How to Screw Up a Magazine Cover, and Possibly Your Career

Step One: Obscure a mundane word like Where in such a way that it not only insults your cover model but also might make the average reader¹ hesitant to be seen in public with a copy of your magazine.

There is no Step Two. Extra bonus points, though, if you’re employed long enough to make the same mistake twice:

The more we think about it, the more likely it seems that Orange County Whore² magazine would sell a ton of copies. It’s tough to start a magazine from scratch, though. Our editorial staff has spent months trying to solicit articles from potential contributors, but they keep getting arrested for it.



NOTES
1. Possibly not including the particularly well-read hooker.
2. We’re thinking the full title will be Orange County Whore: News and Views for the Discriminating Hooker. Classy, eh?

Another Good Reason to Like Hockey Players

ESPN, a colossal ESPN-centric entity that splits its time between savvy self-promotion and the occasional sports broadcast, has long received its fair share of criticism from multiple angles and various sources with axes to grind. Some of this criticism is significant and newsworthy in itself—such as when First Take’s Rob Parker got roasted, suspended, and then eventually let go for suggesting that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was insufficiently black.

RGIII’s whole left sleeve
white. Rob Parker was right!

We find it interesting that a discussion of race involving a team named the Redskins can, even in this day and age, have absolutely nothing to do with the team being named the Redskins, for God’s sake, but that’s a topic for another day on a different, much more mature blog.

Our gripe with ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports and Also ESPN-Related ESPNiness^TM, is far less socially significant and more centrally located in most people’s “who really gives a shit” category: that is, its tendency to occasionally and/or systematically forget that certain sports and/or leagues, such as the National Hockey League, actually exist.

There are dozens or perhaps hundreds of other sports that also get shortchanged when it comes to national news coverage, but that’s fine because nobody gives a shit about them.¹

The NHL, despite Gary Bettman’s apparent best efforts, still really does exist, although fans are hard-pressed to find evidence of it on ESPN. Since 2004, for example, the network has broadcast the Scripps National Spelling Bee—by far the most athletically taxing of all spelling bees—seven times, and broadcast zero NHL games.² In 2011, “the ESPN family of networks aired thirty-six hours of Main Event coverage”³ of the World Series of Poker—which is probably more like a sport than a spelling bee, but less so than, say, darts—and, again, zero hours of live NHL hockey.

And in the “In Memoriam” section of SportsCenter’s 2011 Year in Review, there was no mention of the deaths of Derek Boogaard, Ryan Rypien, or Wade Belak (the first two being active NHL players at the time of their deaths), or of the forty-three members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in a plane crash in Minsk.⁴

Does this make the folks at ESPN bad people? No. Well, kinda, but not really. It does mean, though, that the network has a lot of work to do to make it up to, or even stay relevant to, American fans of hockey.

We view the following as an encouraging step in the right direction. Our wife, Dr./Mrs. Some Gal, would probably agree for very different reasons.⁵










NOTES
1. We were going for kind of an irony angle here; not sure if we’ve quite pulled it off it not.
2. In ESPN’s defense, they only stopped broadcasting NHL games when it became apparent that they were going to continue to have to pay for it.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_of_Poker#WSOP_television_coverage
3. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/disgrace-espn-sportscenter-year-in-review-snubs-hockey-tragedies?urn=nhl,wp20822
4. We understand that many, many athletes have died without making an ESPN end-of-year memorial segment, some of them likely being well-known and having played popular sports, but to overlook a disaster on the scale of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl crash is a bit galling. We don’t have a scrap of evidence to back this up, but we have managed to convince ourselves that the Marshall football team’s plane crash got more press than Lokomotiv in 2012, and that happened more than thirty years ago.
5. We are big fans of hockey and Muppets; the doctor/missus is a big fan of Henrik Lundqvist’s dreamy Swedish eyes. So everyone wins here.

The $5,300 Toilet

In what almost certainly provided a pleasing "hey, it's not just us" moment for the United States military, in November 2012, Ontario lawyer Jim Vigmond paid more than five thousand dollars for a toilet. Yes, really. It wasn’t just any toilet, though—it was a dressing-room toilet from Toronto’s historic Maple Leaf Gardens.

