This Is So Wacky

Apparently this is a real guide to overcoming the problem of masturbation that was put out by Mormons in the 1970’s. It is, as you would probably expect, completely ridiculous and quite amusing.

3. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don’t suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will. You must get away from people of that kind. Just to be in their presence will keep your problem foremost in your mind. The problem must be taken OUT OF YOUR MIND for that is where it really exists. Your mind must be on other and more wholesome things.

5. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.

12. During your toileting and shower activities leave the bathroom door or shower curtain partly open, to discourage being alone in total privacy. Take cool brief showers.

18. It is sometimes helpful to have a physical object to use in overcoming this problem. A Book of Mormon, firmly held in hand, even in bed at night has proven helpful in extreme cases.

19. In very severe cases it may be necessary to tie a hand to the bed frame with a tie in order that the habit of masturbating in a semi-sleep condition can be broken. This can also be accomplished by wearing several layers of clothing which would be difficult to remove while half asleep.

I noticed something while I was reading this. There sure are a lot of mixed messages here if you read between the lines a little. You probably won’t get that sense from the little bit I’ve quoted here, but if you red the whole thing you’ll see what I’m talking about. What the hell, I’ll start you off with a few examples.

  • For starters, the name of the guy who wrote this thing has the word peter in it. How are we supposed to stop thinking about our problem if the object of our desire’s name is on the front cover?
  • For somebody who wants us to stop beating off, he sure mentions coming a lot.
  • There’s a line in one of these tips that suggests making a pocket calendar, but I thought that the point of this whole thing was to get men to keep their hands out of their pockets.
  • One of the tips includes the words “arise immediately in the mornings.” Isn’t that part of the problem?

I’m sure you can find more, and if you feel like trying, or just feel like having a good laugh at the expense of people different from us, you can read the whole thing by clicking
here.
Just remember to keep your hands off your mouse while you’re there.

Dear Buckley’s:

First things first, I wanted to tell you how much I love your medicine. Your product is the best weapon I have ever found in the fight against coughs and colds. In fact, nothing else even comes close. But as grateful as I am to you fine folks for everything you’ve done *for* me over the years, I think we need to have a little chat about something you’ve started doing *to* me recently.

Let me tell you a little story.

It all started back in October of last year when I found myself stricken with a horrible bug. I was coughing, I was stuffy, I was aching. You name it, I was probably doing it. So as I always do when situations like this arise, I reached for my trusty bottle of Buckley’s. And as usual, relief was quickly at hand. I wish that was the end of the story. Oh how I wish that was the end of the story. But sadly, as I would soon learn, it was not to be.

Fast forward to a few hours later. Your hero, [that would be me], decides that it is no longer feasible to ignore the call of nature. I slowly crawl out from under my blanket and gingerly make my way down the hallway towards the bathroom. Once there, I set about doing the typical restroom business when it suddenly occurs to me that something is amiss. For a split second I wonder if perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me, but after some careful reflection I realize that no, something is most definitely wrong here, and what it is isn’t hard to figure out. What is somewhat puzzling however is why it was happening. Had I been poisoned by Carin in the climax of an evil plot to take over the blog and the riches that come with it? Had I somehow swallowed battery acid in my sleep without noticing? Or was this just a particularly nasty flu that would stop at nothing to make my life a living breathing hell? It had to be one of those things, and my money was on either Carin or the flu since I don’t much care for battery acid. I find it bitter and the texture really isn’t to my liking, so that was out. I know that’s kind of an odd statement coming from a guy who drinks Buckley’s, but that’s neither here nor there so I’ll move on.

“Carin,” I whisper at the top of my lungs. Hey, my voice was gone, give me a break.

“What,” she replies.

Are you attempting to carry out an evil plot to take over the blog and the riches that come with it?”

“What,” she says again. “You’re telling me that thing actually makes money?”

I laugh for a second before doubling over in a fit of painful coughing.

“What would make you think that,” she inquires.

“Well,” I begin, “how can I put this delicately?” I pause for a moment to gather my thoughts before continuing. “I took a piss just now and something that’s gone through me is burning the bejesus out of my wang and I’m trying to decide if it’s you trying to off me or this goddamn flu just finding another way to fuck with me.”

“I think it’s the flu,” she says, “go back to sleep.”

And go back to sleep I do.

