Central Snark

Today I have a post that will practically write itself, and it will as I have to be sitting in my driver’s seat with a certain child and a violin nearby before it’s done. That’s easy because today’s spin is an artist you may have heard of, Bruce Springsteen. I’m featuring The Boss or Bruce because his new album, Magic hits stores this Tuesday. Although I don’t readily recognize it, I am a giddy fin even if I haven’t bought every album and caught every tour. In fact I’ve only seen Bruce a handful of times but they were admittedly some of the best concerts ever. Enough of my blathering, I have to be out the door. This new album looks to be a good one. How can you not relate to a man of the people, voicing our every day concerns and heartaches - no matter what your age? For those who can’t relate, I’d like to hear from you too. Now onward. Above link is to Bruce’s “official” website, the following is to Backstreets.com, which may be even more official as it’s a fan site.

Before we go to video, I’d also like to mention Patti Scialfa, Bruce’s wife and mother of his children who just released her album, Play It As It Lays - out in stores now under some nice reviews also. An NYT interview can be found HERE.

Okay, enjoy the first video which features a new song from Bruce’s album and the second featuring a song from Patti’s.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a link to Q 104.3, a NY based classic rock radio station, where you can listen to Bruce’s album in its ENTIRETY.

~ SPUN DONE

Gotta run! Head on over to Humor-blogs.com where although no albums are being released (yet), they’re laughing about something.

HAHAHAHA. Excuse us while we take a moment to laugh at our own punniness — even as we recognize we’re laughing alone.

THIS post is brought to you by the letters T, V, X and Y. Why? because we’ve been waiting for the excuse to write another “informative” Sex, Ed? post, and thanks to TEH PENGUIN’S clever and entertaining “sex related” offering on Wednesday, we can. Actually, we covered the topic we’re about to discuss on another blog, via another server, in another blogosphere long long ago, following a particularly disturbing episode of HOUSE that screamed “discuss amongst your one or two readers before you scare them all away with more mentions of ticks in a vagina”. Last year’s “bizarre” mystery-related plot twist? A lovely nubile teenage supermodel passes out on the runway, in the middle of a fashion show, no less, and is rushed to the hospital where the curmudgeonly medical genius Dr. House, along with his band of jolly House-wannabes, discovers the young “lady” in question is 1) addicted to heroin, 2) sleeping with her daddy, and 3) a guy. At least, sort of.

NOW, we can’t say for sure, but we’re guessing the first few questions that came screaming to the foremost of your own fragile little brains were as follows: The super hot girl was a guy? Really? Wowzer. Do such sexually confusing things happen in real life? Are there other super models out there with a little “more” than meets the eye? Is it normal for me to keep asking myself stuff like this, or should I only get nervous if I start answering myself, too? Also, is my plant dying? ‘Cuz it looks terrible, and I thought I just watered it, yesterday.

BRACE your happy-yet-naive-selves for the answer(s), kids, because, according to the Very Competent Researchers Who Research Such Things (including, but not limited to our veryverysmart sister), they do. Well, maybe not accompanied by the whole drama featuring ailing supermodels with abusive father issues, but that gender assignment “confusion” thing? Oh yeah. In fact, it happens about 1.7 percent of the time. That’s 1.7 babies out of 100. Are you shocked? Do you, like us, wonder what .7 of a baby looks like? Also, is it possible to over water a Boston fern?

OF course, if any of you had bothered to read Skin Flutes and Velvet Gloves, a collection of facts & fancies, legends & oddities about the body’s private parts, you wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. But then, most of you did not read this book, nor did you take any of our sister’s human sexuality courses in college, back when you had the chance. (fortunately, since her classes were among the most popular courses ever, lots of folks actually did) But, back to those of you who didn’t read the book and/or learn about “the facts of life” from a beautiful college professor… what the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you want to be as smart as all the other boys, girls, and/or intersexuals on the playground?

AS most of you do and/or should know (with or without our sister’s help) a child’s gender is traditionally identified by the person handling the delivery duties at a baby’s birth. Let’s face it, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” are the two most anticipated declarations a new parent waits to hear. But, if the baby-delivery-assisting person bothered to look (much) closer, perhaps the announcement might sound more like this:

“Hmm…this child has both testes and ovaries. It’s a herm!”

“Wow… this infant has testes, some female genitalia, but no ovaries. It’s a merm!”

“Ooh… this baby has ovaries, some male genitalia, but no testes. It’s a ferm!”

“Eww… this sprout has long green leaves and cultivars. It’s a fern!”

