H lost her comments today. In the interest of fairness in our current Mapwar I have sabotaged my own comments. Well, not really sabotaged, per se. And it really wasn't in the interest of fairness at all to be perfectly honest. Basically all I did was reorder them so the most current comment shows at the top when you open a comment window.

Posted by: Jim at 02:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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According to Swanson it is. After all, "I know what I like and I like a lot of it."

Is this for real? When I first saw one of the new commercials for Hungry-Man dinners I thought it was a parody. I kept waiting for the punchline but it never got there. For those of you who haven't seen one they feature 2 fat men talking about what they had for lunch/dinner. One had something like "Country Fried Beef Steak with Creamy Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans & Cherry-Apple Crumb Dessert". The other ate a watercress sandwich and a glass of water, or some similar "fou-fou" food. The light eater is then blown away by an errant gust of wind and you get one of the two taglines ("good to be full" or "I like a lot of it").

No, no, no, no, no. It is not good to be full. It is good to be not hungry. It is bad to be full. That means you ate more than your gut can comfortably hold. You overate.

Swanson is actively pushing a line of food catering to fat people and encouraging them to get fatter. If a "lot of it" isn't enough, don't worry - they offer 4 dinners in "XXL" size. What's the next campaign going to be? "Eat til you puke, we'll make more?" How about "You're fat anyway, let's go with that?" Maybe some blatant truth in advertising like "Eat, you fat fuck! Eat!"

Just more proof on why advertisers rate between politicians and Reuters correspondents on the ol' Scum 'o the World scale.

Posted by: Jim at 02:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Get on over to Wizbang for the Bonfire Of The Vanities - Lucky Week 13 Salebration!

Posted by: Jim at 01:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Snooze Button Dreams is proud to present an exclusive interview taken with H, of The Everyday Stranger, leader of the Anti-Mappists. This interview was obtained at great personal risk to our intrepid war reporter who will remain anonymous for his own protection*. The following transcript is taken verbatim and is certified to be 100% fair and balanced as well as completely accurate.**

So there you have it folks, in her own words. Who are you going to support in this Mapwar? Your favorite source for wit and humor or an aparently confused fairy killer?

Think of the fairies.

(*And because he's a total and complete fabrication of my mind.)
(**In the great traditions of Maureen Dowd, Jayson Blair and Reuters.)

Posted by: Jim at 10:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From the Miami Herald

Posted by: Jim at 03:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, it appears that H has surged into the lead in our little Mapwar. I am not afraid. You see, we have different blogging styles and different reader types. Everyday Stranger readers are looking for an orgasmic experience. They want instant gratification. Pleasure now! Of course they are signing her map right away, it is their very nature. Snooze Button Dreams readers, on the other hand, have an involved and accute sense of humor. They are merely waiting. They will let H think she has this thing well in hand (no pun intended) and then yank it from her lubricated fingers at the very last moment (okay, that might have gone a bit too far).

Attention SBD readers with involved and acute senses of humor: Knock it off! Don't be so cruel, sign my map now. Have mercy on poor H. Don't string her along like this. We have a chance to be kind and magnanimous in victory by crushing her now instead of giving her false hopes throughout the week. Can't anybody think of the children?!?

G says I should surrender now. He doesn't think I can compete with a gal writing sexy stuff.

Did Lee quit? I mean before that Appamatox thing. Scratch that.

Did Jared quit? Did he get the munchies 5 months into it and just say "Forget this crap. Gimme a half dozen meatball subs!"? No, he didn't! How's that for willpower, by the way? Quite an accomplishment on ol' Jared's part, I must say.

But the important thing is he didn't quit and neither are we! That's right, I'm grouping y'all collectively into this. We win together or we lose together. Sign the map (it's on the right side, just under the picture of me orally pleasuring a cow). Support Snooze Button Dreams! Do it for the children! Do it for Jared!

Posted by: Jim at 02:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This approaches the upper levels of wierdness.

(hat tip to G)

Posted by: Jim at 01:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bear and I took a little drive the other day to do some bonding. I calmly explained what has to happen with his school work and chores around the house and why it is in his best interest and he finally decided father knows best. I really felt that we finally connected so I took a photo to always be able to remember this milestone. So my message to all of you with kids is to just take some time and really try to communicate with them and they'll come around.

Click here for the pic.

(hat tip to Steve)

Posted by: Jim at 09:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Got a bunch of nifty stuff from G this morning.

