THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING HIDE!!!!

Remember that Rapture we didn't get back in May?

It's been rescheduled. Again. Harold Camping, the worst Rapture-predictor of all time, has pushed back the date to October 21, 2011.

"Oh Holy Abacus, get it right this time." ~ Thomas Claveirole

At first he was saying that we (that is, the heathens left behind) would suffer through five months of Armageddon as described the Book of Revelations. But since there have been scheduling difficulties (God's got a lot on His plate), the Rapture, the Final Judgment and the End of All Things will now be happening all at once, and the Book of Revelations can go f&ck itself.

The Christian Crazies have now decided that the DC earthquake was a sign of the End Times. Because earthquakes just don't happen on the East Coast, you guys. They just don't. Ever.

Except sometimes. Here are some of the “severe” earthquakes that have occurred in Virginia:

• 9 March 1828 An earthquake epicentered near Roanoke sent tremors all the way to Ohio.
• 27 August 1833 This one killed two miners, who appear to have been trampled to death by freaked-out other miners, and “visibly agitated” some structures.
• 29 April 1852 This one, too, occurred near Roanoke and was felt as far away as Philadelphia.
• 31 August 1861 Another one felt in Ohio.
• 22 December 1875 This one was on the coast. It broke windows in Richmond and caused, “general alarm,” although I'd imagine not too much, cause they didn't have Facebook yet.
• 31 May 1897 The largest earthquake in Virginia history, this one was felt in Indiana.
• 9 April 1918 This earthquake appears to have been comparable in size to the recent one in DC, with a felt area reaching West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

There have been lots of them, actually, before and since, but I'm sick of the list now, and I think you get my point.

Except that this earthquake was different, you guys. This one cracked the Washington Monument. And you know what that means!

It means someone has to climb up and fix the friggin' thing, doesn' it? ~ OceanGroveDave

According to Pat Robertson, whom I refuse to call “reverend,” it means God doesn't like us anymore and will be smiting the sh*t out of us very soon. I mean, this is highly symbolic. We're One Nation Under God, right? It says so on the money, right? So that puts Him in charge, right?

Wrong.

Robertston reckons that this earthquake in DC is a sign of the Second Coming of Christ. The ultra-reputable website, Apocalypse2011.com, backs him up. Both point out that earthquakes will destroy the Earth in the days before Jesus returns.

Hang on a second...“destroy the Earth?” As in, the whole Earth? I've checked and most of it's still here. It wasn't that big of a quake after all. The monument cracked, it didn't fall down.

It didn't even crack that much. ~ National Park Service

Earthquakes, smerthquakes...read about the TRUE signs of the apocalypse here!

Fun Friday Facts #5: Learn Somethin', Why Don't Ya

Here, Faithful Readers, are your Fun Friday Facts. It's up to you to figure out to work them into conversation.

1) Scientists believe that, if human evolution is allowed to continue on its present course, the fifth toe (little toe, pinky toe, pig that went “Weeweewee!” all the way home) will disappear. Seems we just don't need it anymore.

Get lost, little toe.

2) In the state of West Virginia, public profanity may be punished by a fine of one dollar.

F&ck that, those f&cking f&ckers ain't gettin' my f&cking dollars. F&ck 'em.

3) The town of Morrilton, Arkansas hosts a yearly event called the Great Arkansas Pig-Out. I guess all the dignified festival names were taken.

According to this website, the Great Arkansas Pig-Out hosts an event known as the Running of the Fat Guys. Runners must weigh between 250 and 300 pounds (113 to 136 kilos) to participate, and they're required to stop at three designated locations, where they must shovel more food into their ponderous gullets.

I find no evidence of this event on the Great Arkansas Pig-Out's website, so it's either a rumor, a well-kept secret, or it's been discontined. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been discontinued. It was probably closely followed by the annual Picking Up of the Dead Fat Guys.

4) Speaking of odd contests, let's go back to the Colonial Mother for the World Toe Wrestling Championship. The championship takes place at the Bentley Brook Inn in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Opponents bare their feet and sit on the floor, facing each other. Each presses the sole of his wrestling foot against the sole of the other guy's (or girl's – this is equal opportunity sh*t right here) foot, and they lock their toes together. Then they basically thumb-wrestle, but with their toes. You win by pinning your opponent's foot to the floor for three seconds.