BOYS, merms, herms, ferms, and girls — those are the real gender distinctions. Ferns are just stupid and annoying plants that die the minute we stick them in the corner of the dining room. But that’s beside the point. The point, which will be easier to replace than than the disgustingly dried up decorative vegetation currently shedding leaves all over the carpet, is that when it comes to “gender identification”, it’s not just about the X’s and/or the Y’s, because there are XX boys and XY girls. Of course, in the “real” world, those differentiating details only matter in the Olympics — where a sneaky Y can make the difference between “ladies” and… “cheating sons of bitches”. That said, Dr. House’s assertion (in the aforementioned episode from Season 2) that the he/she model had long lean limbs, soft curves, and perky breasts, along with a peaches ‘n cream complexion because he/she was a he/she, was all too true.

THAT’S right, we said true. Which means, boys and/or girls, many of the supermodels you admire — and wish to emulate and/or date — are probably not unlike Dr. House’s nubile patient, in that they are of an ambiguous gender — or, if you prefer, intersexual. We know what you’re thinking (mind readers that we’ve become) was Olive Oyl intersexual? Well, gee kids, how the hell should we know? We only put that picture in ‘cuz, if you’re anything like us, your eyes started crossing after the 2nd paragraph of this post, and you’re now in need of a little comic relief. Sue us.

FOR those of you whose eyes have yet to cross, brace yourselves (again) for one or two more genital-related factoids, before we call it a day:

1. every male has a remnant of a vagina which appears as a tiny tag of skin on the lining of the bladder. It’s called “vagina masculina” — which, we’re sure you’ll agree, makes it sound WAY less girly.
2. out of every 4000 female babies born each year, approximately 1 is born without a vagina, masculina or otherwise.
3. 1 in 100,000 males babies is born with a “diphallus” or double penis — which is, needless to say, not just hella masculina, but downright scary.
4. ferns are stupid plants that shrivel up and die, even if you put them in really good light, and water them frequently.

WHEW. We’re tired, and we’re guessing you are, too. We’re also hoping today’s Very Important Information, presented without benefit of YouTube videos, will hold ya until we get around to lifting content out of our sister’s book elevating your understanding about men and/or women, again. When will that be? Gosh, it’s just so darn hard to say, but, thanks to a fresh new season of hot shows, we doubt it’ll be long before something strikes our collective fancy. If we’re lucky, The Office will trigger an inspiration by doing an episode that features merkins. Or Mad Men will toss around a few impressive genital-related terms like automonosexual, or pedomentia. Or, the crack law team on Boston Legal will wind up defending a woman who killed her husband, a man with an unusually small penis, so tiny, in fact, she (correctly) refers to him as “the bugfucker” — a term, by the way, we once ascribed to a certain Chicago television critic. But, as is so often the case when we get excited by thoughts of new episodes of our favorite shows and/or we rile ourselves with thoughts of someone who was sometimes unkind to people we love, we digress. Bottom line(ish) for today: parts is parts, even when they aren’t “technically” visible to the naked eye.

“You can’t have a period, Stan, because you are a man… with titties.” ~ God [South Park episode in which Stan tries to "get his period" and accidentally grows breasts]

~snuppy

PS: Too much information? No worries, tomorrow you can sit back and enjoy another winning Saturday Spin, when our dear NBFF, the delightful DJ LAMPSHA, shows up to work more of her musical magic.

Mermma’s don’t let yer babies grow up to be cowbells… and/or frequent readers of Humor-blogs.com.

… of Mind over Matter. If you don’t Mind, it doesn’t Matter. ~ Mark Twain

YA know what that is, kids? That is a big fat lie from the pits of deepest darkest hell. Just saying… gettin’ old may not be the worst thing that can happen, but it’s no stroll in the park, either. On the other hand, as so many folks (usually those younger than us) are happy to point out, it sure as hell beats the alternative. But that, as we like to say, is beside the point. The point, which is often difficult to see without reading glasses, is that we had a birthday earlier this week, and, thanks in no small part to you, it was actually a lot of fun. Unfortunately, because we were so busy “celebrating”, we didn’t bother to figure out what to post for today. Not that we’ve ever let something like a “birthday celebration” stop us from slacking off in the past, of course, but who are we to look a perfectly good excuse in the face — with or without our reading glasses — and not jump at the chance to use it?

ALL this to say, thank the merciful Bloggods there are loads of entertaining things going on around the blogosphere that have nothing to do with aging birthday girls and/or failing eyesight. Why not check out a few of our favorites, handily listed in our sidebar, and come back here tomorrow, when we’re feeling more like ourselves? Not sure what that means — honestly, since we stopped drinking all those many years ago, we’ve been feeling like nothing BUT ourselves, and…. loving it. Not in “that” way, mind you, but still, some of us feel pretty damn good for old bloggers who don’t have enough sense NOT to post an especially unflattering photo of ourselves splattered in yellow font.

