Abandoned But Not Forgotten

Just found this creepy/cool site. Abandoned But Not Forgotten is a site dedicated to photographs of sites that have been abandoned. I first checked IL, and found some great shots of the Toboggon Slides near where I grew up--I can remember running up these stairs, but I don't actually remember ever using the slides. I wonder how long they've been unused...

Some pretty creepy pics, definitely some question-raising places.

All The Single Ladies...

I know it can be hard to find that special someone...times are tough for the economy and also for romance. Don't fret though, because you can now hook up with that one person who truly shares your passions! Especially your passion for Nascar!

"Welcome to Nascar Match Dating and Free Personals!

This is the only online Nascar and racing fan dating site exclusively for Nascar singles to meet and date other Nascar fans for love and dating. Find your Nascar Girlfriend or boyfriend and your next Nascar Date now! It is completely free to place, browse, respond to personal ads, post images, start a blog and more."

For some reason I imagine this site is more popular in the South...

Its Hard Sometimes to Find Personalized Knicknacks

I often have a hard time finding crappy personalized products with my name. Sometimes, in a really touristy place like Orlando I might be able to find a Mickey Mouse mini-license plate, but thats only because there's probably a wall of 675,000 personalized name plates in 109 languages to serve the Small World of visitors they greet each year.

Usually though, I'm screwed and I'm forces to come home with a chili-pepper painted mug from Santa Fe with "Gene" on it, or maybe a belt buckle that says "Jesus" (because at least two of the letters are the same). My name isn't that unusual, and I have trouble. Its nto the best name, but at least its not something embarrassing like some Bart Simpson Prank--Amanda Hugginkiss, Seymore Butz, Mike Rotch or any other creative name-slam.

I mean, seriously. What name could be worse than I.P Freely? or Ura Snotball? Maaaaaybe Adolf Hitler. Well, its not like anyone would actually name their kid after Hitler...or would they?

Heath and Deborah Campbell of Holland Township, PA have gotten a little creative with their child naming responsibilities. The names of their three kids are JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell and Adolf Hitler Campbell. If you ask me, Aryan Nation is a pretty crappy middle name. The problem this family is currently facing is that the local ShopRite is refusing to put little Adolf's name on his birthday cake.

""We believe the request ... to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate," said Karen Meleta, a ShopRite spokeswoman."

I'm pretty sure that if I worked at Shoprite as a cake decorator I would refuse to write Adolf Hitler in with my star tipped green frosting pen (you know, unless it was for some college history class celebration of his "death", or something) but can the company itself really refuse? Leave your thoughts in comments.

Post Script: This whole discussion really reminds me of this site. Awesome.

Post Post Script: ahhhh! The Cake Wrecks site (linked in the Post Script) actually has a post about the same topic. Double Awesome!

Isn't There One Very Important Question to Be Asked?

Man sprays 'toilet-papering' teens with fox urine

The Associated Press

Posted: 12/12/2008 12:34:38 PM PST

WILLMAR, Minn.—A 50-year-old man told authorities he was fed up with teens toilet-papering his house during homecoming week. This year, he decided to defend his property—with a squirt gun filled with fox urine.

Now, Scott Wagar is in trouble with the law. He pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in Kandiyohi County District Court to misdemeanor assault and other charges. He was released on personal recognizance.

According to police, on Sept. 16, Wagar used night vision goggles and saw 15-20 people running toward his place. He told them to leave and sprayed them with the fox urine. He also struggled with one teen who he says grabbed him from behind.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Wagar says he's innocent, and has a right to defend his property. He says groups of teens have been toilet-papering and egging his house during homecoming for about eight years, and each year it gets more destructive.

He says he sprayed the kids with a mixture of one-third fox urine and two-thirds water because "it stinks, but it doesn't hurt anything."

Where the hell did he get the fox urine?

Kill Time, I Dare you

Today is a little slow, to say the least. I have been trading fun, time wasting websites with a few colleagues over the course of the last couple hours, which I would like to share at this time. Its amazing that there is such a demand for pictures of humorous things on the web. Is anyone doing any work anymore? The picture above is from engrishfunny.com a site dedicated to poking fun at awkward/funny/inappropriate translations into English from other languages. because of Engrish, I have been sufficiently warned not to point at the creature. There's plenty of fun to be had there.

Another good one I was just turned on to is the Fail Blog. A place where pictures and videos of failure come together in harmony. the photograph below, a display failure, depicts an unfortunate bookstore display of not-so-festive titles under the Happy Holidays sign.


These two sites can take up plenty of time while you are struggling to keep your job during the recession, listening to your hungry baby cry, or browsing your iphone on a city bus. There are only so many legitimate news stories you can read and still convince yourself to wake up in the morning, so you might as well rejoice on other peoples failures or bad English translations instead of cnn.com.

Post Script: I'm really thankful that my Firefox spell checker doesn't know what an iphone is. As soon as it suggests it correctly I'll know Apple is the messiah. Maybe by that point Firefox will stop suggesting "granulate" as the correct spelling of my last name.

The Curse of the Shades

Every time I take a nasty fall in a public place there is a common factor. It's not a certain gripless pair of shoes, or a tree-root shifted sidewalk square that "just gets me every time!". It's nothing logical. Nothing that would make my unfortunate diggers more understandable or at least a little bit less embarrassing. I'm not that kinda lucky.

The common factor?

I'm always wearing ridiculous, oversized, movie-star sunglasses.

While this has occurred numerous times, I'll just recount my favorite time and the incident which occurred this morning.

