Does Size Matter?

I mean, does it, really? Some people will tell you it's not size, it's style. Others would tell you that size is the only thing that matters.

Apparently, this question has been hotly debated by Mexican politicians. And the consensus is, it is important to the Mexican people that their new president have big balls.

Or at least that's what the ads seem to imply. This thing about size comes from a yearning among Mexicans for a strong president or even a strong party."

I wish we could get political debates like this here. Can you imagine how different the last race would've been? I might have actually tuned in for this debate:

GW: Come on Kerry, whip it out. All the cool kids are doing it.

Kerry: Georgie, my dick is so big it would poke your eye out.

GW: Hee hee....he said "dick."

I think Americans would, like the Mexicans, find it much easier to support their President if this was a primary consideration. Any criticism would be quickly quashed, "Sure he isn't a great speaker, but at least he's got big balls!"

Of course, the thought of the first female president (whenever or should ever that happen) having a big set of kahunas may be enough for the American people to wish for the days when it was about having gray hair and the right connections.

Mr. Messy -- You're Next.

Do you remember the series of Mr. Men and Little Miss children's books? Man, I used to love those. The list is long, but there were, among others:

Mr. Messy
Mr. Sneeze
Mr. Tickle
Little Miss Giggles
Little Miss Chatterbox
Little Miss Naughty

At the time I was reading these novellas, I used to wonder what would happen if Mr. Messy and Little Miss Neat got together. Now that I'm an adult I, of course, wonder what would happen if Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Naughty were to meet at a club. But that's for a different blog.

At any rate, there was, among these characters, a Mr. Noisy.

He never had a female counterpart, other than the Frenchie Little Miss Loud, until now. But you can't rush out to meet her just yet because Mrs. Noisy was recently sentenced to one year in prison for, well, being noisy.

Apparently Mrs. Noisy was living in an apartment building and used to scream insults and blare loud music at passers-by. Neighbors claimed she caused physical harm with the sheer decibel level of her screaming -- enough to cause one "resident to seek treatment for insomnia and headaches."

That's one loud lady.

Now, she's likely to be known as "Little Miss Non-Repentant," but I'm sure she'll be back to her Mrs. Noisy antics soon upon her release.

Mr. Noisy is reportedly not going to wait for Mrs. Noisy's release, and was last seen with Little Miss Curious behind the bleachers at school.

Engrish

Yesterday's post included a link to Engrish.com, which is a website where people can gather to make fun of all of the weird English you come across in Asian society. But we need to stop acting like Asians are the only ones that misuse English.

You know those blinking signs they put on the side of the highway to alert drivers to traffic accidents or construction? Today, on my way to work, there was a new one.

See, I drive along Interstate 495 to get to work. If you don't know about the beltway in Northern Virginia/D.C./Maryland...well, then you don't want to know. It's a crazy loop of frenzied speeding to get to your location.

I go to work early -- but today I was a little later than usual, so I was driving faster than normal.

But I still saw this sign.

It blinked:

SPEED LIMIT 55 MPH.

Then it blinked again:

STRICKLY ENFORCED.

No, that's not a typo.

Does that mean if I get caught speeding I'll get lambasted by a bunch of flax? Or will they put the slivers under my nails? And what, pray tell, is "hackled flax?"

Man, things are getting tough around here. I better slow down.

Eat My....Gizzard?

Apparently there are a lot of sick people out there. And I don't mean "bird flu" sick. I'm referring to the kind of sick that drives you seek out lovers that will allow you to cannibalize them.

Yes, some weird dude in Germany, (Armin Meiwes), is on trial for murder because he killed and ate some other weird dude (Bernd-Juergen Brandes). Meiwes successfully severed Brandes' penis, and they BOTH tried to eat it before Brandes died from, yes, excessive bleeding.

Apparently Meiwes' murder trial hinges on the fact that Brandes wanted to be eaten. But that doesn't jive, to me, with the fact that Meiwes was trolling the internet for a "suitable partner." According to some wacky sex therapist, Meiwes's cannibalistic fantasy "had its roots in his father's departure from the family home and a domineering and embittered mother. His desire to eat someone stemmed from his wish to find a partner who would not abandon him."

I could make so many jokes about being eaten...but really I'm just a little sickened. I'll leave the joking to you all. Please, lighten the mood in here!!!

Well -- one little funny: I bet every cannibal has one of these.

The Final Frontier

Last month I wrote about the first human body odor bank being used for crime solving in China.

Well, forget about the legal ramifications. The oh-so-innovative Japanese are monopolizing on the strength of smell by marketing fragrant films. IMAX and surround sound are going to be a thing of the past. The new frontier is to engage the movie goer's sniffer to create a more realistic experience.

There are only six scents that will be used at present, but only pine trees and citrus are mentioned. Anyone willing to wager a guess as to the other four?