BUT, as so often happens when we’re confronted with the fact that old age and/or sobriety can’t stop us from being stupid, we digress. We intended to mention that one of our favorites (and regular contributor extraordinaire) CRUMMYJOEL, is featuring a Grummy Guest who may or may not be related to that crummy book-selling whore our “newish” pal CHRIS (commenter extraordinarie) is featuring on his site, today, as well. (coincidence? we think not) A book-pimping/attention grabbing whore (and clever/hilarious Snark co-administrator extraordinaire), we hasten to add, that we, ourselves pimp here on a regular basis — despite the fact we’ve now purchased almost a dozen copies of his hilarious book ourselves (or maybe because) and/or missed out on making into the caption finals for a second week in a row (Best Dumb Blond Joke, ever??? That’s comedy gold, kids. At least we thought so when we submitted it. But then, we didn’t just write a soon-to-be-best selling humor book, so what the hell do we know?)

ALSO, it’s well worth noting teh lovely (and surprisingly sappy) PENGUIN (one of the original fabulous Snark co-administrators, extraordinaire) always features a decidedly not-crummy and oh-so-fun “brain teaser” that “technically” falls on Thursdays, tho’ exactly when is anyone’s guess.

THEN, in a nod towards this week’s “surprise” contributor, we’d like to direct your fleeting attention to our dear friend, WALELA (curmudgeon extraordinaire), who’s too damn young to be such an irascible old man, but again we say, what the hell do we know? After all, we still smarting from our rejected “dumb blond” joke. Whatever. When we’re in the mood to feel really “challenged” (in more ways than one) we love to go over to his site and try our hand at crafting clever definitions for the words he features every day. Generally we fail, miserably, and wind up in a corner, next to our drool rag. But that doesn’t stop us from going back the next day, to try again.

WE have many more sites we plan to start highlighting from time to time, but the above should suffice for now. In an effort to send you on your way, we’d like to leave you with the words of Bette Davis, who once said “Old age ain’t no place for sissies“. We agree. Truth be told, we weren’t sissies in our so-called “youth”, and we sure as hell don’t plan to be sissies now. That said, and not wanting to expose any of you to yet, another, in a series of annoying YouTube videos, we’ve elected to link to a very short-yet-hysterical clip sent by our “older” sister a few months ago, which reminds us that A) plenty of folks out there are way older than we are (including our aforementioned sibling), B) “old” ladies rock, and C) when driving our expensive cars, we must always be patient when stopped at crosswalks, because, DAMN.

(BY the way, we’ve decided Twain’s quote would read better if worded thusly: “Age is an issue of Mind over Matter, once you’ve lost your Mind, the only thing that Matters is getting to the bathroom before peeing on the kitchen floor.” Since we’re not at that juncture, just yet, we think we’ll be okay for a few more years.)

~snuppy

Tap into your inner child at Humor-blogs.com.

Go ahead….click the picture, you know you want to!

Now before you get your knickers in a knot and claim that it is nobody’s business, it’s not really that kinda post.
When I flew back to Iceland from America the other day, I buckled up and put my carry-on in the overhead compartment. Not my first flight you know! At that point I usually prepare for a relaxed state of mind and try to unfocus from my surroundings. It comes easy. The captain’s voice came on the speakers and I bolted upright. It was a woman’s voice and the icelandic suffix of –dottir in her name, confirmed my startling. After congratulating myself on such quick deductive reasoning I came to wonder why I bolted. I, a woman, in particular should have felt a sense of pride and acknowledge the brave woman trying to enter the male world, knowing that they are equally capable. My mind said one thing, my body another.

Sociologists today make a clear definition between sex and gender. The former implying the biological characteristics that distinguish men and women. The latter conveying social and cultural characteristics that distinguish between what we conceive of as female or male. (pay not intention to the ordering of the gender in the last sentence, I swear it is almost purely arbitrary!)

So I asked myself how much of our beahvior is actually genetically predisposed and how much is culturally reinforced. The sex is clear upon conception, if the sperm (yes, I said sperm!) gives an Y chromosome we will have a boy, if it does not a girl will bring the house down in about 9 month. I can’t help but wonder if it is the rarity of the Y- chromosome that made someone think up the idea of it therefore being more precious and superior. Seems to me that “someone” really wanted to have the X chromosome to get through. I kid!

In 1977 (the year I was born, sorry any excuse to bring that up!) a WOMAN called Shirley Weitz conducted a research. Yes, her name really was Shirley. She had people observe a boy and a girl in the same environment (toys, room, time…), except that they were of course dressed according to the gender roles and mommy’s somehow inconceivable preference for pink and blue. The results clearly showed that the audience deemed the boy way more agressive, determined and strong in his play while the girl came off as gentle and caring and sweet. Little did they know they were observing the same baby dressed differently.

Apart from male sex hormone levels in the second trimester, that seem to have an effect on both genders and brain development, sociologists have come to agree that although biology does play a part culture plays an even more crucial role in developing concepts about ourselves.

What can I say to my captain the other day? That I am culturally conditioned to assume a man would fly my plane, because up to that day a man always did. That I assume in her mother’s womb a higher level of male sex hormones swam alongside the fetus? I can promise her though, that next time a baby is born into my family I might consider the color green a lot!

