If you’ve never thought that you’d get sick of hearing the word “cooter,” wait until you finish reading this.
I love a street festival. Newport, TN, used to have a street festival every fall – sometimes during Homecoming, sometimes not – so I’ve been keenly reared on an appreciation for street vendors, haphazardly established parades & ceremonies, and questionable in quality local artists & entrepreneurs hawking their homemade wares. And the entertainment!
Allendale, SC, is not immune; in fact, no city in South Carolina is immune to having a festival. Allendale’s contribution to the art of the festival is the Cooter Festival. Not to be confused with the Great American Cooterfest in Iverness, FL – yes, there are TWO cooter celebrations in our nation – the Carolina Cooter Festival (in its thirty-eighth year, as opposed to Iverness’, which is in its eighth) centers around, among a few other things, turtles. (What did you think a cooter was?) The big event of the Cooter Festival is the Cooter Race. Sometimes referred to as “The Running of the Cooters,” it’s a turtle race. More on the Cooter Race a little later ...
The festival starts on Friday, May 6. However, nothing major is scheduled for tonight; the main attractions, from 4:00 to 7:00, are the street vendors, the booths and the carnival rides. Expect the usual run of corn dogs, cotton candy, funnel cakes, and general gross shit that people use to kill their bodies. My little girl is glad to take one for the team, and she is more than happy to clog her young arteries with as much gross shit as she possibly can.
At 7:00pm, CWA held a wrestling event at the Allendale National Guard Armory. CWA used to stand for Champions With Attitudes, but I think they changed that at some point last year. They’ve been a long-standing staple of South Carolina’s independent wrestling circuit. I remember seeing posters for their shows as far back as 2005, hyping appearances by WWF & WCW castoffs. For tonight, they’ve been advertising former WWE wrestler Dave Batista. I’m thinking that they’re conning the rubes into coming to see local boy JAY Batista.
*I unfortunately failed to make this, as I was the one who came down with a bad case of mud-butt from some god awful thing called an “elephant ear.” Given that I used to use “elephant ears” in reference to a woman’s girl-parts when said woman has had too much babies pass that way (I refuse to explain this further), I was keen to see what elephant ears were in the dining sense. Not all that, I assure you.
Saturday, May 7
Carnies are gross. This, seconded AND quoted for truth. Every step I took down the carnival lane, I was inundated with hollers of “hey dad won’t you win a teddy bear for the little lady,” “hey turtle man” (a reference to my shirt), “hey man,” “hey sir,” “wanna throw a dart, pop a balloon and win a toy for the kiddo,” and so forth. I was really there more for the rides than any attempt to satisfy my ego by throwing an oversized ball into an undersized hoop, throwing a ping pong ball and winning a fish in which I had nowhere to keep, throwing a baseball at cement milk bottles, or, hell, whatever else there was. Having worked at the prison, I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring hollers for attention. But, fuck, did I have nightmares of one dude near the rides who kept announcing, via headphone mic and P.A., “How fast do you throw? We don’t know! It’s FASTBAAAALLLL ....”
I did partake in the dart throwing, ‘cause for some reason I’ve always liked that; I won a tiny bear for my daughter, then I threw two more for an upgrade to a medium size bear. Funny thing was, when the carny took the little bear away from her to upgrade it, she started crying that she actually wanted the tiny bear back … so, of course, she got a medium AND a small bear. Who’s the fucking carny now??!
The Carolina Cooter Race. Holy cow, this is serious business. People showed up two hours before registration of cooters and, I shit you not, there were folks who were renting the use of some turtles out to the general public. I have no idea how someone would keep track of such an endeavor but sure enough, there were people who were renting these things left and right for a chance to race in this thing. A flighty girl next to us on the bleachers rented one and called it “Scooter,” and since she wasn’t much of a spaz or a bitch, we adopted Scooter as our choice to win the whole thing. Another family behind us rented one with only three legs(!), naming it “Dale” (who, according to a shirt I remember seeing somewhere, is in hell). (Spoiler alert: Dale didn’t win.)
While all of this madness is underway – the renting, the registration, et cetera – there was a performance going on of perhaps the worst, most rundown Elvis impersonator I’ve ever seen. He was off key and off tempo on everything, from “Hound Dog,” to that “I can’t help/ Falling in love/ With you ...” song, to songs I’m not even sure that Elvis sang. Five small girls went up to the stage, and “Elvis” gave out leis to them, but he only had three, and there were five girls ... it was a weird thing to see these two girls who got left out pitch a fit about not getting leis from “Elvis,” in 2011.
