"...don[ing] a silver bra...lip-syncingWomanizer"

Holy Hell, Batman!

Wow, you know who's freaking-the-fuck out? George Mason, that's who. While a staunch republican, e.g., defender of individual liberties, I don't quite think he anticipated that the institution bearing his name would do this.

That's right, meet Mr. Ryan Allen, a senior at GMU who won homecoming queen. What are some of the best parts of his schtick?

Soon he had donned a silver bra and zebra-print pants and was lip-syncing to Britney Spears's "Womanizer" at the qualifying pageant Feb. 9, overseen by Miss Virginia 2009. Competitors included a government and politics major from Chesapeake and a Chi Omega sorority member. . . .

Needless to say, the appointment has been controversial. Well, Mr. Allen, I for one don't give a damned if you're gay, or if this was all a lark: If anything it exposes the idiocy that these dog-n-pony shows really are. Enjoy your crown, bring a hankie, and remember "elbow-elbow-arm-arm"

Have some Saturday morning awesomeness

The original Starscream.

Although, truth be told, he was pretty kickass after he dethroned Megatron* in the excellent Transformers: The Movie. Sadly, Starscream did not survive that treachery, and Megatron-cum-Galvatron made Starscream one with Matrix.

*He looks pretty rockin' with a crown!

Chalk one up for literacy

Come Ragnarok all your mead are belong to us

J.R.R. Tolkien, he of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fame, has a new book due out this spring; a retelling of the classic Norse epic of Sigurd. Yea! Vikings!

Nerd Chick Du Jour: Sarah Chalke

Scrubs is worth watching for this alone.

They must have been Cajuns

Awww, hi there lil' fella...

This story, in the Nat'l Geographic is why whenever you go to a Cajun's house, you bring the meat.* This majestic lil' critter, thought to be extinct, was finally rediscovered, photographed, then..umm...taken to the market, sold as poultry and slaughtered for food. Well, at least it beats nutria**



* I know, I know, it's the Phillipines. But it might as well be Louisiana
** And, yes, Cajuns really do eat these swamp rats. Don't believe me? Click here...I double dog dare ya'

Mildly disturbing photoshop

What the hell were they thinking? C-Section beauty? Radical appendectomy? Cannibal Corpse lyrics?

Holy Hell! My old band made the encyclopeadia Metallum

Just friggin' unbelievable: Contamin Mortalis

Today's Nerd Hottie: Flo a/k/a Stephanie Courtney

I'm off to get my knee looked at by the malignant surgeon. Until then, enjoy today's Hot Nerd (and everyone has a thing for her) Flo: the ditzy, charming, awkward, personable hottie from the Progressive Insurance ads.

The Karma gods are after you, Brandon James!

This player eats kittens and mugs grandmothers.

Dear "Brandon James", Enjoy your foot surgery and a nice recovery...knowing the way the Karma Gods smile on the Florida Gators, he'll be back just in time to burn us for a game winning toucdown in the SEC Championship game.

You owe it to yourself...

To find Immortal Technique's second release, Revolutionary Vol. 2, and listen to the track "4th Estate". Here's just a snippet (the language isn't for everyone, but the message is).

The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish
A fake church called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist
Forgetting God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond
And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu'ran
They bombed innocent people, tryin' to murder Saddam
When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran
This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings
Cause Condoleeza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemmings
I break it down with critical language and spiritual anguish
The Judas I hang with, the guilt of betraying Christ
You murdered and stole his religion, and painting him white
Translated in psychologically tainted philosophy
Conservative political right wing, ideology
Glued together sloppily, the blasphemy of a nation
Got my back to the wall, cause I'm facin' assassination
Guantanamo Bay, federal incarceration
How could this be, the land of the free, home of the brave?
Indigenous holocaust, and the home of the slaves
Corporate America, dancin' offbeat to the rhythm
You really think this country, never sponsored terrorism?
Human rights violations, we continue the saga
El Savador and the contras in Nicaragua
And on top of that, you still wanna take me to prison
Just cause I won't trade humanity for patriotism

Nerd Chicks Are Smokin'

I think I've decided to install something a little special here. Nerd girls. They are hot. Smoking hot, geeky, brainy, geniuses that purr with a fierce intellectual and sexual energy. Viva Nerd Girls! Today I will start with a not-so-obvious choice. Linda Cardellini: Nerdy? You betcha'. Hot? SMOKIN'.

Wanted: Cute Alabama QB

This child needs to get her shit together-->*

Apparently our Dark Lord & Redeemer, Coach Nick Saban, took time out of his busy schedule (he's notorious for not having "time for this shit") to visit a class of 2nd graders at a Florence, AL elementary school. Apparently high on their list are the following: glue, cookies and...a Cute QB?

Kenzie Cornelius, 7, wrote about her favorite player and also had some suggestions for Saban concerning a new quarterback. "I loved John Parker Wilson; he was cute. I hope you get a new cute boy again," Kenzie wrote. "I hope you get another good team. P.S.: You rock and Roll Tide."

Hmmm. Apparently "Kenzie" hasn't learned what a hot receiver is...or how to avoid a sack...or look off a safety...or a pump fake.

God, "Kenzie", get that weak shit out of here. Do you honestly think your feigned precociousness is going to let you skate by without the rudimentary basics of whether your starter has good mobility or can make the throws? If it were my kid, I'd ground her, and make her read every last damned post at Smart Football until she got her act together.

Sen. Burris? May I show you the door?

Toast. Caput. Done. Finito. Coda.

Goodbye Sen. Burris. After providing three wholly inconsistent, contradictory explanations about what Blago did or did not say to you, attempt to extract from you, etc., I think it's time (even if those are benign "mistakes") to take a hike. The office which you seek, and which you've held for less than a month, cannot be impeded by the -deserved- criminal, ethics and internal probes into this pitiful Senate-for-sale scheme.

You have fought tooth and nail for this opportunity. Now that you have tasted it, it is time to relinquish it to someone above reproach. Or, failing that, relinquish it someone that we, the American People -and your constituents- can look at without wondering whether they hold their positions from pure graft.

You deserve better. The Senate deserves better. And Illinois absolutely deserves more than a byblow of the corrput Blagojevich regime.

You know who I will never, ever understand?

Satanists.

Yeah, these knucklehead "individualists" with a spirituality system similar to the epiphany that 15 year old, pimply faced losers get after reading Atlas Shrugged too many times. I don't understand those damned people at all. Of course, I don't place stock in any of the desert deities, whose concerns were tribal, local, constrained to those times, those gen, and very very much not intended for a modern society or a modern people. However, if I were, the question I have to ask is: why on Earth would you choose the one whose foundational belief system is marked by selfishness, group fawning, leaves behind no deeds or acts to mark your existence and earns you rightful ostracism?

Remember kids, asshats are never in style.

Just to make sure you're paying attention...

Sarah Silverman, stay out of my bushes!!!

Got a problem? The GOP can help!

Simply go the GOP Problem Solver, and life's crises will be solved! BTW: I particularly recommend hitting the "This doesn't make any sense" button after you get a few answers.

*blatantly stolen from Doug

For everyone taking the Feb. Bar exam...

HANG IN THERE!

*pic shamelessly stolen from HRA's Snark

Call me "Senator-Elect"

The Smiting Hand (tm) of Sen. Elect Al Franken (D-MN)

Pain

PAIN

It's about 3:30 a.m. here in the Northern Great Plains, and I've been up off and on all night...in pain. At the risk of sounding melodramatic or self-martyring, I want to talk about the nature of pain.

First lesson, never, ever underestimate the soul-sucking, life-altering nature of chronic pain. I am 35 years old, and the wheels seem to occasionally just fall-the-fuck off. I've had broken vertebrae, slipped discs, arthritis in both knees, both ankles, both shoulders; I've chipped my spine, busted ribs in my back; torn tendons, cartilage, muscles, ligaments, and shattered more bones than I think to care about. I've had seven knee surgeries alone, and am facing the prospect of another; I've got long term complications from a botched vasectomy, constant burning pain from cancer surgeries; a hole in my stomach from ulcers and losing an internal organ; bursitis surrounds both of my torn rotator cuffs. I gnash all night, breaking teeth, altering my bite, creating crushing migraines. In short, I live with a constant pain in a lot of my body...and, it does bad things to one's psyche.

Lesson Two: Pain is without an objective description, yet can be described. The doctor organization IASP (the Int'l Assoc. for the Study of Pain) does a yeoman's job in trying to define this inherently subjective of all subjective subjects thusly as, "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage". But, you know what, it's not even fucking close. Pain has a hue, a flavor, a pallette, a taste all to its own: and each pain is utterly dependent on where it occurs, how it occurs, the origin, chronic or acute, the psychological pronouncement of pain, one's subjective experience of pain, one's fear of pain, and the like. So, yes, it is "unpleasant", but it also is terrifying, depressing, burning, gnawing, stabbing, dull, throbbing, sometimes it is a boring sensation, other times it is a red raw thing, and sometimes it is so great that you are tiny before it...a small speck in a blackened room with nothing but hurt and torment unabated.

Lesson Three: Despite the pain, there can be humor found in the subject, and perhaps that is what keeps me going. So, in an attempt to mentally banish the hurts of this moment, I give to you the Schmidt Sting Pain Scale, an interesting little project whereby an interprising entymologist let really nasty creatures sting him. Then, he would grade the pain on a 1-4 scale. This is not new. There was a predecessor to the Schmidt Scale, the Starr Scale. Of course, why someone felt the current index of pain wasn't sufficient is utterly beyond me. However, despite the quantification of Starr and Schmidt's scales, it is Schmidt's wonderfully colorful descriptors that makes me laugh...in a dark way of course. I particularly enjoy, in his original work, the following description of the Tarantula Hawk Wasp's sting "...immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream. Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations." LOL!
So, in the face of all this hurt, let's share a laugh, shall we? I present Dr. Schmidt's descriptors of the pain of insect stings:*

• 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
• 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
• 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
• 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
• 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
• 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
• 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
• 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
• 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
• 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

*Dr. Schmidt's work in this possibly illuminating, and certainly cautionary area is available at, Schmidt, J. O., Blum, M. S., and Overal, W. L. "Hemolytic activities of stinging insect venoms", Archives of Insect Biochemistry and Physiology, 1:155–160, 1984.

Football fans? Contract lovers?

Here's the cross-post over at Roll 'Bama Roll, the Alabama Crimson Tide blog on Kos' Sports Blog Nation. It concerns the souring of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach's contract renegotiation with that school. It's gotten nasty, folks...just like divorce lawyers, the attorneys here have taken things exceedingly personal.

BTW: Texas Tech does some things exceptionally well, including their (rightly) renowned (e.g., hot as the sun) swim team!