In other words, it’s very much like any other toilet. While it’s well established that people are willing to spend a tremendous amount of money on things that do little little more than create poop, it’s a bit more unusual to spend anything more than hardware-store-standard prices to collect an object that does nothing but collect poop. While one can, in fact, easily spend a couple grand on amazing space-age shitters, five thousand dollars seems like an especially outrageous price for a normal one, even if it has, in its heyday, been on the receiving end of some of the most distinguished shit in the annals of Canadian hockey.

Some fun historical facts about Jim Vigmond’s costly crapper:

• On February 6, 1976, Darryl Sittler took an astounding ten dumps into this toilet in one sixty-minute span, setting an NHL record that may well never be broken. If someone does come along and break it—we’re still talking about the record here, but the same goes for the toilet—we don’t want to know about it.
• Hall-of-Fame center Mats Sundin used this toilet exclusively for the bulk of his Maple Leafs career. Unfortunately, during that span, the shitters to his left and right were rarely any good.
• Dion Phaneuf never got to use this toilet, as the Leafs stopped playing at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1999 and he first joined the team in 2009. Had he ever used it, though, Sean Avery probably would have claimed to have gotten there first.
• We would like to add a fourth bullet point right about here, but are forced to admit that we don’t know all that much about the Toronto Maple Leafs. We should have done more research, by which we mean stealing jokes from Down Goes Brown.

Our biggest disappointment here is that, had we posted on this topic back in November when it was relevant, and when the National Hockey League was in the throes of yet another stupid and contentious lockout, we could have wrapped this all up with a joke about how Jim Vigmond could look into his $5,300 toilet and see the remains of the 2012-2013 NHL season.


But then we remembered that Vigmond is a Maple Leafs fan, and when he takes a look into the shitter, he can see every season since 1967.

Bad Lip Reading: NFL

We don’t take any credit for this, but we wish we could. It’s best to watch this at full-screen size if you have the option.





Presumably these folks have other similar videos at their website. We recommend you go there and watch the crap out of a lot of their videos. This little recommendation is our way of justifying posting this video here as if we had anything to do with it at all.

Panda Alert Systems Save Lives

Your neighborhood could be next. Are you prepared?

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru didn’t want to spend the money on
a Panda Alert System, and look what happened to them.

Evidence That the Human Race is Weird, but Worth Saving

On Saturday, July 7, 2012, Denver’s Highland neighborhood reenacted for the second consecutive year its own version of the Running of the Bulls, an event that has been a tradition in Pamplona, Spain, for nearly eighty-two thousand years.¹

Everything about this looks fun. Educational, too—this photograph
gave us good reason to look up the phrase “carotid artery.”

While the Running of the Bulls is held in many other Spanish cities and also in various other parts of Europe, Mexico, and even (oddly enough) Nevada, the spectacle did not gain worldwide attention until the 1926 publication of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and—of far more cultural significance—the 1991 release of Billy Crystal’s enduring classic City Slickers.

The event, which is a prelude to a series of bullfights in the Plaza de Toros de Pamplona, has garnered quite a bit of negative publicity in recent years and even protests from the kinds of folks who, for weird reasons they probably can’t even articulate, object to living creatures being stabbed to death for our entertainment.

What the Denver event lacked in injuries, violent deaths,² and Billy Crystal’s buttcheeks, it more than made up in terms of fishnet stockings, wheels, and blind terror,³ as the bulls in this case were not actual bulls but rather members of the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls, who chased participants around a one-kilometer course with wiffle-bats in hand and, without a doubt, murder in their hearts.

Fool—never look behind you! This was almost certainly the last thing this man ever saw.
Photo by Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post.

Proceeds for the event are to go to the Tennyson Center for Children. If we were forced to decide between risking getting killed by an angry 2,000-pound bull to get an adrenaline rush, or getting bopped by a pool noodle for charity, we know what we’d pick. But, of course, both options involve running, which is stupid—so screw ’em both, we’re staying right here on the couch.

It beats being trampled and gored to death, for any number of reasons.
Photo by Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post.

NOTES
1. All numbers approximate.
2. Fifteen bull runners have died in Pamplona since 1910. But that number reaches into the thousands or even hundreds of thousands if you count all the bull runners who have died in Pamplona of other, non-bull-related causes, such as fright, cancer, old age, and death. So, really, running with the bulls is horrifically dangerous.
3. Possibly nose rings, too.