After ersatz Elvis finished, and registration continued well into the afternoon, the local radio station flooded the street with music of different sorts. All things came to a stopping point when the DJ, dedicating the next song to our troops oversees, played “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,” by uber-Amer’can Toby By Gawd Keith (who appeared intoxicated on his WWE Monday Night Raw guest slot, I want to add). Those cooter folks knew this shit out of the lyrics to this thing, let me tell you. And at the end, the DJ said, “That one’s dedicated to you-know-who.” Didn’t you just dedicate it to the American troops? Why the clandestine shit now, Radio Raheem? Was it really dedicated to your undercover Afghan wife that you had a fight with last night? Small town drama must achieve closure!
Here are the *official* Cooter Race rules ... (all text outside of parentheses are [sic] ... are they ever ...) ...
1. Once race begins Cooter handlers may not touch their Cooter. Pushing, pulling or rubbing one’s Cooter will be grounds for disqualification. (And already, I hate myself.)
2. No drugged Cooters will be allowed to compete. (That would disqualify some of my clients at the mental health clinic, HAW!) If the judges suspect a Cooter has been drugged and the Cooter Inspector verifies, the parties responsible will be fines, or better yet, sentenced to clean up the Cooter Race Track area after the race. (Hey, Cooter Inspector, good luck getting that thing to piss in a cup.)
3. No foreign substances such as grease or oil can be placed on one’s Cooter to increase its speed.
4. Shouting, yelling, and coaxing one’s Cooter during the race is encouraged.
5. Cooter handlers are required to provide a safe environment for their Cooters before and after the race.
6. The Cooter Committee will provide a Cooter holding tank for those Cooter handlers unable to return their Cooters to their natural habitat after the race.
7. Cooter handlers found mishandling or mistreating their Cooters will automatically be disqualified. (Okay, isn’t this the same as rule #4?? Shit’s ridiculous …)
8. Any violations to the Cooter Race rules will force the Cooter judges to disqualify the Cooter Handler from the race competition. (You don’t know how bad I wanted to edit that whole statement.)
9. Decisions of the Cooter judges are final and there are no appeals.
Jesus tapdancing Christ ... you know, there’s an office in Allendale County for “Cooter Fest Chairman?” I think it’s an elected position; I wish I were joking with you right now.
About a block away from all of this madness was the Allendale Elementary Steel Drum Band. Now, this was fun to watch; it had a lot of educational stuff that I had to sift through for the actual music, but once the kids got going, damn, that was worth watching.
2:00pm hit, and the Cooter Race was underway. We actually made it through three, maybe four heats before my daughter got sleepy, then antsy, then unruly. Incidentally, “Scooter” won his heat, so we had fun cheering that. And of course, as you might expect, no news on who actually won the race on the official website … Love a small town, for real.
Waka Flocka Flame. Waka Flocka Flame had a concert at the B&G (Civic) Center in conjunction with the Allendale Cooter Fest. If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience Waka Flocka, check out his videos on youtube. I challenge you to make it through the first minute of, say, “Hard in Da Paint;” even better, try to make it through a full minute that does NOT include him mentioning his own name. If you like that brand of “rap music” (and I submit that it qualifies as neither), then you can have it. It’s very clear that Waka Flocka fancies himself as the Lil’ Wayne to Gucci Mane’s Birdman.
At any rate, when I was researching Waka ... wait, I don’t know him like that ... check it, when I was researching Mr. Flocka, I came across this video on Youtube, called “UpTopKid at Waka Flocka (BOTTLE FIGHT & SAYS CRIPS AINT G CHECK HIM)”, I was convinced that Allendale would be obliterated from the SC county map, especially when I read the comments to that video. Statements like “Bottles hurt bullets kill,” “how dis slobk ass nigga gone wipe his face wit hiz flag at 4:55” and “Is this nigga makin it popular to be fat?” Ooh, that shit’s scary. So, yeah, I decided that it wasn’t worth braving whatever the hell was going to happen there, especially when the music isn’t even that good, ESPECIALLY for $30 in advance, $60 at the door.
And Allendale County still stands, one day removed from Waka Flocka’s big Allendale debut. No one kill’t, no one came up from A-T-L to kill him, no one raped up (as far as we know), so I guess it was a successful market for Mr. Flocka. Heard that some folks saw him at the local El Cheapo buying rolling papers or some such, so good for him. He missed his big opportunity to run off with the carnies.
