Good thing it happened at a German company.

(Press Picture Unavailable)

Chicago -- In a stunning victory for student democracy, war was ended, famines were stopped, and droughts dried up with the recent election of a new student body government at Loyola. The United Student Government (or USG, as the organization proudly shortens itself to) held its election, and the promises of its members have all been fulfilled.

Throughout the world, rallies are being held, thanking USG for stopping every bad thing and for being so effective. Famed humanitarian Bono of U2 sent his congratulations and thanks, as USG's work accomplished the goals of every cause of which he had been a part.

USG states that the reason for these successes, besides the creatively wonky restructuring it is going through, is certainly the new Facebook election flyers. The dancing outside of Loyola's Centennial Forum and Mertz on the election days also contributed. Many election workers were surprised with how many people voted. One was quoted with a great deal of amazement in her voice: "Normally student participation in the government is less than democratically acceptable... not even half the the student body sends in ballots because they just don't care. However, this year was different. I guess the prospect of change truly energized the base, and that is a powerful thing to behold!"

A sophomore student sitting at the statue of St. Ignatius, when questioned, sounded very excited: "I can't believe it! For once, politicians didn't lie and they really cleaned up everything!" The student added, "Who won again?" -OAP

I'm still not letting him take the controls from me.

Hey! Cool! The Bulls swept the Heat!

Take all of these classes.

Watch it on June 17th!

Definitely Hollywood-worthy.

Gentlemen and ladies, this is as nerdy as it gets. And spare me the bird/plane jokes!

(This is going everywhere on the Internet. It was bound to end up here.)

New Exoplanet!

The quote you shouldn't miss: "If [sic] forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings."

(Swiped from Trelin of the Flowers of Happiness.)

This time, it's a long interview with Will Wright.

(Found at TotalSpore.com.)

7 minutes of Halo 3 on Zanzibar!

(Found at AICN!)

Labels: Gaming

This time, Robin Williams as the Creature.

The man of iron will and liver has passed on, leaving Jay Leno's jokes flaccid and meaningless...

Okay, nevermind that. We made fun of him for his drinking, but then again, what else could we do with a Russian president? Boris Yeltsin became the first president of the new Russian Federation and probably the last (you can thank Vlad Putin for that). Thank you, comrade.

Now, to pay tribute:

Haven't you heard any yet?

A follow up to the Horde cake I posted a while back. By the way, God help you if you found my title funny.

(Again, Miramontron!)

Built from Yoda Stories, yet more free. Check out the Gnomes Lair for info.

And a box of Oreo Cookies.

(Another from Miramontron!)

Limbo is effectively abolished! Maybe I'll get to punch Aristotle in the face while in Heaven now!

(Turned onto story by Miramontron.)

I Can Has Cheezburger.

This is one of my favorite headlines about one of my favorite subjects ever.

Someone teach them that Chicago doesn't want a 2000-foot piece of rock candy on its lakefront.

Also, there's a forum conversation I want you to hear.

LubDoc: things are getting better here.. yea right. 157 people dead in a new bombing. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
...
Frybread: I have a buddy who can't wait to graduate so he can go to Iraq.
Geandily: Me too! :D
Frybread: Lemme guess, chaz? Troy is about to get out of college, he's in the ROTC and is excited about Iraq. He doesn't care about the politics, he just wants to do what he's been trained to do.
LubDoc: HE WANTS TO RAPE PEOPLE?
Frybread: No he's not some horrible amoral monster. He wants to kill them.

(From the Flowers' forums.)

Things people have pointed out to me about today:

It's 4/20, meaning there will be smoke billowing out of dormrooms everywhere. Lucky I'm not in a dormroom. OOOO! Are those brownies?!

It's Hitler's birthday, duuuude.

The Webby Awards are again upon us, and, yet again, I get passed by in the nominations for things like "The Onion," "Cute Overload," and "How Stuff Works."

Ready for Heroes?

This intensely interests me. I usually just make fun of the stuff.

Wow, depressing! I sounded like that, the last post?! I'll get some funny going soon.

But hey, there are some things that can be said "too soon." Most of that stuff has been removed forcefully. Possibly at gunpoint.

Sorry.

I just wanted to ask how many people expected accusations against various media to begin rolling in, especially against video games? To quote someone from an Internet forum, "The shooter was Asian. Of course he played video games."

I really don't want to sound cynical, uncaring, racist, or anything, but I'm honestly not all that keen on human nature in general right now.

Let's talk humor (in music) and get away from the morbidness swirling around our little universe right now.

(Sent by Miramontron.)

It's a day late, but cheers to Jackie Robinson, and to celebrate, here's an Onion article.

Thank you for making baseball American and not just white.

I'm taking someone's idea and running with it (now with permission). The Chicago streetrat will be renamed the Chicago Dolphin! Here's our press release:

In an attempt to bring the Olympics to Chicago, our mayor has made boasts of some major changes to entice the Olympic Committees' attention. However, we have a surefire way of bringing in the spectators.

The Chicago Dolphin.

Technically, it's the common city rat, but how many people would come to see the Dolphins? That's right, tons! And what's the difference between a rat and dolphin anyways, besides the intelligence level and social appeal?

If we changed its name from 'rat' to 'Chicago Dolphin' its appeal would go up exponentially. Everyone loves dolphins, everyone who's smart loves Chicago. Therefore our city no longer has pesky vermin, but delightful playmates that flood our streets and alleyways.

It's simple, it's catchy, it's sexy, it's gonna sell.

You can thank us later Daley, you can thank us later. And to the dedicated and amazing citizens of this great city, you know what to do:

Long Live The Chicago Dolphin!



Ecco the call! Long live the Chicago Dolphin!

Headlines shouldn't look like this.

Chicago won the U.S. bid for the Olympics! Now on to the International bid and an assload of transportation/construction delays and debts!

Also, more on the Chicago Dolphin later!

He would do this.

(Sent by Dubs.)

I enjoyed this pretty thoroughly.

So Andy asked me to ask you guys if you feel lucky. Do you?

Or maybe Ace Ventura? Well, I guess not Day of the Dolphin. It kinda sucked. This doesn't.

I should probably post and commemorate the passing of a fellow satirist. Yes, I knew about it much earlier today, but I finally came up with something to say. Well, I guess I didn't come up with it to say: Frybread of my Flowers did.

Kurt Vonnegut wasn't my favorite satirist. I still haven't read a novel by him; I've only read short pieces. From those I learned he was a little more caustic than most people I read. However, he still was quite the genius, and he was funny to a point that I don't know I could ever reach.

Anyway, here's what Frybread posted. It's more sentimental than anything, but serious poignancy is sometimes the greatest talent of a satirist:

The Last Rites of the Bokononism [ 99 ]
(Each line is said once by the person giving the rites and then repeated by the dying person.)

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

Do you know what everyone cares about? Small-town politics. Participants brandish political statements in the form of lawn ornaments, and the local park district has its voting booth somewhere in a dusty old room, usually furnished with gym mats.

At Easter, I was walking only to notice that Forest Park (my hometown) is currently alight with red, white, blue, and sometimes (to many people's chagrin) green signs. The mayoral race is heating up here, and everyone's lawn ornaments are taking sides.

What town would be a town without a Boss-Mayor? The Boss-Mayor must be a man who's lived in the town all his life, went to all its grade schools (the two rival junior highs claim him as their own, of course), knows all the cops, and carries a holdout pistol to debates.

Next Tuesday, AKA April 17th, is the date of this election, and the town is abuzz. The two mayoral candidates left, after the electoral drubbing in the primary of real estate agent, councilmember, and local weasel Patrick Doolin, are Terry Steinbach and the Boss-Mayor, Anthony Calderone. As irony and fate would have it, these two candidates live next door to each other. They are physically neighbors, not just neighbors based on the town motto, so you can imagine how the last few months have been. They each have a huge sign advertising their candidacies and creating looming shadows, so the yard work each needs to do is probably not pleasant.

Calderone: It's a beautiful day!
Steinbach [brightly but accusingly]: To break into my campaign headquarters! And to graffiti my sign to say "Steinbach for Mayor McSleaze!"
Calderone: Or to use one's leverage in the newspaper to openly slander the noble mayor as having given town funds to operate a casino out of the library!
Steinbach: But you did!
Calderone: And the commissioners went with it -- say, weren't you a commissioner then?
The Next Morning
Calderone: You destroyed my hedges!
Steinbach: You put a knot in my garden hose!
Calderone: You ripped out all my tulip bulbs!
Steinbach: You salted the earth in my garden!
Calderone: You can't prove I used salt!

In a rare touch of insight, humor, and journalism, the local paper The Forest Park Review noted that signs supporting Calderone's campaign were going up in surrounding suburbs such as Oak Park*. Why would a man campaigning in Forest Park, no less a two-term incumbent, want to garner support in an outlying town?

Why not? Anthony Calderone's the Boss-Mayor, with the pistol to back that up.

Though we know plenty of the police force, my dad and I became acquainted with an FP cop in the past year. When I met the guy, Italian as can be, all he could say was, "You're election age, right? Vote for Tony!" Oh, and because I neglected to mention I lived in Chicago and not really Forest Park, I was reassured by him that he wouldn't bust up any of my parties. Probably only if I voted for Tony, though.

