Poor little guy…

Find out how much you can expect based on your tax return.

Just make sure that when you get that check, you spend it immediately so the housing market, and overall economy will do a 180 and everything will be all better again right before W leaves office so we can all remember him as the guy who turned around the economy and saved us from the terrorists.

Remember, spend money for freedom. When you save money, the terrorists win.

Threadless is having a spring cleaning sale, and I found this little number for $9. Not my favorite part of the movie, but still the looks on the crayons’ faces is great. I’m still browsing through the catalog for more hipster-wear, but I did find this one that would make a good present for someone I know. This one’s another possibility for me…

Peep Show
Got this from my mom today. She’s a big fan of peeps. Stale peeps, to be precise. I usually keep a kackage for a year before giving it as a birthday present. Her birthday’s in early March, so it works out great.

EA Sports, of “It’s In The Game” fame, are gearing up to release their NCAA Football ‘09 edition for the Wii, and they’ve set up a contest to let average shmoes like you and me decide which college mascot will be on the cover. Even if you don’t have a college mascot to root for, it’s pretty cool to look at the digitized versions of the goofy things! In fact, while looking at the Big 10(+1), i realized Michigan doesn’t have a mascot! I guess I sort of always knew that, it just never registered. I also noticed the Florida State Seminole and USC Trojan are missing! What the hell, EA!?

While you’re there looking at that stuff, if you feel bad for not having someone to cast your vote for, that good looking guy on the left could use your help. I know he has that, “Stop! I lost a contact lens” look about him; trust me he never looks like this in person. He’s under “Southeastern” when you get to the site. EA Sports NCAA 09 War Eagle!

Of course, I didn’t stumble on this myself, but rather Orson at EDSBS found it for me as usual. Seriously, if you’re a college football fan and you don’t read this site, you’re missing out. Orson makes a good point about SEC mascots (apparently another thing the SEC excels in):

We cast a vote for Albert, but noticed something previously unseen: SEC mascots are all remorseless killing machines or hammered redneck militiamen with guns. Remember: as a conference we’ve got the only mascot that’s actually been on a killing spree. Toss out the genteel Commodore, and we’ve unveiled the iconic representation of all the Southeastern United States values: fangs, an unstoppable killing urge, little in the way of higher brain function, and a facility with firearms.

No argument from me. The Commodore accurately depicts what most of the SEC thinks of Vandy on the football field anyway. Think of him and Ole Miss’ Old Man Rebel, or whatever he’s called, as the zookeepers in the SEC’s jungle of cute and vaguely fierce-looking mascot animals jonsing to rip your throat out. Think we’re not crazy down there? At Auburn, we have a live Golden Eagle. She has talons as big as your eyeball and will sneak up on you and pull your head clean off before you can even blink! How about Arkansas’ live razorback pig? That bad boy has escaped before! More than once! Personally, I think the athletics department does it on purpose. Partly for drunken giggles (usually preceded by, “Hey y’all, watch this!” as the cage is opened), and partly to keep Arkansas…-ians (?) mindful of what this thing will do to their drunken butts should they stray too close to the cage one Saturday afternoon. An eagle and crazy pig aren’t enough? How about a tiger? That’s right a living, breathing, bloodthirsty tiger! Named Mike. Not kidding:

So, I updated the software that runs this thing to the latest and greatest. Not that anyone cares, but there were security exploits in the old ‘n busted. OMG!!! SECURITY SPLOITS!!!1!

The two or three of you who post comments will notice a change… if you post anymore comments. I added a captcha. That’s the annoying little letter fragments you have to type in order to submit comments. That should just about drive what few valid comments I get right down to zero in no time! I know, I hate captchas too, but the spam was getting out of hand and this probably won’t even catch it all. Oh, and this isn’t entirely evil; if you comment on my site, you actually be helping the Internet! I lifted this right from the company’s site:

By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored in digital format in order to preserve them and make them more accessible to the world. Since some of the words in these texts are difficult for computers to process, we are using the results of your efforts to help decipher them.

See? You’re helping the Internet make books obsolete! Think of all the happy trees you’re saving by commenting on this site. Your class-fueled guilt (if you have any) will be notably lessened by helping out. I’ll stop whoring for comments now.