Ok, all of you who made it this far…you deserve a treat. Not from me though…you have to consider that all I am reading lately is human anatomy and it is just not that funny-unless I imagine a skeleton in a top hat, smoking a cigar and dancing tango *giggles*.

~Penguin off!
____________________

Who let the Dawg out?:

A man’s study of gender differences:

Two cohorts, one male and one female will be given a survey in which
they are asked to respond in fifteen minutes to a list of seven
questions, with the answers quantified to determine, within a 95%
confidence interval, if there are important gender differences in
attitudes. The questions:

1. Logic is always useful in solving problems. Circle One!

Highly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Disagree, I have
nothing to say to you.

2. Verbal communication is the most essential feature in a
relationship.

1 2 3 4 5

3. Sex is the most important feature in a relationship.

Highly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Disagree, Please?

4. Are you gonna finish that?

Yes No

5. Women and men are roughly equal in intelligence.

True False (Circle one. No, just one)

6. My phone number is :___________________________

7. OK, dudes. The chicks will never get this far. Who’s my wingman?

A woman’s sociological study design:

Two groups, one male and one female will each be given blank pieces
of paper, several colors of magic marker, pastel chalk, glue and
glitter. Both groups will be asked to draw pictures illustrating
their feelings about the opposite sex. The results will be
interpreted by a focus group composed of both cohorts over herbal tea.

~ Dawg out!

There are plenty of gender representatives at humor-blogs. Don’t come crying to me if you get confused though!

Watch the news these days, and it can be pretty depressing. There seem to be so many threats to our democratic, capitalistic, excessive American lifestyles. These threats frighten me, because I don’t know about you, but if I have to live in a world with less than one Starbucks per corner, I’d rather not go on living at all.

What’s the biggest of these threats? Is it terrorism? Global warming? Nuclear proliferation? The New York Yankees? No. Not even lead-laced, asbestos-filled toys from China can compare to the #1 threat to the utter dominance that America has reigned down on the Western Hemisphere, and yes, the world for lo these many decades.

That threat is: Canada. If your first response is to laugh, you clearly haven’t heard the news: Last week, the Canadian dollar pulled even and briefly passed the American dollar in terms of global value. For perspective, in the nineties the Canadian dollar dipped down into the 60-cent range (that is, one Canadian dollar was worth 60-some American cents).

Look at this picture, America! Gaze fearfully upon your new master:

Yep: A damn duck. A Damn Flippin’ Duck with a Figurehead Queen on the other side just kicked the $#!t out of your Revolutionary-War-Winning-Firstest-Most-Presidenty-President-Ever and his Arrow-Carrying Eagle. “In God We Trust” just got owned by “Take Off, Eh?“. “E Pluribus Unum” just got pantsed by “Passus E Labbatsus“.

Something called a “loonie” is now worth more than the almighty dollar. If this doesn’t cause you to tremble slightly, then you clearly have no idea what is at stake here. Let’s examine what Canada has done correctly (and what the United States has screwed up) over the last few years in order to make up such a huge differential:

1. The Metric System: Which country is more likely to stubbornly base its measurement system on the length of a long-deceased English king’s foot, well after the rest of the civilized world has changed to a more user-friendly system: The United States or Canada? What sounds like a typically Canadian M.O. (inexplicably sucking up to the Commonwealth) has become an American monument to isolationism. Hey, if you all like dividing by 3 and 12 and 8 and 5280 so much, then feel free. Just know that the Canadians kicked American ass last week because up there they just toss zeroes around like snowballs.
2. Gross Domestic Product: While the United States has been busy outsourcing every possible job overseas, the Canadians have steadily continued producing and exporting the things they do best. Namely: hockey equipment, beer, and comedians. Some things will always be in demand.
3. The National Anthem: This is no war-glorifying song about a flag. This is true patriot love, strong, free, standing on guard, glorious and free. A kick-ass national anthem can go a long ways towards your currency’s international value. Here’s some indication of how proud the Canadians are of their anthem. Just a little frightening, no? Are you telling me these people wouldn’t cross a southern border armed only with snow shovels if called upon? Hmmmm??? Food for thought….
4. No Stupid Two Party System: Ever feel that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats accurately represent your political views, but you don’t feel like wasting a vote on a third-party stiff? Join the other 300 million of us. Canada has it right, though. Apparently in Canada, the only thing you need to have your own viable political party is a logo and a funny powdered wig (and even the logo is optional). Hell, they even have an actual political party that speaks a totally different language and whose stated goal is to split the country apart…and that party wins actual seats in the actual government!! How cute is that?!? It’s that kind of forward-thinking openness that endears Canada to the rest of the world and causes its currency to rise in value.
5. Being Secretly Communist: If there’s one thing the Cold War taught us, it’s that Communism works for a little while until human nature takes over and the people in charge of redistributing the wealth to the masses become greedy and decide to just redistribute the wealth into their own Cayman Island bank accounts instead. Canada laughs in the face of such conventional wisdom!! National Health Care? Canada’s had it for decades. National television and radio networks? Check. National airlines? Check. National railways? Check. Kid you not: British Columbia (a “province“) is about to essentially legalize prostitution as long as the hookers and johns promise the government it can get involved. Clearly the rest of the world finds this cute little Western attempt at socialism to be endearing, and hence the rise of the Canadian dollar.
6. Tim Horton’s Donuts. If you’ve never had them, you wouldn’t understand.