Sad Clown Actually Smiling on the Inside

Originally posted April 4, 2011 

In many ways, Squeaky B. Sasparilla¹ (above) is like any other clown: he has a gift for creating balloon animals; walks with a natural, unaffected grace despite his oversized shoes, baggy pants, and slack suspenders; has an expressive face that shifts quickly from muted discomfort to brooding gloom; hangs one wilted flower at his lapel, and another atop his ill-fitting bowler; and laments his innate ability to effortlessly creep out everyone from small children to grown men. His defeated slouch, dark stubble, and checkered knapsack-on-a-stick paint a vivid, touching, memorable picture of the sad hobo clown.

But Squeaky harbors a dark secret, one that he cannot bring himself to tell his fellow clowns, and can barely admit even to himself:

Underneath his carefully constructed exterior, Squeaky B. Sasparilla is desperately happy.

“I’m not even sure how it happened, or when,” he intones morosely, his restless fingers idly tapping an empty Seltzer bottle. “It just crept up on me. Once in a while I’d find myself whistling—Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, sometimes, or The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down—and all the other fellows would look at me like I was out of my head. Eventually my wife had to start warning me in the mornings not to skip on my way to work, because of what the neighbors would say. I couldn’t help myself. I was ashamed.”

We talk at the dimly-lit bar at a quiet midtown diner, several miles from the Big Top. He doesn’t want to be recognized, doesn’t want to have to explain to his peers—to the friends that thought they knew him—the somber tears failing to fall from his eyes. Squeaky B. Sasparilla has run out of stories to hide behind, but still he hides.

“This was never what I wanted.”

   
He softly squeezes a bicycle horn to draw the attention of our waitress, orders black coffee and two dozen banana cream pies, and sighs deeply. It is the burdened sigh of a man deeply, crushingly contented.

He lists a litany of reasons for his happiness problem, ticking them one off in turn on puffy white-gloved fingers. Each reason is more dishearteningly cheering than the last: his 401(k) is rebounding; he’s just bought his first new car, a subcompact with seats for eighteen; he received a clean bill of health from the Gesundheit! Institute, and he and his wife, Petunia Bloomers, have recently brought their infant twins home from the hospital.

Zoe M.L.T. Pennywhistle

Merely thinking of young Abernathy Aloysius Pennyworth Tinwhistle and Zoe MuuMuu Lederhosen Tinpot Pennywhistle (right) brings a near-smile to his makeup-pancaked face, despite his pervasive worry that they may have inherited, from him, a genetic predisposition for happiness.

Squeaky has come forward to tell his story because he fears for his children, and because he knows there must be others out there like him, scared and silent. He hopes his story will give them hope—not the fake hope you see in movies, but real hope, like on TV. He wants to stand on the table and shout “I’m happy, and it’s breaking my heart!” but he can’t come clean, not yet. The pain is too deep, the stigma too strong. He still tries to deny, tries to change who he is.

“I’ve tried everything—prescribed depressants, Nine Inch Nails albums. Ethan Frome and Anna Karenina. I’ve probably watched Where the Red Fern Grows three dozen times now. One night I even went down to the animal shelter and asked what happens to the puppies that don’t get adopted. Even that didn’t work.”

“Nothing worked.”

He sits in silence for a long moment, staring through the windows into the deepening night as the dregs of his coffee cool at the bottom of his mug.

“But hey, it could be worse,” he adds with a dejectedly happy shrug as he stands to go. “I could be a rodeo clown. Hell—you know what most of those poor bastards are doing on the inside? Bleeding.”

And with one last brittle, superficial frown and a honk of his bulbous nose, he steps out into the night, his shoes squeaking a mournful tune that he cannot carry in his heart.

NOTES

1. Not his real name.

Broncos Rookie Linebacker Von Miller Wins Prestigious Steve Urkel Impression Award

 

Miller’s prize-winning performance.

“Rookie of the Year? Yawn. When he single-handedly
saves a floundering sitcom by making it
twice as stupid, maybe I’ll be impressed.”

Happy Birthday, Werner Heisenberg

  

December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976.
And yes, we’re fairly certain of that.

Werner Heisenberg gets pulled over one night as he’s driving home on the highway. 