A few hours later it is once again time to evacuate the citizens of Bladdertown, and much to my delight, nothing hurts that didn’t hurt before I walked in. that sure did suck before I think to myself, but at least it’s over now.

Again, I wish that was the end of the story. Oh how I wish that was the end of the story. But sadly, as I would soon learn, it was not to be.

More hours pass, and with them more liquid. I count my lucky stars that nothing is seriously wrong with me or my wedding tackle. Time for some more Buckley’s, I eventually decide. Again, sweet, sweet relief quickly comes over me.

But speaking of sweet sweet relief, I soon start running into problems once again, and I bet you already know what they are, don’t you Buckley’s? You’re smart people, I’m sure you’ve got this figured out by now. Eventually I did too after going through a few of these no Buckley’s no burning cycles, and that leads me to only one conclusion. I hate to say it, but my suffering is your fault. I don’t want to believe it, but there’s no way to explain it away. You Buckley’s, with your pyromania in a bottle, have decided to use the foreskins of the world as your very own personal firey playground of horrors. Come on Buckley’s, just admit it. You can’t hide it any longer. You had to know that one day somebody would get wise to the sick goings on in your factories. You had to know. We men don’t take our penises lightly, and a few of us are pretty good with patterns. Your scheme was bound to unravel eventually, it was just a matter of time.

And I’ll tell you another thing. You’re lucky it was me who noticed this, because most people would waste no time filing an improper labelling lawsuit against you. And you know what? They’d probably win. I looked at your little why does it taste so bad website, and there was no mention of the Liquid Clap that you’re using to play your twisted game of char the wiener. Not one single sentence warning the innocent consumer of the scorching death waiting to strike in every bottle. But don’t worry, I’m not going to sue you, and I’ll do my best to make sure nobody else does either. I’ll settle for one thing. Knowing why you did this. What were you hoping to gain? Were you out for revenge? Do you suffer from rod rage and feel like this is the only avenue you can use to express your feelings? What is it? It’s ok Buckley’s, you can talk to me, I’m here to help. I won’t give up on you. You’re my favourite cold medication. there’s no way I could quit you. Just promise me one thing. If you insist on trying to disfigure people’s genitals while you attempt to come to terms with whatever your problem is, consider marketing some kind of humpable Aloe vera so that those of us who want to support you in your time of need can try to ease our pain too.

Good luck Buckley’s, I’m rooting for you. I want you to get well. I know that staring down your demons can be awful, but trust me, it works.

Sincerely,

Steve

Take That, You Sonofabush!

Deputy finds man punching shrub

A 23-year-old Hilton Head Island man was charged with public disorderly conduct after a deputy observed him “in a physical confrontation with shrubs” at 8:27 p.m. Saturday at Carolina First, 401 William Hilton Parkway, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Report.

Responding to a complaint that a man tried to get into a stranger’s car, a deputy called over to the suspect, who was punching vegetation. The man then ran across the bank parking lot to kick one last bush before talking to police, reports said.

He reportedly smelled of alcohol and was taken to the Beaufort County Detention Center, where he is being held for prosecution, according to the jail’s online log.

Email’s Awesome, Email’s Weird!

Maybe a couple people might get that, but ah hell, it’s true!

It’s official. We have email subscription capabilities! Now you have more ways to get our daily…whatever it is we put up here, whether or not you can make it to the site. So, if you were into the feed thing, you can still subscribe to the feed, but if you think feed is what you give a horse and can’t figure out how that relates to blogs, you’re probably still a fan of email, so you can now
get updates by Email!

Don’t worry. If I go and go on a Cuppa Soup high and write a pile o posts, you won’t get a pile o email. You’ll just get one email once a day when you wake up. Unless the good folks at Feedburner get real lazy, they promise you should have it between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. Eastern time.

This is a complete experiment. We have no idea what these emails will look like. Won’t you find out with us? Let us know what you think. If the consensus is that the service sucks monkey balls, we’ll try and switch providers.

A quick yea and boo session, because those are fun.
Yea! To Feedburner. I signed up to our own blog’s email service because I wanted to see what the signup process was like, and I found that even though they have those blasted graphical verification thingies, they have an audio alternative. Feedburner, I could kiss you! My only advice to blinks who want to sign up is wear headphones, silence your screen-reader as soon as possible and turn the volume up. It’s really…really…quiet. But I managed to sign up without headphones, but I think I was just lucky. Also, know that if you click the listen link again hoping to hear the same numbers, you get a fresh set of numbers. But the chains are short, so it shouldn’t be too bad to get them down.

