Search for Reality - Part 4

With all the bad news running rampant around these parts, I believe it’s time to break out some first class goofy shit I've been saving up for you.

I’ve always gotten some pretty weird searches that have led people to this site, so I've taken to writing down the good ones as they crop up.  Today is the day to empty them out.  (It’s got to be more entertaining than writing about tornadoes and scandals.)

It took me quite a while to save these up.  I think it’s partly because my hits counter is not able to provide me with as much information any more.  Now, when you’re logged into Google and do a search, the search criteria are suppressed from appearing on trackers.

Anyway, here is how some people ended up here at Darwinfish2:

“If farting were taxed, I’d be in serious trouble” – Belgrade, Serbia.

I wonder if the serial farter at the Social Security Administration transferred in from Serbia.  This search turned up last year… maybe he was scouting for a new home.

“What happens when you leave a tampon in your ass” – Washington DC.

It came as no surprise that this search came from DC, as so many people that work there have large, uncomfortable objects lodged up there.

“German beard shaping deer” – USA

WTF??  I don’t even know where to go with this one.  First off, you can read it two ways… does the guy want a German deer that shapes beards, or a regular deer who shapes German beards. 

Can deer even be German, and if so, do they have identifying characteristics?  I’m picturing a herd of deer prancing around in lederhosen, waving giant mugs of ale.

Or maybe I’m over-thinking it.

(Original Source)

“Bodybuilding womansex” – Torrance CA

Sounds like a search from a cellardwelling nerdburger.

“Diagram of little chick” – Miami FL

I have no idea if he’s looking for this, that I did post:

Or this, which I didn't.

(Source)

“Haley MF pic” – Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taff, UK

Simple search for one of the Modern Family daughters, but holy hell, did you get a look at where that search came from?? 

Where do the English come up with these names?  It looks like a bunch of random letters thrown together all willy-nilly.  It’s as if everyone got liquored up after a soccer game and tossed darts at some letters taped to a dartboard.

Or maybe it really should be something completely different… maybe when they were laying out and naming the towns, some drunkard wandered in and said, “Want the pint of brown of mine on tap,” but his accent was so strong, they wrote down what they thought they heard.

“MILF with huge boobs Orioles teasing” – Portugal

This seems to have two entirely different things going on.  A “MILF with huge boobs,” obviously I can see why he’s searching on that (although not why he’d land here). 

“Orioles teasing?”  Is that about the Orioles’ brief playoff run last year, or a bird that keeps pecking at his window?  And where does the MILF fit in?  Maybe he means “areolas teasing,” which would certainly tie in with the huge MILF boobs.

“Small backyard urinal ideas” – Chicago IL

Why in God’s name would anyone put a urinal outside?  When you’re a guy, the whole world can be your urinal.  Dude is seriously over-thinking it.  All you really need is some kind of barrier or partition, to keep you away from prying eyes. 

Or if you really feel the need for plumbing fixtures, just go back in the house, for cryin’ out loud.  Hey Carpetbagger… these are your peeps… what the hell?

“2000 lbs of sluts” - Mission Viejo, CA

It sounds like this guy wants to order them by the ton.  What I want to know is whether he’s looking for twenty 100-lb sluts, or more like four 500-lb sluts.  There’s probably a lot less paperwork involved with the latter, so he’d get a better price.

Or maybe it was Jeff Reed, looking for stories about himself.

“Baltimore amateur bar slut” – Catonsville MD

Maybe his regular bar slut turned pro… You gotta hate when that happens.

Odd Bits - The Retail Interval Edition

I want to take a quick break, amid my long, rambly tale of retail life, to off-load some of the bits of crappola that have been building up over the last two weeks.  I’ll jump back into the story on Tuesday night.

The Google Monster

WTF is up with The Google?  Is it just me?  Wednesday morning, about 11:45, as if a switch had just been flipped, I suddenly started getting Google hits out the wazoo.  Most of it came from searches for pictures of the Hilton Camden Yards… I got over 165 hits on Wednesday and Thursday.  (I did my own search, but couldn’t figure out why there was such sudden interest.  But one of my shots was #5 on the list.)

But it wasn’t just that search; I was getting an unusually high number of Google search hits on all kinds of random stuff.  It was like all of a sudden they upped my Google status all over the web.  I don’t get how that happens.

While it’s good for my overall sense of blog well-being, I know they’re like empty calories.  I’m not getting quality visits from people that want to read my goofy shit, they’re just picture trollers.

The search that’s blowing up for me now is just plain weird.  The search string is, “Keep calm and bang Hermione.”  I trust that’s a play on the old English axiom to “Keep Calm and Carry On,” from WWII.  Now, before that earlier sentence, those words have never appeared on my blog.  But if you search under them, you come to a post where I mentioned that, sure I watch the Potter films because hey, Hermione’s hot.