I could also go on about the proliferation of humor-bloggers that are or were Canadian. Yes, that’s correct…the reason I have such an in-depth knowledge of the issues that we’re dealing with here is that I, too, was a Canadian. And America, you’d better step it up or I might have to reconsider my recent vows to the Stars & Stripes. Quite honestly, something like me going back north on a permanent basis could be the thing that pushes Canada over the top once and for all.

That, or losing the &%$#$ beaver and maple leaf as national symbols.

CrummyJoel

PS: Humor-blogs.com would like to wish lovely NEVA a hugely happy and especially non-crummy birthday. The keeper of the gate-keys to Central Snark, and the sososo very funny person whom I lovelovelove is celebrating what I believe is her 29^th birthday today……again!! Have a great one, Neva!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! ; ) -CrummyJoel

LAMPSHA HERE! I was going to sneak in and just title NotCrummyAtAll Joel’s post EVERYBODY LOVELOVELOVES SNUPPY! But then I thought it might catch your eye and I didn’t want you to be tipped off right away that we were going to wish you a Happy 29th (sounds good to me). So, my dearest NBFF, Happy Birthday! Dare I say that without your every day damn funny if not sometimes confusing posts (I’m kidding, I don’t need your posts to confuse me) there’d be no Snark and a fair amount of camaraderie and friendship that exists in our circle and beyond. So what better day to tell you how much your loveloveloved and appreciated than on your birthday? Happy Birthday - may you have every manner of good health and happiness and shiney things in the year ahead. And may we get together for TGSNWM soon to toast! My treat! Have a great day. XOX

Diesel checking in as well to wish my favorite Crazy Aunt a happy birthday.  Oh, and Grundir told me to say, “Bah!  Tell me when she hits 800!”

Penguin joining the lovefest 2007. I second all the above - isn’t it grand when you come in last?- and I like to add that I think you look particularly marvelous on this fine day. I am not going to make this post any longer than it needs to be, but we hope you kinda get the drift of all of this: You are wonderfully weird, insanely all over the place and ridiculously charming. We loves you!

 Who said you came in last???  Last I heard bohemians had yet to go extinct!  DIOS MIO!  Oh dearest Nevalicious Snuppy de mi corazón here’s wishing you the happiest of happy days!  *Sigh* to west coast living’s drawback of lagging three hours behind in the festivities but, alas, better late than never for to show you the amor bohemians must and shall and WILL and, in addition to mucho amor desde el fondo de mi alma, oh so many thank yous for your continued faboo posts and sharp wit and what-some-may-call-confusing-but-what-in-my-tangential-universe-never-fails-to-make-anything-less-than-oh-so-perfect-sense amazing posts you continue to dish out and entertain us with… posts with which you carry the load of some-to-rename-nameless-but-we-all-know-who-they-are-said-the-bohemian-with-all-fingers-pointing-at-her contributor(s) who are eternally grateful to you, I am sure (ahem, ahem… what would I know? Um, yeah…), and so, since I could go on and ’tis best not for bohemians can be a tad verbose and whatnot, this stops NOW and so off I go to tell some big strapping men to bend over (YOGA people!) leaving y’all with un adios and you my dearest amiga with huge boho kisses flyin’ your way… and with that, BoheMia OUT!

WE know we shouldn’t, but we can’t help laughing at the word “cannibals” — which, in our current crazed state of mind makes us think of “can of balls”. Tennis anyone? (oh, if only those were the kind of “balls” we’re imagining inside that can…)

HEY kids! Once again it’s Monday, and you know what that means. That’s right, it means we’re again faced with the difficult task of trying to conjure up an appropriate “musical opposite” to another of our dear DJ LAMPSHA’S amazing Saturday spins. Fortunately, we’re delirious to report, we’ve exceeded our wildest expectations. Or are we simply so delirious we only think the following song qualifies as something deserving of cheesy laughs? No doubt you’ll let us know which is what, and/or vice versa, soon enough. (try not to think about that last sentence, it’ll only make your head hurt)