The article states that these "scene-matching fragrances" will be "released from under cinemagoers' seats." I don't know about you, but there are plenty of scents I can imagine wafting out from underneath cinemagoers' seats...and not a one of those is pleasant.

My concerns about this run deep. I mean, who decides what scents go with what movies? How will this effect the stale popcorn smell that emanates from most theaters? And what exactly is The Scent of a Woman?

Imagine it now...Braveheart...stale human sweat and dried blood overtake your senses as Mel Gibson is decapitated. I'm sure the following scents will be the release of his bowels as his body lets go. At least if they want to be realistic.

Or how about a trip down memory lane with that unmistakable "frat house after a party" eau de cologne wafting from your seat during a re-release of Animal House.

I won't even mention the smells that Pee Wee Herman might have encountered during his movie-going experience oh-so-many years ago. But you can just imagine.

The possibilities are endless. To boldly smell what no one has smelled before. Perhaps we should just leave this to the dogs .

Spelling Be

I'm not bad at spelling. Most of the time my mistakes are due to typing fast or drinking too much the night before. Luckily, the advent of spell-check has averted some near disasters for me.

The American Bar Association Journal runs a "Question of the Week" every week. Last week, the question was: "What is the funniest error you’ve ever seen that was made by a spell-check program?" Some of the responses were SO funny that I had to share:

From Michelle Lloyd, Neenah, Wis.:
Our company uses the acronym OGSM, which is more or less our company objectives for the year. When spell-checking an e-mail to my team (including my boss), I absentmindedly accepted the spell-check substitute of "ORGASM" (in all capital letters, also), and the e-mail automatically went out to the recipients. The context of the message was something like, "We need to get together to discuss the legal department ORGASM." Luckily, I was able to recall the message, but I was laughing so hard I could hardly see straight!

From Searle Mitnick, Baltimore:
We were handling a matter in which our client’s adversary was a Mr. Piscatelli. I was working at my desk one afternoon when all of a sudden my secretary starting screaming with laughter. I ran out to her workstation to see what was up. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was laughing so hard, she couldn’t talk. She just pointed to her computer screen. The spell-check program had suggested an alternate spelling for Piscatelli—"post-coital." This confirmed our belief that our client had been screwed.

From Danielle Picozzi, Washington, D.C.:
I once wrote a document in which the word "analyzing" was misspelled. Spell-check took the initiative and changed it to "anal sizing."

From Chris Mitchell, Washington, D.C: "Incontinence" instead of "inconvenience" as in: "We sincerely apologize for any incontinence caused by our delay."

From Sarah DiLorenzo, Oak Brook, Ill.: My former colleague, who was corporate counsel at an insurance company, wrote a letter to a policyholder declining coverage. In the letter, he wanted to make a reference to premises liability issues. He must have misspelled the word "premises," however, and the unfortunate result was a spell-check fix that changed the letter to the customer so it made reference to "penises liability."

From Lee Thomason, Bardstown, Ky.:
In a first letter in a new matter addressed to a lovely woman attorney, I had written, "While a review of the entire file is important, what I need from you is an initial compilation." That, when typed, became "an initial copulation," which came through the spell-check. Praise to the mentor who taught me "proofread, proofread, proofread!"

Interesting how most of the mistakes resulted in sexual references, isn't it? Click here if you're interested in reading some other submissions.

Better Off Dead

I'm a pop culture nut. In particular, stuff from the 80s. Totally in line with this love for the 80s is the fact that some people have told the Antidote he looks like John Cusack. I see a mild resemblance in that they are both male.

No seriously, maybe when the Antidote was younger...but now he looks like Andre Agassi. Yum.

Anyway -- back to my point -- the title of this post is NOT refering to the 80s movie Better Off Dead, which IS a classic. Instead, I was thinking it fits the innermost thoughts of a 17 year old boy stuck with a deadbeat mom and her boyfriend. See, the boyfriend, with mom acting as a co-conspirator, wrote a
fake obituary for her son and sent it to the local newspaper just to get some more time off from work. If you click on the link, you can even read the obit.

Now, I'm not saying that I haven't called my boss and been: *cough* *cough* sick *cough* *cough*: for a day or two. And I'm certainly not saying that I haven't been sick enough to feel like death warmed over (damn that 4th martini)...But I certainly have not reported the death of a loved one in order to go galavanting to Walmart.

At least I assume that's what this klassy mom and her boyfriend were doing with all this free time.

The mom tried to make things better by telling a newspaper that "the fake obituary was caused by "bad communication" and that [her boyfriend] submitted the obituary after she told him her son was ill and she had joked about his death."

Yeah -- because your son dying is funny. Real funny.

This poor kid -- he probably want's his $2...and a new family.

Hiatus

Ahh...it was a lovely hiatus folks. The Antidote and I went on a little trip. I thought for sure I would log on, attempt to write something witty, and then get back to vacationing. But the sun and the pool called to me, "Curare -- get your ass out here and get a tan girl! Damn you're white!"

