Donate your Integrity to UNICEF today!

Man, all I can say when I read this story is, oh the irony.

Staff at UNICEF in South Asia are getting increasingly upset with the fact that the organization has partnered with Guchi for fund-raising purposes, with good reason. Here’s something that will kick your campaign, and your good name, squarely in the nuts. Guchi is owned by PPR. It has some Asian suppliers who like to use sweatshops to help lower some operating costs. Of course, we know that sweatshops like to exploit the very people UNICEF is trying to help. Um, oh dear. That’s bad, very very bad. How could somebody have not noticed that little detail? You’d think that, when partnering with an organization, you’d do a little research first. They must be really desperate for money. Ug I hate it when charities go bad. I’m just glad someone has the balls to fight to try and redeem them. I hope it can be done.

What is Butt Dust?

I got this sent to me, and since it made me laugh so hard I almost peed myself and Steve had to ask what all the shrieking was about, I think it belongs up here. Maybe it’s just my state of mind, but I thought it was awesome. I love the gifts from the inbox.

What is Butt Dust?
What, you ask, is “Butt Dust”? Read on and you’ll discover the joy in a child’s sincere originality. No adult is this creative!!

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: “Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?”

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn’t remember any more. Melanie said, “If you don’t remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six .”

>STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom good night. “I love you so much that when you die I’m going to bury you outside my bedroom window.”

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she’d have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: “How does it know it’s me?”

SUSAN(age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. “Please don’t give me this juice again,” she said, “It makes my teeth cough.”

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: “How much do I cost?”

>MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: “Why is he whispering in her mouth?”

>CLINTON(age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, “I don’t know what’ll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in?”

JAMES(age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: “The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt.” Concerned, James asked: “What happened to the flea?”

TAMMY(age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, “Why doesn’t your skin fit your face?”

The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget…. this particular Sunday sermon…”Dear Lord,” the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. “Without you, we are but
>dust…” He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter who was listening leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little four year old girl voice, “Mom, what is butt dust?”

I think there’s only one quote in there that freaked me out. Can you guess which one? Hope you enjoyed that.

Volunteer?

It looks like the guy who wanted to tattoo breakfast on someone’s head has found himself a volunteer. Yes, I said volunteer, as in will not be getting paid for this.

There’s no way I would ever allow anyone to do that to me, but at least the guy who has decided he will is going to try to raise a little money for a good cause, which is nice. I’d say everybody wins, but eventually young Blane Dickinson is probably going to come to the realization that he’s got a menu etched into his skull, and that he may have, in fact, lost.

A Black Day

I apologize if this post doesn’t make much sense. I’m in a bit of a haze, but I need to try and write something because a. something’s telling me I should and b. I like to have things up on the blog when they happen so they’re there to look back on. This is a bit of a downer, but I’m sure I’ll be back with something funny, if I can make my words convey the meaning I want.

I got some news last night that just can’t help but shake me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I got the news because I want to know when these things happen. But it’s the reason for this haze. A friend phoned me and told me that a friend of hers killed himself last week, and she just found out now. I didn’t know this guy well, but I met him. He had a big heart and he was a very funny guy. He cared about her and seemed to want to protect her. He seemed to love life. Then somewhere, something went horribly wrong. I refuse to speculate about what it may have been. He’s the only one who knows. I refuse to make assumptions because that can only bring bullshit. All I’ll say is he’s gone now, and what a tragedy. What an empty void he has left. So many questions, no answers, no way to turn things around and pull him from the pit of whatever he was in at the end. No way to replace what is gone forever.

I know that if someone decides to truly end it, there’s nothing in the world any of us could have done to prevent it, it is only his own will to live that stands between life and death, and if that was broken, there is no intervention, no magic words, no pills, nothing that could have really saved him. He has to decide that he wants to live, above all. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try and reach out and help people who give us a sign that they’re thinking about ending it. That attempt to save them might rebuild their will to live a little. I’m just saying if they do end up taking their own life, we shouldn’t blame ourselves, it’s not our fault.

But somehow, even knowing that doesn’t make the questions stop coming. The head and the heart are two different animals. Shock sets in. I just can’t believe that he would do this. It doesn’t seem to make any sense. I never knew he was having any problems. Then a part of me mentally slaps me silly and says “Why would you know? He was barely an acquaintance. He made goofy jokes while we were walking to a birthday party. He walked with you and your friend to the beer store. You shot back and forth the occasional message on MSN Messenger. That is the sum total of your contact with him. Get over yourself.” But it doesn’t make it any easier and it doesn’t make the grief any less powerful. It was so unexpected. So completely out of the blue. So like getting crushed by a freight train.

Perhaps what makes this worse is that it happened right around the time when, four years ago, someone much closer to me than a passing acquaintance took his own life in the same way as this guy. I didn’t know him super well, but he was a lot closer. I went to school with him. Steve and I shared an apartment with his brother. And just like this one, it was, for me, unexpected.

I hope everybody whose lives were touched by this will take the time they need to heal, and realize that it’s ok to cry and it’s ok if you’re not crying. It’s ok to feel empty. It’s ok to feel…whatever you feel, be it rage, sadness, numbness, guilt, or all of the above in a thought soup. Just feel what you feel, and if you can, let the guilt pass, at least in your head. It wasn’t your fault. You did what you could, this was his choice. Don’t try to bury this. Deal with it in the way that feels right for you, and when you’re ready, move on. Talk to each other. You are not alone. And try to remember the good things about him. Hopefully he is at peace now, and you can find some of your own eventually.

When She Leaves the Room, Does She Have to Grease the Door?