The Dyson Telescope Game. Very cool puzzle game.

Homemade Mortar. I must have one of these. If for no other reason than it would let me briefly take my bowling ball out of retirement.

The Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates. Damn. Wish I'd seen this before Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrr!

Posted by: Jim at 09:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Except it was Sunday and it was the 28th and the month was September. Otherwise it happened just like in that song. Well, the song title anyway. There weren't any dancin' people or ice cream salesmen and there certainly weren't any people saying "Eicay varee', eisee' nardee'". So I guess it was only tangentially like that song. But isn't "tangentially" a cool word? It's really close to "tangenitally", which isn't a word but has "genital" in it and that's funny.

Anyway, took the happily family plus canine for a walk in the park yesterday. Canine is always leashed because he's a moron and will run off at any and every opportunity. He'll then run through the neighborhood pretending to be the Great Rabbit Hunter. We don't have any rabbits in our neighborhood but this doesn't phase him. We do have a load of feral cats and he thinks they are rabbits. He is consistently amazed at the tree climbing prowess of the local rabbit population. Eventually, when both of his brain cells happen to fire at the same time, he will realize that he is A) Hungry and B) Not the Great Rabbit Hunter. He'll then lope on home wearing a shit-eating grin and shit-rolled-in fur so Lovely Wife can do her Academy Award winning performance of "Dog owner who is furious enough to bite dog's ear off but has to act happy and nice so the moron dog won't take off again but oh wait until we're inside the house cause then your ass is mine except not really because said dog owner is afraid that if she lets the moron dog know she's angry then maybe just maybe the next time the moron dog runs off he might be afraid to come back at all as if I could be so lucky so instead he gets bribed with treats and canned food that makes him fart like Ted Kennedy after a weekend bender thereby reinforcing in his tiny little mind that running away is a good thing so he is encouraged to do it again".

This particular park is more than one neighborhood away so canine is carefully leashed. Should canine get loose here he would be completely unable to find his way home. Yes I've heard the amazing stories of dogs that travel thousands of miles, swim the Atlantic and get part time jobs as restroom attendants in order to find their way home. Those are smart dogs. We're talking Benji smart. Pull Timmy out of the well smart. Our dog is more on the intelligence level of a laboratory test subject. After the tests.

While in the park we met a real dog. Don't get me wrong, canine isn't one of those little ankle biters. When Lovely Wife decided we needed a dog I gave her the basic criteria: Any "dog" that can be heaved one handed over the roof will be. Canine is a beagle/terrier mutt and a decent 30 pounds so he passes the heave test (barely cleared the gutters). This dog we met in the park was a real dog though. "Great Dane" real. "This is my couch find your own" real. "187 pounds of imitation pony" real. Wow.

This massive beast, who we'll call "Opie" ('cause that was his name), was also very friendly in a "You will do exactly what I want and I won't consume your children. Deal?" sort of way. Nah, I'm not being fair. Opie really was friendly. Aloof but friendly. Its just when you encounter something that unbelievably large it takes a minute or two before the "fight or flight" reflex settles into the "deal with it, he can catch you if you run and swallow you whole if you don't" reflex. And when he yawned his jaws were the approximate size of the baby stroller. And where'd Burger go? And just why does my kid have to have a food nickname at a time like this? Oh, there he is, standing upright underneath the horse dog. Isn't that nice? Now where are my glycerin tabs?

The kids loved him. Couldn't get enough of him. Petting, hugging, kissing, rubbing, you name it. Everything short of copulation was performed. Our canine seemed visibly shaken. That's understandable as this behemoth was more than 6 times his size. Normally canine isn't bothered by a minor fact like his rival being larger. He's like the Joe Pesci of dogs, small and belligerent like if he refuses to acknowledge that his opponent is bigger than he is then maybe the opponent won't realize it either. I guess after a certain point there's just no need to fake it anymore and Opie was a good 80 pounds over that point. So canine sat there and pouted while his kids showered love on the interloper.

So now Lovely Wife wants a Great Dane. They're really great dogs, see? It's right there in the name. And they don't really take up a lot of space because they mostly just lay around all the time. They don't even realize that they're that big. They think they're a lap dog. Yeah, that's exactly what I want. A 187 pound mobile speed bump that wants to lay in my lap. I told her she could get one as long as she trades in an equal weight of current pets. She was not amused.

