There was a blog here; but i've decided to replace it with something more amusing and less depressing.
Rob's dog = awesome. Granted, I've known about Rob's awesome dog for a while now, but I don't feel like doing a serious blog right now.
So, I present you with Lola.
Lola vs. Jesus Doll
Lola reacts violently to the preaching of my Talking Jesus doll. This is the doll, in case you need one.
Lola vs. Robot
When I brought home a Roboquad robot the other day and started playing with it, our resident guardian K9 was none too pleased. I decided to put Roboquad in "autonomous" mode, set his aggression level to high, and let the battle unfold.
Lola She makes this weird gremlin duck noise when you rub her belly. Like a baby velociraptor.
Because I felt YouTube would benefit from just one more "look at the funny thing my dog does" video.
Oh, the things I find online. Oh, how wonderful and mysterious! Oh, how... nauseating at times!
So I think by now we've all seen some of the more ridiculous Obama related cashing-in-on-a-new-president-merch stuff such as The Coin, The Plate, The Water Bottle, and of course The Dildo. Although I find the dildo the only one to have an actual purpose, let me just say one thing about all this merchandise. Most of these are just to rip you off (the coin, plate... to a point, the dildo), and all of them go towards other people not related to the DNC/Obama's campaign (except for the water bottle).
However, I have found something far better than ANY of the above (because, seriously, why get an Obama dildo, there are FAR better sex toys out there). Something that's so much more artistic than adapting a face to be put on a dildo or plate. Something far more imaginative than any of these.
My fellow Americans (and international readers); allow me to present to you, my latest find. I bring you....
I do not know the specifics, as I cannot read Japanese. But I assure you there is nothing quite like the pictures you're about to see.
Click any picture to see the full size, meanwhile I'll post captions of what I think each picture is saying about The Obama Action Figure™!
The Obama Action Figure™ comes with Bad-Ass American Flag * the symbol of Pride* with Pointy spike of Justice and base of TRUTH, a stool for giving presidential Addresses, TWO different color ties to show support for the RED and BLUE states, rope of Hope (it's gold, therefore made of HOPE), Microphone for ENHANCING ACOUSTICS, and MANY DIFFERENT HANDS!!!!
Looking better than your sister's Ken Doll in a suit and tie, The President Obama Action Figure™ will help YOU protect your country from The Forces of EVIL!
President Obama's™ shoes are Faux leather for the Vegan Crowd, but also Strong enough to kick some Corperate ASS!
President Obama™ takes all issues seriously. This is a Serious Obama™, this is serious face.
After a hard day fighting for truth and justice and regulation, Obama™ needs to relax and take it east by striking an awesome pose.
Sometimes President Obama™ needs to have fun with his microphone and cut loose with some karoke; just be careful, because if it's country music you make him sing....
you'll need the secret service to protect YOU from President Obama™!
President Obama™ doesn't need the Army! He's can be all he can be without the Army!
President Obama™ is well aware of the danger the Zombie horde presents; He always has his Primary Weapon...
and his secondary!
"Only a master of evil, Cheney." Not even The Dark Side of the Force can tempt Obama-Wan Baraki™.
Thank you Cleveland! You're a Wonderful Audience! Good Night!
So as we are two days away from having Barack Hussein Obama being sworn in as our 44th President of the United States, let us have a Fair and Balanced my opinion of the man who still has power until Jan 20th at 12noon Eastern Standard Time, the current occupant of the White House, George W. Bush.
In Novemeber 26 2000, Katherine Harris dismissed recounts filed late in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties stating the lateness of the submission was not justifiable, and declared Georgie the certifiable winner of Florida's election despite manual recounts showing Gore gaining on Bush's small lead. Katherine Harris, should be noted to be have been playing partasin politics, only being elected in 1999 under the Republican party banner. Oh and Jeb Bush, brother of George, son of George H. W. Bush (the 41st President) was the Govener of Florida from Jan 1999-Jan 2007.