NOW, as we said, whether your own expectations (wild and/or otherwise) will be met remains to be seen, but, as you all know by now, that’s entirely beside the point. The point, which may have been used after sundown this past Saturday, in order to skewer a nice chicken for our exceedingly hungry NBFF, is that the following cheesy 80’s video is, in our deliriously humble opinion, just about as “opposite” as one can get to the exotically soothing tunes of Pharoah’s Daughter on the heels of a high Jewish holiday involving, among other things, a 25 hour fast. Cheap laughs are what we’re after, folks, and cheap laughs are what we intend to get. Even if the only laughter we hear today is our own. HAHAHAHAHA. (here we go again, cracking ourselves up in ways only explainable to our shrink)

WE wish we knew more about TOTO COELO, but, sadly, we do not. Suffice to say they were a “one-hit wonder girl-group”, and leave it at that. Okay, a “one-hit wonder girl-group” with bad hair and even worse outfits. Okay, okay — they also suffered from extremely unimaginative choreography. But that — really — is all we know. Except, maybe, for the fact that they’re British.

HEH… funny, but while “describing” this group, it suddenly occurred to us the following video is not only one of our Best “Musical Opposites” Ever, it’s a damn fine-yet-cheesy complement to the Sex, Ed? post we did last Friday. Oh, and speaking of last Friday, we are eternally grateful to the handful of good friends who cared enough to subject themselves to our distinct lack of blogging and/or fashion sense. But, as so often happens when we start feeling bitter about a few of our less-than-devoted so-called “friends” who DIDN’T bother to read a post described variously as “hilarious”, “brilliant” and/or “confusing”, we digress*. Where were we, again? Oh yeah… “tie-in”. Truth be told, sometimes we’re so good at this “tying in” crap we even surprise ourselves — exceeding our own wildest expectations for clever and/or cohesive content. Or is that just our delirious thinking again, spinning wildly out of control? Watch the video, and decide if we’re as good as we think, or suffering from an exceedingly bad case of “the delusionals”:

WOULD any of you think less of us if we told you we once had an outfit like that yellow one? Or that, despite making fun of this choreography, we have many of the same moves — and use them often in the privacy of our own kitchen? And finally, that, back in the late 70’s, our hair was not unlike the redhead’s? That’s right, we said the redhead’s. Hey, we were young(ish), perms were all the rage and oh-so-cheap, and, for us, “wild experimentation” meant “new hair color”. To say we looked “hot” would not just be a lie from the pits of hell, it would be a confirmation of our contention that, to quote ourselves: if we didn’t have any fashion sense, we’d have no sense at all.

THAT said, at least we managed to get ourselves over another “Monday Hump” and can now look forward to more winning and/or stat raising posts tomorrow and Wednesday, brought to us by our dear and delightful Snarky cohorts, CRUMMYJOEL and TEH PENGUIN. Yay.

*Later this week, we’ll angrily confront ourselves and point out how whiny and/or self-loathing we’ve sounded over the past few days, and then we’ll be sorry.

~snuppy

Thank jeebus the neon-clad natives are friendly at Humor-blogs.com.

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Therefore I won’t be around today, but I thought it might be nice to feature a group who had some sort of spiritual connection for those visiting. I think I have found the perfect fit.

Pharoah’s Daughter is a group led by Basya Schechter who was raised in a Chassidic Jewish home in Brooklyn’s Boro Park and left the family’s fold to follow her love of music. It lead her on a path through the Middle East and Africa which included Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece. Inspired by these new cultures, she came back on a different path and with a different sound for her guitar. It’s a perfect marriage of religious Jewish spiritual music which is her upbringing and world beat. Just a note, it’s not that music doesn’t exist in Chassidic households, quite the contrary. Chassidic Judaism came about in the 1700’s as a more expressive way of prayer and spirituality through music and dance. But in the insular world of Chassidus, Basya’s departure although not unheard of, is radical nonetheless.

Their latest cd, Haran, which came out this past July, was the name of an ancient city in Western Asia that both Jews and Muslims believe to be the start of Abraham’s spiritual journey. This ties in nicely to my own spiritual journey of the day. Some of the songs on Haran, such as Ka Ribon, are taken from Shabbat (or the Sabbath) prayers.

You can hear their music in the group’s link above which also has a nice NPR interview with Basya Schechter. Here you can find an interesting review of their ablum on Blog Critics* by Richard Marcus.

I thought I’d forgo videos for today because as discussed with TLP in a recent comment section, sometimes you just want to hear the music. So go take a listen at their MySpace as well.

If you’re fasting, have an easy one. If not, think not of me as I become delirious round about hour 18 seeing a roasted chicken in place of the cantor in the synagogue. It’s actually nice how good anything you eat afterwards to break the fast tastes.

To all - have a wonderful weekend.

~ DJ LAMPSHA

They’re chowing down over at Humor-blogs.com lead by the culturally sensitive, Diesel.

*Speaking of Blog Critics, I would just like to mention that the dear and fabulous Pia from Courting Destiny did a great interview there with Jancee Dunn, a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, which you can (and should) read HERE.