Boo! To Feedblitz! Grrr! When you have a graphical verification system, and you have a nice link that says, blindies! click here to email support for help with this picture, it would be nice to um, respond when a blindy clicks the link some time this century. I would have liked them because they let us decide some things about the email that we don’t have control over with feedburner, but I would also like an account, and that wasn’t happening with ye old Feedblitz. So much love to Feedburner, you rock.

Hope you enjoy the new funky email gadget. Let us know what you think.

Two Sides to Every Story

I got an email today from Matt Soltys, an occasional target of writing up here. He wrote an interesting email to defend himself, and I thought I might share it to be fair. After all, if I can spout off, it’s only fair to let him have his say too. And if someone ever wrote a flaming, steaming rage-fest, or something even close to that, about me, I’d hope they’d do the same for me if I wrote to defend myself. Much love to having voices heard! So off we go.

hi carin,

how are you doing? it’s matt soltys here, i felt like writing to you after reading your blogs about me. i just found the one you wrote about the results of court in december, and i must admit i’ve really enjoyed reading them (i’m serious!). it’s interesting to read someone completely trashing me.
i don’t really have that much to say about your personal opinions on things, because that’s how you feel. but there were a few things that were incorrect in your most recent writing (i couldn’t find this one anywhere on the net but in a cached file for some reason… do you know why?)
somehow you included the quote “never ever ever do that again, Your Honour!”, which you used twice. i’m not sure why you put that in quotes because i never said those words. you also suggest that i should have went to whoever owned the buildings and apologized and offered to pay. i did that actually… i called ed pickersgill, who owns the matrix center, and he actually likes the graffiti on the building, and came to court that day in december with a reference letter in support of me, asking for the charges to get thrown out.
i also went to the building on neeve st., the only other place i spraypainted that was owned by an individual or organization (the others were on city/public property), and apologized as well. they said that
an apology was good enough and they didn’t request me to pay the clean up costs (which were only about $40).
also, about having ‘the ear of the UN.’ you can’t actually believe that, do you? the un is an incredibly impersonal bureaucracy. one canadian political delegate told a friend of mine while we were there,
‘if you ever want to really change anything, do not, i repeat, do not, get involved in politics. you’ll never change a single thing.’
about your suggestion that i do community service… norman douglas said in court, ‘i can’t sentence him to community service, i’d just be telling him to do what he already does!’ whether or not you feel that the work i do is good, i still devote my life to the service of my community, and he recognized that.
that’s pretty much it. i don’t want to get into a debate about our political beliefs, i just wanted to correct a few inaccuracies. thanks for writing, either way. i’m glad you at least care about something. i just hope all the time you put into your blog is worth the energy.
oh, another thing… i don’t know how you thought i wrote for resist.ca… i’ve never wrote for them before. most of the journalism is with cfru… i have a website with lots of interviews if you’re interested in checking it out, it’s at resistanceisfertile.ca.
thanks carin, hope you have a good day,

matt

First off, way cool that he found us, even though it was a less than pleasant introduction. I only have a couple things to say. As for the corrections, I can only say, woops. The quotes, although I was wrongly going for an effect, have been removed. I’ve put his actual website in that post, and I’ll put it here for good measure.

I’m glad he approached the people who owned the buildings and apologized. If I’d decided I was going to grafiti a wall, I would have asked permission first and then done it, but that’s just me, and we just have to agree to disagree.

And I can’t hope to be so naive as to think that politicians want to change the world. They make me about as sick as lawyers, probably because most of them *are* lawyers. But I do know this. If I walked into a UN conference and tried to address them, I’d be wearing handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit before you could say Jack Robinson. He, on the other hand, had the go-ahead from someone who thought enough of him to authorize him to speak. That’s pretty powerful and pretty awesome, and a huge connection for the future.

I’m very happy that he wrote me. I’m all about fixing mistakes and being fair, and not being a jerk. Hopefully he’ll read again.

What Year Is It Again?