When I was a kid, I loved one part about my hometown: the St. John’s River. My family owned a marina on the river, and my great grandparents lived on the river. I spent many a summer in cut-off jeans and nothing else. My days were spent swimming in the river, swimming in the pool at the marina, making the most awesome box forts from outboard motor boxes (larger than refrigerator boxes) and doing small chores in the marina store in return for candy and Cokes. Also, because the marina was a fish camp with a hotel, I got to meet and play with kids from all over the place. One of the first girls I kissed was from somewhere in Pennsylvania. I still do love it on the river. Imagine, as a kid, having this as a pool (the post is what’s left of the old dock):

I don’t know when this started, but I have grown to really dislike larger parts of my home state. There are still a bunch of great places worth seeing in Florida in general, and DeLand in particular. Maybe I just notice the stuff I don’t like more as I’ve grown older, I don’t know. That’s a good enough excuse, right? Maybe I’m just more attuned to the negative things in my environment. Who knows? Oh well, why the nostalgia and harshing on the hometown? I read something today about Florida that makes me simultaneously proud & embarrassed to hail from there. The quote below is 100% true.

From EDSBS:

But you do know that in a name-calling war based on redneck cred, Georgia loses in a smoking heap to Florida, right? We’ve got so much more than just the Duck Head-wearing nouveau-riche Panic crowd and the oceans of starchy white trash that Georgia has to offer: switchblade wielding gel-freaks from Miami, bland transplanted midwesterners from Orlando, stoner surfer rednecks from Melbourne, Jacksonville tattoo guys still rocking the Durst fat pants, shot-guzzling Fiero drivers from Tampa, displaced Jerseyites who leave fake tanner residue on white couches…we’ve really got it all. The army of trash Florida can assemble is simply unparalleled.

[UPDATE:]: Sometimes, it’s just crazy what I see in the random Flickr feed over there on the right. After publishing this, I noticed this in thumbnail form. The funny thing is, iin Florida, I would expect to see this. Only difference is the people would be adults… of all ages 20’s right on through the 50’s. And they wouldn’t necessarily be drunk or high or anything. This could be celebration of a NASCAR win (rarely sober, I know, but still). Lastly, the guy would be wearing a beaten cap of some sort riding high on a greasy, thin mullet. I can actually picture it in my head. I need a drink.

Boy, I hope I got that trademarked name correct. I’m sure Bono and crew spent long late hours making sure the correct word was parentheticized. Not a real word, I know. I know.

Anyway, iPod shuffles just got cheaper. Apple’s fun little way of saying something better is coming soon. As I mentioned earlier, Steve Jobs will personally engrave your iPod for free! Free, I tell you! Since the pastel colors of the new shuffles threaten my heterosexuality, I was looking at the only somewhat manly color on offer: red. Or, more appropriately, (PRODUCT) RED(tm). Having read some articles about the advertising costs and actual benefits reaped by (PRODUCT) RED, I was feeling somewhat cynical in choosing my engraving:

• Red:Trendy Cure 4 Middle-Class Guilt
• (From, Mira. A huge U2 fan) Red: Lick Bono’s Taint
• Red: Damn, advertising is expensive
• Red: What are we doing this for again?
• Red: Pride, In The Name Of Guilt
• Red: Achtung, bitches! Achtung!

That’s all I could come up with at work. I’m not really sure what that last one meant. I just like saying, “Achtung, bitches!” Hell, I just like saying, “Achtung!”

I love Sarah Silverman. I don’t generally like comedians who do a lot of songs, but hers are almost always great. Who could forget Give the Jew Girl Toys, You’re Gonna Die Soon, German Cars or The Poop Song? Yeah, well this one’s new to me even though it’s been on YouTube for 4 months. Considering it’s a recording from ABC, I doubt it will be there much longer.

troll: someone who intentionally posts derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about sensitive topics in an established online community such as an online discussion forum to bait users into responding.

Trolls are inevitable. Open up an online forum, they show up and, like your drunken uncle or abusive big brother, make fun of all you hold dear. Trolls are why comment spammers are so annoying to people like me. At least trolls are somewhat on-topic! Comment spammers will just vomit random words and links for Viagra and porn all over the Inter Tubes.

As with all forms of humor, it’s quality that counts most. Trolls are usually childish and stupid. In a bad way - Sometimes, childish and stupid is exactly what’s needed. When you see eye to eye with the troll on the ‘dumb-ness’ of a forum, it can be comedy cold: Getting banned from the My Little Pony forum

And since we’re talking about My Little Pony, it would be a shame not to include this: