A nurse at the Metro San Antonio Pediatric Care Facility kindly informed Sharely Browning that her 2 month old baby girl's apparent smile was actually just an unthinking, physiological reaction to indigestion and gas.
"I was so relieved", explained Browning afterwards, "I've been hoping [Dana] would turn out to be a repulsive, gaseous little bitch. I couldn't be more proud!"
Dana drank 3.5 ounces of formula and passed out for the remainder of the morning and was therefore unavailable for comment.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Identical twin snowflakes forced to duel
Mild concern quickly escalated to panic in the early morning hours of the recent snowstorm, as snowflakes falling through the sky started to realize that two of their colleagues were identical. There were gasps of horror, shrieks, convulsions of terror, and a few flakes even passed out as it became increasing apparent (as dawn broke across the horizon) that the impossible had happened: two snowflakes looked exactly the same.
The offending pair (both shaped as dendritic flakes with plates at the end of their limbs, fern-like branches, and a densely rimed core) at first appeared to be unaware of each others' existence. But as the morning light increased, the falling flakes were clearly distraught at the sight of their replica. As they wisped downward, they were heard jeering at each other derisively, with taunts of "You're a freak!" and "You malformed ordinary dendrite!" and even "Irregular germ!" And these profanities became part of an overwhelming cacophony as other snowflakes, reviled by the pair, shouted out their hateful criminations: "It's unnatural!", "Make them sinter!", and various other slanders.
So, the snowflakes did what they knew was necessary and just. A handful of particularly repulsed flakes drifted towards each other, merged, and turned into graupel. Their large and foreboding presence earned them the respect of all their neighbors, and they did made haste to render judgment upon the offending pair so as to restore order and dignity.
"Fellow flakes", they began, as one, "we today have witnessed something so unnatural and grotesque that were are forced to act, not just for the dignity and righteousness of our neighbors, but for the fabric of all snowflake society. As there can be only one snowflake of a given shape, size, and composition, we declare that these two offending snowflakes be forced to duel. To the death, for them, as we must ensure that the gospel remain correct, as it was been said across the ages and around the globe, taught to us as mere condensates grasping onto our nuclei: 'No two snowflakes look the same', and truer, more fair verses have never been spoken. So it will be. A duel to the death."
And snowflakes throughout the air column cheered in agreement, shouting, "To the death! To the death!"
The offending pair approached and locked each others' glare, readied their needles as the crowd began to roar in anticipation, and suddenly the whole cohort of flakes landed on a dirty pile of deformed snow and ice, road grime, oils, and muck, and were immediately run over by a truck tire, squeezed into a crevasse in the pavement, and melted by salt monsters.
The offending pair (both shaped as dendritic flakes with plates at the end of their limbs, fern-like branches, and a densely rimed core) at first appeared to be unaware of each others' existence. But as the morning light increased, the falling flakes were clearly distraught at the sight of their replica. As they wisped downward, they were heard jeering at each other derisively, with taunts of "You're a freak!" and "You malformed ordinary dendrite!" and even "Irregular germ!" And these profanities became part of an overwhelming cacophony as other snowflakes, reviled by the pair, shouted out their hateful criminations: "It's unnatural!", "Make them sinter!", and various other slanders.
So, the snowflakes did what they knew was necessary and just. A handful of particularly repulsed flakes drifted towards each other, merged, and turned into graupel. Their large and foreboding presence earned them the respect of all their neighbors, and they did made haste to render judgment upon the offending pair so as to restore order and dignity.
"Fellow flakes", they began, as one, "we today have witnessed something so unnatural and grotesque that were are forced to act, not just for the dignity and righteousness of our neighbors, but for the fabric of all snowflake society. As there can be only one snowflake of a given shape, size, and composition, we declare that these two offending snowflakes be forced to duel. To the death, for them, as we must ensure that the gospel remain correct, as it was been said across the ages and around the globe, taught to us as mere condensates grasping onto our nuclei: 'No two snowflakes look the same', and truer, more fair verses have never been spoken. So it will be. A duel to the death."