Posted by: Jim at 08:09 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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H has declared war on me! You see that white box in my right sidebar? The one that says "View the Guestmap"? Well H has a guestmap as well and she has declared that she will have more signatures than I do! The affrontery! The hutzpa! The balls! This is made more astounding based on the fact that she currently does have more signatures than I do.

Let's get it on! It's Mapwars I. Take no prisoners and may the best man win. (H - I'd say let the best person win but that would be like saying whichever of us is better should win. That's not what I'm about at all. I want me to win no matter how outclassed I am so I'm keeping that as "best man wins". Thanks for understanding.)

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I beseach you. Will you let this wonderful and comedic site be defeated by some uberwench with pictures of her hot, lithe, young body on her blog? No! Will we be distracted by stories of just how many times she had an orgasm over the weekend when her hubby was away? Heck no! Will our determination be weakened by her erotic writing and sometimes humorous rantings? No freakin' way!

Help me combat this darkly seductive female by clicking on that "View the Guestmap" box in my sidebar and signing my map. And whatever you do, don't support her cause by signing hers or checking out her hot kilt picture or her weekend orgasm summary or the Swedish Dentist Sex Cult and especially stay far away from the Layne inspired sex fantasy.

And if, by some chance, you should find yourself on her site, and should also feel compelled to leave a comment on anything, please use small words. She's a woman so she won't get the big ones and she's in Sweden so there's nobody around to explain them to her. (Sorry, H. Had to get at least one dig in there. It is a war after all!)

Thank you for your support. General Peacock out.

Posted by: Jim at 07:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Not for a while, of course. Right now I am the shiznit. I'm the guy who'll suck on a giant plastic cow's teats. I'm the guy who'll scream sing "Nemo!" "Memo!" at the top of my voice in Borders. 2 out of 3 of my kids know how to play Hot Hands. I give airplane rides until the kids stumble around worse than a Massachusets senator. Let's face it, right now I am like the ultimate in Daddy material.

But for how long? I do this stuff because it's fun. It amuses me. I am all about amusing me, always have been. I'm the guy who takes the wooden sword off the shelf in the toy aisle and yells out "I'm invincible! Have at you!". If I think it's funny or the idea of it makes me smile, I do it.

I embarrass lovely wife on a constant basis. The other day at Kroger (supermarket) I had all three kids in the cart and swung 'em around, doing an impersonation of a Tilt-a-Whirl. People stared. She almost died. Someone commented "Jeeze, grow the hell up." I responded proudly "No thanks. I'll stay young instead of turning into a bitter bitch with an asshole tight enough to squeeze pennies out of a quarter." I shouldn't talk to Lovely Wife that way - I didn't get any action for a week after that one.

The kids love it. Of course they do! I'm amusing as hell to their immature personalities. But what happens when they start to grow up and learn what "embarassment" is? How long until Bear shuffles off to the next aisle when I pick up a squirt gun at Toys 'R Us and tell him to "Cover me. I'm going in"? How old will they be when they don't want an airplane ride anymore, not because it's not still fun but because they don't want to be seen getting an airplane ride?

Hopefully it'll be a long time but it will arrive. It's as unavoidable as another Jason movie or the next Clinton scandal. It'll start with a forced laugh at one of my antics, instead of the gut busters I get now. Then it'll go to "that look" and silence. Then avoidance. It'll probably end up with my death.

Anybody see where I left my Supersoaker?

Posted by: Jim at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I think I've found a new hobby. Trying to figure out what the hell people are doing looking for the stuff that they are apparently finding on my site. I am a helpful sort though so let's see if I can assist these misguided folk:

habanero peppers sensual feelings
I see where you're going here but even Vegans stop before "relating" to their vegetables in that manner. In any case I would recommend a cucumber over a habanero pepper any day of the week. They are a better fit and have far less incidence of damage. For an idea of the dangers involved with habanero intimacy, read this.

Bacon's Recourse email addresses
Bacon has no recourse. It is food. Dead food. Even if it did have a recourse I doubt it could use email. I mean, have you ever tried to type with bacon? It's terribly difficult.

CARING TIDBITS
Euphamisms ahoy! "I am tantalized by your caring tidbits." "Did you see the tidbits on that chick?"

canadian press jiggling bra
It's not the bra that jiggles, it's the caring tidbits that are concealed within. If you're looking for jiggling Canadian tidbits, try The Canadian Ballet.

"joe theisman, broken leg picture", "joe theisman broken leg video", and "joe theismann leg"
Apparently I'm an expert on Theismann's leg injury now. I'm also the top search engine return for joe theismann the slut whore

Man, I love this stuff.