So, in all, the total tally was:
4: Rides on the carousel
2: Rides on the Honey Bear-go-round
1: Trip down the Jumbo Slide
1: *LIVE* Pony ride thankfully avoided
1: Attempt to ride the Ferris Wheel aborted by its rickety qualities
6: Dollars spent
7: Teeth visible in the mouth of the carny running the dart game
3: Balloons popped
2: Bears won
7: Carny games avoided like the plague
1: Carny mantra that still invades my dreams
3: Useless animals that could have been “won” at select games (a rabbit, a turtle, and a goldfish)
5: Shit foods eaten
2: ... of which included hot dogs
2: Turtles that we cheered for
1: Turtle of choice that actually won
1: Man walking a turtle on a leash
1: Waka
1: Flocka
1: Flame
0: Money spent on that garbage
Infinitum: Cooter-to-vagina innuendos suffered.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Cooter Festival 2011: On-the-Scene Report
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Well I'll be damned
A little over two years ago, I did a writeup on something I found absolutely implausible: the idea that Jenny McCarthy had found a cure for autism.
McCarthy did indeed cure her son's autism by changing his diet, giving him vitamins, and detoxifying the body of metals and I don't know what the other word she used was; it sounded like Candido. I can get behind detoxifying the Candido from your body, but the rest of this is fucking hokum.
This was the second half of a two-part bullshit story that McCarthy was touring the world with at the time. The first half was the also specious claim that her son and many others had developed autism as a result of receiving the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccination.
Her belief was fueled by a 1998 study published in the Lancet, an international medical journal of high reputation. Everybody who isn't retarded lined up to call bullshit; in 2004 the Lancet retracted the claim and today an article in the British Medical Journal wrapped the study in barbed wire and powerbombed it through a flaming table into a crate of thumbtacks, broken glass, and rock salt. The aftermath:
The Lancet paper was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed "new syndrome" of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an "apparent precipitating event." But in fact:
Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism.
Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were "previously normal," five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns.
Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination.
In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results—noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations—were changed after a medical school "research review" to "non-specific colitis."
The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations—all giving times to onset of problems in months—helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link.
Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation.
So what did we learn? Two things.
It's fine for anyone, including celebrities, to have an opinion; it's not fine for people of an advanced public profile to be openly retarded.
and
Science always wins.
(Picture unrelated.)
Go Tarheels!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, *chop chop chop*
Dear Google News,
The above does not qualify as news.
Regards,
Nate Escobar
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The further dumbening of America
Today’s culprit: NPR!
On whatever show plays on NPR around 1:30p, NPR’s interviewer was discussing this year’s World Series bout between the Texas Rangers and the SF Giants with a Sport Illustrated reported. The SI reporter mentioned in passing that both franchises hadn’t even been in serious World Series contention for quite some time, and I quote, “forty-nine years” for the Rangers, “fifty” for the Giants.
This spurred the NPR interviewer to comment that (I paraphrase some of the following) fans would be watching a match up that “literally” would only come along “in 100 years.”
Nope. Not true.
1) This is a match-up that only took about fifty years for both franchises to get to. If it was a series that took “literally” 100 years to achieve, neither team would have had approximately 50 years since their last Series contention. It would have been … class? Who said, “100?” You get an A!
2) So, will we have to wait another “100 years” (sic) for the Rangers to meet the Giants for the World Series? No. It really depends on the strength of the teams’ rosters next year, how they play against the altered rosters of the teams in their divisions, injuries sustained to key players, and, oh, only about a googolplex of other factors. The Rangers/Giants tie-up for the World Series 2010 is not some goddamn Brigadoon that has risen from the mists of Cooperstown.
2.5) “Literally” means so much, and yet, to some, clearly so little. Ah, a new Scientific Truth!
Monday, September 06, 2010
Totally true urban legends
As interpreted by the Mad Scientific crew ...
I heard that, before every spring season, the Knoxville Zoo hires rogue zoologists who kill the polar bears that they have on exhibit. When the following winter season begins, they just bring in more polar bears as replacements.
The Knoxville Zoo, in an attempt to justify this slaughter of a species already precariously balanced on a dwindling population spike, sent an internal memo to zoo administration to place emphasis on bears that are sick, but which maintain a healthy appearance.
The memo, which drew parallels between this desired polar bear population and HIV/AIDS victims, was interpreted literally, sending zoo officials into a frenzy, looking for polar bears stricken with sexually transmitted diseases.
After months of fruitless researching, they discovered a pocket of polar bears in the north Arctic that were stricken with syphillis; left unchecked, the disease has spread exponentially to the rest of the group, which numbers in the thousands. It's from this cluster of polar bears that the Knoxville Zoo culls their polar bears exhibit each year.