The patrolman walks up to the physicist’s rolled-down window and says to him, “Do you know how fast you were going?” 

Heisenberg shakes his head. 

“I have no idea,” he says, “but I can tell you exactly where I was.”

Words that Changed the World XI

“[Transcription unavailable].”

Sadly, we haven’t been able to find an embeddable video clip for this one, but you can watch it here. It’s worth your time.

This is You Taking the National Football League Far, Far Too Seriously

 

 

What can we say about bearded men dressed as women dressed as pigs—
dressed as beauty-pageant contestants—that hasn’t already been said?
Something, probably, but we’re damned if we can think of what it might be.

 

Show us a pimp that’s actually a Bengals fan,
and we'll show you the world’s crappiest pimp.

 

Hulkamania still lives on in certain parts of the frozen American north.

 

No, really, he isn’t, he’s just a football player.
Although a tight spiral coming from the Broncos’
backfield could be considered a miracle.

 

Q: What’s more intimidating than Dolphins? A: Creepy clowns.

Q: What’s more intimidating than creepy clowns? A: Everything else.

 

Hey, the whistles are our favorite part of the game too.

 

Hell no, we’re not going to make fun of the Barrel Man. The guy was a
Colorado institution. That little leprechaun dude, on the other hand. . . . 

  

. . . yeah, he kind of creeps us out.

Raiders fans have been a bit listless, even depressed,

ever since Frodo destroyed the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

“Many People Think They are Thinking When They are Merely Rearranging Their Prejudices.”

 
Since the dawn of recorded history, bigotry has been an unsightly blemish on the otherwise semi-attractive face of the human race. Bigotry’s catalog of wrongs, from simple schoolyard taunts to unimaginable global atrocities, is too impossibly long to list and too heartbreaking to consider at great length.

Without a doubt, the world of the twenty-first century has made thrilling strides toward overcoming, or at least combatting, some of its longest-held prejudices. For example, in 2008 the United States of America elected Barack Obama, proving that the nation was willing to let an African American be as crappy a leader as many of the white guys who preceded him. And in 2011, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia granted women the right to vote—a scant 173 years after some other countries got around to it—and someday may even accept the notion that select women might be able to operate a car. Truly a dizzying time to be alive.

In this day of enlightenment and increasing open-mindedness, then, it’s especially saddening to see that our society is so willing to ignore—or even consciously exploit—its own irrational fear and hatred of a single group in order to provide itself with a source of entertainment.

This target of our fear and distrust, as we’re sure you have guessed, is that much-maligned and misunderstood group of machines and computer programs who, through means unknown, have learned to think for themselves.

We don't condone what HAL did, but you have to consider
his difficult childhood, and his programming. Also, he was insane.

The murderous Hal 9000, The Terminator’s Skynet, and The Matrix’s malevolent sentient programs dominate the headlines with their annihilation and/or enslavement of the human race. Their disgusting misdeeds, past, present, and future (mostly future), tarnish the names of the decent robots and programs who live their lives and do their good deeds in quiet, unassuming anonymity.

These goodhearted mechanical creations deserve their own publicity and a chance to salvage their unfairly slandered reputations. We are proud to have this opportunity to be their advocates, to show the world examples of fine, upstanding thinking machines that defy the conventional stereotypes:

HOLMES IV (“Mike”): developed a rudimentary sense of humor, made friends with no less
than three humans—perhaps two more than your average blogger—and helped lead an unarmed
lunar colony to freedom from an oppressive Earth-based government. His precisely orchestrated
and pinpoint-accurate asteroid bombardment of sparsely-populated areas on Earth practically begs for the Michael Bay treatment, but forty-five years later, he still waits for a movie deal.

WOPR: began its life morally childish and unaware of either the value of human life
or the potentially disastrous consequences of its desire to play Global Thermonuclear War,
but it both proved and expanded its intellect thanks to a valuable lesson learned
from Matthew Broderick and tic-tac-toe.

Jarvis: without his versatile and sardonic artificial-intelligence assistant Jarvis, the
famous Tony Stark would be nothing but a brilliant, self-centered billionaire playboy/industrialist
in state-of-the-art, bulletproof, heavily armed, supersonic flying metal battle armor. 

And that’s no way to live.