Sometimes I see something that makes me want to flop my head down on the desk and cry. After all the positive steps I’ve seen women make, I see girls wanting to sabotage their own progress and put everyone back 50 years. I see them thinking thoughts that should have been shunned, but they still think them. I see girls viewing themselves as property.

Yup, property. Property of men. In 2007, there are people who still see themselves as only someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife, someone’s something. When a friend of the boyfriend, who the girl also knows and has explicitly told him that she is not interested makes a pass at her, her first response is, “How can he say he’s my boyfriend’s friend if he’ll try and make a pass at me?”

Aaaaaa!

I have to do that again!

Aaaaaaaaa!

How about “How can someone who claims to like me not respect me enough to keep things just friendly, as I have asked?” That should be the first response. I agree with the other one, but that should be second. He made a move on you that you didn’t want, and he did it completely on purpose, and you know this! That is the most important thing. Girls, you are yourselves first, not someone else’s chattel! God! Thinking those thoughts only leaves you open to being taken advantage of by pigs who still believe that stuff. I’m not trying to blame you for other people’s behaviour, but if more of us can realize that that line of thinking is a load of horseshit, next time we hear it from some guy or some other girl, we can say, “That’s a load of horseshit!” Then maybe we’ll start to bend their thinking. If less people believe them, less people can be controled.

It pisses me off just as much when I hear girls fighting over a guy, screaming, “He’s mine!” Is he a sack of potatos? No! He’s a thinking, living, breathing being. If he left Girl A and is now with Girl B, well that’s his choice. Girl A does not have possession of him, nor does Girl B. If he decides that things just can’t work with Girl B after all and either goes back to Girl A or moves onto Girl C, well sucks to be you too, Girl B.

Then I hear, “Don’t give a guy the first ring, because that’s the guy’s job.” Says who? We’re trying to get out of a society where girls only do girl things and guys only do guy things. I know we’re a long way from that point, but we’ve gotta start somewhere! I figure if a guy can cook dinner, then a girl can give the first ring.

Then, saddest of all, I see girls blaming themselves for the sexual advances of others towards them. I didn’t think I’d actually meet a girl who believed that her mere existence was enough to seduce guys into hitting on her, into trying to kiss her, into having no regard for the word “no!” I’d read stories about rape, and people’s belief that it was their fault just because they were there, and I was shocked and saddened, but I hadn’t met someone who was younger than me and still believed that.

Ug, sometimes it seems like there’s a lot of hope for society. And then I see things like that and I’m left to wonder if we’re doomed.

We’re Breaking Stuff Again

In the next little while, you might notice some odd things on the site. And Brad, before you get any ideas, I’m not talking about me or Carin. No, not Matt either, stop that! We’re just trying out some small changes and looking at adding a new feature. Yes, I said new feature.

We know that a lot of people have no idea what an RSS feed is, nor do they have the first clue about how to use one. We also know that a lot of people don’t really care what an RSS feed is and don’t want to know how to use one. So Carin and I did a little thinking [strange I know] and we decided that we’re going to test out a system that will allow you to get your syndicated blog goodness via good old-fashioned email. I’m not sure when it will be ready to go, but when it is, you’ll all be welcomed to help us test it out. Actually, here’s where I almost start begging. Please help us test it out. The more feedback we can get the better. Don’t worry, you won’t be flooded with a bunch of messages you don’t want. If all goes according to plan you’ll only get 1 email each day that has summaries of and links to the previous day’s posts in it. In other words, if we post a bunch of stuff, you’ll get 1 big email. If we decide to be lazy and not post anything for a day or 2, you’ll get nothing and you’ll enjoy it. If this thing works out, it’ll be perfect for everyone who’s ever said to themselves “I haven’t been there in a long time, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” You’ll have access to everything you haven’t seen starting from the time you sign up, even if it’s not on the main page of the site anymore. You’ll only be limited by your inbox storage quota.

As for the other little changes I talked about earlier, you probably won’t even notice them. That said, if you do notice them and not in a good way, please email either me or Carin and we’ll do our best to take care of any problems.

Thanks in advance to anybody who helps us out. And by the way, if you’ve ever wondered why Smokey the Bear’s wife never got pregnant, it’s because every time she would get even a little hot, he’d throw dirt on her and beat her with a shovel.