And snowflakes throughout the air column cheered in agreement, shouting, "To the death! To the death!"
The offending pair approached and locked each others' glare, readied their needles as the crowd began to roar in anticipation, and suddenly the whole cohort of flakes landed on a dirty pile of deformed snow and ice, road grime, oils, and muck, and were immediately run over by a truck tire, squeezed into a crevasse in the pavement, and melted by salt monsters.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Five year, $500K NSF-funded study reveals that tourists are morons
A multidisciplinary research team representing 12 universities, 4 government agencies, 2 independent thinktanks, and 1 nonprofit group called a press conference earlier today to reveal their findings. Said Heather Everett, a world-acclaimed economist from the University of Chicago and principle investigator for the study: "After 5 years of capacity building, strategizing and planning, pursuing grant support, collecting and analyzing data, and carefully vetting our results with expert colleagues around the world, the WGOITBRG [What Goes on in Tourists' Brains Research Group] is now ready to share our main and most important cutting-edge result, which is that tourists are morons.
"Surprisingly, very little of our input variables explained patterns in residuals other than the mere dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' dummy variable..." (Everett took a minute to chuckle at the unintended pun) "...of whether or not someone was on vacation. Nothing else seemed to matter- home location, level of education, race, ethnicity, gender, trip destination, socioeconomic status, etc."
Continued Everett, "We examined differences between control group subjects (who stayed at home) and those traveling to national parks in the U.S., major cities in Europe, all-inclusive vacations in the Bahamas, safari adventures in southern Africa, trekking trips to the Himalayas and Andes, spiritual yoga retreats to India, and even road trips to Disney World. We expected to find wide differences in tourist intelligence, resilience, and problem-solving based on the location and degree of ease related to their trip itinerary and various background factors. In the end, however, none of that mattered, because all tourists appear to be stupifyingly-dumb mindless idiot-morons capable of the most jaw-dropping, ignorant, thoughtless, brainless bullshit imaginable."
"Quite frankly," Everett added, "we were shocked that some of these selfy-stick-using retards could even tie their own shoes."
Subsequent to additional background about the study, another team member, Gerald Von Grindewald from the U.S. State Department, provided specific examples of questions and statements made by subjects during the course of the 5 year study. The quotes, reprinted verbatim herein [see archives] but with the subject names removed to protect subjects' identities, are a small but representative subset of the overall population of responses. Here are a few highlights:
"What's the weather like on the weekends?"
[from a tourist in Dubai]
"Rivers flow north?"
[from a tourist traveling from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea on the Nile]
"What time in the summer do the deer turn into elk?"
[from a tourist in Yellowstone National Park]
"I can't wait for the fireworks!"
[from a tourist in Paris on the afternoon of July 4th]
"I'm the king of the world!"
[from a tourist standing on the rail, leaning forward, at the front of an Alaskan cruiseship, moments before falling 100s of feet to his death into an icy fjord]
Note from the editor: the full list of quotes is quite lengthy and may be viewed in its entirety in our archives.
Everett concluded the press conference by thanking her collaborators and the NSF, and told the assembled reporters that the WGOITBRG intended to: "publish its scholarly findings in Nature and several other leading international peer-review journals" and that she anticipated future research activities to focus on comparisons between the intelligence of various household pets and tourists at all-inclusive resorts.
James Cannon, the Science and Humanity Coordinator for the nonprofit group, Light Travel, which was the only nonprofit group collaborating in the study, was heard leaving the press conference and muttering: "Scholarly? My ass. Jesus. Five hundred thousand dollars for this crap, and I can't get a goddamn $12K grant to pay for minority kids to travel to their nearest park. Jesus."
"Surprisingly, very little of our input variables explained patterns in residuals other than the mere dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' dummy variable..." (Everett took a minute to chuckle at the unintended pun) "...of whether or not someone was on vacation. Nothing else seemed to matter- home location, level of education, race, ethnicity, gender, trip destination, socioeconomic status, etc."