Because it’s an image search, the image from that post is that “Demotivator” picture about the Twilight Moms, with the caption, “If they were middle aged men obsessing over a 17-year old girl, you’d call the police.”  Apparently it drew enough curiosity that people clicked on it. 

Anyway, I’m always happy for the traffic and obviously I hope that people will notice and return to the blog as they’re copying the pictures, but based on my own picture-acquiring activities, I doubt it. 

The New Giant Jesus

There are two subjects that, when news breaks about them, people send me the links.  One is bacon.  The other is the Solid Rock Church in Monroe Ohio, famous for displaying a 62-foot Half-Jesus statue along I-75, which was hit by lightning two years ago and burned to the ground.

This week, my alert brother-in-law sent me a link to the story on how they have put up a new replacement statue.  Giant Jesus Part 2 comes in at 50-feet, and this time it’s His whole body and He’s not chest-deep in water (which should have been biblically impossible.)  His hands are not raised overhead, so it can no longer be called “Touchdown Jesus.”  The statue has its arms out to the side in a welcoming gesture, and has thus been christened “Hug Me Jesus,” kind of like a “Tickle Me Elmo” for the evangelical set.

As the statue was going up, my BIL happened to be driving by and at the time, the head hadn’t been attached yet.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have the opportunity to get a picture.  Gah!  The comedic possibilities for The Great Headless Jesus would have been boundless.

If it were me that was driving by, I don’t know that I’d have been able to get a picture either.  I probably would have assumed that the sculptor got the specs wrong and mistakenly did a statue of John the Baptist.

Where’s the Shirt for “Silas the Syrian Assassin?”

In preparation for my birthday that comes up in about a week, I started laying in some birthday presents for myself.  And when left to my own devices, I usually end up with more Monty Python t-shirts.  Check out my new additions.

The Spanish Inquistion, from Think Geek.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnnoooobody expects the Spanish Inquistion…” I love this shirt completely. 

Emblem for the Ministry of Silly Walks, from Café Press.

This is from one of my favorite sketches, and a classic bit of physical comedy.  But are there any classical students that can translate the Latin around the perimeter?  I get that “leviculous” is probably the root for “levity” and is used to represent the “silly,” but what about the rest?

Nautius Maximus, from Café Press.

I’ve always loved joke names, and this bit from “Life of Brian” still kills me.  “Nautius Maximus” is the purported name of the father of Brian of Nazareth.  As Brian explains this to Pilate, it gives way to one of my favorite scenes in the movie, where the guards tell Pilate that it’s a joke name, like “Sillius Soddus” or “Biggus Dickus.”  When Pilate explains (with his Elmer Fudd speech impediment) that he has “a very gweat fwiend in Wome named Biggus Dickus,” the guards can’t help but bust out laughing, much to Pilate’s chagrin. 

(Later in the movie, Biggus Dickus actually shows up, and he has a speech impediment too… he can’t say his “S’s."  It’s another great piece of physical comedy, which I’m not too proud to co-opt.)

Orioles Magic

As I watch the Pittsburgh Pirates dreams of a playoff run, or even a .500 season disappear like dignity on the Jerry Springer Show, I turn instead to my local ball club, the Baltimore Orioles, who are in a pennant chase with the hated New York Yankees.

Last week, Sitcom Kelly, her sister and I all got emails giving us the chance to register to buy playoff tickets.  With the O’s not having sniffed the playoffs since 1997, it would be crazy to have playoff games going on here without trying to see one or two.  The offer was that you could buy up to four tickets, which would accommodate the three of us, plus Sitcom Sister’s husband.  So I let them try to get the seats and I would reimburse for my ticket.

The good news was that they both got tickets.  The bad news was that they picked games that there are heavy chances that they won’t come to be.

First, Sitcom Kelly bought tickets for “Baltimore Game 3” of the American League Divisional Series (the ALDS).  That means that A) Baltimore will have to be the higher seed, as to ensure home field advantage, AND B) the series would have to go a full 5 games.  I find that scenario highly unlikely to happen.  (Of course, if it DOES, these tickets will be gold.)

Then, her sister got tickets for the single Wild Card game, where the two teams with the best records, that didn’t win their division, play a single game to decide who plays the division winner with the best record, in the ALDS.  For that to occur, the O’s can’t win the division (they’re currently one game behind the Yanks) and they would have to be the first Wild Card team, so that the game is here.  With about 9 games to go, the whole thing is a tossup.

So I decided to get into the mix, and got a pair of tickets for the 1^st and possible 2^nd ALDS games in Baltimore.  In all cases, if the games aren’t played, everyone gets their money back.  Also, in all fairness to the sisters, they knew they would be out of town during the opening ALDS games, so they didn’t want to risk buying the tickets and not using them.  Personally, if the O’s get into the ALDS, I don’t think they’ll be the top seed, so it will be games 3 and (possibly) 4 that take place in Baltimore.  Confusing, much? 

