Toilet Humour

I got this in an email from Ernie’s House of Whoop Ass yesterday. I didn’t write it and I have no idea who did, but it made me laugh so hard that I almost cried, so I thought I’d share.

THE BIG DUMP

All in all, it hadn’t been a good day. Bad traffic, a malfunctioning computer, incompetent coworkers and a sore back all made me a seething cauldron of rage. But more importantly for this story, it had been over forty-eight hours since I’d last taken a dump. I’d tried to jumpstart the process, beginning my day with a bowl of ass cleansing fiber cereal, following it with six cups of coffee at work, and adding a bean-laden lunch at Taco Bell.

As I was returning home from work, my insides let me know with subtle rumbles and the emission of the occasional tiny fart that Big Things would be happening soon. Alas, I had to stop at the mall to pick up an order for the wife. I completed this task, and as I was walking past the stores on my way back to the car, I noticed a large sale sign proclaiming, “Everything Must Go!” This was prophetic, for my colon informed me with a sudden violent cramp and a wet, squeaky fart that everything was indeed about to go. I hurried to the mall bathrooms. I surveyed the five stalls, which I have numbered 1 through 5 for your convenience:

1. Occupied.

2. Clean, but Bathroom Protocol forbids its use, as it’s next to the occupied one.

3. Shit smeared on seat.

4. Shit and toilet paper in bowl, unidentifiable liquid splattered on seat.

5. No toilet paper, no stall door, something growing near base of toilet.

Clearly, it had to be Stall #2. I trudged back, entered, dropped my trousers and sat down. I’m normally a fairly Shameful Shitter. I wasn’t happy about being next to the occupied stall, but Big Things were afoot.

I was just getting ready to bear down when all of a sudden the sweet sounds of Beethoven came from next door, followed by a fumbling, and then the sound of a voice answering the ringing phone. As usual for a cell phone conversation, the voice was exactly 8 dB louder than it needed to be. Out of Shameful habit, my sphincter slammed shut. The inane conversation went on and on. Mr. Shitter was blathering to Mrs. Shitter about the shitty day he had. I sat there, cramping and miserable, waiting for him to finish. As the loud conversation dragged on, I became angrier and angrier, thinking that I, too, had a crappy day, but I was too polite to yak about in public. My ass let me know in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t get crapping soon, my day would be getting even crappier.

Finally my anger reached a point that overcame Shamefulness. I no longer cared. I gripped the toilet paper holder with one hand, braced my other hand against the side of the stall, and pushed with all my might. I was rewarded with a fart of colossal magnitude — a cross between the sound of someone ripping a very wet bed sheet in half and of plywood being torn off a wall. The sound gradually transitioned into a heavily modulated low-RPM tone, not unlike someone firing up a Harley. I managed to hit the resonance frequency of the stall, and it shook gently.

Once my ass cheeks stopped flapping in the breeze, three things became apparent:

(1) The next-door conversation had ceased; (2) my colon’s continued seizing indicated that there was more to come; and (3) the bathroom was now beset by a horrible, eldritch stench.

It was as if a gateway to Hell had been opened. The foul miasma quickly made its way under the stall and began choking my poop-mate. This initial “herald” fart had ended his conversation in mid-sentence.

“Oh my God,” I heard him utter, following it with suppressed sounds of choking, and then, “No, baby, that wasn’t me (cough, gag), you could hear that (gag)??”

Now there was no stopping me. I pushed for all I was worth. I could swear that in the resulting cacophony of rips, squirts, splashes, poots, and blasts, I was actually lifted slightly off the pot. The amount of stuff in me was incredible. It sprayed against the bowl with tremendous force. Later, in surveying the damage, I’d see that liquid poop had actually managed to ricochet out of the bowl and run down the side on to the floor. But for now, all I could do was hang on for the ride.

Next door I could hear him fumbling with the paper dispenser as he desperately tried to finish his task. Little snatches of conversation made themselves heard over my anal symphony: “Gotta go… horrible… throw up… in my mouth… not… make it… tell the kids… love them… oh God…” followed by more sounds of suppressed gagging and retching.

Alas, it is evidently difficult to hold one’s phone and wipe one’s bum at the same time. Just as my high-pressure abuse of the toilet was winding down, I heard a plop and splash from next door, followed by string of swear words and gags. My shit-mate had dropped his phone into the toilet.

There was a lull in my production, and the restroom became deathly quiet. I could envision him standing there, wondering what to do. A final anal announcement came trumpeting from my behind, small chunks plopping noisily into the water. That must have been the last straw. I heard a flush, a fumbling with the lock, and then the stall door was thrown open. I heard him running out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

After a considerable amount of paperwork, I got up and surveyed the damage. I felt bad for the janitor who’d be forced to deal with this, but I knew that flushing was not an option. No toilet in the world could handle that unholy mess. Flushing would only lead to a floor flooded with filth.

As I left, I glanced into the next-door stall. Nothing remained in the bowl. Had he flushed his phone, or had he plucked it out and left the bathroom with nasty unwashed hands? The world will never know.

I exited the bathroom, momentarily proud and Shameless, looking around for a face glaring at me. But I saw no one. I suspect that somehow my supernatural elimination has managed to transfer my Shamefulness to my anonymous shit-mate. I think it’ll be a long time before he can bring himself to shit in public — and I doubt he’ll ever again answer his cell phone in the latrine.

And this, my friends, is why you should never talk on your phone in the bathroom.

The Terrorists Have Won

High School officials in Fort Myers, Florida have
turned down an invitation from the organizers of London’s 2007 New Year’s Day parade,
because they feel that the members of their school band would be “safer in America” than they would be in England due to a greater likelihood of being victims of a terrorist attack there.

“What happens if kids get on a train that blows up,” asked Lee County high school consultant Herb Wiseman, one of the most inappropriately named men I’ve come across in quite some time, when making his case by pointing to last summer’s London train bombings. “We don’t have trains blowing up in America,” he told the Fort Myers News-Press.

That’s true, but don’t forget that England doesn’t have people flying passenger jets into tall buildings full of people either, so it looks like you’re even.

And as usually happens in situations like this, leave it to the kids to make the most sense.

“It’s more probable to be struck by lightning or be murdered in your sleep, than to fall prey to an attack by al-Qaeda
terrorists,” student Ethan Lapham said. “There is no better time to show these terrorists that we have no fear of them. Instead we are forced, through the cowardly acts of our superiors, to hide in shame.”

Don’t Worry About the Smoke, the Computer Says We’re Fine.

I saw a TV commercial advertising something that scared me. G.M. has had this thing called OnStar for a while in their newer vehicles. Basically, it’s a way of getting help in various situations, like if you lock your keys in your car, you crash, or you have some medical emergency while driving. You push a button and someone can speak to you and get you help. I have no problem with that, that’s a good idea. Now, they’ve instituted this self-diagnosing feature. Your car’s computer is supposed to check the car once a month and tell you if you need to take it into the shop.

Does anyone see a problem with this? If you don’t, I want you to think about this idea next time your computer crashes, hint hint. You see, boys and girls, computers can fuck up, and nobody’s a better judge of their car’s health than the driver, or another human riding in the car. They can hear the squeaks, thumps and knocks their car’s making, they can notice the oil leaking out the bottom, etc. Plus, I don’t think giving the computer a lot of control in a car, or any large object capable of movement at high speed, is a good idea. No no no, I didn’t just read one too many science fiction books. I was in a car accident that probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the computer in the car going heywire. Dad turned on the car, and it went straight from park to reverse. then it sped up, went straight backwards, ripped a post out of the ground and bent it, continued backwards, smashed the window of a store, and stopped. Keep in mind that dad was trying to: put the breaks on, put the car in park, turn the key off, take the key out. It kept going, and as my friend looked up from the floor where he had fallen, he saw the computer readouts on the dash were going wild. When they took the car to the shop, they had to write it off because they couldn’t figure out what was making it behave that way. It went from 0 to 40 km/h in about 3 seconds. I’m pretty sure if the computer in the car wasn’t in charge of speed control, that wouldn’t have happened.

But it’s now ok to have cars diagnosing themselves? Can’t people think anymore? Doesn’t human intervention count for anything anymore? I was ok with the oil light and the gas gauge, but this seems a little over the top. I’m just waiting for someone to try and drive with a flat tire because the green light’s on, so the car must be ok.

Hold Music Made Worse

Until this morning, I wouldn’t have thought that such a thing was possible. But then I ran across
eNthem.com,
a company that will, for a cool $500, write you an official corporate anthem.

Imagine calling somewhere, being put on hold as tends to happen quite a bit of the time, and then being greeted by something like
this.
I’m not sure that I’d ever be able to do business with those people again, not only because of the auditory torture factor, but mostly because I’d probably be laughing way too goddamn hard to be able to carry on something even remotely resembling a coherent conversation.

But even though this is completely ridiculous, I can’t help but wonder what the official Vomit Comet eNthem would sound like. Thank Christ I’m not rich or stupid enough to find out. But if any of you are…

By the way, does the guy singing that song sound at all like Josh Groban? I’m curious because that’s who they compare him to and I can’t honestly say I know what he sounds like. If I had to take a guess I’d say probably not, but I’d like an opinion from someone who knows.

Game Over!

I am still surprised at how slowly some people learn some things that seem really really obvious. For example, when you make products for a small market, you’d better make good products, treat your customers with respect and prove that you are honest and fair. If you don’t, word will get around and you won’t be selling anything to that small market anymore. This story is all about a man who only learned the first of those three things, while the other two completely escape him to this day.

Once upon a time, there was a company called ESP Softworks. It made computer games for the blind, and a lot of them were pretty cool. Now, think about that for a second. Computer games designed for blind users. So, not only does your average player have to be blind, the player has to want to play a game on a computer. Compared to, oh, say, video games for the Playstation, what do you think the market would be?

One of the founders, James North, was not cool at all. He did not think very highly of his customers, and made his feelings very public by bitching about them on a blind gamers list where, ahem, a lot of his clientelle were subscribed. He would also send updates to people who had bought his games complaining about how selfish his customers were. That, in my opinion, is the stupidest idea possible. If there was a small town with 3 dishwasher repairmen in it, your dishwasher broke and the first one was not very nice to you, what would you do? I would think you’d go to dishwasher repairman no. 2 and tell all your friends what a dick dishwasher repairman no. 1 was. Soon, word would get around about dishwasher repairman no. 1 and he wouldn’t have much business at all.

but, somehow, this guy stayed in business, despite all the negative comments he made towards his customers, and despite the fact that there were other game-developers out there. It is true that some of them didn’t make as good a game as he did, but his games weren’t perfect either. I downloaded a demo of a game that was so bad that it caused two copies of a character to appear in the same room and then it would crash itself and die. Not convincing marketing right there.

Then James North decided to go out of business, or so he told us. This, in itself isn’t a shock, since sadly it happens more often than not in this market because it is so small and the amount of work that needs to be done doesn’t often equal the reward the developer gets back. But the thing that surprised me was he went out of business after taking preorder money for a product that never materialized and was handed off to a new company called Adora Entertainment, who were then responsible for all matters relating to this phantom product, including finishing it, handling angry customers who weren’t originally theirs and satisfying those who wanted their money back.

At the time, I thought, “what a prick!” But this was nothing new, since I was the recipient of many complaining emails about customers and their whining and his opinion that we were all lazy demanding complaining losers. Keep in mind that I am not his friend, or a close associate. At the time of receiving these emails, I was one of his customers only. But life went on, and the games came out, thanks to the people who were either nice enough or stupid enough to take them on.

But then…oh then, I got another surprise. I received an email out of the blue from a company I’d never heard of before called Alchemy Game Studios. I thought, “wow, a spam that talks about things I’m interested in.” Then I looked at the bottom, and saw James North’s name. I thought, “hmmm strange.” In the email, he said he was working on one of his old titles that he didn’t turn over to Adora and said he was developing some new ones. I thought “wow, James might be less of a prick after all, although why did he dump the first game?”

A year went by in which all James released was trailers, and a whole lot of email asking for what? Preorder money and patience because we blind people ask for too much for too little money and we have to wait if we want quality games. Sound familiar? Hope so, because the next part sounds really familiar. I quote from his site a piece of news which was worded very similarly to the last email I’ve received from him. It says: “Please be aware that the rights of both Montezuma’s Revenge and Raceway have been transferred to U.S.A. Games/Thomas Ward. Any questions regarding either title in regards to their release, order status, and/or refunds—if they’re offering them—should be directed to them solely by visiting their website at http://www.usagames.us or by contacting them via e-mail at sales@usagames.us.”

