How Could They Not Know?

This, my equally cynical friends, this is why we're doomed! What we have here is a bunch of tweets, compiled off of the Twitter, from several different individuals who have one thing in common. ALL of these folks did NOT know that the Titanic was a REAL BOAT! How, how, how is that possible? At the end of the movie, they showed pictures of the Titanic on the ocean floor! These doofuses (or is it doofi?) didn't catch on?! On top of that, it's been ten years since we were forced to endure this sappy movie with a horrible ending. (The worst part? At the end when Jack is in the water and Rose is on that door and she says "I'll never let go." It wasn't thirty seconds and you know what she did? She let go! He didn't have much of a chance to begin with, but that was just rude. She JUST said it!) You mean to tell me that in those TEN years, these folks never got wind of the Titanic being an actual boat that actually sank and actually caused the horrific deaths of over a thousand people? NEVER?! I don't understand. And neither do these people. Behold. Sadly, sadly, behold.

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Congratulations

The Masters golf tournament wrapped up yesterday. I'm not so much into golf, but I do enjoy a nice Tiger Woods meltdown every now and then. But even his kicking his club when he hit a spectacularly bad shot wasn't as amusing as what happened at the very end. (And he wasn't even involved.) Yeah, for me, the best part was at the end where the winner was supposed to shake hands with some other guy. Somehow, things got a little confused. I don't know how that's possible considering that a handshake isn't exactly the most complicated exchange in the world, but it happened. And it amused me. Behold!

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That's About Right

I don't know how I missed this one, but better late than never, I suppose. Apparently, last month, a woman named Christine Wright-Darrislaw called the White House and threatened President Barry. The nerve! In the complaint against her, it says that the White House operator who answered Wright's call said that she was "...screaming into the phone with regard to how unfair the child custody laws were and that she needed Obama to fix this." I guess she didn't understand that child custody laws aren't a federal matter. (And you know, all of that screaming isn't going to help her much. You'd think that people would realize this, but they don't. They just keep acting like lunatics and then wonder why everyone treats them accordingly.) And that's when she decided that it would be a good idea to tell the operator "I am going to (blank) and kill Obama."

I am dying to know what the (blank) is! I can't imagine what they could possibly need to redact in this context. I suppose it could be an obscenity, but that doesn't make sense. Why would she say she was going to f*** and kill President Barry? That doesn't make any sense. You know what? I'll bet it was effing kill! I'll bet that's what she said and it was just transcribed wrong. That makes more sense than to blank and kill. But I digress. Where was I?

Oh, right! The lunatic. Look, the highlight of this story is really the mugshot, so let's just get to it, shall we? Behold!

Seems about right, doesn't it? Totally. I find this to be absolutely hilarious. And spot on. That's exactly the face that I would expect from someone who called the White House and was screaming about child support and wanting to kill the President. Exactly the face.

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Sex Sells Scions

Do you know what a Scion is? In general, it's a fairly ugly-ass car. I've never been a fan. And I'm guessing that I might not be the only one who isn't a fan of this particular vehicle. I say that because they seem to have some new ads out and...holy crap! I honestly don't know how these were cleared for the public airwaves. Maybe they'll just be on late at night. I don't know. But I'm going to go ahead and say that this is probably at least a little bit NSFW. I don't know how to describe it other than I guess the Scion people are really taking the "sex sells" concept to a completely different level to sell their ugly-ass cars. Is this what we're resorting to now? How did this start? Was it Carl's Jr. and their half naked chicks slurping down messy cheeseburgers as half of the contents drips all over them? Did they sell like a gazillion of those burgers and now Scion wants to up the ante with their ads? I don't know what happened for us to get here, but I think we might want to back off just a little bit. Just a bit. You tell me. Behold!

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The Force Doesn't Dance

I have a little blasphemy for you today. See, apparently, a new Star Wars video game came out for the XBox360 Kinect. Kinect is the thing where you don't have to use a controller and can essentially just flail about to get your character to move and do things. Well, in this game, I guess you're Han Solo. And the things that it has you do are not anything that Han Solo would ever do! That's right. He dances.