This weird sh*t got started in 1976, when, according to the Bentley Brook Inn website, toe-wrestling's founder, George Burgess, realized that the English are bad at absolutely every sport in the world.

Even the ones they invented. ~ Prescott

Sadly, the English soon found that they rather sucked at toe-wrestling, too. The first World Toe Wrestling Champion was a Canadian.

"I'd like to thank my little toe, eh."

4 More Stupid Things Men Do

It's been a while since I've done any man-bashing on here, but you people seem to like that, so here goes – 4 More Stupid Things Men Do:

1) Assuming All Women Want Kids

Some of us wanted kids from first day we crammed our dollies into their plastic prams and pranced them around the neighborhood. Some of us spend our lives never bothered about it, only to change our minds at 35 for mysterious womb-related reasons.

I understand there's a clock in here somewhere.

Some of us believe we want kids – until we get a good close look at our friend's brats and see how frazzled she's become, and swear off the concept completely. Some of us would rather travel, or have a career, or get drunk and sleep late. Some of us prefer cats...or dogs, I'm not here to judge.

LOL Yes I am.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I can hear it now – “My girlfriend/wife/tormentress said she didn't want kids, and now we have six!” She lied, dumbass. Some guys will say whatever it takes to get a girl into bed, and some girls will say whatever it takes to get a ring. Some of them don't even care whose ring it is. Watch your friggin' selves.

2) Pointing It Out When We Gain Two Pounds

This is kind of like asking a woman's age, or even worse, taking a stab and tacking on a few years by mistake. We realize that men are sort of hard-wired to want as many women as they can get, and there's always a prettier, younger one out there. Don't rub it in.

If she's gotten absolutely whopping – and you are, by some miracle, able to broach this subject tactfully – fair play. Even then, if it's not your actual partner, better keep your mouth shut. Commenting on the weight of a friend, acquaintance, or God help you, a stranger will likely get you slapped. And you will deserve it.

It's not like you aren't a fat bastard yourself, you fat bastard ~ Rosino

3) B*tching About Having to Buy Us Stuff

I don't mean joking around about your wife taking all your money or whatever other sh*t you think is funny. If you didn't wanna share with your wife, you wouldn't have gotten married. Besides, your wife probably makes more than you.

No, I'm talking this a**hole sh*t here:

          “Women always expect you to buy them drinks, and then they won't sleep with you.”

          “Women always expect you to buy them dinner, and then they won't sleep with you.”

          “Women always expect you to buy them flowers, and then they won't sleep with you.”

"I pushed the right buttons -- why won't sex come out?!?" ~ Bidgee

Can you notice a common theme here? If you're looking for a prostitute, get one. If you're getting her for the price of a drink, you'd better wear two condoms.

This is a foot, but you get the idea.

Yeah, we do expect you to buy us stuff, and peahens expect peacocks to flash feathers. If you can't pay for a few dates, then you'll probably bicker over every goddamn purchase until you drive us stark raving mad. Even worse, you might be a deadbeat. Nobody likes a deadbeat.

4) Bragging About Having F&cked Us

What ever happened to “A gentleman never tells”? Oh, right, you're not a gentleman.

Too many guys act like they've put one over on a woman by sleeping with her. Trust me, buddy, you don't have Jedi mind powers. They call it “getting lucky” for a reason.

Women can be keen on keeping their private lives private, because of that whole “men are studs/women are sluts” double-standard thing we've got to live with. It's a little bit harder to navigate from the other side. We don't need all your buddies playing grab-ass because they suddenly think we're fair game.

Then again, we could always tell all of our friends you've got a tiny d*ck. Then you'll never get laid again.

"He was hung like a lightswitch you guys, it was sad." ~ Funpika

Weird Search Keywords I've Encountered on this Blog (So Far)

I know most of you faithful readers get here from my Facebook page, my Twitter feed, or by following along at home. Some of you even take the time to search my blog name or post titles on Google. Others, however, get here by accident. For them, I'm a detour on the road to something useful.