Continued Everett, "We examined differences between control group subjects (who stayed at home) and those traveling to national parks in the U.S., major cities in Europe, all-inclusive vacations in the Bahamas, safari adventures in southern Africa, trekking trips to the Himalayas and Andes, spiritual yoga retreats to India, and even road trips to Disney World. We expected to find wide differences in tourist intelligence, resilience, and problem-solving based on the location and degree of ease related to their trip itinerary and various background factors. In the end, however, none of that mattered, because all tourists appear to be stupifyingly-dumb mindless idiot-morons capable of the most jaw-dropping, ignorant, thoughtless, brainless bullshit imaginable."
"Quite frankly," Everett added, "we were shocked that some of these selfy-stick-using retards could even tie their own shoes."
Subsequent to additional background about the study, another team member, Gerald Von Grindewald from the U.S. State Department, provided specific examples of questions and statements made by subjects during the course of the 5 year study. The quotes, reprinted verbatim herein [see archives] but with the subject names removed to protect subjects' identities, are a small but representative subset of the overall population of responses. Here are a few highlights:
"What's the weather like on the weekends?"
[from a tourist in Dubai]
"Rivers flow north?"
[from a tourist traveling from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea on the Nile]
"What time in the summer do the deer turn into elk?"
[from a tourist in Yellowstone National Park]
"I can't wait for the fireworks!"
[from a tourist in Paris on the afternoon of July 4th]
"I'm the king of the world!"
[from a tourist standing on the rail, leaning forward, at the front of an Alaskan cruiseship, moments before falling 100s of feet to his death into an icy fjord]
Note from the editor: the full list of quotes is quite lengthy and may be viewed in its entirety in our archives.
Everett concluded the press conference by thanking her collaborators and the NSF, and told the assembled reporters that the WGOITBRG intended to: "publish its scholarly findings in Nature and several other leading international peer-review journals" and that she anticipated future research activities to focus on comparisons between the intelligence of various household pets and tourists at all-inclusive resorts.
James Cannon, the Science and Humanity Coordinator for the nonprofit group, Light Travel, which was the only nonprofit group collaborating in the study, was heard leaving the press conference and muttering: "Scholarly? My ass. Jesus. Five hundred thousand dollars for this crap, and I can't get a goddamn $12K grant to pay for minority kids to travel to their nearest park. Jesus."
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
My rabbit is pretty ordinary
I know what you're going to say: "He's super cute" "Look at the way his ears flop back when he eats!" "I love how he curls into a ball when sleeping"
I know you mean well, but the truth is that my rabbit is pretty ordinary.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When I picked him up from the pet store, I couldn't help but notice that his teeth were square and small, and his temperament was mild-mannered and playful. I guess I was just hopeful, but he just turned out to be a kind, peaceful, ordinary little bunny.
Yes, yes. I know I told you he had a mean streak. I even went so far as to litter the ground in front of him with bones, to make him look more vicious, but the truth is that those are the bones I saved from my last 50 gerbils, and that my rabbit only seems to like green lettuce and carrot pieces.
Go ahead and pet him. See how he just playfully nibbles on your fingertips? Adorable. And ordinary. I am so ashamed.
Before I got him I spent weeks converting his terrarium into a miniature mountainous landscape, with his little rabbit abode inside a cave. I placed mutilated bodies of scores of miniature knights on the grounds all around the cave entrance and took great pains to thimble out little bits of red paint around each action figure's mangled torso. I even created a fake rabbit track to make it clear that whatever wretched, foul, cruel creature lived inside the cave was a murderous beast not to be trifled with. The stage was set. Death would come to any visitor who dared approach my vile rodent!
And then I went and bought this rabbit, and my dreams were crushed. He really is just an ordinary rabbit. A harmless little bunny.
What's that? What did you say, rabbit? Did you make a cutesy little bunny sound tender enough to melt hearts, and then lay your head down on your front paws in a manner so cuddly and darling, so absolutely precious that you could charm even the most heartless, insensitive grump?
Well, fuck you, rabbit.
I know you mean well, but the truth is that my rabbit is pretty ordinary.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When I picked him up from the pet store, I couldn't help but notice that his teeth were square and small, and his temperament was mild-mannered and playful. I guess I was just hopeful, but he just turned out to be a kind, peaceful, ordinary little bunny.
Yes, yes. I know I told you he had a mean streak. I even went so far as to litter the ground in front of him with bones, to make him look more vicious, but the truth is that those are the bones I saved from my last 50 gerbils, and that my rabbit only seems to like green lettuce and carrot pieces.
Go ahead and pet him. See how he just playfully nibbles on your fingertips? Adorable. And ordinary. I am so ashamed.
Before I got him I spent weeks converting his terrarium into a miniature mountainous landscape, with his little rabbit abode inside a cave. I placed mutilated bodies of scores of miniature knights on the grounds all around the cave entrance and took great pains to thimble out little bits of red paint around each action figure's mangled torso. I even created a fake rabbit track to make it clear that whatever wretched, foul, cruel creature lived inside the cave was a murderous beast not to be trifled with. The stage was set. Death would come to any visitor who dared approach my vile rodent!
And then I went and bought this rabbit, and my dreams were crushed. He really is just an ordinary rabbit. A harmless little bunny.
What's that? What did you say, rabbit? Did you make a cutesy little bunny sound tender enough to melt hearts, and then lay your head down on your front paws in a manner so cuddly and darling, so absolutely precious that you could charm even the most heartless, insensitive grump?
Well, fuck you, rabbit.
Monday, June 13, 2016
MARTA apologizes for any inconvenience
Commuters in the Atlanta area found signs on Metro Atlanta Regional Transportation Authority (MARTA) train platforms this morning indicating that they "Apologize for any inconvenience".
According to the informative placards: "The elevators at the Georgia State MARTA Station will be out of order for the next 7 years. Riders wishing to disembark at the Georgia State MARTA Station who need elevators will need to stay on the train to the Five Points Station, then take the once-per-day #164 bus to Auburn St., then proceed southward to Nick's Five and Dime to purchase a Rush Pass which will allow riders to board state-of-the-art rickshaws that can be commissioned to provide rides back to the Georgia State station. Note that rides aboard the rickshaws will be provided at a first come first serve basis."
Asked about the aforementioned "inconvenience" during the evening rush hour, area commuter Janice Bardell replied, "No, it's ok. I was able to get to work just after lunch, and [the rickshaw driver] was very understanding when I explained about my wheelchair's horn being broken. And besides, I sure do appreciate that they're working hard to fix those elevators. It was awful sweet of them to apologize like that!"
Other commuters were less understanding, however. Local welder Vince Pallegno offered the following: "MARTA is a cockfucking shitfuck," and mother of two Adrienne Woods said, "Dammit! This stroller barely fits on the escalator!"
Still, by and large, MARTA riders appeared to be in an understanding and cooperative spirit during the evening commute, as evidenced by Durnest, the middle-aged homeless man wearing a red "I was at Danielle's Bat Mitzvah" t-shirt who kindly offered to pee on the platform instead of the elevator for now.
MARTA spokesperson Mary Lynn Cooke praised her staff for their diligent signage and added that her organization also plans to apologize for any future inconveniences caused by forthcoming breaks in service during siesta, lent, and in the off chance that the south rises again.
According to the informative placards: "The elevators at the Georgia State MARTA Station will be out of order for the next 7 years. Riders wishing to disembark at the Georgia State MARTA Station who need elevators will need to stay on the train to the Five Points Station, then take the once-per-day #164 bus to Auburn St., then proceed southward to Nick's Five and Dime to purchase a Rush Pass which will allow riders to board state-of-the-art rickshaws that can be commissioned to provide rides back to the Georgia State station. Note that rides aboard the rickshaws will be provided at a first come first serve basis."
Asked about the aforementioned "inconvenience" during the evening rush hour, area commuter Janice Bardell replied, "No, it's ok. I was able to get to work just after lunch, and [the rickshaw driver] was very understanding when I explained about my wheelchair's horn being broken. And besides, I sure do appreciate that they're working hard to fix those elevators. It was awful sweet of them to apologize like that!"