So, I listened to them.

And yes, folks, my skin color *was* a regular whitish/pinkish tone, not the blue tone my picture suggests. Now it is a lovely honey color. I love having a tan and not having to wear make up because of it!

But I digress. I'm back now, so more to come soon.....

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Malpractice

DON'T PANIC! The answer to all of your aches and pains is just an e-mail away. No, his name is not Beeblebrox. But it is Burda...which also starts with a B.

Burda is a chiropractor who believes that he can travel back in time to fix people's injuries. It is a skill that he discovered "by accident" a few years ago. I'm sure the accident involved hitting his head. Hard.

At any rate, he has apparently developed a skill to speak to injuries and tell them to go away. And he can even do this over the phone...or E-MAIL!

He calls this new healing technique, Bahlaqueem, which means...well...nothing.

The Ohio State Chiropractic Board is going crazy over this guy. They claim he's "unable to practice chiropractic according to acceptable and prevailing standards of care due to mental illness, specifically, Delusional Disorder, Grandiose Type."

Ya think? Maybe it's wishful thinking, but it would rock if I could speak to my body like that. I would be my own body's drill sergeant..."Hips, get smaller. Boobs, get perkier. Hair, get shinier."

But then, I'd be delusional. Which would suck.

"A woman is only a woman..."

"...but a good cigar is a smoke." Rudyard Kipling.

Regardless of what you think about it, we all know that Americans just can't go to Cuba. We can't even think about Cuba unless we're willing to face accusations that we're supportive of a communist regime.

Unless we're thinking about Elian Gonzales, of course. Oh, that cute little boat rider.

But I digress. The real reason Americans even consider thinking about Cuba is NOT just because our Canadian neighbors to the north have GREAT honeymoons and vacations there with no remorse. No, it's because of cigars.

There is just something about a Cuban cigar. Maybe its because it feels so good to be so bad. But keep in mind that, apparently, the FBI is now taking cigar smuggling very seriously.

See, this guy just wanted to enjoy the fine taste of death bringing tobacco wrapped in a leaf by a 4 year old with really nimble fingers. All 46 boxes of them. That's all. But his hateful ex-wife...well, she had other plans, now didn't she? She made contact with the FBI, struck up a renewed relationship with her ex-husband, hid the evidence in the trash can for the FBI to retrieve, and now sits at home laughing her ass off while her ex-husband finishes out the 17 months remaining on his 37-month sentence.

And the lesson folks, without reading all the legal mumbo-jumbo in the article, is summed up by a professor at Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington:

"The moral of the story here is if you’re mad at your spouse, you’ve got to smuggle the [incriminating evidence] out of the house rather than inviting the police into the house, or invite them into the house when the spouse isn’t around."

What's in a Name?

I love lists. And I love funny names. My aunt used to tell me a story about two girls that she went to elementary school with in Tennessee. Their names were Syphillus (pronounced SE-PH-EYE-LUS) and Gonorreah (pronounced GO-NO-REA). Apparently the mom thought the names "sounded pretty."

People put a lot of stock into names. Some would tell you that your future success is determined by the drunken moment your parents thought it would be just smashing to name their two sons Bert and Ernie. But for a business, your name is your face to the world. I read an article recently that asked for examples of law firms that might want to consider changing their names. For your reading pleasure, here's a list of my favorites (and these are real law firms folks, not just made up names to make us laugh):

(1) Morrison & Foerster, but only because their Web address is www.mofo.com.

(2) Drinka, Case & Diel (pronounced "deal").

(3) Weiner & Cummings.

(4) Lawless & Lynch.

(5) Duffus & Associates.

(6) The Strange Law Firm.

(7) Creamer & Seaman.

(8) Low, Ball & Lynch.

(9) Young & White.

(10) Law, Snakard & Gambill in Fort Worth, Texas.

(11) Johnson, Cram, Harder & Wells.

Bring on the law jokes.

Stress Relief

I'm not really that stressed. I switched jobs in September 2005 -- and that was my saving grace. As The Antidote so eloquently put it, "I have my wife back."

I realize that being low on stress is strange in this day and age. Especially since I live just outside of Washington, D.C.. Not being stressed makes me an absolute weirdo. (Yes, I know other things make me a weirdo too...but play along, please).

However, this idea absolutely intrigues me. What a GREAT idea! I've always wanted to go to a cocktail party, propose a toast to the host/hostess, take a gulp, then throw my glass into the fireplace. Why? Not because I have vandalous tendencies; it just sounds like fun. (No, I don't think vandalous is a word...but I like it anyway).

And this would be a be a whole lot better than deciding to relieve stress by shooting at the Hell's Angels (or any angels for that matter).

And smashing plates as a past time is surely safer than nude spider-hunting. Or self-castrating.

Just remember...no matter what your stress level...there is probably some poor sap out there who is worse off than you!

Happy Monday!