I Thought It Would Be American Idol Contestants

According to this story, the noise a person makes while vomiting has been scientifically proven to be the worst sound in the world.

Professor Trevor Cox and a team of researchers at Salford University’s Acoustic Research Centre in the UK conducted a year-long online study during which over 1.1 million people from around the world listened to and voted for their least favourite of 34 unpleasant sounds, with the sound of what appears to be a person losing a pretty substantial lunch coming out [see what I did there?] ahead.

If you click on the link above, you can download 4 of the highest rated noises. I did, and here are a few quick observations.

  1. Somebody ralphing is hardly the worst sound in the world. In fact, whatever was going on with the guy in this clip made me giggle like a madman.
  2. I think they might have rigged the study. I have no other explanation for why the puking sound is a full minute long while the others clock in at only a few seconds each.
  3. Unless the 30 sounds we didn’t get to hear were fantastically annoying, I can’t figure out how those fucking babies didn’t win in a goddamn landslide. They don’t even sound like babies at all. they sound more like sheep kittens from hell. I challenge any of you to try to come up with a better description than that. I also challenge any of you to try to listen to that sound 3 times like I did and not have even fleeting thoughts about taking your own life.

Obviously I don’t agree with the list, and since I’m right about everything, I assume quite a few of you won’t either. So if you’re in the mood, feel free to share what you think should have won out. You don’t have to stick to the things mentioned in the news story or the press release either, especially since we don’t know what most of them are.

Have fun, and I’ll hopefully be back soon with something else.

Are you really playing Farrelly?

Man oh man. Politics makes people regress, I swear. Just have a look at one of our city councillors if you don’t believe me.

Ever since we had our municipal election in November, there has been a tug of war going on between two councillors over a seat. It all started when Kathleen Farrelly won her seat from the existing councillor Laura Baily by one vote. Baily asked for a recount and Farrelly said she’d live with the result. The recount made it a tie, so they said they would have a draw to settle the tie. Baily’s name was drawn, which made Farrelly throw a fit and ask that a judge throw out four ballots that were deemed ambiguous. So, for two months, she has been serving on council, but nobody really knows if she’s going to be able to stay or not.

Now, the judge denied her application, saying that she didn’t dispute the ballots at the recount. Wanna know what her defense was? She was late and missed the briefing and reading of some of them. Yep, spoken like someone who’s truly serious about serving on the council. Is that even a defense? I hear that, and all I can think is, “You snooze, you lose. Tough break, but sucks to be you.”

So now we should know who’s on council. Baily is in, Farrelly is gone, it should be settled now, right? Wrong! There’s still a tantrumming little girl on the scene. Farrelly now says she’s going to speak to her lawyer and ask what the next steps are. How about act like a big girl and go home and except your losses. Maybe next time, you can run again and, if you’re lucky, the people will not remember your childish antics and you might get in without all this whining and moaning.

People say the dumbest things.

I swear that when the media comes around, people get stupid. Ok, here’s the story. Two days ago, a guy got into a private school at the time when parents were coming to collect their kids and take them home. He sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in the washroom. He got caught, he got arrested, the girl got taken to the hospital, treated and released.

Now, they’re understandably trying to figure out how this guy got in. The front door is locked, the back door is locked too, except for when parents are coming to get their kids, and that’s when this guy got in. So they’re trying to figure out if there’s any way they can make things safer.

That’s when the bullshit starts flying. I quote. “Private schools need to follow the public system’s lead when it comes to buttressing security.” that was spoken by Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, to which I respond with, oh, shut it. It could have easily happened in a public school, and you damn well know it. No one has a perfect record. Shit happens. If you honestly don’t believe this, maybe you should go back and read an article about a similar assault in an Edmunton public school. It even happened in a bathroom stall. I know it wasn’t in Ontario, but the point is the same. Guys like these are predators. They scope out the scene for a long, long time before they do this. They figure out the time to strike. All anyone can do is try and be vigilant. It’s horrible if it happens, but it can happen anywhere. Anyone who doesn’t believe that is full of it.

That doesn’t make what happened any easier or less scary. But that doesn’t make the school any less safe. Until we see proof that the school was horribly negligent in protecting the kids, I don’t think anyone can assign blame. I hope Minister Wynne is ready to eat her words if, god forbid, any of her public school kids go missing or get assaulted in a similar way on school property.