As for Terry Steinbach, all I know about her is that she's... Oh, right. I know nothing about her. I think she's sort of a politician. She also has a less flashy (literally, "Flash-y," and if you got that, congratulations, nerd) website than Tony.

I haven't spent much time finding out anything about the candidates and elections so far, mostly because I'm not much for research, being a journalist. However, the opportunity knocked to do some real investigation, so I had to check all my sources. I went straight to the campaign websites. Perusing each candidate's, the two's platforms look completely different, but only because Steinbach uses complete sentences. See for yourself (all quoted without permission):

Steinbach:
Roosevelt Road Corridor. Roosevelt Road is a tremendously underutilized asset. Forest Park should partner with neighboring communities to cohesively develop this prime retail street.
Calderone:
Redevelopment of Roosevelt Road business corridor

Steinbach:
Madison Street. Part of Madison Street has seen success, but now we need to extend the "look and feel" of this street west to Altenheim by creating a natural connection to the new development occurring in that area.
Calderone:
Continue working closely with Oak Park and River Forest to enhance Harlem Avenue and West Madison Street

Steinbach:
Harlem Avenue. As our eastern gateway, this street presents an opportunity to collaborate with our neighbor to make it a vibrant and valuable asset for our community.
Calderone:
(See above.)

Can you take any more of this? I'd imagine not. Small-town politics haven't been this boring since Clint Eastwood started directing and not acting.

I think I've given you all a pretty good idea of what's up in the little village I call home. Calderone the Bullet-Pointed versus Steinbach the Long-Winded, winner takes Forest Park. Now the question is, will I bother to go vote? It's a long trip to that dilapidated park district voting hovel.

And for further droll information:
Mrs. Steinbach's Site
Tony's Site

* - Oh crap. I gave too much credit to The Review: it was a letter, one from a Mrs. Plona (an excellent journalist!).

Okay, this is ridiculous, especially for someone like me.



I miss my rats.

(Sources: Cute Overload and CuteCast, as always.)

I think this ol' Seadog should move to Britain.

The Simpsons have always been scholarly.

(Ripped from Gmail's news feed.)

Seriously, I haven't seen them score a run yet this year, and I went to one game and saw them commit three errors in two consecutive innings. FREE THE CUBS NOW, TRIB, AND TELL SORIANO THAT HIS CONTRACT DID NOT TELL HIM HE HAD TO SUCK.

Being a Flowers officer is always a difficult job, but it can be rewarding. You work with some of the best people and orcs on the planet, and the health care benefits are great.

And sometimes a person comes along that just perks you up and makes every moment worth it. I get the satisfaction of helping, and the person gets the satisfaction of a long, futile conversation with me. (For those with any trouble reading, look for the pale purple text which say "To [So-and-so]" and "[So-and-so] whispers.")



Apparently, I'm the go-to officer today! I should encourage more people to bring their problems to me, especially their problems with guild functions!



Ho hum... waitwaitwaitwaitwait... twiddletwiddletwiddle...

Some people honestly have no attention span or concept of waiting! So after about ten minutes...



Aw. And he/she might delete him or herself. Why would anyone delete themselves for being in our guild? So no more conversation? I could've kept that up at least another 24 hours.

But waitwaitwait! A new person?



I'm so forgetful! Apparently that person from before (GODDAMN, I ALWAYS FORGET NAMES) decided to switch over to another character! Now I remember!



Filed a complaint against Sakai? WHAT EVER DID YOU DO TO THIS POOR PERSON, SAKAI?! CAN'T YOU SEE THE PAIN, THE HONEST HUMBLE PAIN?!

Or maybe I don't care that much. I'll just go kill more boars.



So goddamned many hellboa...



Well, it's true! I do have a running theme of forgetfulness!

Let's kill more boars.



Pay no attention to how similar that picture is to my last boar killshot. All boars are exactly the same.

A familiar face then said hello:



A REPORT?! WHICH COULD LEAD TO A WARNING?! FOR MOI? I can't do this! I can't get a warning for trying to help someone! I'm an officer of the Flowers of Happiness, damn it!

Actually, this was several weeks ago. Still no response or warning. I guess not everyone has time to handle complete strangers' problems like I do!

Classic Commercials, only on YouTube.

(Originally sent to me by Julia. She knows who she is.)

As always, there is nothing I can do on Easter besides show you the way of the Rabbit. I cannot be funny today because the Internet's quota of "Jesus-came-out-of-an-Egg" jokes are made by Something Awful and College Humor. I can never follow those acts. So instead I give you pictures.





(Taken from Cute Overload and South Park. Guess which one comes from which.)

It's gonna be long, emotional, and possibly filled with bunnies. Don't wait up for me.