The location of the mass grave of polar bears has always been shrouded in mystery for years. However, amid the increasing rumors and speculation, a task force was commissioned to investigate the location of these decomposing, syphillis-ridden polar bear corpses. In 2007, they successfully tracked the bear corpses to a system of subterranean chambers located beneath Thompson-Boling Arena.
CAN YOU PROVE IT'S NOT TRUE??!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Engage slow blinking silent response .... NOW!
(Craziest thing, I kept trying to check my email account today, and long story short, I'm surprised the word "hootmail" doesn't produce a social networking site for owls.)
Couple of current events things that have caught my eye today, figured I'd post 'em to keep the slow summer months from making this joint a total ghost town:
"Coca-Cola has been forced to pull an internet campaign after parents accused the company of using hardcore pornographic references (ed. note: "... to '2 Girls 1 Cup' ...") to target children on Facebook." [more]
"A $7,000 fine is costing Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) millions, The New York Times reported this morning.
"The retail giant has reportedly spent more than $2 million to contest the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's penalty for the death of an employee during a trampling incident on Black Friday in 2008 at a store in Valley Stream, N.Y." [more]
And in other news ...
Friday, May 14, 2010
Are you the annoying co-worker?
10 questions to find out if you irk colleagues.
To make sure you're not the annoying co-worker, take this quiz and hope for the best. (Hint: If you're not the bothersome co-worker, feel free to print out this quiz and leave it where the offending parties will find it.)
Why not? It's not like I'm working or nothing.
1. You're stressed. You're busy at work and your home life is hectic. You walk through the front doors and ...
A. ... do your job, mentioning your stress level only if it's relevant to the conversation.
B. ... sigh deeply until someone asks you what is wrong.
I never mention my stress level at home. It's irrelevant; if you're any kind of professional, home stays at home & work stays at work. If I'm stressed at work, yes, then I'll mention it if someone asks.
2. You had the best wild salmon for dinner. You ...
A. ... tell everyone to order it the next time they're at the restaurant.
B. ... heat up the leftovers in the microwave, allowing everyone to enjoy its pungent aroma.
I'm confused. Given that most leftovers are by nature a little ripe, am I supposed to read it as unacceptable to reheat anything in the microwave at work? Or just "pungent" salmon? I mean, leftover shrimp smells like the ass end of fuck, but if I have a lot left over from the night before, fuck all ya'll, money don't grow on trees for me to go up the street to Burger King every fucking day. Unless you're buying; are you buying? If not, then I'm eating free, and "free" can smell my fucking pungent salmon, and, and, and, if you come in my office between 2-4, you'll probably have to smell my pungent salmon poots too; ain't no "annoying co-worker quiz" question about that, is there??!?! I'd answer B there too, 'cause it's my fucking office; be thankful that I don't come to your office and poot WHICH I HAVE DONE BEFORE.
Bitch.
3. You're a busy person, so ...
A. ... you make sure to get all your work done during business hours so you don't have to take it home.
B. ... you show up an hour late and leave an hour early because someone else will pick up the slack.
Thank you for noticing how busy I am, and please make a mental note that I did not bring it up in any unsolicited manner; I'm not "that guy." My answer is A. Who the fuck is "busy," when they're coming in an hour late and leaving an hour early?
4. Your new ringtone is awesome and deserves to be heard, so ...
A. ... you play it for your co-workers during lunch.
B. ... leave your ringer volume set to high so everyone can hear it every time you receive a call.
How about turning a goddamn cellphone off every once in a while? Here, here's five times when the cellular telephone should be turned off:
1. At your goddamn job. "But it's for emergencies!" You're at your goddamn job; everyone knows how to contact you ... at your goddamn job. Unless you're deep undercover like Dan Tanna.
2. At the movie theater. S the fuck U.
3. Whilst fornicating.
4. At the dinner table. Every meal isn't seafood, so I don't wanna "see food." HAW! JUGGALAH!!!
5. Whilst sleeping.
Otherwise, I say B. I have some beats and shit that I've remixed for the SGM Audio eXchange, so I have an artistic voice (i.e. ringtone) that "is awesome and must be heard."
Oh, and 6. Church.
5. You have new ideas on how to improve certain procedures at work, so you ...
A. ... suggest them to your supervisor and ask for permission to test them out.
B. ... tell everyone that they're doing things all wrong and should listen to you instead.
Hm, yeah, okay, how about C; you give them a try on your own, see the effects, while also using your well-developed judgment skills to make sure that any screw-ups that occur won't be extremely far-reaching, THEN suggest what works to a supervisor? Whatever happened to ingenuity and self-determination in our taint of a country?
6. Your children are adorable. Everyone thinks so.
A. The pictures on your desk are enough proof that you're one proud parent.
B. Bringing your brood into the office so they can run amok and interrupt the workday is an effective way to show them off.
