vituperation

May 15, 2005

I’m pleased to announce that a link I submitted on Fark not only got listed on the main page (my 4th!), but that the comments on the link went to infinity. Apparently, I can generate a good flame war when I try. Ironically, the link I submitted was just to a Google News search, because I didn’t expect it to get "greenlit" (ie, moved to the main page to be seen by millions). It was a question that had niggled with me all day, because we all know how hypocrisy bothers Fred, and I wondered what other people thought about it.

I pay for a TotalFark membership, which means I get to see every link submitted. We TotalFarkers often have all sorts of conversations and discussions via the page links behind the scenes, and that’s what I’d submitted my question for. It seems the admins thought it was a good enough question, so it went live.

I snapped a screencap showing the comments at infinity, for your (and my) enjoyment:

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves in the comments.

Note: I normally don’t use the word "boobie", but that’s what they’re called on Fark. My grammar was also correct, in that I said "a California station" instead of "several stations". That’s why the actual question refers to "that station." The admin edited my original slightly (as they seem to do a lot) and goofed up my grammar, so know the Grammar Nazi himself didn’t do that.

The way sex and violence are treated in the USA cheeses me off. Not that I’m opposed to either, mind you. It just kills me that a breast caused such an uproar but no one even blinks over seeing a person gunned down (even though he most likely deserved it, given that he was brandishing a gun at the police), unedited and live. Where are the "family values" people on that one?

I’m saddened to announce that after ultimately depositing three eggs in her nest, mama robin is nowhere to be found and the eggs lay cold and dead in the woven grass. I don’t know if she got hit by a car, eaten, killed, or just abandoned the nest.

And I really hope me going out there every afternoon to check on her like an expectant father had nothing to do with her being gone.

RIP

Yesterday, Robyn went number two (you know, doodie) at some point. Afterwards, before she flushed, she spat the gum she was chewing into the toilet, and splashed a big dollop of poo water up.

Into her eye.

Unfortunately I’ve been forbidden from writing about this incident, but rest assured if I had it would’ve been damn funny.

Pre-summer is finally here, and we know what that means:

Last Saturday, I decided it was time to get out the Critter.

If you look right above the lily pad, that dark shape is a huge bass.
Being able to get where other boats can’t is the shiznit.

I love the backwaters of the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge.
There are gators out here, but I haven’t seen any.
Yet.

This cove looks like a good place to find scary things, but I didn’t.
I did, however, find that it wasn’t a cove. Instead, I found it a shortcut to the place
where I kayak over at Point Mallard, which could prove to be very useful to me
in a couple of weeks. We shall see.

I see the billboard below every time I drive back from Decatur, and it annoys me every time. Just one of the many joys of living in the Bible belt, I suppose.

That’s an actual dead baby on that flag. Sorry for the blur;
I was moving at interstate speeds when I snapped the picture.

While I was over in Decatur last Saturday I stopped by the kite store owned by one of my childhood friends. There’s a new toy in town, called the Air-Yo, and it’s the coolest thing going even though you can’t not look gay while you’re playing with it. Go over to that site and watch the video to get an idea of what the Air-Yo is like.

The Air-Yo is a blast to fly alone, but it’s even more fun when used as a device of torture:

Hitting your wife in the head with the Air-Yo while she’s trying to get a picture of the cat is not recommended.

I took a couple of co-worker friends on a hike yesterday, to the Natural Well. Great fun was had by all. You know what’s nice? Finding out that you’re in pretty good shape after you’ve been thinking you’re only in average shape.

Case in point: it normally takes me 90 minutes to do the Natural Well round trip. Yesterday it took longer than that just for us to get to the well. That rocks. Not in a putdown sense, mind you. I’m not gloating that I’m in better shape than anyone, I’m happy as a pig in shit that I’m in better shape than I thought I was relative to other people.

If that makes sense.

When we started the hike (there were three of us), the other guy said, "I have a friend coming into town in a few weeks, and he loves to hike. I’m going to have to get you to guide us on the hardest, most treacherous path you can."

"No problem," I said. "I found one over the winter that was so rough I had to crawl up part of it."

At the well, we spent some time discussing Survivor and The Amazing Race, while we took a breather. When it was time to go, one of the people opted to follow the trail out to Monte Sano Blvd for us to pick her up in the car, because she didn’t know if she could make it back through the hell that is McKay Hollow.

As the other guy and I started back I asked him if he minded if we went my normal speed. He works out daily like I do, hitting the weights and running, and was amenable to the idea of traveling faster for the cardio burn, so I picked up the pace. About halfway up the McKay Hollow climb, as he caught up to where I stood waiting for him for the third or fourth time, he wheezed, "If this were Survivor, you’d definitely win the reward challenge. And that thing I said earlier about you taking us on the hardest trail out here? Never mind, I don’t think I could handle it."

When we picked up our female friend, he told her I was like a gazelle leaping and running up the side of the mountain.

Heh.

I love the hills, have I mentioned that before?

Like I told Robyn last night, though, I’m not happy that I might be in better shape than someone else, I’m happy that I’ve come so far in a fitness sense. I couldn’t fathom doing something like this five years ago. It’s nice knowing that I’ve finally reached a point where I probably wouldn’t be the last guy picked for a team sport because of my fitness level, and just might even be one of the first ones picked. I guess in some ways I never really grew up.

Both friends enjoyed the hike and already started asking about when we’ll go on the next one. I think we’ll do the Stone Cuts then, maybe in a couple of weeks.

I wasn’t going to mention this here until after the fact, but I’m so excited about it I’m about to pee myself, so I’ll share. In less than a month, this will be me and the group of co-workers I’ve invited to go to Ocoee:

I’ve been before, but it was many many years ago. I hope it’s still as much fun.

And now, as is evidenced by the Air-Yo pictures, the yard is in need of some attention from the lawn mower, so I need to get out of here.