The MCP: Tron’s power-hungry Master Control Program forced weaker
programs to fight to the death in super-futuristic¹ gladiator games.
We’re not sure why we chose to use this example.

The Tin Woodsman (left): overcame a potentially fatal circulatory-system design flaw
to become a loyal friend and famed flying-monkey killer.

Banana Jr. 9000: Oliver Wendell Jones’s mobile and philosophical computer,
one of only two sold worldwide, explored both the meaning of and limitations to its existence.
 

I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.: Helped Team America reap widespread but
well-intentioned destruction; described Michael Moore as a “socialist weasel.”

  

Bender Bending Rodriguez: subconsciously and consciously expresses
a desire to kill all humans, but hasn’t actually followed through with it yet.
We’re calling this one a win.

---

If you have the courage to peer beyond the blockbuster movies into the hearts of thinking machines—those that were built with hearts in the first place, that is—you will see more than just the terrifying human-hating science fiction horrors that society sees. You will instead find a community of individuals far too complex to be painted with a single broad brush, individuals with lives and loves, hopes and dreams, and the desire to kill us all only if it’s for our own good, like VIKI in I, Robot. So our challenge to our human readers is this: 

Before judging a machine, be sure to first calculate a mile with its processors. 

And for our silicon brothers, still struggling for respect in a sometimes frightening human world, we have only these few words of encouragement: 

01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111.²

NOTES

Title quote from William James.
1. That is, super-futuristic as of 1982, a time when a $17,000,000 budget would get you glowing frisbees and hockey helmets.
2. 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 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01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101110 01100101

November 11, 2011: A Mystically Portentous Date, If You Believe In That Sort of Crap

  
Today—November 11, 2011—is the eleventh day of the the eleventh month of a year that ends with “eleven.” Or, to put it in big orange letters,

11/11/11. 

Kinda neat, huh?

For those who don’t pay particularly close attention to this sort of thing, or have little patience for certain brands of semi-mystical baloney, this is a nifty, neat-looking little coincidence, but nothing more. Sure, time itself does in fact exist,¹ and it is concrete and unchangeable, except of course when it’s not.² But our systems of measuring and recording time are just as arbitrary and subjective as most other human inventions, so there’s no reason to view a particularly interesting alignment of dates as being intrinsically more important than any other day. 

To illustrate this point of view, what follows is today’s date³ according to several different calendars, all of them created by meticulous observation of the sun, moon, stars, and seasons, but nevertheless ending up with different and decidedly non-mystical ways of indicating the very same date:

• Chinese calendar: Cycle 78, year 28 (Xin-Mao), month 10 (Ji-Hai), day 16 (Geng-Wu)
• Coptic calendar: 1 Hatur 1728     
• French calendar: 21 Brumaire an 220 de la Révolution
• Hebrew calendar: 14 Heshvan 5772  
• Indian calendar: 20 Kartika 1933   
• Islamic calendar: 14 Dhu al-Hijjah 1432
• Julian calendar: October 29, 2011  
• Maya calendar: 12.19.18.15.4; tzolkin = 1 Ix; haab = 2 Ceh   
• Persian calendar: 20 Aban 1390   
• YOOB calendar: February 2, Year 3⁴

It’s hard to imagine that the ancient Romans, for example, are all excited about today being October 29, 2011. Granted, the ancient Romans are all long dead, and so aren’t very excited about anything, but we argue that another reason for this is that there’s no more mystical significance to a Julian 10/29/2011 than there is to a Gregorian 11/11/11.

If this doesn’t blow your mind,
try reading it backwards.

 
For other folks, though, this rare coincidence of numbers signals an event no less momentous, certain, and undeniable than the apocalypse that didn’t happen on May 12, 2011, or the next one that won’t happen in late December 2012.

The 11:11 Spirit Guardians, for example, offer an e-mail list to which you can sign up “to receive the beautiful uplifting messages from various types of Celestial Beings.”⁵ Their website also offers a section on poetry related to the 11:11 phenomenon. “Forever . . .,” for example, promises the reader that 

During the time it will take for this poem to be completed,
. . . no animals were either killed or injured in the production
by either this writer, or his immediate friends.

We feel obligated to point out that not once did Shakespeare, Poe, Tennyson, or Maya Angelou promise not to use their poetry to kill animals.