"Bringing 'your brood' ..." Love it. I actually worked under the misconception that this was an actual quiz to discuss those relatively plausible/probable things that people may do to annoy their co-workers. I admittedly was almost thrown by the salmon question. Who, on the regular, is taking their children to work? Whatever happen to school? Remember, that place where people - students & teachers - pretend to pay attention, get tested using methods and criteria that became instantly irrelevant in November 2008 & try not to get shot at?
See, there's this thing I learned in psychometrics - a part of which is how studies are designed, their validity, etc. - that states a very simple rule of quizzes like this, to wit: You don't want to lead your respondent to a specific answer, in the answers you provide. Even if I brought my child to work, I'm not going to want to answer B because I don't consider them a "brood." What the fuck is a "brood," anyway, other than a David Cronenberg film, the Alien-ripoff villains in "X-Men," and Gangrel, Edge, and Christian?
7. You think you're getting sick ...
A. ... so you try to work from home to avoid infecting others.
B. ... but you're determined to show up every day for work, even if you're pale and coughing up a lung.
But wait, in number 3, I admitted what a busy person I am, and how hard I work so I don't have to take anything home.
Seriously, I answer B. I was scarred at an early age of wage-based employment by co-workers that very often "called in sick," only to be seen in the public eye fucking around and doing various non-sick things. I remember being the only person - non-manager, non-key holder, non-register checking outer at night - working the night shift at Movie Time Video on Saturdays, with people waiting to check out in a line that reached all the way back to the pornos, calling my shitty store manager Alyce for help only to have her tell me that she's too drunk to come in and for me to call someone else, except that all my co-workers' phone numbers are in the locked office, so I got to listen to drunk Alyce pretend to try to remember at least one other person's phone number. All this on account of people "calling in sick;" because this happened on a weekly basis, it was at this job where I ended up experiencing the second time (of three) that I'd ever had a gun put in my face. I almost got in a fight with this one punk-ass fucker co-worker there who bragged about calling in sick on me one time to go see a hockey game. After that one conversation, he quit working there. Crazy thing, you'd think it was something I said.
Anyway, I'm predisposed to believe that if I call in sick, I'm shirking responsibility and leaving someone else to do work that I should be doing because it's my responsibility. I call it "bjorking."
8. You find some funny Web sites you want to share with co-workers.
A. You forward only the best ones to a few select co-workers who share your sense of humor.
B. You send every amusing link you come across, certain that a dozen e-mails will not waste your colleagues' time.
I sorta suspect that this point was included only because the author expected that this hilariously entertaining and 100% relevant to every workplace would be emailed across offices. If you clicked the link from where I stole this article, you'd find that very issue hinted at ("Before you stomp over to your annoying co-workers' desks and start dispensing your advice;" "If you're not the bothersome co-worker, feel free to print out this quiz and leave it where the offending parties will find it"). This presents another issue entirely, because really, what's a bigger waste of time, emailing some annoying quiz to your co-workers, or wasting paper to print it out and leave copies where one select individual or collection of individuals will find it?
And again, no alternate option; I don't make it a habit of forwarding much of anything, much less stupid shit.
9. You and 10 other colleagues receive an e-mail from the boss.
A. You decide that your response is relevant only to your boss and reply only to her.
B. You reply to all, even if your message is irrelevant to 99 percent of the recipients.
If your response is only relevant to you and your supervisor (because "boss" is so "prison road crew"), and the email was sent to you and ten other colleagues, then it's relevant only to 17% of the original recipients, meaning it's irrelevant to approximately 83% of the intended recipients. Not 99%. Some people may suggest I get a grip, but look, I remember when this kind of shit used to matter. It wasn't that long ago; it was probably between the time people went from using AOL Instant Messenger and people started saying "LOL" out loud in general conversation. Our syntax, diction and spelling have already become just another set of victims to social entropy; must our math die choking, as well?
AND ... did you catch that sudden gender shift of the authority figure in the A response? "Reply only to her." "Answer only to her." "Answer only to my female superior." "Answer only to my female 'boss.'" "Yes, boss, can I ... trim your minge?" Naw, use the gender non-specific "them;" that's professional.
10. You heard some good gossip that is possibly true ...
A. ... but you don't want to spread rumors so you keep quiet.
B. ... you can't sit on the secret for too long, so you get the word out as quickly as possible.
A. I stay away from all that shit, always have and will. Now, I listen to it ... seems you really can't help it, in some offices. But I have to speak proudly about my capability to not say shit about shit.