Posted by: Jim at 10:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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And he's headed straight for my Cheddar X!

1. Of the cast of characters in your life today, who amongst them are people that you cannot envisage your life without?
Lovely Wife and G. And that's not because they'll be reading this sometime either. I have no idea what I would do or where I would be if Lovely Wife wasn't in my life but I know it wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am now. Same with G - he's my cousin but he's also (and more importantly) my best friend.

2. If you could name a Talk Like Day (as in our recent Talk Like a Pirate Day), what day would you initiate?
How about Talk Like an Intelligent Adult Day? For one day there would be no Spanglish, Ebonics, pidgin English, colloquial butchery, slanglish, etc.

3. What's your favorite home remedy for a cold or flu?
For a cold I don't have one. Either suck it up or self medicate. You will not beat a cold no matter what the advertisers tell you. For a flu I recommend large quantities of alcohol. Hey, if you're going to be miserable with a splitting head and puke bucket next to the bed anyway then you might as well. It's like a "Get out of Hangover Free" card.

4. What's your most embarassing moment? (I could swear this has been asked before but I can't find it anywhere)
You're thinking of "What's the absolute dumbest thing you've done?". My answer to that one works for this one too.

5. What's the funniest product name you've come across or invented?
Colon Blow cereal and New Super Colon Blow - with twigs! in honor of the plethora of root and bark breakfast options that became available a few years ago.

6. What's your ideal honeymoon?
A couple weeks at the Playboy Mansion would fit the bill. Okay, so it might not be the most romantic setting but if you can tell your buds that you spent your honeymoon at the Playboy Mansion do you know how many Guy Points you would get? That's like hitting the Lottery right there!

Extra Credit
10 points to anybody (except G) who can tell me where the title to this post came from.

Posted by: Jim at 08:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Dangerous snakes seized at Sydney Airport

(Hat tip to G for the link)

Posted by: Jim at 07:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Y'all remember Ensgilh 101, right? That's where you keep the first and last letters of a word in place and scramble the rest. It mkaes the wrods odldy rdealbe. G just sent me a follow-up:

"Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd, utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."

Scrambled internal letters make legible words. Simply inverting the internal letters makes words that are very difficult to recognize. Wierder and wierder.

(The source for all this is reportedly slashdot.org (for the original) and the University of British Columbia's Linguistics department (for the new one). I can't find either of them at either site so I can't verify but figured I should note that in the interest of fairness.)

UPDATE: I hate it when I get got and I definitely got got this time. Inverting the letters has no more effect on readability than scrambling, except that expected characters are not seen in the beginning of the word. The major thing at work here is word familiarity. The "invert" phrase above uses many words that are not common parlance. Yes, we know all of the words but they are not words that we commonly read. The English 101 paragraph used very commonly used words. The second factor is placement in context. In the English 101 example it is very easy to read the words in context based on the words around them as there are many "gimme" words used. That is, words with 5 or less characters that we recognize without actually having to read the word and whose readability is unaffected by misspelling. This second example is built to defeat that skill. They also throw in several misplaced commas to break it into illogical segments and make it even more difficult to read.

Case in point, in correctly spelled form the "invert" paragraph has a Flesch Reading Ease of 0.0 and the "scrambled" one has an Ease of 51. The "invert" uses big words (average of 6 letters per word) while "scrambled" uses small ones (average of 4 letters per word).

We hates the tricksy linguists, my Precioussss...

UPDATE2: MojoMark points out that this is on Snopes.

Posted by: Jim at 07:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You remember the Banner Adds We'd Like to See? Well G just passed me some billboards we'd like to see. They're over at Dribbleglass. There are way too many to give you a fair sampling but here are a couple of my favorites:

Posted by: Jim at 12:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My votes for this week's Showcase are Animal Cruelty..Update at Tom's Nap Room and Good Advice at Random Fate. Don't forget to vote and support new bloggers!

Posted by: Jim at 11:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fun with fusion

(Hat tip to G for the link.)

Posted by: Jim at 11:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've opened up a Cafe Press shop to provide y'all with your Snooze Button Gear. All the prices are $1 over cost and any dollars I get from it will go toward moving off BlogSpot and supporting SBD out in the wide wide world.

If anybody wants anything that's not in the store just let me know. I'll whip it right out for ya.

Posted by: Jim at 10:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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