The only scenario where we’re closed out of seeing any games is if the O’s take the 2^nd Wild Card position, so that it’s played “away,” and then lose the game.  Anyway, all will be known soon enough.

The Romulan Nation

It’s not going too well this week for the Rominator, is it?  That video leak really put him back on his heels.  It was Romney speaking to a room full of other filthy rich people, with disturbing things to say about the rest of us.  It reminded me of when someone is about to start talking about minorities and the first thing they do is take a look over both shoulders to make sure the coast is clear.

The GOP rebuttals to this mess are laughable.  My favorite is how they’re jumping on Obama over his “broken promise” to change Washington.  I mean, seriously?  How can the guy change Washington if the other side uses every option at their disposal, including sinking the country’s credit rating, to ensure that nothing changes?  And then to complain about how the other guy broke his promise?

Come on.  Nobody but Fox “News” can even take this seriously.  And speaking of, did you see Jon Stewart Wednesday night?  Holy Hell, he absolutely took Fox apart.  It was a thing of beauty, as brick by brick, he dismantled every argument their talking heads made while they were defending the Romney tape.  You have to see it to believe it.  And as a public service, you may see it right here.

In my opinion, this guy needs to be on at 6, every night.

Steelers Gameday

Maybe you’ve noticed, and maybe you haven’t, but I’ve bagged my old regular feature about my game day mojo.  I mean, I still track and work on wearing the mojo-correct game jerseys and apparel; I just stopped writing about it every week. 

In fact, most of my Steelers-related material is winding up on Twitter.  Now that I have an iPad, I’m “live-tweeting” the Steeler games.  If you care to play along, follow me on Twitter at @DarwinfishBluz.  It’ll be like watching the game at home with your drunk but amusing neighbor, without him peeing on the rim of your toilet.

Search for Reality - The Spring Edition

First off, I’d like to thank everyone that participated in the Great “Argument” Argument of 2012.  I knew I could count on you to come across with the spirit, wisdom and insight.  Now I’m off to not touch that subject again with a ten-foot pole.

I’ve again been collecting the weird searches that have landed people here and I figured I’d trot a few of them out for your amusement.  And in light of the previous post, I must appear sexist to the search engines too.  I still think it’s a bad rap.

But first I’ll go with just the strange ones.

“Vandalism of Darwinfish” – Arlington VA.  Wow… someone else has this problem?  I got the Darwinfish on my car ripped in half last year in a WalMart parking lot.  Either someone else had that happen too, or someone is looking to enter the field of heathen car-emblem destruction.

“Did all the drunks make it home on St Patty’s Day” – Manteca, CA.  This has to be a “thing”… who could possibly ever answer that question?  As far as I know, there is no National Drunk Retrieval Toteboard, from which to tally the safe return of holiday drunks.

“Terrorists throwing horseshoes” – Baton Rouge LA.  This person landed on an old post that showed a picture of some Texans pitching horseshoe-shaped toilet seats, but they’re not necessarily terrorists.  I just wonder if the person was searching for the recreational habits of terrorists, or looking for a good way to weaponize a horseshoe.

“God is a dumbass” – Czech Republic.  And this was an Image Search, too (like most of the searches I’m listing today).  But I’m not touching this one… I may have issues with formal religion but I never referred to the Big Guy as a dumbass.  This is what I get for using Red Forman quotes.

“Which direction to put in a tampon” – Thousand Oaks, CA.  Now we’re leading up to the sexist stuff.  Believe it or not, I see this search a lot, but I have no idea why.  I wonder how they mean it… like, do you have to keep the tampon facing north?  Do they not know which end is the front of the tampon?  Are they wondering if they’re supposed to come straight in the front door, or use the reach-around?  No idea… But how anyone could land here on that search is way beyond me.  There must be dozens of legitimate health sites that could be of use, but here?  The Google works in mysterious ways. 

“Junior high school whore” – North Las Vegas, NV.  I think someone didn’t get a date to the prom.  I wonder if they were looking for someone in particular.  This reminds me of the old joke…

Q: What’s the difference between a slut and a bitch?

A: A slut sleeps with everyone; a bitch sleeps with everyone but you.

Come on, that’s not sexist… it’s making fun of men’s insecurity-ridden thought processes.

Now we come to a cluster of “ass” searches:

“Big ass woman” – Black Mountanin NC

“Hermione ass” – Wichita KS and also the UK

“Hot mom’s ass” – Romeo MI

“Smokin hot ass” – Vero Beach FL.

All of these were Image Searches, but to my knowledge, I’ve never posted a single picture of a hot ass, other than maybe a donkey.  I may have USED the expression a number of times, but mostly it’s as an adjective, like, “I went to Pittsburgh and ordered this big-assed fish sandwich.”