OH, sure, looky there. We do a perfectly good post featuring a group of naked Japanese guys dancing like there’s no tomorrow, and you’re all like, “eww, those boys have fig leaves covering their thingies” — and then head for the hills like Bambi’s mom, pre-Unfortunate Hunting Accident. We get it. Bitch and/or complain about the freaking idiots who make every day a living hell, and you’ll come faster ‘n a cheap date after his second Colt 45. Bemoan the fact that our “studies” make our heads hurt, and you’re all scrambling like hookers on two-4-one night to see who can be first to shove an aspirin down our throats. And don’t get us started on making unfounded contentions about the “virtues” of Family Guy humor, for that one will cause us to barf up faster ‘n, um, the aforementioned 2-bit whore after an especially hot 4-bit date. But, by golly, feature a questionable rerun, and everyone’s singing “Good Night, Irene” in 4 part harmony, like a quartet of barbers puffin’ away on stogies, after participating in a daisy-chain with Sally, the one-legged whore. (ouch) What does any of this mean? Hell if we know — we’re just whining — in a bald-faced attempt to get someone’s attention (does that sound like something a horny guy left standing on the corner on “twofer” night without so much as a dime might say? yeah, we think so, too). But, as so often happens when we go off on a sexual metaphor rampage, we digress.

WHATEVER it is we meant to say, we will tell you there’ll be no “howling jungle monkey sex” today. Although, now that we think about it, that might be pretty damn funny. What happens when those things mate, anyway?

Mrs. Jungle Monkey: “Honey, omigod, what’s that noise?“
Mr. Jungle Monkey: “Um, it’s just me letting you know I’m having a good time.”
Mrs. JM: “A good time? Lordamercy, usually you don’t make sounds like that unless we’re being chased by a tribe of Hotentots, you found a flea on junior, or you’ve lost another game of Pictionary to Aunt Bea.“
Mr. JM: “You sayin’ you don’t like my love sounds? Fine. Next time I want sex, I’ll just stay on my side of the tree and play with my balls.“
Mrs. JM: “And that would be different… how?”

(in our own heads, this is funny, mostly because we suspect jungle monkeys make a lot of weird noises when they have sex — also, they like to play with their balls)

IN all honesty, we just wondered if we could make you “look”, and, well, apparently we could. Fancy that. Now that we have your collective attention, let’s have a little fun with Sex, Ed?, shall we? Or, if you can’t “have fun”, then just “fake it” — not unlike a newlywed 20-something after discovering it was a mouse in her hubby’s pocket, after all. And a small one, at that. Did someone just say “annulment”? heh heh. (sorry, but in lieu of actual readers, we are left trying to crack ourselves up — and succeeding beyond our wildest expectations).

NOW, before we get too close to this ledge we seem to be inching towards, let’s get down to business (that’s what he said). We contemplated doing a really raunchy post for today, but since sunset marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, we figured that might not be a good idea. Not that we’re Jewish, mind you, but why take chances? Enter our passion for bizarre old movietonesque clips coupled with our continued embarrassment over recommending a stupid SciFi novel to Gruntmor the Insatiable Book Pimp, and voile-lá: The Fashions of Eve, A.D. 2000* (speaking of fig leaves), as predicted by designers back in 1930-something. Short, sweet, and to the point — just like some of you boys on “cheap date” night.

“…and candy for cutie.” In no way does that sound gay and/or perverted. And just think, guys, in the future, you can all claim to be hung… up on a phone call, that is. HAHAHA. (there we go, cracking ourselves up… again)

~snuppy

Shooting milk out of your nose is considered fashionable, at Humor-blogs.com.

*We’d like to give a quick shout-out to one of our many acquaintances from our favorite Starbucks, who shocked the living hell out of us yesterday — and, in the process, inspired the last part of this post — when she asked if she could borrow a pair of shoes for a wedding she planned to attend. She went on to say she wouldn’t mind if we had a couple of dresses for her to try on, too. Maybe a cute beaded bag. Mind you, we only recognize this woman when she’s actually standing behind the counter, but apparently that, and the good tips we leave, gave her cause to believe she now had unconditional access to our closet. Yo, Marie, here’s another 2 bucks — do us a favor, “girlfriend”, go out and buy yourself a clue.

OY. We’ll probably wind up in some kind of blogger’s hell for this, but, as we confirmed last week (or was it the week before, we forget) some of you will, no doubt, be down there with us, so what the, um heck, at least we won’t be alone.

LAST week (or was it the week before, we forget) our NBFF suggested we consider doing the occasional “rerun”, in order to — how shall we put this delicately? — relieve ourselves of the, er, duty (heh, we said “dooty”) of writing an actual post of our own, once in a while. At the time we thought it was a fantastic idea. Mostly because we’re so damn lazy, but also because many of our “new” friends have never been exposed (heh) to some of the madcap humor that made this place what it is today: mad… crap. (golly, we know many good words, too bad we can’t think of them when we’re in the process of plagiarizing ourselves for the sake of your amusement and/or our laziness).