Result: If you have more Bs than As, you are an annoying co-worker. The next time you're in one of these situations, stop and ask yourself what you'd like your colleague to do in the situation. Then ask yourself what you'd normally do. If they're not the same thing, err on the side of caution and do unto others as you'd like them to do to you.
Oh, holy shit, I totally have more Bs than As. Granted, that translates into 3-1, and all the rest of this stupid thing didn't apply to me. I can't think of any 50 people that I've ever worked for that this shit applied to. Now, I watch a lot of "The Office," and on that show - on the TV, where fiction is quite prevalent I'm told (even in the news, BA-ZING!) - these questions, and their corresponding B-responses, have manifestation abundant ... on the TV ... where fiction ...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Cooterfest!
COOTERFEST!
SGM's Pick Your Caption:
1) A scientific truth, if ever there was one.
2) It's not a slogan, it's a way of life.
3) Why's that turtle rapin' that rabbit?*
Back when I first ever heard of Bravo Network, before it became "television for homosexuals," there was this awesome show called "Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends," where this British dude would visit these off-the-radar subcultures of people, discussing their life choices and even getting involved in their lifestyles to an extent. I saw Theroux enter a demolition derby, train for wrestling, and follow Al Sharpton around the site of the Diallo shooting, among tons of other types of things.
This past weekend, I had the feeling of being a Louis Theroux at the Allendale County Cooterfest.
There’s a parade ... and a race ... a concert ... and fireworks. And – even though their official webpage and newspaper ads chastise the ignorant (and "Yankees") for doing so – there are just TONS of folks who love saying the word "cooter" and giggling at this double entendre. Damn it, I got caught up in "cooter fever" (some would term it ... "cooter ... madness"), and by hook or crook, I will catch a cooter and I WILL raise him to race at next year's festival!
But no, seriously, "cooter" is really a descriptor for a breed of turtle ... the box turtle, in fact (goddamn pussy references) ... According to the official website, the world’s smallest cooter was 4 grams, while the world’s largest cooter was 25 pounds. They gave out prizes, including "Best Dressed Cooter."
Y’know, I’m done.
Oh, PS: Don’t google "smallest cooter" at work or in mixed company.
External Links:
The official online home of Cooter Fest: http://www.cooterfest.com
The EMYS classification page: http://emys.geo.orst.edu/collection/genus/Pseudemys/Pseudemys.html
*Actual question asked of me at Wal-Mart today. I guess a little cooter does hurt, after all.**
**I hate myself.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Race relations are strong in America II
Funny how I wouldn't have been able to witness this, if it weren't for my unemployment checks starting last week.
Getting gas yesterday, I went in to the associated convenience store -- Indian owned -- and saw a Mexican guy arguing with the cashier (herself, Indian) over why they only have adult movies for "white" and "black" people ... in sections conveniently labelled, "Adult - White" and "Adult - Black."
Friday, April 16, 2010
I have a question
... while biding my time in the library computer lab looking for jobs online ...
Why is "coroner" an elected position in county government?
The hodunk-podunk shithole town I now reside in has an election coming up, and there's a sign at the end of the road - blocking almost every driver's view and causing more accidents at that stop than I've ever seen - that plainly advertises some dude running for coroner. Which is good, because the lady who died just a few days ago pulling out in front of a truck she didn't see because of said sign is gonna need one. But I digress ...
If you're going to be a coroner, why do you have to be elected? What platform do you run on; "I promise to never accidentally revive a dead person and singlehandedly begin the zombie apocalypse?" (Hm, I probably would vote for someone with a stand like that ...) And when's the coroner debate? That would be an awesome press conference. If they showed slides, that would be a VERY awesome press conference.
Coroners, from what I remember of my forensic criminology courses, don't have to be medical doctors, which means that technically I could run for this position, and I need a job. Of course, technically, the dude who walks up and down the street with a weedwhacker that I'm pretty sure isn't his ... I'm reluctant to say that he's even weedwhacking, since I've never seen said whacking of weeds taking place ... could run for coroner. He'd probably have to declare that he has no intent to use his weedwhacker on the job, and that could be the dealbreaker.
Friday, March 19, 2010
State of Texas versus Everyone Else's Board of Education
The Founding Fathers were well-educated, forward thinking men who set upon the task of creating the framework for what they hoped would be a long-lasting government; a republic with representational democracy to and prove that man was fit to rule himself, freely and peacefully. Feeling that they themselves had a better understanding of the world around them - as a result of access to better information in both quality and quantity - than there forefathers, our Founders assumed that future generations of Americans would, as a result of continually expanding and improving information, be even better informed about the world than the Founders were. What they did not foresee, however, was Texas.
Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change - New York Times"After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light."
"The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution."
"They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about 'the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.'"
Any unfavorable situation can be quickly and summarily can be dismissed with two words: "liberal bias." At this point "liberal bias" is an acceptable, no-thought-or-explanation-required response to anything you don't like: your credit card debt, the hometown sports team not making the playoffs, the gout on your neck, tomorrow's weather forecast, an overcooked steak, being late for work, a shitty singer winning American Idol. The possibilities are endless.
Look, you can tell kids that Reagan "fixed the economy" by cutting taxes and "single-handedly won the Cold War" by using his laser eye blasters to kill Stalin, but unless you balance this by pointing out that Reagan also raised taxes twice after cutting them and the Cold War ended when sixty years of containment policies bankrupted them, then all you're going to accomplish is creating a generation of people too retarded to actually find themselves in control of a functioning economy who will die expecting Zombie-RoboReagan to rise up from his grave and protect us when the Chinese finally tire of our shit and invade. And honestly, political bias or not, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the NRA are not notable enough to earn a mention in a grade-school level history textbook."Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.
'Republicans need a little credit for that,' he said. 'I think it’s going to surprise some students.'"
This is some particularly odious bullshit, with leading conservative thinkers William Buckley and Barry Goldwater opposing Civil Rights legislation and in the aftermath of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law, the Strom Thurmond-led Dixiecrats abandoned the Democratic Party...right into the open arms of the Republican Party, where they would remain until they died decades later. I'm also interested to see if McLeroy is going for the relatively recent political gymnastic routine of trying to get credit for Dr. King being a registered Republican.
Revisionaries - Washington Monthly"In the 1960s, Norma and Mel Gabler, a homemaker and an oil-company clerk, discovered that Texas had a little-known citizen-review process that allowed the public to weigh in on textbook content. From their kitchen table in the tiny town of Hawkins, the couple launched a crusade to purge textbooks of what they saw as a liberal, secular, pro-evolution bias. When textbook adoptions rolled around, the Gablers would descend on school board meetings with long lists of proposed changes - at one point their aggregate 'scroll of shame' was fifty-four feet long. They also began stirring up other social conservatives, and eventually came to wield breathtaking influence. By the 1980s, the board was demanding that publishers make hundreds of the Gablers’ changes each cycle. These ranged from rewriting entire passages to simple fixes, such as pulling the New Deal from a timeline of significant historical events (the Gablers thought it smacked of socialism) and describing the Reagan administration’s 1983 military intervention in Grenada as a 'rescue' rather than an 'invasion.'"
"Barton’s goal is to pack textbooks with early American documents that blend government and religion, and paint them as building blocks of our Constitution...but his agenda does not stop there. He and the other conservative experts also want to scrub U.S. history of its inconvenient blemishes - if they get their way, textbooks will paint slavery as a relic of British colonialism that America struggled to cast off from day one and refer to our economic system as 'ethical capitalism.' They also aim to redeem Communist hunter Joseph McCarthy, a project McLeroy endorses. As he put it in a memo to one of the writing teams, 'Read the latest on McCarthy - He was basically vindicated.'"
Downplaying slavery and rehabilitating Ol' Redbaiter Joe McCarthy. How sad. I suppose what was done to the Cherokee People will be portrayed as providing a free "Relocation Service" after "Downsizing" their tribe due to "pessimistic economic forecasts."
One might think this is merely the culmination of decades of screeching loons from the intellectually-dilapidated fringe who haven't quite gotten over prohibitions against forcing unmarried single-mothers guilty of brazen hussery to wear a bright red "A" on their clothing, people who will watch helplessly as their ignorant worldview is torn to shreds in a confrontation with unbending reality and slink back into the darkness broken and spent. But with Texas being the second-largest textbook market in the country, it's entirely possible this river of gibberated nonsense may well shape textbooks across the country for the near future. Barring a sudden return of sensible thought among the Texas State Board of Education, our best hope may be that publishers determine Texified American history textbooks won't sell well enough in other states to be profitable and thus decline to conform to Texas' standards, which would be a very amusing example of the superiority of American capitalism.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
No updates due to unemployment
As I sit here in the local library ...
Sucks, man. I had an interview for a supervisor position at a distant mental health clinic, only to get called a few days ago to be told that the interviews in total are being cancelled due to a 22% financial cut to the department of same.
I am certain I was in the ninetyish percentile of being their candidate, too.
So, no income, still, with few prospects, and ongoing medical problems that I can't seek treatment for (due to lack of insurance). So no internet for another month, it seems.