Other commuters were less understanding, however. Local welder Vince Pallegno offered the following: "MARTA is a cockfucking shitfuck," and mother of two Adrienne Woods said, "Dammit! This stroller barely fits on the escalator!"
Still, by and large, MARTA riders appeared to be in an understanding and cooperative spirit during the evening commute, as evidenced by Durnest, the middle-aged homeless man wearing a red "I was at Danielle's Bat Mitzvah" t-shirt who kindly offered to pee on the platform instead of the elevator for now.
MARTA spokesperson Mary Lynn Cooke praised her staff for their diligent signage and added that her organization also plans to apologize for any future inconveniences caused by forthcoming breaks in service during siesta, lent, and in the off chance that the south rises again.
Governor of Wisconsin to ban import of onions to state
Still smarting from his failed presidential bid, Governor of Wisconsin and Tea Party darling Scott Walker announced this morning that his state will soon prohibit the import of onions. Loved by his supporters as an anti-union crusader, the governor's spokesperson, Jerry Ledbetter, explained to confused members of the press that the governor's move is meant to maintain his momentum in the anti-union effort and to capitalize on public opinion polls suggesting that onions tend to be unpopular both because they make people cry and because they are less delicious than raspberries. When pressed during the subsequent Q&A, Ledbetter admitted that, yes, technically onions are not the same thing as unions, but that their PR team was already crafting a new campaign to ensure that the state's citizenry would "make the link seamlessly from the sinister communist workplace welfare practice to that irritating vegetable".
"And besides", added Ledbetter, "we're out of unions, so..."
When asked for comment, the National Onion Growers Association of America sent the following statement: "Don't touch your eyes!!"
"And besides", added Ledbetter, "we're out of unions, so..."
When asked for comment, the National Onion Growers Association of America sent the following statement: "Don't touch your eyes!!"
Friday, June 10, 2016
Quit eating all the safflower!
That cardinal has been sitting there, like the red bitch that he is, picking out all of the safflower seeds from the feeder and dropping the sunflower seeds on the ground. On the ground! For over an hour! And it rained this morning!
I don't know about you, but I love safflower seeds. They perfectly blend the crunchy nuttiness of spring with a bold round shape, and look so classy in their white shell. I dream about safflower. I close my eyes and my tail flickers with excitement when I think of them.
It took me weeks, but I found this feeder on my own. Nobody helps me with these kinds of things. Nobody cares about sparrows anyway... But hey, I looked up and down the river valley for any house with a feeder that had white seeds in it. I even accidentally ate some millet in the process. And then I found this perfect tube, with FRESH seeds! A blend of black sunflower and white safflower, like dinner's tuxedo.
Sunflower seeds are nice and all, but only when they're new, and crispy dry. This jack-ass cardinal has been dropping them onto the wet ground all morning.
But safflower. That's the shit! And he won't budge!
I've tried squawking at him and flying by angrily. Nothing moves this jerk. He's going to eat all the damn safflower seeds!
I don't know about you, but I love safflower seeds. They perfectly blend the crunchy nuttiness of spring with a bold round shape, and look so classy in their white shell. I dream about safflower. I close my eyes and my tail flickers with excitement when I think of them.
It took me weeks, but I found this feeder on my own. Nobody helps me with these kinds of things. Nobody cares about sparrows anyway... But hey, I looked up and down the river valley for any house with a feeder that had white seeds in it. I even accidentally ate some millet in the process. And then I found this perfect tube, with FRESH seeds! A blend of black sunflower and white safflower, like dinner's tuxedo.
Sunflower seeds are nice and all, but only when they're new, and crispy dry. This jack-ass cardinal has been dropping them onto the wet ground all morning.
But safflower. That's the shit! And he won't budge!
I've tried squawking at him and flying by angrily. Nothing moves this jerk. He's going to eat all the damn safflower seeds!
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