The Best Fall Ever
When I first moved to DC I was living in upper Northwest on Connecticut Avenue. This was not a "cool" neighborhood (unless you are an octogenarian), but I sure as hell thought it was cool. I had a great apartment and the state code "DC" on my mail. All was good. Perhaps it was this overinflated sense of self worth which lead to my (literal) downfall.

It was a beautiful spring day and I strutted to the metro in my favorite brown skirt, flip flops and denim jacket. Over my shoulder my green and orange Timbuk2 messenger bag was carefully slung, full of text books for my recently begun graduate studies. My ipod earbugs sprung from my ears as some popular band I probably didn't like that much but thought I should blared. My hair was as big as it can get.

Of course, perched on my nose are my giant, movie star sunglasses.

Strutting my stuff, looking soooo goooooood, I approach the entrance to the Metro, accelerating rapidly. Some invisible object, probably hubris, gets in my way and I trip. And boy do I trip. The weight from Langston Hughes and WEB DuBois sets my liberally propagandized Timbuk2 bag into motion. In the one short second I have to regain my balance and my dignity, the weight of the bag lurches me forward, somersaulting me into the crowd of commuters. My favorite skirt flips over my head, my ipod goes flying and I land like the Vitruvian Man. The only part of my appearance still in tact: the sunglasses.

As passersby stop to assist me, their mouths gaping open in concern (with a touch of schadenfreude), I swiftly gather my belongings and rush down the escalator as fast as I can, pushing my sunglasses up, breathing irregularly and shouting, at an abnormally high pitch, "I'm fine! Thanks though! I'm fine! Gotta run! Thanks!"

The train downtown (and away from my shame) departs just as my feet hit the platform and I am forced to wait 2 minutes for the next one. As I stand there, the entire crowd of people who tried to help me, who were left in my dust as I busted my ass down the escalator to escape them, come quietly down the moving stairs and pass me one by one, trying not to look at me. I hid behind my over-sized sunglasses.

As if that memory hasn't been burned into my tiny ego long enough, I constantly reignite old shame when I soberly eat dirt probably around twice monthly.

I think most people look like they are trying to be Vanilla Ice when they wear sunglasses, as if they also have their ragtop down so their hair can blow. But, honestly, there are only about six times a year in which sunglasses are really necessary.

Five of these times include driving due east or west on a highway, or playing volleyball on a beach in Cancun. They other time, my favorite time, is about wearing sunglasses for no reason whatsoever--when the sun is barely shining or you are maybe even indoors. Its about wearing sunglasses to feel cool. I love sunglasses.

Today's Slippery Slope
This December morning, I intentionally put my contacts in(instead of the usual carefree spectacle look I sport) so I can don my new sunglasses on the way to work. Sure, WJLA had already informed me that it would be a cloudy day today, but from the shaded window of my basement apartment, I judged it to be light enough outside that sunglasses were a necessity.

As I locked the external door and headed up the stairs (ipod, Timbuk2 and sunglasses in tow) I realized it was drizzling. I had no where to safely store the shades so on my face they remained, and on I walked. To cut to the chase, my metro escalator is mighty steep and primarily exposed to the elements. It was still raining on me as I decended the stairs at an "I live in Washington DC, I'm important, get out of my way!" manner. I passed by a few slower folks, cruising at what I'm sure was an unsafe speed, until there it was again, sliding under my loosely laced red converse sneaker--hubris.

I slipped.

As I slipped, an inadvertent, instinctual mom noise tore from my lips, "oooh!". I hit the hard escalator, its angry teeth biting both my calf and vulnerable muffin top.

Faster than everyone could turn around to witness the tragedy (well, I wish it had been faster, but in actuality it was just long enough for everyone to turn) I popped up miraculously, every joint aching from the whiplash, and continued my jaunt to the bottom. Sunglasses still on my face, like a total toolbox. Don't worry, there wasn't a James-Bond-convenient train waiting to whisk me away this time either; I stood on the platform waiting while all the witnesses paraded by, probably thinking "Maybe you wouldn't have fallen if you weren't wearing those ridiculous sunglasses in the rain at 7:30 in the morning."

Oh, sunglasses, you make me look so cool, but why do you bring such ill fortune?

"Is this guy a Governor or Lil' Wayne?"

I really wanted to comment on the scandal in my home state with good old Governor Blagojevich, but I wasn't sure how to frame my blog until I heard those magic words. "Is this guy a Governor or Lil' Wayne?" Thank you Jon Stewart, for being so dreamy.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rod Blagojevich Is a Jagoff

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

For those of you who don't know, Illinoisians (if thats a word) re-elected Rod in 2006 over his opponent Judy Barr-Topinka, primarily because of bad hair, a nasty Chicago south side accent and her dedication to the White Sox. In fact, it must have been the baseball thing because Rod and Judy have the bad hair and accent in common, but R-Blag is a Cubs fan. (Yes, Chicagoans know that the White Sox won the series in 2005, but we also know that White Sox = guys in sleeveless shirts driving mustangs and punching other guys in the mouth. The only exception is Barack Obama.) This Christmas Card may also have something to do with her loss:


Either way, Blagojevich kept his seat and continued his promise to reform Chicago after the 4 years of Governor George Ryan who began serving his sentence for federal corruption convictions in November of last year (but Ryan did issue a moratorium on executions in IL in 2000, and that was pretty cool of him. Props to you in the Pen, George.)

Oh Chicago, your beauty is again marred by scandal.

Also, you can check out a lil' Lil' Wayne music video here, if the picture above wasn't enough for comparison.