Author: jbenton

More greedy self-promotion: I’m supposed to have a story on the front page tomorrow, on a new rush by high school dropouts to take the GED before it gets tougher on Jan. 1. Of course, it was supposed to be on the front page of last Monday’s paper, but a few nasty little bombing raids scuttled that pretty quickly, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a random anthrax attack push it back another couple of days again.

Today’s signal that the world truly has changed post-9/11: Last night was the debut of Survivor 3, and none of us at work even noticed. (This after it dominated huge swaths of every working Friday last year.)

I was sick yesterday morning, then spent yesterday afternoon wrestling with my hard drive. (Around 1 p.m., it decided that installing a new operating system was far too much stress. As the afternoon went on, I could actually see files disintegrating, one by one: old email, a web page from 1996, my resume, etc. I’d like to publicly pledge my first-born child to the very nice people who make Disk Warrior, which officially saved my ass.) And of course, Wednesday brought news of some of my coworkers getting laid off.
So there was a heavy burden on last night’s trip to the state fair with my friend Natacha to lift me out of the doldrums. Luckily, it worked. Observations:
– I was very disappointed to learn that, according to the lady in the coupon booth, there was no butter sculpture at the fair this year because “they couldn’t finish it in time.” I have this horrible vision of an aged butter artisan — probably a Swedish grandpa from Wausaukee, Wisconsin — crouched over some half-human form, burying his head in his hands, bawling his eyes out over his inability to finish carving in time for the fair.
– I feel sorry for the people who run fair events with an international theme. The Moroccan horsemen have started putting American flags everywhere during their act for fear that the small-minded will start making the Moroccans = Arabs = terrorists equation and start making glue of their horses. Even the Belgian waffle stand made a few changes; on a sign that says autocratically “Waffles only!” they’ve put a small American flag. (I had no idea the Belgians were linked to terrorism.)
– I wonder how the Flying Men of Veracruz get insurance.
– Growing up in Louisiana, corn dogs appeared pretty regularly on our school lunch menus. They were uniformly awful: a bland, doughy breading, a lukewarm frankfurter, etc. So I was skeptical when I heard of the glories of the state fair corn dog. I was wrong. They truly are a glorious foodstuff.

On a day when my employer announces layoffs and wage freezes, I didn’t expect to be laughing out loud. But I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen something this funny.
Look at the posters of Osama Bin Laden in these photos of anti-American protests: here, here, here, and here (same as #3).
Now go back and look over Osama’s left ear. (It’s clearest in the first one. In case it’s removed from the site, I’ve archived it here.)
If you can’t believe your eyes, check out here, here, and here. Muppet power! Fight the evil Bert!

Bad news from my employer. Cross your fingers for me.

I know, humanitarian aid is not a very funny concept, and bombing is even less of one. But I love this Post story on the food drops the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan.
First off, these pouches are being dropped from very high altitudes, with no parachutes. Is this safe? Why am I reminded of the famous turkey drop episode of WKRP in Cincinnati? (See episode #40.)
Anyway, from the story:
“‘This is a food gift from the people of the United States of America,’ the label on the pouch reads…The text is in English, Spanish and French.” (Oh yeah, lots of starving Afghan peasants read English. Great education system they’ve got there.)
“Someone tearing into one of the food pouches would find…a shortbread cookie, a biscuit, a fruit bar, fruit pastry, peanut butter, strawberry jam, and a condiment package that includes salt, pepper and sugar.” (Win them over with condiments! It’s worked in every other theater of war!)
And, my favorite line: “A moist towelette is included.” I’m sure the Afghans appreciate it.

I was really intrigued by Ev’s latest blog entry: “sdfasdf.” So profound, so penetrating, so…je ne sais quoi.
I had to find more, so I turned to Google, and it did not let me down: 1,770 pages on the wisdom of sdfasdf. Irish bloggers, California consultants, Hoosier chemists: they all know the secret of the sdfasdf.
But then I learned a devastating truth: sdfasdf was not nearly as popular as its rival, asdfasdf. (Just as “amoral” means the opposite of “moral,” “asdfasdf” must be the diametric opposite to “sdfasdf.”) The asdfasdf school of thought has made no fewer than 5,100 converts online, including the city of Fife, Washington, a Maryland golf course, and a distributed computing company. Where will asdfasdf’s vile influence finally end? (And don’t even get me started on asdf, its lean, cruel cousin.)

Some of the Google search terms used to find this site so far this month: “barry bonds download gone in 70 seconds,” “rem nostradamus end of the towers,” “osama 7-eleven,” “osama and a goat,” “dayo song,” “scared to be in afghanistan song,” and, naturally, “limited edition nikes.”

I love this time of year, and not just because I finally get to break out the jackets and coats I accumulated in seven years up North and never get to use in Texas. It’s Nobel Prize season, and there are few things that do a better job of reminding us all that humanity truly kicks ass. I mean, today the physics prize was awarded to three guys who discovered a new state of matter. Seriously, how bad-ass is that? New states of matter don’t exactly pop up every day, in between mouthfuls of Cheetos during commercial breaks of Survivor.
Plus, I’m in favor of anything that keeps the Swedes busy — you don’t want a bunch of troublemaking Swedes with too much time on their hands.
And, in my continued quest for self-promotion, there was a story in today’s DMN on how schools responded to Sunday’s attacks.

I don’t know if it was Erica’s link to a dream interpretation site that did it, but I had the most vivid dreams last night. One involved a girl I had an unrequited high school crush on and shall not be discussed further. Then there was one involving some sort of video game-like torture chamber involving the Taliban: Osama was at the top of a cliff, we were at the bottom, and he kept throwing boulders down at us, Tetris-like, which we had to dodge. Then, just before the alarm this morning, I dreamed I was riding in a bullet train that plunged through tunnel after tunnel, vibrating and pulsing with energy, only to stop in a Parisian square filled with fountains spurting foamy water while Charo played a guitar nearby, until the train left again, plunging into tunnels and through valleys surrounded by high-peaked twin mountains, until I awoke crying, “Oh God! Oh God!”
Okay, just kidding about that last one.