I...I...I really don't know what to say. And while it's funny, it just makes me too darn sad to actually laugh. (Also, it kind of has a tune that is similar to Jimmy Kimmel's spoof "I'm F***ing Ben Affleck" in parts. A little tidbit that you might notice makes it even sadder AND even funnier, especially when the words "GREAT" or "AWESOME" come pulsating out of Han's crotch.) Here you go. Don't say I didn't warn you. As always, if it doesn't load, click here.

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I Don't Think She Really Won

I have figured out what the deal is with the Mega Millions "winner" that I discussed yesterday. Yes, after reading several articles about this situation, there is only one conclusion that I can come to. She's nuttier than a fruit bat.

I'll start with the obvious. This woman's name is Mirlande Wilson and she works at McDonald's. She has seven children and is not married. But for some reason, she goes by Sheila Paraison on Facebook. Other revelations from her Facebook include her working at "United Nations". (Yep. Plural!) Granted, there can be a rather diverse community converging upon the McDonald's from time to time, but I don't know that you can qualify that as being the "United Nations". Then again, considering that I'm pretty sure she's never worked there, I guess it doesn't matter what she calls it. She could have put that she worked in Narnia. The end result would be the same!


But my favorite revelation from her Facebook page? Her favorite TV shows are The Jerry Springer Show and Maury! I couldn't have made that up if I tried! So this is a woman who enjoys a program where the audience has been known to break out in raucous chants of "Mid-get Fight! Mid-get Fight!" All rightee, then. It's only going to get better from here. (And don't get me wrong. I have a few guilty pleasure TV shows that I enjoy with the lights off and all of the curtains drawn so as not to draw attention to the disaster that I am watching unfold on purpose. But you don't see me advertising it on Facebook!)

Despite all of this hooplah and pretending to win the lottery, she's managed to find some time to update her status. Sometime on Tuesday she wrote "All my true friend know im not greedy a person i don't want da money it made my life a living hell already im gonna give it all to rebuild haiti yall can chase all want my life and, my children it more important for money." Wow. OK. I guess I appreciate that she chose to throw in a random comma there at the end, so I guess I can't bitch about no punctuation. I'm not even really sure what that means considering that she doesn't have any of the money yet. And all of this "hell" she seems to have brought upon herself. Later, she changed her status to "It nutting to me yall calls the to my house my job why it supposed to be secret now I cannot laid in my bed in im gonna put in for donation we all lost" OK, I don't even know what half of that means. But I will say that if it was "supposed to be secret", perhaps someone should give her a little refresher course on how to keep secrets. (Step One: Do not tell the entire world about it. Step Two: Calling press conferences outside of your home are a no-no.)

Next, she called a press conference outside of her home yesterday. She was late to show up and when she did show up, do you know what she told the throngs of reporters out there? According to the New York Daily News, she told them to go home. That's right. She called a news conference to tell the reporters to go home "...so she and her children can go back to a normal life". You know how I go about having a normal life? Well, I start by not calling news conferences in front of my own home! Then you know what I do? I don't claim that I have a winning lottery ticket when I most likely do not. That's how I go about a normal life.

Yeah, she still hasn't produced the "winning" ticket. I don't know if she's still sticking to her "some of the numbers looked familiar" story or what. And just because no other winner in Maryland has come forward, that doesn't mean anything. No one has come forward in the other two states either. The only real difference here is we have a crazy person in the mix. Oh, and get a load of what her lawyer said about this. He said, "I cannot say with any certainty this ticket exists." OK. Well, he's the lawyer. Shouldn't he ask to see it? According to him, "I have not seen the ticket, nor do I want to see the ticket," Wait. You don't...you don't want to?! You just want to continue to represent a crazy person? OK, then. So, he's nuts too, apparently. Interesting. They seem like a great match. Well, until he finds out that he's been had. But Fox News says that "Maryland State Lottery Director Stephen Martino announced a 2 p.m. press conference on Thursday at which officials said he would discuss the "status of the winning ticket," among other things." Ooh! I'm SO looking forward to the "among other things" that will be discussed. I just love these sorts of things. Makes my day is what it does!

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Vaguely Familiar Numbers

It's time for a crazy lottery story. As you may or may not be aware, the Mega Millions lottery got ridiculously large last week. We're talking second-world country big. It was over six hundred million dollars. And with so many people buying tickets because every one of them expected to win, it was almost inevitable that someone would win. And someone did. Three someones, actually. And one of them appears to be fairly crazy, so that's good.

Our story begins in Maryland. That's where we meet a one Mirlande Wilson. Now, according to the folks over at the New York Post, Ms. Wilson works at McDonald's where, in addition to providing delicious Chicken McNuggets for hungry consumers on the run, she joined a lottery pool with at least fifteen other employees. The deal was that they'd all chip in some money and she would buy the tickets. If a ticket won, they all won. Well, wouldn't you know it? A ticket won! But she says that they didn't all win. No, she says that she won. That's right. Just her.

Ms. Wilson claims that she bought tickets on her own separate from those that she bought with her probably former friends at this point. "I was in the group, but this was separate. The winning ticket was a separate ticket,” the single mother of seven said as she and her fiancé left her home in the squalid Westport neighborhood to attend church." Wow, there's a lot to like in that sentence. First of all, thank you New York Post for describing her neighborhood as "squalid". That paints quite a picture. Next up, does that say seven children? AND she has a fiance?! Did she have the fiance BEFORE she "won" a squintillion dollars? If so, I'd like to know more about him, please. Really. I'd like to know more about the kind of guy who is engaged to a woman who has seven children and lives in a squalid neighborhood. I'd like to know his story AND their story. I'm sure I'd enjoy it.

But back to Ms. Wilson. Of course, her co-workers are not happy with these developments. “She can’ t do this to us!” said Suleiman Osman Husein, a shift manager and one of 15 members in the pool. “We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money!” Strong words coming from folks who make $7.50 an hour and might be getting screwed out of millions of dollars. But wait! Perhaps they all weren't quite so lucky after all! Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn!

Here's where it gets a little wacky. I guess after her big announcement, as she was continually pressed for more information, she lets this out: "I don’t know if I won. Some of the numbers were familiar. I recognized some of [them]...I don’t know why people are saying differently...I’m going to go to the lottery office [today]. I bought some tickets separately.” Wait a minute. What now?

She doesn't know if she won?! Look, I understand that she's a Haitian immigrant (what I don't understand is what exactly that means, but that's a completely different post) and might not fully grasp some American customs. But I'm having a hard time believing that the lottery is one of those customs. She doesn't know if she won? Well, shouldn't she figure that before, oh...I don't know...perhaps telling everyone that she won?! And SOME of the numbers were familiar? Well, I should hope so! After all, they ARE numbers! But I usually reserve comments like that for when I look at calculus problems. "Hey! I recognize some of those numbers!" But it rarely happens in day to day situations, much less when it comes to winning the lottery. I wonder which numbers weren't familiar?

I have no idea if this woman won or not. The whole "Some of the numbers were familiar" bit could just be a highly ineffective way of trying to throw the other possibly rightful winners off of the money trail. But she does seem a little shifty. And doesn't seem like she makes the best of decisions. (Yes, I drew that conclusion from the fact that she has seven children, isn't married and works at McDonald's. Like you didn't?) She said that she's going to the lottery office on Wednesday. Can't wait to hear how that turns out! If I had to guess, I'd go with she didn't win at all and she's just a little nuts. It is going to make for an awkward return to work if that's the case, though. Very awkward.

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Ban ALL The Words!

Well, it's happened. We've come off the rails again. I had no idea there were so many rails that we were on that we could so easily slip off of. Today's rail is that of sensibility and it's in New York. The falling off took place when it was decided that certain words should be banned from appearing on tests in the city's schools. Yes. They're banning words. And the words that they're banning? Well, let's just say that you don't have to worry about your kid getting offended by seeing 'dinosaurs' on a test. Wait. What now?

Correct. The word 'dinosaur' cannot appear on any of the tests because what if, God forbid, a fundamentalist child saw that and became upset? (I guess fundamentalists don't go for the idea of dinosaurs or Jesus ponies or whatever they refer to them as? Makes me wonder how they explain all of those big bones that we're constantly digging up out of the earth. They're from dinosaurs. And just because you don't believe a fact, that doesn't make it not true!) Look, you believe whatever you want, but could it at least be based in fact? Kids LOVE dinosaurs. If you can't handle having your precious little snowflake see the word 'dinosaur' on a test at school, lest he be beset by the devil, I'm going to have to suggest that you seriously consider homeschooling your snowflakes. That's insane. Yet New York City schools are bowing to that idea (that I can't imagine would ever happen), so who's crazier here? It's hard to say, but I'm thinking the schools might win that one.

You also won't be finding any references to birthdays on tests because Jehovah's Witnesses don't do birthdays and they are apparently so dainty and fragile that even just seeing the word on a test might cause them irreparable harm. Or something. Again, if your little snowflake can't be exposed to just the word birthday, then you have to home school. But again, I don't get the impression that any of these things are actually problems. No, the real problem is the people who came up with this crap.

You can't shield children from everything that they might be offended at! And actually, exposing them to things that they might conceivably possibly ever find offensive and letting them figure out how to deal with that doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Unless you're the New York City school system. Then it's a terrible idea. Banning words is much more logical.

Want to know what else you can't have on a test in New York City? Well, you can't have the word "Halloween" because it might suggest paganism. Tell you what. You show me a room of third graders. Actually, make it any elementary age children. Show me a room of those children and ask them to write one word that they think of when they hear "Halloween". If ONE child writes down "paganism" then you win! But do you know the chances of that actually happening? ZERO. That is correct! So WHY are they doing this? No one is willing to give an answer!

You aren't allowed to reference "computers in the home" because those without computers in the home might feel excluded. You can't reference wealth because poor kids might be sad. Oh, but you can't mention poverty because then the poor kids WILL be sad and feel singled out. Good Lord. People are different! This is supposed to be a school system! Are they trying to send the message that everyone is the same?! Because I have news for them! They're NOT. You can try to get that message across, but I wouldn't exactly put that in the same category as I would teaching.

According to the New York Post, "Homes with swimming pools and computers are also unmentionables here — because of economic sensitivities". Economic sensitivities? You know, I have dumbass sensitivities. I'm very sensitive about dumbasses. They make me crazy and I want to physically harm them (possibly by punching them in the neck). Where do I get help? Can the New York City schools help me? What's that? They are the dumbasses? Oh. That's right. They're not going to be of much help. To me or ANY of their students, apparently, if this is how they do things.

You can click here if you'd like the full list of what cannot go on tests in New York City schools. But I'm just going to prattle of a few more because it's fun. (Well, it's fun right up until I get a headache. You know. Because of all the dumbassery going on here.) You can't say/use:


Geological history. (Because...people are...sensitive about...facts? I got nothing for this one. God forbid if there's a little learning that happens when you're trying to teach someone something.)

Cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia. (So...no bongs?)

Dancing, though ballet is acceptable. (Is New York turning into that town in Footloose? How is ballet acceptable if you're going to exclude all other forms of dance? Wouldn't certain religious groups have a problem with ballet because of how scantily clad the ridiculously underweight toe-standers are? How does that work?)

Homlessness. (So...no questions like "Five hobos were living under a bridge. Two died of cirrhosis that was brought on by their excessive drinking. How many hobos are left?")

Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan) (You know how I feel about the war on Christmas. I don't like it and I want to slowly choke those who think that just the mention of Christmas is going to set off some sort of holy war between inner city youth.)

Homes with swimming pools (So, no Beverly Hillbillies? They had swimmin' pools AND movie stars. Wait. I think...yep. References to celebrities are banned too. And the Clampetts were poor and then they were rich. They cover a multitude of banned words! Who knew that referencing the Beverly Hillbillies would draw such ire. Such stupid, stupid ire.)

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An Extremely Brief April Fool's Recap

A lot of different websites had various April Fool's pranks up yesterday. This one was my favorite. They really would make a fortune if this was possible.

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I Got Nothin'

I got nothin' today. I mean nothin'. I'm all Trayvon-ed out right now. I'm not a gazillionaire, as I did not win Mega Millions. (But to those who did, congratulations! You're looking stunning today! Have I mentioned I'm your biggest fan?) There's just nothing. So here's an amusing video featuring Mitt Romney. Who are you people who take the time to do these sorts of things? Do you just sit around for hours and days on end and sift through the minutiae of the Internets until you find just the split second clip that you need? You must. And more power to you. These are very amusing. I just can't believe the amount of time that you put into it. Your dedication to your craft is commendable. And with that being said, behold!

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