the growth while taking an X-ray and a CT scan of Neudorf’s brain to make sure he wasn’t seriously injured in the on-ice attack near the northern community of Meadow Lake.

But look what Neudorf has to say about that strange stroke of luck:

“I wouldn’t call it fate: I believe there’s a God that created me and looks after me,” Neudorf, 45, told CBC News on Thursday. “And whatever methods He uses — if it’s a weird incident like a cross-check in the face to get me down here to get my head checked — well, that’s probably a good thing.”

Assuming that this God actually cares about Dale Neudorf enough to “look after” him, why would it resort to an attack that left him with a broken nose, facial injuries, and memory loss to protect him from brain tumours? Wouldn’t a supernatural being that truly wanted to protect someone from brain tumours let a doctor find it without requiring a beating? Why would it even let him get brain cancer in the first place? Or for that matter, why would it even allow cancer to exist? And who gets the credit for giving Dale Neudorf a brain tumour in the first place? Isn’t it funny how this God gets the credit for curing people of cancer but not letting them get it in the first place?

This is known as the “problem” of theodicy: why does a good, loving God allow evil things to happen? For thousands of years, philosophers have been jumping through logical hoops trying to figure it out. Of course, all these questions can be answered without having to resort to old fairy tales. We just have to assume that there is no supernatural invisible sky fairy up there. Then everything suddenly makes sense.

A man who wanted to buy an ass went to market, and, coming across a likely-looking beast, arranged with the owner that he should be allowed to take him home on trial to see what he was like. When he reached home, he put him into his stable along with the other asses. The newcomer took a look raound, and immediately went and chose a place next to the laziest and greediest beast in the stable. When the master saw this he put a halter on him at once, and led him off and handed him over to his owner again. The latter was a good deal surprised to see him back so soon, and said, “Why, do you mean to say you have tested him already?” “I don’t want to put him through any more tests,” replied the other. “I could see what sort of beast he is from the companion he chose for himself.”

From the Toronto Star, the latest news on the redevelopment of Maple Leaf Gardens into a Real Canadian Superstore:

Three years after Loblaw Cos. Ltd. won a hard-fought battle to get its hands on Maple Leaf Gardens, the beleaguered supermarket chain says it is ready to begin redeveloping the hockey shrine.

Details of the company’s plans for the storied former arena, which has played host to Stanley Cup victories as well as rock stars and royalty, remained sketchy yesterday.

But the company said it has received all the necessary permits and approvals and is ready to begin the interior cleanup this summer, which could be followed by 22 months of construction.

22 months from this summer would be April of 2009, assuming construction doesn’t take even longer. At least it seems like it will open before I’m too old to enjoy it.