Though you might (read: MIGHT) get a treat the bunny-lovin' day itself.

If you get this, you are not only a nerd: you would also want them for what video was one post down (but you know they would do nothing anyway).

(Found in a "Fw:" on an email... the same email, in fact, that my sister Larke sent me that last terrible video in.)

Believe me, that title indicates pain.

(Submitted by Larke.)

The Kittens are getting to me.



(Stolen from Cute Overload today.)

Oddly enough, this isn't stolen from Cute Overload.

(Stolen from Dave Barry. Of course.)

All people have been talking about in sports is the NCAA tournament. Now, I love my skiing and racquetball, but there are other sports, right under our noses. In a somehow related statement, my friend Jimmy has very different ways than the rest of the world for taking out aggression. One is a sport that involves a very large golf cart.

Hey, the statements do relate!

Jimmy had been telling me for the past five months how amazing this little car is. It is called a "Baja" for the gearheads in the crowd, but I could not picture it from the name. My car knowledge doesn't extend beyond family-sized sedans. Jimmy has been telling his friends for months about this car: how he drove it, how he did a run with it out in a West Coast contest, how he loved it, how he bathed it, how he skydived on Valentine's Day with it, etc. One thing I can say is that I've wanted to see this thing for a while.

This "Baja" turned out to be a jungle gym with an engine and extra maneuverability. It really is a dune buggy, built out of metal bars, a large seat, and a whole lot of gears. It goes over tough terrain and generally looks like a dream for anyone who grew up on K'NEX. UIC has a dedicated group of people doing this, and they're called SAE, which I assume stands for something smart.

Next thing I noticed about the car (after the car) was the fire extinguisher next to where my right ear would be. The car was built with complete safety in mind, making sure I could reach out with my elbows to keep my hair from bursting into flame. The kill switch for the engine was on the wheel, and it had to be a big red button. As another safety feature of the car, there is a seatbelt. But this is no ordinary seatbelt: needless to say, you have to strap in like a racecar driver! VROOOOOOM!!!

Quite the rush. Honestly, driving on a college quad might not have been on my Things to Do before I Die list, but it's checked off now. I think I made the sharpest turn I'll ever make on a road (admittedly, a quad is not a road: this thing required much tighter turns than any street). This buggy could move--turn, spin, and possibly flip burgers for you, and those would be delicious.

Jimmy stopped me a few times and asked me to try a few moves, mostly to test the performance and make sure the thing can be kept in working condition. As I listened, I positioned my elbow as well as I could over the edge of where the driver-side door/window would be. I kept up that hope to look cool, while avoiding sunglasses. It was midnight.

Allow me to switch into present tense: the next one looks risky. Mount Kilimanjaro-risky. There are several fairly tall block benches around the field. Jimmy wants me to drive over one. I gulp a little bit. Keep in mind, this car is very low to the ground: I could reach the pavement with my hand while still restrained by my seatbelt. It feels like I'm about to drive a donut over a dictionary. But Jimmy said the donut could do it...

I line the wheels up with the marble block. I make the VROOM noise. I hit the gas.

VROOMVROOMVROOM! BUMP! CRUNCH! POP!

That didn't sound good. The car won't move any further. Yeah, that was bad. Where's that fire extinguisher again? Left or right ear?

Oh, good. I'm not on fire. Neither is the engine. Both, good signs.

I hopped out as Jimmy took a look. He sounded a little dismayed. We wheeled the car back: it looks like we popped some thingamajig in the back, and it would likely need to be re-welded. Apparently, I did that thing in. Who else can break a heavily-welded piece of steel equipment but me? I leaned in and had a look at the oil-covered machinery. I eyed it like I would anything I don't know the name of or function of.

"Andy, were you drinking? I just realized I smelled alcohol."

So I'd been drinking. So there had been a 21st birthday party a few hours ago. It was only two glasses of champagne! A few hours ago! But, I can now officially say I'm eligible for a DUI, or at least a free breathalyzer test. And it soooo didn't affect my driving ability. Honest, officer.

So Ohio State choked twice in the same year against Florida? Kinda sad.

Well, not really. More like funny.

Labels: Sports

Unfortunately, it's not a sequel.

Tribune's falling apart! The Cubs are gonna be sold! Hooray for the Cubs nation!

Maybe someone will own them that'll know how to run a team. I mean, I suppose they could suck at running a team AND not have any money, but whatever! Any chance to grow is good!

YTMND set a trap,
Livejournal went down all day,
Facebook claimed a whole bunch of crap:
Fuckin' oxen souffle.

Blizzard, the usual,
and I did my rounds:
Happy April Fools' to all,
it was good, so it sounds.