Edible candy scabs

Just when you think you've seen everything, along comes this. I saw these on boingboing.net a few weeks ago. Hilarious.

Disgusting, but hilarious.

After all, if you're a candy manufacturer, why create a candy imitation of, say, a Coke bottle, or a button, or bears, or corn, or cigarettes.... when you can recreate a realistic bloody scab?

From the manufacturer:

"Lickable candy scabs that you stick on and eat off. Each pack includes candy scabs and 5 plastic bandages which are stickable just like a real bandage. A plastic compartment on the bandage opens to reveal a pressed dextrose candy scab. Open the compartment, lick the candy, and reseal for licking later!"

"Astronauts lose another bolt while working on space station"

Guys, come on, get a grip. Stop fucking around up there.

Some Metal Crap From The Turn Of The Century

This is a special request from my good friend Jon (see link at right). He wanted to see some metal crap from the turn of the century, so here's some. It's a cast iron bank toy that you may recognize as the Flatiron building located on 23rd St. This one's just located on a table. It was manufactured around 1905, shortly after the Flatiron building was erected, and available until around 1930, so I'm told.

Jon, I hope you're happy.

Important T-Mobile UPDATE

As expected, they continue to suck in every conceivable way, with the passion of approximately 1,000 red-hot suns.

Like a crappy Radio Shack walkie-talkie, my Zoolander phone has, by my best estimate, a range of roughly 50 feet in every direction. Except towards where I'm calling. I just received a text mail five days after it was sent. That's an improvement.

I no longer care that Catherine Zeta Jones is hot. When my contract is over, I'm going to go with a different kind of Jones: the James Earl kind. I'm switching back to Verizon. Live and learn.

Shhh.

This is a picture I took from one of my back windows at 10:00am, on September 11, 2001.

Those aren't clouds. They're clouds of smoke.

Being afraid I'd accidentally erase the picture, I made several copies. I watched it happen live on tv, and I smelled the smoke for weeks and weeks.

I remember looking through the New York Times over the next few days and combing through all the little pictures and names of the hundreds of firefighters and cops who died. Then I remembered that a few years earlier, a martial arts teacher I had, named Peter Kritzamelios, was a volunteer firefighter in Manhattan.

Thankfully, I couldn't find him on that list.

A year later, I ran into him in the street and shook his hand with both of my hands, and all of my might. He was alive. He had a four year old daughter. I brought him back a chocolate bar for her from Spain once that had the brand name "Spar" on it.

It was funny at the time.

He was in the towers that horrific morning. He got out. We talked about it for a few minutes. Well, actually, he talked about it and I listened. It wasn't easy to hold back tears, but I managed.

He was the kind of person who was really interested in hearing how a student got out of a fight, instead of how a student got into one. You don't expect to hear that from a black belt. And it took me years to appreciate this.

My high school girlfriend called me a few weeks later and told me that Chris Colasanti, someone we went to high school with, and who I played soccer with, died in the North Tower. He worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 105th floor. I'm not sure anyone that high up made it out. The disturbing part was that when I looked through my yearbook after 15 years, I remembered him.

She also told me she knew someone who managed to make it out in time. They described an entire conference room as "moving around like a carnival ride" when one of the planes hit. I'll never understand what that was like, but the image I have in my head will never leave me either.

What can you possibly say to pay your respects to 3,000 people who didn't deserve to die?

Nothing.

Moment of silence.

A picture that's worth 1,000 words.

Jenin, West Bank. September 7, 2006. Four Palestinians, dead. Let's Tarantino it. Moments earlier, this picture. IDF enters Jenin to search for man suspected of stabbing an Israeli. Palistinian miltant aims at IDF. The militant, making sure to protect himself from behind a corner, operates inches from a crowd of human shields (read: dummies). Anyone want to hunker a guess at what happens when the IDF fires back? Funnels nicely into Golda Meir's famous saying, "When the Palestinians love their children more than they hate the Jews, there will be peace."

Paris Hilton Arrested for DUI.

Eight pounds of gold, doing the rhumba downtown with 800 pounds of copper. ALT caption: Puss & Boots. Heh! I could do this all day long.

Christ, what is it with the rich and famous? Last month, Mel Gibson. Now Paris Hilton. And a thousand pinhead movie stars and other well-to-doggydo jackoffs in between. Of course, it is debatable whether this even qualifies as news, much less whether it belongs on the homepage of msnbc, but regardless, there is justice in the world after all. Paris, you may be free of any discernable talent, but you are indeed an entertainer. And for that, we thank you. These incredibly tough times will provide you with at least a sentence-worth of material for your next smash album.

World's Dumbest Headlines #3

From the Associated Press:

"Bush reminds Americans U.S. is at war"

I love it.

For the last time, "Crikey!"

Steve Irwin, dead at 44. Killed by a Stingray, while filming a documentary near the Great Barrier Reef, on Monday. It's really creepy when someone you recognize dies of unnatural causes. Actually, if you think about what he did, you almost can't believe he even lived into his 40s. Thanks for fascinating us for as long as you did. You were our Mick Dundee, only real.

World's Dumbest News Headlines #2

Courtesy of that brilliant thinktank at yahoo news: "Pentagon: conditions for civil war exist in Iraq"
I'm not the fastest writer, but isn't that headline about two years late?