So here he goes again, cutting and running with preorder funds and handing over all the dirty work to some other poor fuck who, again, is either nice enough or stupid enough to take the project on. In this case, however, I know it’s the former. You might be thinking, maybe he gave the preorder money to USA Games. Sadly, you would be wrong. Shortly after receiving this email, I got another one from a game newsletter that said James North didn’t give the preorder money to this poor soul and now in order to keep himself from going under before he even begins, he’s having to give disgruntiled customers in-store credit rather than paying thousands of dollars out of pocket. Sit back and process that for a minute. Thousands…of…dollars. USA games was generously offering to bail James North out…again, as one of their first projects. This company hasn’t sold a single game yet, and James North knows this because, wait for it, this is a small community.

I can only come to one conclusion: James North is a huge scumbag and an incredible scammer. What else can I think after seeing all this crap twice. At least I learned to pay attention to history. And there is only one justice for people like him. Say it with me now, everybody who buys accessible games. “You’ll never work in this town again!”

How To Spot A Baby Conservative

All you have to do is look for the whiny ones,
at least according to a new study done by people who don’t seem to mind pissing off religious gun nuts.

Personally I’m not sure how seriously I should be taking this whole thing, but I have to admit, it’s an interesting theory. If nothing else it’s got me racking my brain trying to think of people I grew up with who can help to either prove or disprove it.

But when I think about my own life and where I should have fallen, it kind of calls the whole idea into question because there’s no one good answer.

I think I was somewhat of a whiny kid, but as weird as it might sound, I was a whiny kid with confidence. I would whine sometimes when I didn’t get my own way or when I didn’t like something, but show me a kid that doesn’t and I’ll show you something that would generally fit at the end of a statement like this one but that for some reason I can’t come up with right now.

But while I did my share of bitching and complaining, it also wasn’t unusual for me to be the funniest person in a room, even when I was really young. that’s not just me and my ego talking either, people have honestly said that to me. I was also the type that didn’t get all that nervous about public speaking or singing or anything that involved opening myself up to public scrutiny. and growing up as a blind person, you have to have some confidence and faith in yourself to start with, so I had that going for me too. If you don’t have that, you’re pretty much fucked, that is to say doomed to a life full of never being taken seriously by anyone and not much else.

And the more I sit here thinking about terms like liberal and conservative and right wing and left wing, the more I realize that I’ve never been able to put myself on one side or the other. Each side has it’s share of crazies and wackjobs and to be honest, labeling yourself that way is just stupid, because it’s a surefire way to get lumped in with the parts of each that you can’t stand. I guess what I’m trying to say is forget what I said a minute ago about calling the whole idea into question. there has to be something to it if I’m a whining confident person who considers himself somewhere in the middle, not completely discounting either side. I can’t believe I wrote all of this for nothing. Oh well. At least it gave you something to read and me something to do for a few minutes, so I guess it wasn’t a total waste of time after all.

Arresting People For No Good Reason, What’s More American Than That?

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has announced that the State has begun
sending undercover police officers into bars to arrest drunk people for being drunk.

According to commission spokesperson Carolyn Beck, the first of the sting operations, which are designed to prevent drunken mishaps before they happen, took place recently in a suburb of Dallas and involved the infiltration of 36 bars and the arrest of 30 people on public intoxication charges.

The brilliant minds behind this idea feel, as Beck puts it, that being in a bar should not, and does not in any way, exempt people from State public drunkenness laws.

“We feel that the only way we’re going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this,” Beck says.

“There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they’re intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car,” she continued. “For instance, they sometimes decide that it would be a good idea to send undercover agents into drinking establishments for the soul purpose of arresting innocent people, wasting valuable police time and resources in the process.”

Ok, I added that last part in, but so what, I’m sure that most of you were already thinking it anyway. However, Beck did add the following: “People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss.”

I’ll give her this much. Sometimes drunk people aren’t the quickest bunnies in the forest, and yes, sometimes they’re pretty dangerous. But I fail to see how that can be used in any way as justification for covertly spying on people and throwing them in jail when the State decides that they’ve had enough of a good time. You would think that it would be much easier to simply increase police presence at bars if alcohol-related issues have really gotten that far out of hand. I’d like to think that that’s what would happen in any similar situation, But maybe it really is true what they say. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the stupidity.

You Don’t Have the Fucking Guts!