To those people, let me just say...I'm sorry. I don't know the real reason you didn't get a third date (unless you happen to be that one guy I was actually writing about) because I'm not really that good at this love stuff.

My blog stats let me know which search keywords are bringing people to my blog. Most of them are normal and sensible and have to do with me, my name or something I blogged about. Some of them, on the other hand, are bizarre. I know I'm not the only one who gets some weirdos wandering in, cause my colleague Lyn Midnight recently blogged about this exact same thing.

If you want to follow that link and read Lyn's post, I'll wait.

Okay! Welcome back! Here are some of my own bizarre search keywords:

are all women crazy? why don't they like mustaches?

Well, yes, we are, but that has nothing to do with mustaches. It probably has more to do with you.

That said, mustaches are kind of gross when you're making out really heavily. They get all damp, you see.

Sometimes they even get sticky. -- Ayleen Gaspar

goldfish why don't you call me

I'm a fish, b&tch. I don't have lungs!

girls on crutches

Anything's possible, so I suppose there must be some subset of men out there who are sexually attracted to crippled women. After all, there's fat pr0n, granny pr0n, amputee pr0n, girls with glasses pr0n, pregnant pr0n, midget pr0n, mullet pr0n, midget mullet pr0n...well, you get the idea.

military girl on crutches

Crippled soldier pr0n...

average times a two headed snake will appear

This one's odd, because I don't recall blogging about two-headed snakes at any point. I guess I have now.

I went ahead and Googled it, just to see how much digging it took to get to my blog with this keyword. It wasn't on the first page, the second page, the tenth page, the fifteenth page or the twentieth page...at which point I gave up. Somebody is dedicated.

I never found the answer to the question, but I did find out that bicephaly (the condition of having two heads) is more common in snakes than in any other animal, and that a two-headed snake can live for more than 20 years. Snakes (and other animals, for that matter) wind up with two heads in the same way that conjoined twins sometimes do – identical twins occur (that's two sperm fertilizing one egg at the exact same instant) but the embryos fail to split apart completely.

Unlike humans, however, two headed snakes aren't self-aware. They don't realize they have two separate heads. This means that one head might try to go left, while the other one tries to go right. One head might fight the other one for food, not realizing, you know, that it's all going into the same stomach. By the same token, if one head feeds and the other does not, the one that doesn't feed apparently gets confused, since it's not hungry anymore, but it knows it didn't eat.

Which begs the question – how do you tell if a snake is confused?

Looks fine to me... -- Jason Pratt

rapture helmet

When I blogged about the non-rapture, I didn't realize that rapture helmets were a thing. Turns out they totally are a thing. They're not for the people left behind – oh no, screw those heathen f&ckers. They're for the people being raptured, so that they don't concuss themselves on a flock of ducks going up. You'd think God or Jesus or Elijah or somebody would clear the way, but I guess not.

I would've thought that if you're the type of guy who buys a rapture helmet, you're not getting raptured anyway, but I'd be wrong.

Because the MEEK get the f&cking EARTH, that's why. -- NASA

Fun Friday Facts...what number is this again? Oh right, 4

According to the Internet (which is always right, you know) the following things are true:

Cats can make over 100 distinct meow sounds.

Most of them mean, "Hey asshole, where's my dinner?" -- Mark Lee

Dogs, on the other hand, can make about 10 sounds.

Most of them mean, "Please don't kick me." -- Megan Coughlin

In the city of Dallas, Texas, it is apparently illegal to possess a realistic-looking dildo. Not that you'd really want to, anyway, cause they're always all veiny and sticky and gross. I mean, you know, like, even before you use them. It's that "realistic skin" stuff they came up with that feels less like skin and more like ET's a**hole. 

This ought to take care of that disturbing image. -- susan402

United States income tax laws fill a document 7,000,000 words long. For context, the average novel is about 80,000 words long. Yeah.

In 1989, the IRS established procedures for collecting taxes in the event of nuclear holocaust.

"As soon as this dies down, we'll audit the Johnsons."

Your skin is home to 32 million bacteria – per square inch. To make matters worse, your feet have half a million sweat glands squirting out a pint of sweat per day.

Five pints right there. -- cstrom

Lee Redmond, a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah, holds the record for world's longest fingernails. At the time of the record, in 2001, her nails were 21'9” (6.6. m) long. By February 2009, Lee's nails were 28 feet (8.5 meters) long. Tragically, Ms. Redmond lost her nails in a car accident. She's says it's easier to do things now.

On 15 January 1919, 21 people were killed and 150 injured when a tank of molasses exploded. 2,300,000 gallons (8,700,000 L) of molasses roared through the streets at 35 mph (56 kmh). Hey, it's known for being slow.

Almost 100 years later, people still complain that the area smells of molasses.

This area, right here. -- Boston Public Library

Ain't No Facepalm Big Enough

Last night one of my colleagues posted a news item from the British paper Daily Mail on Facebook. I normally ignore this particular colleague's news posts, since they usually have to do with psycho killers, and I have enough trouble sleeping. But this one caught my attention, since the people involved are still alive and in one piece.

Seems there's this 15-year-old girl, Soya Keaveney, in Thornaby, England, who's pregnant with her first child. This sort of thing is not unusual. Happens all the time. Hell, we put that sh*t on television in the States, and eat popcorn while we're watching it. Which might be why this particular family are treating a teenage pregnancy as a career advancement.

Or it might just be that they're thick as bricks. Think about it for a sec – this girl's mother, Janis Keaveney, named her daughter after tofu.

I like the sound of that. ~ Fuzheado

Mrs. Keaveney has two other children – her oldest daughter, Coco, must be named after that gorilla who learned sign language. The next youngest, Ritzy...wait a minute, RITZY?!? RITZY?!? You seriously named your kid that? Like, with a straight face and everything?

Are you f&cking kidding me? ~ Nonsequiturlass

But wait, I spoke too soon, for it gets worse, much worse – turns out little Tofu Keaveney has a twin brother.

His name is Tarot. You know, like the cards. Cause that wouldn't get his ass kicked at school.

But I digress. The sad thing about this story isn't that this mother gave her kids weird names, or even that she's happy about her 15-year-old daughter being pregnant. It may not be the most responsible reaction, but it's still better than chucking her out on the street to fend for herself, like some parents do.

No, the sad things about this story are as follows:

1. The family are excited, because now they'll get to move into a bigger council house (that's public housing, for those of you who don't know). That's the first thing you should think of when your teenage girl gets pregnant – sweet, we'll get more welfare benefits!
   
   
2. The three bedroom house they're currently in is getting claustrophobic, what with Janis Keaveney, Soya Keaveney, the brother, the baby daddy, the two older daughters and one of their babies, too.
   
   
   Wait a minute – “one of?” Does that mean there's more? Where are they? Who's raising them?
   
   

   

   Never mind, I don't wanna know.

3. This (stupid, stupid) woman seems to really believe that her 15-year-old CHILD is going to make “a wonderful mother,” despite the fact that the poor dear clearly hasn't seen such a creature in her life. Mrs. Keaveney started tarting up her daughter and sending her out to discos at the age of seven, because a girl is never too young to be sexualized, right??
   
   

   

   Too soon? ~ Taurusrus

4. Little Tofu (I mean, Soya, sorry) has hired a PR agent, who will be negotiating future media interviews. Cause if you can't be hardworking, talented, clever or rich, it might be enough to be outrageous.

5. By the age of 12, Soya was on the Internet, posing in bikinis, and getting “twisted emails from 'strange men,'” according to the Daily Mail. Where any other mother would have called in the troops – or maybe taken down the pictures, geez – Mrs. Keaveney just amped it up a notch. That same year Soya posed for Closer magazine. She told them about how she wants to be a model when she grows up, how she's already dieting, and how she does (or did do, I guess) 200 sit-ups a day because she's “terrified of getting fat.”

Um. You do know that happens with pregnancy, right?

Fun Friday Facts #3: Moobs, poodles, and a foul-mouthed parrot

One thing that's occurred to me since I've started doing these, is that I can't be sure if these facts are, in fact, facts. Anyone can put anything on the Internet these days, after all – just look at me go!

Here's your (probably factual) Friday Facts:

1) If you're a dude, drinking too much gives you moobs. Turns your testosterone into estrogen, guys.