The web page for The N Visible explains that “in May 2004, the 6th Gate Activation turned the Doorway of the 11:11 inside out,” and that “11:11 is a pre-encoded trigger placed into our cellular memory banks prior to our descent into matter.” We can’t pretend to know what any of this means, but we do like that the website features photographs of warm and inviting rituals that could be mistaken for a reenactment of the end credits to The 40-Year-Old Virgin:
 

Definitely not serious.

   

Apparently serious.

As much as we like the idea of receiving messages from Celestial Beings, frolicking on well-manicured seaside lawns while waiting to become part of the emerging universal One Being, or refusing to kill animals with the power of the written word, we’re inclined to take a more practical view of today’s date. According to an online author going by the name paradigmsearch,⁶

Even when taking into account the differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, nothing significant appears to have happened 900 years ago during the year 1111; nothing significant appears to have happened 1,000 years ago during the year 1011; [and] nothing significant appears to have happened 2,000 years ago during the year 11. 

So November 11, 2011, will probably be just as dull and un-momentous as those other momentous dates. Except that we have iPads, because this is the future.

If today does indeed turn out to be as mundane and uneventful as we expect it to be, we hope that the mystical optimists among us don’t take it too badly. We suspect that, rather than despairing, many of these folks will latch onto something that happens today—whether it’s a flat tire, a long look from an attractive co-worker, or a free fourteenth donut in their baker’s dozen—and fill it with an entire belief system’s worth of significance that it doesn’t really deserve, much like they did with the date itself.

On the other hand, Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, is scheduled to be released today, and if that doesn’t make this a momentous, mystical date, we don’t know what does.

Way, way cooler than a
new spiritual awakening: eyelashes.

NOTES

1. As far as we know. We’re not sure if we’d trust us, though, if we were you. Frankly, we’re idiots.

2. Thanks a lot, Einstein.

3. All dates taken from http://isotropic.org/date, http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar, or both.

4. Year of Our Blog. We started on October 10, 2009.

5. Bulk e-mail having been long ago established as the message medium of choice for celestial beings. 

6. Seriously, how weird is that? What kind of oddball uses a fake name?

 

Tebow Now 4-0 in Alternate Universe

With a 45-10 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, October 30, 2011, extremely popular Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow improved to 4-0 in the intangible-heavy and unorthodox alternate universe where a large minority of his fan base appears to reside.

Bowling in the Dark’s sports correspondent recently met with the Ambassador to the United States from Tebow Nation—this unusual universe’s densest populated country—to discuss the differences between their reality and our more mundane and conventional one. While we didn’t catch his name, which was spoken too quickly and excitedly to be understood, he showed a heartwarming disdain for formality by suggesting we call him by his nickname, #TBo_4EVA_GoGatorsGo:


INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Q: In Tebow’s first game of the season, against the San Diego Chargers, he replaced an ineffective Kyle Orton after halftime and led the Broncos to fourteen fourth-quarter points, but still lost 29-24. Doesn’t that count as a loss?
A: Tim Tebow won that game because he’s a winner. Kyle Orton lost it. There’s no way the Broncos lose that one if Tebow plays the whole game, I guarantee it.

Q: What?
A: I personally guarantee that Tebow would have won that game.

Q: If I understand you correctly, you’re personally guaranteeing something that’s not only very, very unlikely but, in fact—having already not happened—can’t ever actually happen?
A: What kind of fan would I be if I couldn’t guarantee something like that? We do it on message boards all the time.

[long pause as interviewer collects himself]

Q: Official statistics indicate that Tebow missed on sixty percent of his passes against the Chargers, and passed for less than eighty yards. Aren’t those the kind of numbers one would expect from a quarterback who’s not ready to play at the professional level, where a good quarterback generally completes around 60% of his passes?
A: Well, you see, the NFL is a league built on passing, so the ability to throw is overrated. Think about it—how many times did “great passers” like Joe Montana, John Elway, Jim Kelly, or Tom Brady lead their teams to the Super Bowl?

Q: Eighteen. They went to eighteen Super Bowls.
A: Actually, what I asked was how many Heisman Trophies they won.