NOW, where were we before we stopped putting words into our own mouths… oh yeah, reruns. What can we say? We thought the concept of recycling a post from time to time was brilliant, and couldn’t wait for the “perfect” opportunity to do it. Enter a sick loved one, a sense of panic over having to follow CRUMMYJOEL and TEH PENGUIN with a little something of our own — then toss in our ability to search high and low (very low) through our archives — and voilá, clever rerun, thy name is Yatta!

ALL this to say: here’s a somewhat revised version of a post we thought was fun, and might have offered up as a “musical opposite for the sake of cheap laughs” on Monday, before GRUNDIR THE IMPLACABLE’S book-pimping alter-ego showed up and dazzled us with something sort of hilarious, and all “musical opposite” bets were off. Today they — like strategically placed fig leaves — are back on(ish) again.

***** ***** ***** *****

PERHAPS you’ve heard that some of us have grown children who still live at home (you know who we are). Well, sometimes, the aforementioned grown children force us to watch utter and complete, tho’ highly entertaining (to our way of thinking) silliness, and, much as we hate to admit it, the following video falls into that category. Now, before anyone click “play”, be warned: the clip features a group of semi-naked men (perhaps we should have saved this for tomorrow?) known as “Green Leaves”, singing and dancing to an extremely catchy tune (think: Village People/Y.M.C.A.). Rather than let us explain the point and/or purpose of their prancy-dancy ways, we’d like to suggest reading THIS ARTICLE, which gives a good enough explanation (as well as one set of possible lyrics) for the performance. Then, if you’re game, and not afraid of having the tune bounce around inside your heads all day, watch this bunch of questionably developed guys shake their collective bootays and/or fig-leaves.*

OF COURSE, after properly digesting the first video, you may want to consider viewing THIS, which is funny only because it’s a parody of the other one, which is a parody of “boy band” videos, to begin with. Come to think of it, that’s not just funny, it’s downright hilarious. Don’t you agree? Please say “yes”, otherwise there’ll be no telling what our son will force us to view next.

*Try to remember these guys are part of a Japanese comedy team, and this song was actually written/performed as a statement on the current economic conditions in Japan (probably the reason it’s now such a huge hit over there). So, technically, it’s smart. Cheesy, sure… but in a pretty darn smart — not to mention humorous and-did-we-mention-catchy? — way. Yatta!

~snuppy

Everyone is Silly Go Lucky on Humor-blogs.com.

I know people don’t like to listen to others complain. A joke to lighten the mood or a cute, little anecdote about something involving somebody making an arse of himself is usually prefered. Not gonna happen today!

Geography has become my enemy. I don’t know what they did, but I am inclined to blame tectonic plates. Something brought me to this island and last spring I decided to enroll into university once again. Who made me? Society! And by society, I mean my mom!

Anyhoo…practical nursing it is gonna be and these are the main books for the next three months. Add to that a decent amount of articles, usually with numbers and charts, that some lonely professor deems an interesting inside. If you wanna get a real high grade, buy the professor’s newly-published book about “Species segmentation in areotropical melting niches!”, link that to brain surgery and you are golden!

It’s Human Anatomy that is bugging me the most. See, most of you know I am German and I can point to my heart, lungs and toes without problems. Now, at some point I learned the major body parts in English…but God strike me down if I know where the zygomatic bones are located. Well, I could look it up. True enough! Now my problem is that I have to learn the Icelandic varient of the human anatomy as well, and that isn’t funny when decent words like “lower arm” turns into “framhandleggur”. But the story doesn’t end here. Since we are in the medical profession, we sorta need to know the Latin words as well, in this case it would be “Antebrachium”. Now let’s look at what these words have in common…keep looking… that’s right…Nada!

I fully support that we have a universal dead language to be able to communicate about the “still alive” and about what part of the eponychium we should take, but in order to understand the Icelandic exam questions, I will have to learn something riveting as “Eyrnamergskitlar” as well. And it hurts my throat to pronounce this stuff, my laptop and papers are always drenched with fluids spitting forth from my mouth and my head hurts. I feel so sorry for myself, it is difficult to breathe. *dramatic sob*

Yet here I sit, my magic markers neatly arranged, my color-coded and cross-referenced folders open, inviting me to engulf into another chapter. And I gladly accept the challenge. Apart from the laughter in my head when I am hearing another noise of spitting sounds, silly pre-aspirated breaths and phoneme violations to produce the word “spleen” in Icelandic; I am having a ball. There is an Icelandic and Latin word for that too, you betcha!

So, I guess although I feel like a clog wearing, sushi eating, reggae listening confused German most days, globalization has its advantages: I get to bitch about it here for all of you to read. I feel better now, thanks for listening.

~Penguin out!

Careful, or you’ll lose yourself in laughter at Humor-blogs.com.