Also, this. -- Morgoth666

Hmmm. Maybe I can drink away my mustache...

2) There's a reason poodles have those stupid haircuts, and it's not because they're drag queens (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's because poodles were originally bred in Germany as hunting dogs. Their job was to dive into frigid water and retrieve dead birds. As you may have noticed, poodles have long, thick, curly fur coats that can dread up when left untrimmed. This presents a problem for a swimming dog – the dreads get waterlogged, and the dog sinks.

Fluffy? Fluffy?! Fluffeeeee!! -- kkic

But the hunters couldn't just shave them bald, cause then they'd freeze to death. So they started cutting as much of the fur as they could, while leaving enough to keep the dog's important bits – its chest and joints – warm. They used to tie brightly colored cloths to that ridiculous little afro, allowing hunters to identify their dogs in the water from a distance.

Laugh all you want, I'm a proud hunter. -- Belinda

3) I mentioned in a previous blog post that I'm descended from heroic Civil War General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. I'm also related to Andrew Jackson, otherwise known as the 7^th President of the United States. Among his other questionable accomplishments, Jackson taught his pet parrot to cuss a blue streak. So much so, in fact, that it had to be removed from his funeral because its vulgarity was disturbing the mourners.

I have a lot in common with that f&cking parrot.

4) The ancient Egyptians used crocodile dung as a contraceptive vaginal suppository. Yep, they shoved reptile sh&t up their hoo-hoos. Something tells me there wasn't a lot of cunnlingus going on in the Old Kingdom.

The crazy part is, modern medical science suspects that the crocodile dung might have worked. It can raise pH levels in the vaginal canal, much like modern spermacidal suppositories do. When vaginal pH levels are too high, your man's swimmers fall dead.

Like this.

At least it's better than the ancient Chinese method – drink yourself a glass of mercury, darlin'! It won't be toxic for another 4,000 years!

Fun Friday Facts #2: Sleepless sea creatures, headless chickens, and the longest hiccup fit EVAR

It's that time of the week again – time for another installment of Fun Friday Facts! Get ready to learn something, kids, cause I'm about to give you all the conversational fodder you'll need for this weekend's dinner parties, barbecues, picnics and drinking binges.

1) On September 10, 1945, a Fruita, Colorado farmer named Lloyd Olsen went out to kill a rooster for the family's evening meal. Fortunately for both Lloyd and the rooster, he screwed it up.

The blade missed the rooster's jugular and carotid arteries and left its brain stem intact. As a result, the headless rooster shrugged, said “Meh,” and carried on living for another 18 months. It preened, pecked for food, and even continued crowing, although the crow was described as “gurgling” and “less than impressive.” Lloyd used an eyedropper to feed and water the rooster, and to periodically remove the mucus that accumulated in and blocked its windpipe.

During the course of its headless life, Mike the Chicken enjoyed perfect health (except for that head thing) and put on more than five pounds (2.3 kilos). The Olsens took Mike on the road, and he became famous nationwide, netting his owners the modern equivalent of $48,000 a month until his death from suffocation in 1947.

2) Researchers working at the University of California, Santa Cruz believe they have evidence that Homo sapiens interbed with Neanderthals, a species of human that died out 30,000 years ago. They've found that people all over the planet – even people native to places where Neanderthals never lived – share between one and four percent of their DNA with this more primitive species. I suppose that might explain a lot...like this guy in Idaho who's been told by the police to stop going out in his bunny suit, because he's scaring the neighbors.

To be fair, they might have a point. -- Davis Doherty

3) Dolphins sleep with one eye open. They're able to do this by putting one half of their brains to sleep, while the other half remains active. But that's kind of oversimplifying things, because even that sleep isn't the same as our sleep. Some scientists have said that dolphins pretty much don't sleep at all.

"Whaddya mean, 'sleep'? I'm a friggin' dolphin!" -- Just Taken Pics

4) The Cheddar Man is a 9,000-year-old skeleton found in Gough's Cave, Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. They reckon he died from a hole in the head, since he seems to have a hole in his head.