December 8, 2000 after many lower court decisions, the Florida Supreme Court decided on a 4-3 vote to have a state wide manual recount. The Florida votes were showing Gore's votes growing and Bush's lead dwindling. On December 12th the United States Supreme Court effectively handed the presidency to Georgeie voted on party lines (or at least the party of those who appointed them) in a 5-4 decision to stop the Florida recounts. George W. Bush's lead had dwindled to a 154 votes over Gore. However, that number is not on the record books, as the Supreme Court said that Katherine Harris' certification of 537 votes stands. Bush still lost the popular vote overall (since when do the people know best anyway!) but due to having a Representative democracy, Bush still won the presidency by electoral vote of 271-266.
Members of the House objected to the appointment of Mr. Bush, but had no Senator to back them. (Yes, the video is narrated by Michael Moore; there are no others that I could find on teh YouTubes without him in it).
George was sworn in in front of the nations capitol with around 10,000 protesters in attendance. In his first couple of months in office George talked about stem cells research, and while he'd allow funding for it, the use of valuable embryonic stem cells that could potentially cure alzheimers, cancer, parkinsons and used to regrow lost tissue was not to be funded nor researched in the United States. During this period of time, Georgie offered major tax refunds ( a measely $300 for people like me and millions of dollars for CEOs) and cut taxes for the upper 20% (about $750,000/year or more)
September 11th 2001: "BinLaden Determined to Attack Inside U.S." was delivered as a Presidential Briefing on August 6th 2001. A full month and 5 days before the attack was to be carried out. Supposidly, dates were not known, nor were specific buildings, but Washington DC centers for government, millitary, and NYC and WTC were mentioned.
We invade Afghanistan October 7th 2001, for harboring known Terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. I'm not going to shed much light here, I am not sure of the authenticity of *some* of the videos/messages from OBL, and my government has lied to me before. That being said, I feel OBL was behind 9/11, and I feel that George W./his cabnet simply allowed it to happen. Not caused it to happen, but allowed it to happen to make their friends and famlies richer.
After September 11th the president and congress enacted the USA PATRIOT Act (October) which provided a lot of benifits to larger government involvment in everyday life, and struck major blows to our civil liberites.
More disturbing, to me at least is Executive Order 13233 which effectivly bars the Freedom of Information Act from applying to George W. Bush and his Cabnet during term; this has also been used to block records of Ronal Regan and Richard Nixon.
Georgie proposed reform to Social Security that effectivly would rape and pillage the remaining funds by puting it into stock market for business. And due to the recent economic recession, I'm sure we can imagine what would happen to Grandma's and Grandpa's Social Security checks. Social Security is in danger, at the current burden of taxation on the young and not well off. Those who make over $102,000/year are not taxed on any income over that $102,000. If they were taxed at full ammount, for all income, we'd have Social Security sustanable for the next 75 years.
George also tried to reform education with standardized testing and attempting to weaken teacher's unions.
In late 2002, a new office that reported directly to the President was created, the office of Homeland Security (George couldn't call it Motherland, because that made Ex-Russians nervous, and he couldn't call it Fatherland because it made ex-nazi's happy). headed by Tom Ridge (former Govenor of Pennsylvania) who now is on the Board of Directors for Home Depot.
In 2003, Bush gave me another $300 bucks to remind me that he's up for re-election while letting his corperate buddies continue to pay less than their fair share, Invaded Iraq, banned abortions in the 18-26 week catagories (how that is defined as 'partial-birth' is beyond me), made telemarketers stop calling me, Declared that major combat operations in Iraq were at a close, allowed companies to ship more jobsoverseas. Oh, and as a political manuver, he or Mr Cheney (again, we're not allowed to look at inside memos!) leaked the name of Valerie Plame an undercover agent for the U.S.A. to the Washington Post after her husband, Joseph Wilson(an Ambassador to Africa) wrote that Georgie fibbed about Iraq looking to buy uranium from Niger and that Niger had no Yellow-Cake Uranium (delicious!) that George claimed Saddam bought.
2004 George spent time trying to Overturn Roe V. Wayde by giving fetuses more rights, and allowing more and more countries to take our jobs.
Also in 2004, a draft dodger called a military hero a coward. Now I didn't care much for Kerry, but come the fuck on. Oh, and This Man's daughter is a lesbian. After Kerry lost the election, Bush said he had a "historic victory" and "political capitol" to spend. He won by 50.07%. In his second term, Bush attempted to repair relations with Europe- after he disastrously pissed off just about all of our allies.
August 29th 2004, Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, Bush encouraged the Governor to evacuate New Orleans, but with under 24 hours to do so, this proved impossible. FEMA, the state government and the Federal government failed in preperations, failed in providing aid and failed the people of Louisiana. People, normal citizens had more of an effective hand in aid than the government. People left my College to donate time and effort and money to help New Orleans and southern Louisiana.
Bush also tried to have it be a constitutional amendment to define marraige to a man and a woman, thus preventing an entire section of our population the right to marry someone of their choosing. Granted, it'd also prevent pologamy, but having partners outside of marragie, brought into your marragie to spice up you sex life is just peachy! As long as it's not two dudes wanting to vow to spend the rest of their lives together, than you can do whatever you want!
During this time Georgie has made it harder for a person to file for bankrupcy, gave us more tax-cuts even through our economy is strong.
I think I've expressed my opinion of Mr. Bush through out this piece very well. I voted against him when he was running against Kerry, although I voted for David Cobb who was running on the Green Party ticket. I voted against John McCain, because he shared a lot of similar policies as Mr. Bush.
I think you'll notice that I never called George W. Bush "President"; he took this oath, when sworn in.
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Mr. Bush has not faithfully executed the office of PotUS. If anything he's abused the privileges there in, even if it's legal, does not make it right by pardoning people who have yet to be charged with a crime. Georgie has eroded parts of the Constitution by granting the executive branch with powers that are not defined within that document, he has not defended it, he's attaked it; he's eroded many liberties and his policies are detrimental to our society.
Bush said of himself that his greatest achievement as President was catching a fish. Mr. Bush, I'd have to say I agree with you on that.
History will judge G.W.B., and I for one, hope for a full investigation into him for war crimes and negligence. Since we LET him into office and didn't impeach him while in office, I think there should be an arrest of him, Cheney, Rice, Paulson, Rumsfeld/Gates, Ashcroft/Gonzales/Mukasey, Ridge/Chertoff, Abraham?Bodman and Zoellick/Portman/Schwab on Jan 20th 12:01 EST.
At the very least, we need to set an example that one CANNOT abuse the power with which we have trusted them.
To end on a happier note, Georgie is a goldmine of unintentional comedy. So I leave with two things. The first is Slate.com's list of Bushisms. The last can be found here at snopes.com and reprinted below.
Make the Pie Higher By George W. Bush I think we all agree, the past is over. This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked Is our children learning? Will the highways of the internet become more few? How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me. I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity. I know that the human being and the fish can coexist. Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family! Knock down the tollbooth! Vulcanize society! Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!
We'll keep the formalities at a minimum and jump into my biased opinions.
Formality: Happy 2009. Hope your 2008 was decent.
Biased Opinions:
Top 7 Albums of 2008.
7. Coldplay - Viva la Vida Not immediately recognized by me as being a decent album, but it grew on me, and I thought the universal themes of love, life and death have been done... well, to death. But it's a nice easily digestible album.
6. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip With Teeth meets Year Zero, to a point. It has the rock-band-esque styling of 2005's With Teeth and some of the glitchy stuff of 2007's Year Zero. And it was released for free. Free. With over a million downloads from nin.com. If you'd still like to give a bit of cash to Trent Reznor and company, it's available on amazon.com, iTunes or as a physical CD/DVD combo.
5. Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static Not a major departure for those familiar with Jack Johnson, but I do feel that the addition of other instruments and adding a little bit of distortion on some of his guitarwork makes this album more accessible than his previous.
4. Ladytron - Velocifero Now im not sure if this is going to replace Witching Hour as my favourite Ladytron album, but this feels much more fleshed out and I think the production done by Alessandro Cortini aided in this album feel compared to Witching Hour.
3. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into Influences of Daft Punk aside, this is just a fun album. Sure, it's just a combination of a lot of electronica mixed with some of the best rock elements with a splash of indie in there as well, but it does it well.
2. Modwheelmood - Pearls to Pigs Vols. 2-3 Add volume 1 to the other volumes and you have a full album. Just download it off of iTunes or Amazon (use amazon, DRM MP3's). It's a little eclectic, and at times inaccessible, but it's some of the best electronica I have ever listened to.
1. Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer? Produced by Ben Folds, this is by far, the best album of the year. Moody piano pieces such as "Strength Through Music", fun rocking songs like "Leeds United", songs that were once part of the Dolls live catalogue "Ampersand". Oh and although a song about date rape, abortion, pregnancy tests, having rumors being spread of being a crackwhore, going to a concert with someone you kinda hate, "Oasis" is a fucking catchy and fun song to sing along to. All in all, my favourite album of 2008.
You can check out samples of songs on the respective myspaces.
Top 6 Movies of 2008 (up to October) that are worth the $8.50 to get in or the $20 DVD.
6. Teeth When I first heard about this film, I thought it was a documentary; but upon viewing, it is one of the best indipendant releases of 2008. Vagina Dentata. Horror(ish), amusing(for sure) and an interesting 'coming of age' film.
5. Funny Games A remake of a 1997 film, actually. A upper/upper-middle class family is assaulted by very polite and proper psychopaths. Excellent use of breaking the fourth wall, the American fascination of bad things happening to good people, and in general fucking with your head, a little bit.
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshell Touted as a romantic comedy, but it was far from it. Yes, it has romantic and sappy elements. But it also has a lot of funny stuff. And lots of nudity. Mila Kunis' boobs, and Jason Segel's... well... everything. Ass, Crotch, face... and I'm not sure what's worse. It was basically a Judd Apatow-esque film with little splashes of romance in it. And it worked.
3. Wall-E And on the other end of the spectrum from Sarah Marshell is the very family friendly film Wall-E from Disney/Pixar. The first human dialogue spoken by character that does not sound like beeps and boops is almost 40 mins into the film. Spectacular visual eff
Iron Man: Pros: Casting/Humor/Acting/Story. Con: Sam Jackson cocktease after the Credits.
1. Choke. Although not a direct adaptation, it's fairly faithful to Chuck Palahniuk's book. Victor was cast perfectly as Sam Rockwell. Everyone else was done well. It is a very witty film, not the gut busting Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow humor, but it had me quietly laughing the whole time. But it does have moments of drama and moments that made me... uncomfortable. A very great film.
Top 5 Rifftrax of 2008.
5. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets "I will eat your imortal soul"
3. Saw "Shoot him." "He won't move if you shoot him in the head." "Nobody listens to me."
2. Spider Man 3 "Giant Anthropomorphic Sand Thief wouldn't make the headlines, of course."
1. Lion King (That Guy With The Glasses) "Hey, maybe dad is next to that rotting corpse!"
Top 4 things that made me laugh unintentionally in 2008.
4. Pencil Tricks
3. SNL (NSFW/YouTubes)
2. Scientology v. Anonymous
1. Sarah Palin
Top 3 Things that did not live up to the hype.
3. Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy 16 years, and I get a shitty record and a free can of Dr Pepper. Go reunite with Slash, then we'll talk, Axl.
2. Ron Paul The most conservative legislator since 1937 leading a revolution? Give me a break
1. Cloverfield An ARG to promote a JJ Abrhams project, my GOSH that has NEVER been done before! And it was having us guessing on WTF took off the Statue of Liberty for months ahead of time.
Top 2 People who might have changed the world in 2008
2. The 131,237,603 who let their voices be heard in the 2008 election process.