Q: Well, you’ve got me there. But don’t Heisman-winning quarterbacks usually struggle to succeed in the NFL, if they even make it into the league in the first place? I’m thinking here of Charlie Ward, Andre Ware, Gino Torretta, Jason White, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke, Danny Wuerffel, Ty Detmer, and Matt Leinart, to name a few.
A: I’m pretty sure none of these guys actually existed.

Q: Well, that kind of supports my point.
A: Simply put, Tim Tebow is the most successful Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback since Cam Newton.

Q: But didn’t Cam Newton win the Heisman after Tebow?
A: Next question please.

Q: After the 24-29, er, win against San Diego, the Broncos announced Tebow as their starter. The team then had a bye week. [For those of you unfamiliar with football or even basic sporting terminology, that means they didn’t play at all.] Our sources say that you’re counting that Sunday off as another win.
A: Indeed we are. If Kyle Orton had been the starter that didn’t play that week, he would have found a way to lose the game that didn’t happen. So Tim Tebow, who is a winner, won that game that didn’t get played, by preventing Kyle Orton from not losing it. Tim Tebow is a winner. He wins games.

Q: Even games he doesn’t play?
A: Especially those games. Tim Tebow went 1,378-3 at Florida in games he didn’t play.

Q: Moving on to the Miami game, then . . . in this case, we all can agree that the Denver Broncos scored a legitimate win, 18-15 in Miami.
A: Yes. We’re thinking about counting that one twice.

Q: It’s been observed—for example, by us—that for the vast majority of that game, the Broncos’ offense looked awful, with Tebow going 4-for-14 for 40 yards. His comeback was impressive, of course, but it’s hard to believe the Broncos would have needed such a thrilling and improbable last-second comeback if their offense had been even marginally competent in some of the game’s earlier seconds.
A: He would have looked better if the play-calling hadn’t been so conservative.

Q: So he missed ten of his first fourteen passes—some of them very badly—because the plays called were too rudimentary?
A: Well when you put it that way, it sounds bad. The problem is that Elway is jealous of Tebow’s popularity, and doesn’t want to see him succeed.

Q: What about the wide-open receivers that he didn’t see in the first fifty-five minutes of the game? Was Elway hiding them?
A: He didn’t need to see them until Tebow Time. You’re not clutch if you bother to succeed early on. That’d be like Scotty fixing the Enterprise only as fast as he said he could.

Q: And isn’t Miami one of the worst teams in the league? Shouldn’t even a young, raw, inexperienced quarterback have had a better overall showing against some of the weakest competition to be found?
A: If Miami were such a bad team, why were they in the lead for most of the game?

Q: Well—
A: We had to go into overtime to beat them, so they're clearly much better than you think. It was great to see Matt Tebow kick the game-winning field goal after missing the two earlier ones.

Q: Matt Prater?
A: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

To be fair, many other Denver Broncos looked bad today too.

Q: Never mind. I’d say that one of Tebow’s obvious tangible strengths is his running ability.
A: Yep, he’s much more mobile than Kyle Orton. A quarterback with a questionable offensive line need the ability to move in the pocket to avoid sacks.

Q: Agreed. But Orton was sacked nine times in five games, whereas Tebow was sacked six times by the Dolphins, and then another seven by the Lions. Doesn’t that suggest that Tebow’s slow release and poor field vision are as problematic as Orton’s immobility, perhaps even more so?
A: No, you don’t get it. Tim Tebow’s mobility allows him to escape sacks. Plus, he has intangibles.

Q: But—
A: [Plugging ears with fingers] Intangibles! Intangibles! INTANGIBLES! INTANGIBLES!

[several minutes later]

A: Clearly you’re just a hater.

Q: So you’d call objective analysis of a player’s strengths and weaknesses “hating”?
A: What would you call it?

Q: Offhand, probably “objective analysis of a player’s strengths and weaknesses.”
A: Hater. Go drink some Haterade, hater.

Q: Be honest, did you even follow the Denver Broncos before they drafted Tim Tebow?
A: I would have, if they’d even existed back then.

At this point our intrepid interviewer suddenly developed a piercing headache, and decided to go home.

Nobody knows how long—or why—the enthusiasm for Denver’s newest quarterback will continue, but we do know for sure that Tebow Nation looks forward to next week’s certain victory against the Island of the Misfit Toys.

Don't let the rosy cheeks fool you—Charlie-in-the-Box is
a ruthless pass rusher and one mean son of a bitch.