Another week of this, and I may be hitting up Wal-Mart.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Race relations are strong in America.
I don't know how popular this video has become, as I've been busy cleaning and sharpening up my resume and generally being unemployed. But if you've Googled "AC Transit Fight," "Thomas Bruso," or "I am a motherfucker" (a slogan that should be emblazoned on the back of every T-shirt ever made), you've run upon the following video, shrouded in mystery below for its use of colorful language.
Let's discuss the digusting part of this. Not the fight ... nor the seemingly racially charged discussion that apparently started all of this.
Here's the summary: White dude talks shit, some of which is racially biased. Black dude talks more shit, which amounts to an escalated defense against said racially biased shit talk. This simple pattern escalates until white dude walks away from the argument. Black dude ceases to let this matter go, even up to the point of following white dude to his newly acquired spot on the bus, originally intended to be farther away from the agitation, but now very much at dead center. Black dude retreats, as white dude then mutters more shit talk; at this point, talk has long gone from racial issues to "I'll beat your ass," "Naw, I'll beat YOUR ass!" One more thing out of white dude's mouth -- that ONE LAST THING -- and black dude angrily steps to white dude and punches him in the chest. Then, white dude proceeds to BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THE BLACK DUDE. Blood drips, pours, splashes out of the face of black dude, while the bus stops and white dude is ushered onto the sidewalk, stating that he was hit first, and therefore his reaction was "self-defense."
One question I have is, does the "self-defense" defense even work here? Okay, say that white dude is in his house, and black dude breaks in (or vice versa ... for any tightened up asshole passerbys that may be reading), and then white dude shoots him. Okay, yeah, maybe "self-defense." But the beatdown delivered by white dude to black dude on said bus = "self-defense?"
Onto what I find the disgusting part ...
The cunts filming this should be as much held accountable for their part in this fight as much as the black gentleman. And Mr. Bruso, the "white dude" in this picture, seems to have every right to walk away with very little admonishment, if any. Sure, he's an asshole. He was also clearly riling up the anger of his fellow passenger; did this situation really need two women, one of which looked to be around her mid-twenties (so we can assume that the other woman, our cameraman, may have been as well) clearly escalating this situation, with cries of "Kick his ass, kick his ass!"
Then, you have the response to the Punch-Out on display, that after helping the situation along, the girls act shocked and appalled that the instigator throroughly beat the black dude's ass. Shocked at what, I have no idea ... but I'm sensing that these are fine upstanding women who would spin this shit into a racial thing in a hurry, when all it is, is two douchebags fighting on a bus.
But the real kicker? At the end, when our young black dude is clearly seen to be busted wide open, our sypathetic young ladies are laughing at his situation. In fact, before the dude returns to the back of the bus, one girl evens suggests to the other girl that she "go through his shit."
Granted, the end shot of the sidewalk bench - "Keep Our City CLEAN & SAFE; Do Your Part" - was a nice touch, something that certainly happened by accident, as I doubt the cinematographic skills of Wanda & Sheneneh being good enough to have pulled that poignant, thought-provoking ironic shit off on purpose.
Sometimes, sometimes man, just when I think that society has become about as shallow as it gets, some people find a way to drain a little more water out of the pool.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
First my Saturn gets destroyed, and now they ALL get destroyed!
"Saturn's future has been in doubt since GM said earlier this year it planned to phase out the brand by 2011. GM was shrinking to four brands as part of a deep restructuring. Just five days after GM filed for bankruptcy, Penske emerged as a possible buyer for Saturn. Wednesday, Penske backed out, unable to find another company to supply vehicles after GM stops making Saturns in two years." [more]
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Two foot, 19lb child born, recognized in Indonesia as god
The child was born at a birth weight that nears that of a year-old toddler, and in a picture taken of the baby alongside a normal birth-weight newborn, he seems triple the size.
[more
Look at the reaction of the kid on the left. That's fear in them eyes, son; straight fear.
What I also like is in the article, it describes this baby's appetite as "nonstop." And when it comes to lactation, I'm sure the last word you want to hear is "nonstop."
An update, of sorts
Being cryptic here
The opportunity I have is still moving forward. Will know more in about a month it looks like.
My current situation.....absolutely dire. Feels like I'm in a bad movie or a bad episode of a sitcom where the boss is simply maniacal and not just incompetent. When this is over, there will be some great e-mails.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
I will never use Facebook to its fullest capabilities
Did some searching today for people I know or used to know, and I've decided that there's an unhealthy amount of people on there that have seen me in some state of nakedidity, too many for my tastes.
Also, I never realized how many very attractive women across this country share my surname. I mean, wow; it's a veritable taco fest.
