In American middle-class society, there’s a list of things that are valued in the abstract and ignored in practice. Let’s call them Institutional Hypocrises. Most of these totems are foisted off on children, including religion, the environment, and good nutrition. Adults avoid their churches, pollute, and eat chee-tos. Children are expected to go to Sunday School, take part in ecological cleanups, and eat “right”.

To this list we should probably now add literacy. My library employee friends locally tell me that the library is now a Blockbuster mostly. People check out videos like crazy, and the books gather dust, except for the childrens books which are constantly in demand.

So now that I am a man, I suppose I should put away childish things and stop honoring my God, stop recycling, eat more chocolate pudding and less bran, and watch “Elimidate” instead of re-reading Joyce. I’m such an immature disaster.

I just saw an ad on TV for the glories of Springfield, MO as a tourist destination. The ad told me to go to http://www.springfield-fun.com/ and you should too. Then, click on the “Things to Do” link.

Edit: I noticed that you don’t get the funny when you click that link in the left navbar, only when you click it in the main body frame.

I went to my local Ralphs “Fresh Fare” supermarket. I got some staple foods, the usual stuff. And wandering back to the register I passed the display for the Boar’s Head deli stuff. Boar’s Head mostly makes overpriced lunchmeat, which is fine as far as that goes. Now they’ve branched out into highfalutin cheese. I like cheese. They had a number of things that looked good, including Double Gloucester which is one of my favorite cheeses. Imported from England and everything. Yay, I said!

I took it home and opened it up. As far as I could tell it was the blandest, mildest California “cheddar” or Colby or Longhorn. Totally flavorless, waxy rubbery texture. Not Double Gloucester at all. It was, in fact, cheese fraud.

Boycott Boar’s Head!

(This is a cheese shop, is it not?)

I want a short position on Yasser Arafat.

I wonder who came up with this. I’m imagining some Ayn Rand-infected junior official, full of ideological purity and faith in The Markets, deciding to solve EVERYTHING this week the economic way.

I had this concept for a combination milk bar and theatre. You could watch classic plays while enjoying ice cream, shakes, chocolate milk, etc.

The twist is that it would all be Middle Eastern themed and the milk would be camel milk, which is exotic and hard to find and therefore would be trendy.

I want to call it the Drama Dairy.

Hoagies of terror!

This reminds me of the I.T. guys at corporate offices, who reject anything that looks like work with the security excuse.

Al-Qaeda’s secret pocket sandwich weapon won’t make it into the Eagles Stadium, though, Thank God!

DIVORCE, PUNY HUMANS

I had guilt and worthlessness nightmares about my family all night, interspersed with my work pager beeping to announce that A Major News Syndicate had once again failed to provide their feed. In the morning I got actual family guilt and worthlessness experiences and more pages. My brother and nephew just arrived for a week. I foresee lots of long drives to nowhere and a bit of late night drinking to avoid myself for the next few days. Ain’t life grand?

Hi, I’m drifting in the Sargasso again. Pass the tequila down my way.

Tech TV supervixen makes amusing photoshop error

Warning: boobies. NSFW.

Also: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Courtesy MetaFilter.

May your house be live on CNN!

Courtesy Elenor.