Do something for me. Go to google, and type in Nicole Freeborn, and tell me what you find, boys and girls. If your google page is like my google page, you’ll find a whole wack of screaming, ra ra ra-ing and whining. About what you say? Well, this chick claims that she was sexually assaulted by a police officer while being arrested at a protest. The story goes that a group of people from Guelph Union of Tenants and Supporters, GUTS, were holding a protest and had to be arrested, as often seems to happen when these people gather to protest. Hell they even vaguely advocated for the setting of fires at various development sites throughout the city. During her arrest, an officer allegedly pinned her against a wall, pressed his pelvis into her “bum” and said, “How do you like that?” Before handing her off to a female officer to be taken to the station. And now, the reason for the google search I mentioned. There is a giant campaigne all over the web talking about her story, referencing the offending officer’s name and badge number, and calling for his immediate termination. Why don’t we just get a stake and burnhim at it?

Ok, he was arresting her, and she was likely resisting, since these people like to fight the system to their own detrament. This is also the same woman who put up ads through a mailing list asking people to join her in forming a fight club in a public park. So, what do you expect this officer to do? Stand there and kindly Ask her to please stop resisting and calm down? No! he’s going to restrain her, and it likely felt like he pressed his pelvis into her. As for the words, “How do you like that?”, if he said those words, he’s a dick and should be tried, but how easy would that be to be heard and proven that you heard it during a noisy and commotion-filled protest. Along with her, four other people are being arrested, I assume for being unreasonable and causing more noise. Then there are the regular protesters, police perhaps driving in, and other random noise. I would think that he would whisper or say these words quietly, so that at best, anyone who’s not her would have to read his lips which are most likely near the back of her head since he’s pinning her down. At this point, that part of the story is her word and the word of a few other bystanders who say they’re friends of hers against his.

If I believed that it happened, I’d be right behind her. But here’s something else I found out. It was stated in the paper that the police chief has called in the Special Investigations Unit to get to the bottom of this, and they want to meet with her. They want to meet with her in Mississauga, which is like an hour away from where she lives, if that. But this girl says that is too much for her. In her words printed in the same article, “I don’t have any money, I don’t have any transportation, and I don’t have any faith.” Apparently she doesn’t have any official complaint either, since she never bothered to file one. Ok, I’ve never been sexually assaulted, but I’ve been wronged in other ways, and I think if a special investigations unit wanted to meet with me about any of them, I’d be doing anything to get there, and I don’t have much money or any transportation of my own either. Faith? I don’t know if you can ever have no faith in anything, friends, processes, life’s possibilities. If you don’t, what’s the point of living?

And about those friends and processes, what about that big organization called GUTS that started this mess? According to the press release that’s duplicated everywhere, some of them witnessed it, and had no problem bellowing at police at the scene. How about doing something productive and useful like, oh, say, helping her get there by arranging transportation? For christ’s sake, buy a bus ticket, find a car, pay for gas, something! If you believe in what she’s saying and saw the disturbing display of disregard you’re claiming to have seen, show it. They’re not asking her to travel to the People’s Republic of China to talk to these people. How hard would it be to help? Hell I’ve travelled to a place near Mississauga just to help a friend with something a lot less serious than this. I love groups like this. They’re all over causing a stirr, but don’t want to do any real work.

Let’s get bak to the star of the show with more of her own words. “I’m trying to figure out if there is any point in continuing with their complaint process. I don’t feel like they’re making it very easy.” How easy do you want them to make it? If you want an independent body involved, they’re not going to be local. You’re going to have to go somewhere else to get this done.

Let’s here more fine words from our friendly neighbourhood gutless wonder. “Just based on the response so far, I don’t think they’re taking it as seriously as they should be. It seems like it’s going to take a long time.” Let’s dissect this piece by piece. They’re not taking this seriously? Neither are you if you’re not willing to go to Mississauga for a meeting, or even file a complaint. It’s going to take a long time? Of course it is! Court proceedings concerning murder take a long time. Anything involving due process will take a long time. Has this activist ever actually advocated for anything before? A human rights complaint takes, gulp, five years on average! Trust me, I know this. You see, I’ve tried to do some actual work, and that’s how I know that. Due process is long, it’s painful, and part of me thinks that’s the point. They want to know you’re serious, and if they can make you give up along the way, woohoo, less work for them. It sure didn’t take long in this case.

I guess all of this will make more sense in time. I hope the investigation will get to the bottom of it, no matter how long it takes. I hope she cooperates with it to help us make sense of things. And, if it’s determined that what she said happened, then I’ll take back almost everything I said. But right now, while all these other people are screaming, “Get ’em!”” The only thing this story screams is, “you’re lying!”