Oh my god. I wish they’d given either the specific weight of this woman, or the dimensions of some of the narrower tunnels. Maybe I’ll have to do more research, just because I’m such a prick. I can’t even imagine being in this situation. I think it’s prickish to make fun of someone for being a wee bit chunky, but after reading this, I don’t think I’m out of line to make fun of this tubby tourist as they put it. I’m still laughing.

Overweight tourist traps tour in South African cave

A corpulent holidaymaker felt a bit of a turkey on New Year’s Day after getting stuck between rocks in a South African cave, trapping 22 tourists for over ten hours.

Staff at the Cango Caves in Western Cape had politely warned the tubby tourist that she may have difficulties in some of the tighter parts of the intricate rock formation.

“She was forewarned at the ticket office that she might have difficulty, but she and her husband insisted she should take part in the adventure,” said Hein Gerstner, manager of the tourist attraction.

He explained that the safety team eventually “used liquid paraffin to grease the surface area and a pulley to lift her” but “there was permission granted to drill or to cut rock in a worse-case scenario”.

“It would have been a last resort,” he added.

One of the tourists trapped in the “Tunnel of Love” was a diabetic, but rescuers were eventually able to climb over the trapped woman and provide them with insulin.

Are you on the floor yet? Oh, the visions! She must have been huuuuuuge to be warned at the ticket office that Gee, Ma’am, you might not fit in the caves. And can you imagine having to use liquid wax to grease the rocks and then winch her out like some kind of sunken ship? Um wow! I feel for her, because I’m sure news cameras would have been all over this. I love how they call her “corpulent” but don’t tell you exactly how “corpulent” she was. I hope she made real good friends after being stuck with these folks for 10 hours. I think next time she wants to plan a trip, Moooo-xico would be a better choice.

Eighteen Wheels, and a Five-State Man Hunt

Wow. Some stuff is just weird. Not as weird as someone punching vegetation, but pretty weird all the same. This came from the Guelph Mercury.

Prisoner on the run to visit ill mom

NASHVILLE, TENN. (Jan 27, 2007)

It has all the makings of a country song: an escaped prisoner, his terminally ill mother, a Wal-Mart truck, NASCAR and a Nashville singer’s tour bus.

Since Christopher Gay, 32, escaped from a prisoner transport van Sunday in South Carolina, police say, he has evaded a five-state manhunt by stealing a pickup, a big rig and the bus that belongs to singer Crystal Gayle.

No one has been injured, and the search for him continued yesterday.

Initially, police say, his motive for fleeing was simple. “I take it he was just trying to see his mom,” said Michael Douglas, the police chief in Pleasant View, Tenn., near the home where Gay’s mother is dying of cancer.

Gay, who has a history of theft involving trucks and other heavy equipment, escaped during a bathroom break in Hardeeville, S.C., as he was being taken from Texas to face felony theft charges in Alabama. The van was taking a route allowing it to pick up prisoners in other states.

He stole a pickup truck in South Carolina and made his way more than 300 miles northwest to Manchester, Tenn., where he stole a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer filled with $300,000 worth of merchandize, police said.

On Tuesday, Gay got to within 50 metres of his mother’s house, about 40 kilometres northwest of Nashville, but abandoned the Wal-Mart truck and fled into some woods, authorities said.

Since then, authorities believe he stole the bus belonging to Gayle — the younger sister of Loretta Lynn.

A man believed to be Gay arrived Thursday night at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, Fla., telling the track’s manager he was there with NASCAR racer Tony Stewart and asking him for help getting a new generator for the tour bus, officials said.

The Speedfest 2007 event is being held there this week, but there are no plans for Stewart to appear.

Track officials, suspicious of the man’s story, gave authorities the licence plate number of the tour bus.

Gayle didn’t know the bus was missing from the Nashville garage where it was parked until speedway officials called Thursday night, police said.

Her husband and manager, Bill Gatzimos, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment yesterday, but he told WSMV-TV , “There’s got to be a country song in having your bus stolen and taken for a joyride by a fugitive.”

Allrighty then. This guy, I think, is both extremely lucky and extremely stupid. First off, how did he pull off getting out of a prison van, presumably full of cops? I’m sure people have tried to escape from those things before.

Then, what’s with the need to steal large, easy-to-spot vehicles? I can see stealing one truck because it was the closest thing when he got out of the prison van, but then, wouldn’t you want to try and blend in? Why would your next choice be a Walmart tractor-trailer full of goods? It probably has a GPS on it so they can track it if it ever goes missing!

Then, I get the idea that he might have originally decided to visit Mamma, but then decided he might get caught if he stayed. But why would your third choice of transportation be a tour bus which you drive straight to a racing festival and use to draw the attention of officials?

And how has he still avoided getting caught! I want him to pick my next lottery numbers. He might help me win big, having that much luck.

I’m so immature. I still think the funniest line in this article is, “A man believed to be Gay.” I know it’s his last name, but it’s funny!

I wonder how much longer he’ll be able to stay on the run. What will he steal next, an army tank?

Success!

Our first ever daily email update went out today with no problems. Yea us, and yea
FeedBurner!

We’re still doing a little messing around to get the email to look exactly the way we want it to, and that involves playing with the RSS feed a little. You shouldn’t have any problems accessing it, but that doesn’t mean you won’t. If you do, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

By the way, I noticed something at the end of the email that I don’t recall ever seeing before. They’ll actually let you unsubscribe from an email newsletter through the regular postal mail. Who is that for? Somebody please explain.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to subscribe and get each day’s posts mailed to you, you can do so by clicking
here.
Thanks.

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