I searched "Cheddar Man" on Google Images and this is what I got. -- Carly  & Art

In 1996-97, a team of Oxford University researchers compared the Cheddar Man's DNA to that of the town's modern residents. They discovered that local resident Adrian Targett, along with two small children whose names were kept private, are directly descended from the 9,000-year-old skeleton. That means their families have been in the area since 7150 BC.

See, Martha, I told you we'd never get out of this podunk town. -- METROgrl

5) Charles Osbourne, a resident of Anthon, Iowa, holds the record for the world's longest hiccupping fit. He started hiccupping in 1922, and continued hiccupping 20 to 40 times a minute until 1990.

That's 68 years of drinking from the wrong side of the glass. -- allaboutgeorge

Despite his hiccupping problem, Charles married and sired eight children. He died on May 1, 1991, at the age of 97. He had been hiccup-free for more than a year.

Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two

So I finally saw the last Harry Potter movie last weekend. I know you all saw it the moment it came out, but I'm not keen on camping outside movie theaters, thanks.

Yes, I'm taking on Harry Potter. I'm sure you know more about it than I do, so feel free to share your opinion in the comments, if you can get past the dreaded CAPTCHA. I hear it's been pretty surly lately.

*SPOILER ALERT*

You've been warned. Don't read any further if you don't want to know how the movie ends.

Snape is Harry's father, Ron Weasley dies twice, Neville was the Chosen One all along.

But srsly, kids:

Wizards and Witches Get Married Really Young

At the end of the films/books, we get to see all the proud wizard daddies and witch mommies sending their kiddies off to Hogwarts to be educated and exposed to several years of mortal danger, presumably. 

Lots of people think this happy-ending add-on is cumbersome and unnecessary. I think it's nice to know they didn't all get divorced five years later, like you'd expect considering they were about 18 when they got hitched.

It's true that people who undergo stressful situations together tend to bond more closely, because stress makes the brain produce oxytocin, a hormone responsible for feelings of emotional closeness. There could be few things more stressful than taking a stand against evil with an army of 12-year-olds at your back.

Besides, maybe they don't have many options. The magical community looks rather small. There are, what, a few hundred kids at Hogwarts, possibly a dozen teachers. Also the Ministry of Magic guys. There are at least two other schools somewhere and it's implied that there are also several magical towns. So there might be thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of magical people in this fictional universe, but that's still a flash in the pan assuming that there are six billion people in total on this fictional planet.

It doesn't look like these kids are encouraged to go out into the wider world, where they might meet non-magical people. No one ever mentions university. No one ever says, “You know, after this, I might just go traveling.”

Although I sure as hell would.

Harry Potter's Son is Understandably Terrified

So we get this final scene where Harry Potter (who's supposed to be in his late 30s but still can't grow a beard) reassures his son, Albus Severus Potter, that everything's going to go smashingly at Hogwarts, and he, Albus, surely won't be sorted into the dreaded Slytherin House. 

If Voldemort is dead and the magical world is safe, what's the big freaking deal? If Slytherin House is that bad, why not give them sensitivity training, or something? Actually, maybe the other houses need it more. Imagine if everyone assumed you were a total bastard and treated you as such, on little more than the word of some headgear. You'd go to the dark side eventually.

I'm sure they'd like to pass off this moment as the normal sort of worry you'd expect from a child going to boarding school for the first time. But if this poor kid's heard of half the things that happened at Hogwarts while his dad was there – and you KNOW he has – it's no wonder he looks nervous. He's afraid he won't graduate alive.

This Movie Needs Some American Wizards

We spend most of our time throughout the Harry Potter series with the British wizards and wiz-lets at Hogwarts. Other wizarding schools appear in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but no mention is made of any wizarding communities outside of Europe.

That's a shame, because American wizards could only improve this story. Picture it: Voldemort's forces have breeched Hogwarts' defenses. Most of its defenders are running around shrieking because they're 12. Enter the hard-drinking, hard-riding cowboy wizard on a hobby horse broom. “Yeeeeeee-HAAAAWWW!” he shouts maniacally as he rains down firey Yankee vengeance on the invading troops. His proud mustache shines gloriously in the light of exploding bombs.

"ACCIO FREEDOM, MOTHERF&*KERS!"

Then again, that would be kinda hard to write in.