I get a LOT of searches regarding Hermione (from Harry Potter.)  I don’t recall ever writing anything about her bum though, small and cute as it may be.  (I think… not sure I’ve ever had a good look.  Darned robes…) But all the Hermione searches (plus searches for the picture of the Twilight Moms) have put a post from last November in my #1 slot of Most Popular Dfish Post from the last 30 days.  You can see the top 5 referenced on the right-hand side bar.  And to think, all I did was write that Hermione (Emma Watson) is smokin’ hot.

Director’s DVD Commentary: The previous #1 has been there since I installed the widget; my post on Delayed Pressure Urticaria (or contact hives).  In that case, I feel most gratified that so many people from around the world have landed here to read about this malady (because it’s probably affecting them).  If they were like me at all, they felt like they were the only ones in the world with this weird-ass condition.

Great, now I’ve done it.  Bring on the searches for “weird asses.”

“Budweiser frog tittites” – Hudson FL.  “Tittites?”  What are those, pointy boob-like things that hang down from the top of a cave?  Or are “Tittites” the followers of some new sexist religion?  And what in the hell do they have to do with the Budweiser Frogs?  This one is just so strange… (and I’ve actually seen it twice… same spelling and all.  It had to have been the same person.) 

And now for the grand finale…

“Poon sammich” – San Francisco CA.  This could be my new punk band name.  First of all, as seen in prior posts, you know how much I love the term, “poon.”  It just sounds so cute and friendly.  So not only does the idea of a ‘poon sandwich’ crack me up, they actually spelled it as “sammich,” which makes it all the more colloquial, like the bread is a resting place for working-class poon.  Poon of the People! 

You know how they have those Twitter memes, like #ReplaceSongTitlesWithPizza and the like?  They should do one for poon.  Like #ReplaceWordsWithPoon.  I’m all in.

Poon River.

Poon Over Miami.

Fly Me to the Poon.

Name that Poon.

Daniel Poone and his poonskin cap.  (ew)

High Poon.

Sci-Fi epic “Pune”.

Benny and Poon

Winnie the Poon.

Pepe Le Poon

Driving a Poonbuggy on the beach

James Bond classic Poonraker (I think that was a porno.)

The Poonies (I know that was a porno.)

The scourge of modern pop radio: Auto-Poon.

The age of Aquarius, where the Poon is in the seventh house…

I wonder how many “poon” searches I’m going to land now…

Vehicles For Change

I’ve mentioned before that one of my job responsibilities is to set up the audio systems for town hall meetings and other gatherings in our cafeteria.  One of the by-products of this task is that I get to here some interesting presentations on occasion.

This week, our company was hosting an event on behalf an organization called Vehicles for Change.  This is a local service that takes donated cars and sells them for a low cost, to people in need of reliable transportation.  This particular organization is local to the Baltimore area, but there are other similar groups around the country.

The thing is, these are not handouts.  People can apply for these cars and if accepted, they are given low-interest loans to cover the cost of the car.  But they have to pay the loan back through regular payments.  So not only do they earn their car, they establish credit too.

Now I’ve heard of these kinds of organizations for years and I’ve never thought much about them.  But the event we put on did an outstanding job of driving home just how important a car can be to a single mother or struggling family.

Vehicles for Change gathered six local “celebrities” and matched them up with a recent car recipient.  The celebrities included a couple of writers from the local papers, one former football player (who I didn’t recognize but he was huge), a member of the State House of Delegates, and the biggest star (to me) Jane Miller, who is an investigative reporter for a local TV News team.  Besides Mike Wallace in his heyday, Jane Miller is the person around here you least want to see show up on your doorstep with a film crew in tow.  That can only mean that you are about to get your ass handed to you.

Together the celebrities and recipients would perform the daily tasks that the recipient had previously done without the use of a car.  For example, one pair went grocery shopping with a 2-year old child.  Another pair had to catch three separate busses in order to get across town to the recipient’s job.  Another went to a doctor’s appointment.  Along the way, they encountered the usual troubles: busses that were either late or didn’t show, cramped quarters, having to carry heavy groceries, and knowing that no matter how early they started, they would likely arrive late to their destination.

Then at the event, the celebrities described their experiences.  Most had never been on a public bus before.  They were unanimous in stating that they would never use such means of transportation themselves, if they didn’t absolutely have to.

I got the feeling that a lot of people in the room felt the same way.  I take public transportation every day (the subway) and I had never really thought about having to go about my entire daily life without a car.  I may complain from time to time but the subway is fairly reliable, running every 8 minutes during rush hours.  The busses?  Not so much.  Then factor in winter weather, and waiting for busses that run late or never show becomes a tiny slice of Hell, only frozen over.

Jane Miller made several strong points about the need to upgrade Baltimore’s rather haphazard mass transit system, where there are 3 modes of transit (bus, subway and light rail) and none of them link directly with each other.  I liked this point because it addresses a root problem: if the transit system were more effective, the need for cars would decrease.  And the fewer the cars, the less congestion and pollution is created and the less energy is burned.

But back in the real world, the numbers bore a car can mean for a low-income family.  The stat that stuck out most in my mind was that for the recipients of these cars, the average reduction in daily round trip travel time was 90 minutes.  That’s an extra hour and a half a day to do things… go shopping, play with your kids, or take them to school events.

After receiving the cars, these people could then obtain better jobs that aren’t tied to proximity to bus routes.  And they could work longer or later hours when they don’t have to worry about taking their life in their hands waiting for a late-night bus.  Some people have been able to take their kids on a real “vacation,” a concept that is pretty much impossible if one is tethered to public transportation.  One of the speakers said he coached football and noted that he’s never had a single player whose parents didn’t have a car.  Can’t count on the bus to get kids to practice… Having a car makes after-school activities a possibility. 

In most cases, the recipients’ lives improved to the point that they were able to buy their next cars on their own.  That’s a real difference in a person’s life.

There was a Baltimore Sun reporter that wrote a story on the organization and I was glad to see it on the front page.  I hope that it sparked some community interest in the organization. 

I’m no pie-in-the-sky do-gooder… I usually leave that stuff to people that are good at it, like Ginny at That’s Church or Michelle at Burgh Baby.  But as I was sitting through this event, I couldn’t help but feel moved by the stories.  I’ve never even thought about donating a car before but now I would consider it.  The donated vehicles are tax deductible for their full value and not for the marked down price at which they’re sold.  I suppose I’d have to wait until I can actually stop filing the short form, when I finally move into a house and have some real, live deductions.

And I’m not trying to get heavy and guilt people into writing off their cars, in lieu of selling it for cold hard cash.  I only want to point out an actual opportunity to help make a person’s life better, in tangible terms.  Chances like that don’t come along every day.

And now, I promise that with my next post, I’ll be back to the sophomoric humor and goofy word play for which I’m customarily notorious.

In fact, let me drop a few more goofy-assed Google searches that have landed people here this week.

Search for Reality

A fucking fish just touched me.  I’ve been getting this one like crazy and it’s probably my own fault.  I got it once, then mentioned it in Comments, a couple posts back, and now I’m getting a half-dozen a day.  There must be some kind of picture out there with that as a caption.  I Googled it myself but couldn’t find anything.

Why do girls laugh at balls?  From Australia.  Answer: because they’re funny-looking.  Mystery solved.  So why not draw faces on them, just to be in on the joke?  (Since the query was from Australia, I was going to say, “Because they hang Down Under.)

Fox News makes you stupid enough to vote Republican.  From Georgia.  I don’t find this search weird at all; I note it here because I agree with it.

How to make a tampon out of tissue?  From Ireland.  Must be some kind of emergency.  I forgot to check if the search was from a phone.  But the bigger issue is why did it bring the searcher here??  That’s not exactly in my wheelhouse.

Body building Mexican pout.  I have no idea what that could be for, and again, why here?

Hello Kitty pussy spray.  From Toronto.  In April, I posted this Failblog picture:

I hope to God that’s what they were looking for; otherwise, that’s just plain skeevy.

Odd Birthday Bits

Well, happy freakin’ birthday to me.  Fifty.  Five-O.  Fitty.  That’s what I’m going to say… “I’m fitty.”

Eh, they’ll just think I’m too drunk to say “fatty.”

It’s days like this that make the irritations of Facebook seem worthwhile.  Since I got up this morning I’ve been greeted throughout the day by Facebook birthday wishes.  I know it’s a simple thing but it makes me happy that that many people took the trouble to tap out a few words.

I also noticed that it’s mostly all women.  Dudes don’t really notice your birthday unless it pops up right under their noses.

This morning, Pinky told me she arranged an “event” for me this evening.  I’ll tell you more about that once I know more about it.  I know it will involve other people but I don’t yet know who they will be.

But I’ve already received my favorite birthday present… Lots of blog hits.  Ever since Thursday, I’ve noticed a spike in Google search hits about Lawrence Bishop, whose church I wrote about last year when his 62-foot Jesus statue got hit by lightning and burned to the ground.

When I finally got around to doing a Google search on him myself, I learned that he had been found unconscious and taken to the hospital on Thursday and died Friday night without regaining consciousness. 

Wow. Lightning strikes his statue one year, the next he basically drops dead. There's some serious karma, right there. If I were Mrs. Bishop, I'd think about folding the tent right now. But I'd be surprised if she did. That church and the Bishops are intertwined. I don't see anyone else stepping in to run things, nor do I see Mrs. Bishop taking this as any other sign but "God needed him right now, because he's so special."  (My words, not hers.  Those are “air bunnies.”)

I don't wish death on anyone and I'm sorry for their family's loss, but I would not be upset in the least if that nest of thieves closed their doors for good.

Let people send their money to some place that would actually carry out Jesus's word... like a place that would feed and clothe the needy, or provide a place to spend the night.  I’m pretty sure that Jesus never said, “Go out and have people give you money so you can build a giant church, live in luxury and ease your conscience by putting up a gaudy statue of Me.”

Anyway, I’ll take the hits.  But speaking of Google searches, a found a couple more doozies that landed people here this week:

“Angry bacon of pussy.”  I just don’t see “angry” being an appropriate word to go with bacon or pussy.  I’d go more with “delighted!”

“Honey badger sleepy fuck.”  I don’t know what the hell that is supposed to be.  Is “honey badger” a euphemism with which I am not familiar?  Like, “Oh baby, whip that honey badger on me…”

“I am a poon man”  Sounds more like a super hero… “I’m Poon Man!”  Brought to you by Summer’s Eve…

I don’t know what’s wrong with people… But back to the birthday track…

I opened a package from Bluz Sister and I pretty much knew what it would be, but still I was stunned by the beauty.

Bluz Sister knows I love pictures of birds and she did a nice little Baltimore Oriole for me, perched on a snowy pine cone.  I really wish I had that kind of talent.

I guess I’ll just have to take solace in writing my goofy stories in this little corner of the Internet.  So if you wished me happy birthday via Facebook, thank you.  You brightened my Saturday.  And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?  Hit the comments below!

Lastly, Happy Birthday to Jessica, who today turned… much, much less than 50.  You rock, Blog Sister!

Odd Bits - The Naughty Man Edition

First of all, I have to wish my 6-year old nephew Sammy a most happy birthday!  (Which was yesterday.) 

Sam is a real pisser.  I wrote about this before the last Super Bowl in February, but Sam was watching the DVD of the Steelers Super Bowl XLIII win over the Cardinals with his dad.  All season long, Steelers linebacker had been getting fined by the league for laying out hard hits.  When it came to the part where Harrison was about to run that interception back for a score, he said, “Oh, is this the part where Naughty Man scores a touchdown?”

My brother asked him why he called him “Naughty Man.”  Sam said, “Because he’s always getting in trouble.”

It always amazes me what kids pick up, when you think they’re not paying attention.  Anyway, for his birthday this year, Sam asked my parents for a Naughty Man jersey.  If only they could have gotten the back printed with that particular name…

Sammy in his Naughty Man jersey, acting the part.

Since he was feelin’ the jerseys this year, I figured I’d get him a Penguins jersey.  I know he watches the games with his dad.  I’ll come over and he’ll ask me about a particular play from weeks earlier.  Again, it amazes me what he remembers.

Anyway, I had a devil of a time finding a small enough jersey.  Since he had his brother’s hand-me-down Sid jersey in black, I wanted to find him a Penguins white jersey.  But every freakin’ website I checked only had kids jerseys in L/XL.  I definitely needed the S/M.  Finally, I found a Geno Malkin jersey in black, so I had to take what I could get.  If I had only figured out what to get him earlier, I might have imposed on one of my Pittsburgh blog bretheren (or sisteren) to find me something local, but I was on short time.

Nevertheless, the jersey went over well.

I bet that birthday cake had “big taste.”  (Sorry, that’s a reference that only hardcore Pens fans will get.)

Search for Reality

I had a strange Google search bring someone here this week.  Somebody searched on: “Rainbow unicorn with Chuck Norris beard.”

I have no idea what to make of that, or what I’ve ever posted that would draw the hit.  Must be the power of Chuck.  After all, Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane by cocking his finger and shouting “Bang.”

Free Range Morons

I went to my last Orioles game of the year on Monday, with Sitcom Kelly as my wingman.  Right off the bat, the evening proved memorable when our subway train (which runs above ground for half the trip) passed right by a big warehouse fire that I could smell right when I left my apartment.

Foreshadowing of the Red Sox fortunes that week.  Ha!

This trip was Sitcom Kelly’s idea, so she was the one to buy the tickets.  After much back and forth, she settled on seats under the middle deck, in the left field corner.  With the Red Sox in town, she was sure the place would be packed, so we didn’t try for anything better.  This was our view:

As you can see, we could have traded up.

That shot wasn’t taken during batting practice… this was about 5 minutes before the first pitch.  We decided to wait out the first inning and then go move down to the outfield wall.  We ended up in the 2^nd row, right by the foul pole.

Notice all the dents in the fencing up on the pole.  Must be from a lot of batting practice balls… I rarely see balls hit the foul pole during a game.

Anyway, nothing much happened out our way until the late innings when some young punk ran onto the field.  He hopped over the wall from up the 3^rd base line in the infield, then ran through the outfield before coming to rest on the side wall, right in front of us.

"Oh Mama I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of The Law... thumpthump... thumpthump..."

You can see the fans on the side giving him the business.  I know that all the Red Sox fans around us were yelling “Tase him!  Tase him!”

Then right as the cops strode up to him, he took off again through the outfield.

He ran by the outfielders but they moseyed away looking bored.

He ran straight to where the door is to the bullpens, through the outfield wall.  Just as he got to the door, it swung open and a cop stepped out.  Numbnut just put his hands out and let himself get cuffed.

What I couldn’t understand is that knowing that the TV broadcast always cuts away when someone runs on the field, then why in the hell would anyone do that?  A dare?  A bet with one’s friends? 

How much money is enough to make it worth spending a night in Baltimore’s Central Booking facility?  There would have to be a lot of zeros in there for me, let me tell you.  And I could just see the conversation too…

Punk: So what are you in here for?

Big Scary Dude: I burned down a house holding a state’s witness and her family.

Bigger Scary Dude: I poured sulfuric acid on a playground slide.

Biggest Scary Dude: I skull-fucked a nun.  What did YOU do?

Punk: I ran across the field at an Orioles game.

Anyway, when I got home, I was curious about how much padding was going to be in the official attendance figures.  I was guessing that there was about 13,000 butts in the seats.  So I looked up the box score online and when I did, I saw a thumbnail picture beside it.  The shot was of the punk running on the field so I embiggened it and found a surprise.

Get a load of the doofus in orange taking pictures. 

(Photo by Getty Images)

It’s also funny because you can see the Sox fans giving the guy shit.  And even better, there was Sitcom Kelly, effectively “Wilsoned” behind the foul pole.  I couldn’t have planned that shit any better.  Once again, I’ve managed to Forrest Gump my way into another random crowd shot.

The Mojo Boogie

While I didn’t post my usual Game Mojo information prior to last Sunday night’s Steelers game, (I didn’t want to interfere with my Stripper Tales), that doesn’t mean I wasn’t engaging in my mojo activities.  This was the gear I went with for the game:

Black Woodley jersey with white Steelers sweatpants and Steelers socks.  T-shirt features a famous ‘Burgh-related quote from Howard Cosell.

I usually go with a white jersey when the Steelers wear white, but I wasn’t feeling the history on this one.  My gut said to go with the Woodley so I did.  I also left the Steelers Gnome in place.  The result was a narrow, last second win over a team that the Steelers should have crushed.  So now I have to read the tea leaves.

Was my jersey and/or gnome what sandbagged our chances?  Or were they the catalyst that pulled out the win in the end? 

I’m leaning toward pulling the gnome and putting him back on my desk.  I’m not ready to give up on the Woodley jersey just yet.

This coming Sunday, I’m going to watch the game with my brother and Naughty Boy over at their house, so I’ll have to come up with some gear suitable for alternate house viewing.  Wish me luck.

And lastly, as a public service: How You Tell When Bananas Go Bad

Director’s DVD Commentary:

Regarding the caption under Sammy’s picture in the Malkin jersey: after winning the Stanley Cup, Malkin (who is Russian and still very new to speaking English) was asked how that victory champagne tasted.  He answered, “It has big taste.”  I love that line.

Regarding the Big Scary Dude crimes: Two of those are actual Baltimore City crimes.  One, I made up.  You guess.

Search for Reality Pt 3

Now we swing from the tawdry to the mundane.

You know how I like to keep tabs on what Internet searches bring people here to my site?  It seems that over the last couple of days, I’ve had some more corkers.  I just wish I knew what the hell people were thinking when they search for this stuff.

I’m also kind of bummed because I know they must be disappointed when they land here and it’s not even close to what they’re looking for.

Like the person from Brazil that was searching for “shit knockers.”  Was he looking for someone that someone that knocks shit around?  Or really messy boobs? 

Perhaps I should get him together with the person from Colorado that searched for “evil butts.”  Although being from tree-hugging, granola-eating Colorado, they were probably talking about cigarettes.

Someone from Morgantown WV searched “forced diaper boys,” and landed on my babysitting/diaper changing post.  I have to guess that they were pretty disappointed with what they found there.  You know, when I discovered that search, I swear I could hear the banjo music playing in the background.

Most of the bizarre searches are sex related and I hadn’t really gotten many of those until I posted those last two stories.  You may have noticed that I changed the operative term from “Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow” to “Bow Chicka-Wow-Wow.”  I did this intentionally because I kept getting searches for various plays on “Bow-wow,” like “bow wow sex story” from Illinois, and “bow wow kiss & tell story,” from Sheffield, UK.  I should probably forward those IP addresses directly to the ASPCA.

My “Three-Way of Love” post pulled in this search from Indianapolis: “2 girls riding each other w/ one girl.”  That’s so specific, yet I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about.  Perhaps he’d have better luck taking after this guy from North Carolina, who searched for “pregnant drunk sluts.”  Perhaps I should have directed him to “Bitchburgh.”  (Just kidding, Mindbling.  Please don’t hurt me.)

I have to really wonder about the Mormons.  I got this search from Provo UT, “accidental attack wild huge rack.”  Either those are song lyrics, or this guy needs to go knock on some doors to work his shit out.

The Swiss are certainly not neutral when it comes to senior citizen sex, as attested to by this search from Zurich, for “nasty horny Grandpas.”  Yodel on this, baby!  And leave my little Grandpa alone!  He’s not that kind of guy… he’ll tell you himself!

A couple of more searches just defied explanation.  Someone from Victoria BC searched on “Googly-eyes Canadian.”  Looking for Dudley Dooright, maybe?

One Googly-Eyed Canadian, at your service!

Someone from Tennessee searched on “Stop off & buy a lighter.”  They hit one of my concert stories, but what I want to know is what someone could possibly have been looking for.  Was the searcher a traveling Bic salesman?

Someone from New Hampshire searched for “Civil war people looking worried.”  Again… so specific.  But it cracked me up because I’ve probably done something similar when looking for a picture to accompany a post.  Like the girl-in-car pic in the last post.  I think I searched under something like: “smiling drivers.”  Perhaps that site owner was as entertained as I am.

But for as specific as that civil war search was, others are cryptic to the point of being incomplete.  Like the guy from Sydney Australia who searched for “my dad did,” and found my $#!* My Dad Did post.  But in this case, was he answering a “whodunit” question?  Or was it more like “my dad did” not have sex with that woman?

Sometimes there are spelling issues, like when the guy from South Africa was looking for “who killed 2puck.”  He may have been trying to solve the mystery of rapper Tupac Shakur, but all he got here for his trouble was a healthy dose of Pittsburgh Penguins.

The most intriguing search I found actually hit pretty close to home.  The search was from Helsinki, Finland (home of the Syndrome) and he was looking for: “Mangela Fera Factor.”  This was actually a search for my cousin Angela who was on Fear Factor, whom I talked about a couple posts ago when she had her baby.  I have to be impressed by the Google’s search prowess, because I didn’t even mention “Mangela,” plus the dude misspelled the show’s name.

During the Fear Factor episode, Angela’s partner Zack mentioned that he calls her “Mangela,” because of her athletic prowess, especially in throwing a football.  Girl can wing it about 40 years.  She was throwing bombs all over the parking lot when we were together in Miami for the famous Hurricane Game.  I was surprised that Google could pull all that together.

Angela was not terribly pleased that Zack dropped that nickname on TV, which was now spread all over Pittsburgh.  In fact, when she came in to work the day after the broadcast, someone had taped an “M” in front of her office nameplate.  She’ll probably be even less pleased that I just dredged it up again.

But speaking of my dear cousin, she did me a solid by providing me with a nice clean segue into a closing and otherwise unrelated bit.

She emailed me pictures of my aforementioned Grandpa, not being nasty and horny, but supervising the making of ‘polenta’ aka “mush.”

I’ve never been to the polenta feast, so I followed up with Angela to get the scoop.  Here’s her report:

The "mush" (polenta) gets eaten straight from the wooden board.  First, it has to be boiled and stirred for a long time under Grandpa's strict supervision.  Once the mixture of water and cornmeal is thick enough, it gets spread with the big wooden stick onto the large wooden board.  Next the sauce is placed on top and spread all over the mush.  It is a special sauce with meat and mushrooms and so good!  Then meatballs and sausage are gathered in the center of the board on top of the mush/sauce layers and then Parmesan cheese is sprinkled over the whole thing.  People gather around the board with only forks and wine glasses. 

The traditional rule was this:  you had to eat a trail to the center before you could get a meatball.  Also popular is eating the mush to form the shape of the U.S. and particularly the southern panhandle states.  

My mom told me a story about a time when they were eating mush in Grandma and Grandpa's dining room and some people came to the back door, I think asking to use the telephone.  She said when they came in and saw the table they looked shocked at seeing the mush feast in progress!

I am not sure how often our parents ate mush, but I think it originated as a cheap way to feed a lot of people.  Now my parents have the board and the stick, and they host the mush feast about once a year, usually in February.  It is a good, cozy meal for cold weather.  Today they would call it "comfort food" but we just call it mush. :)  Below is a poem I wrote about the race to get the first meatball, just for fun.

Mush Race

O meatball centerpiece,

soft pyramid of treasures

hand-rolled and soaked

in velvet red tradition.

I long to reach you,

first, before the others.

Before we taste the golden

depth of our journey

and forget about the race.

Man, I have to get out there for one of these.  And I will totally kick some ass getting to one of those meatballs!   Game on!

As you can see, even at 95, Grandpa can still wield the Polenta Pole.

Grandpa with grandson Greg.

Now these pictures are from 2007.  I just happened to have them in The Archives:

Spreading the mush is a manly task!

This is what the final result looks like.  I’d hate to have to eat all the way in from the end of the table.  I'd never win the race.

Thank you to Grandpa and Angela, for this fine tutorial!

Ciao!  (Or maybe in this case… “Chow!”)