There’s this crossword puzzle online. It’s from the Ludington Daily News, a newspaper in Michigan. There are a lot of crossword puzzles online — the New York Newsday is a pretty good one, with a Saturday Stumper from hell.

The “Lud” is different. It breaks every crossword puzzle rule in the book. It never has a theme. And it mixes hard and easy clues in a way like no other crossword I’ve ever seen. Some of the somewhat easier ones include gems like:

1. Set again
2. Woody plant
3. Leg joint
4. Foot... [More]

Star Trek Flat affords you a look into a world few know: geek interior design.

What do you do if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, considerable do-it-yourself skills, a bunch of cash and no friends in sight?

When you’re done, you try to sell it (EBay) for a million bucks and see if you can find a rich, lazy geek who wants to live in England.

I was going to name the article, “How not to get laid in... [More]

This Land is Your Land is good Flash; Flash put to a better purpose than burning out your retinas with advertising. It’s a parody of the Woody Guthrie song that rips Bush, Kerry, the US Media, US consumerism (the part with the Native American and the Walmarts popping up like mushrooms was funny). Check it out for a good laugh.

If you have trouble downloading it, try it here at The Land is Your Land (local copy). They, of course, have a little copyright infringement thing with the owners of... [More]

The FCC Song by Eric Idle (MP3) is the first I’ve heard from him in a while … and he’s mad. He’s got an official announcement on his web site. The lyrics are available in full and here’s a little sample (just to show you it’s not work safe).

“Fuck you very much the FCC.
Fuck you very much for fining me.
$5,000 bucks a fuck, So I’m really out of luck.
Thats more than Heidi Fleiss was charging me!
So fuck you very much the FCC.
For proving that free speech just isn’t free!
Clear Channels a dear... [More]”

I got an email recently with a rather interesting suggestion: change the emblem of the United States from an “eagle to a condom because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance”. Why is it better?

“A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed.”

While you’re probably nodding your head in agreement, and, perhaps, wonderment that the government... [More]

Look on the bright side. Each staggering step the US takes towards certain Armageddon is at least always accompanied by an opportunity to engage in some serious “Schadenfreude” when Bush gets trapped on the White House lawn by a pack of reporters. Or maybe he’s flushed out from cover by a serious enough scandal that he’s forced to make some form of official statement.

That’s when the whole flustered, fumbling, repetitive, seriously talking-pointed, single-minded (or no-minded?), redundant... [More]

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with a super-efficient way of folding a T-Shirt and then putting the demonstration to video game music. This technique may revolutionize the way some of you do laundry.

New Negative Campaign Ads Blast Voters Directly (The Onion) does it again with another article that will probably end up coming true before November. Now here’s a spot I’d like to see:

“A controversial 30-second TV spot for Kerry that aired throughout the Midwest Monday blamed the country’s ills not on Bush’s policies, but on the “sheer stupidity” of America’s voters.”

The Bush team fights back with:

“‘Are you going to vote for a candidate whose campaign promises would cost America $1.9 trillion over the... [More]”

1. You immediately complain that this should be subscripted as zero.
2. Most people say “Go To Hell,” but you tell people to redirect to /dev/null.
3. By the time you’ve gotten here in the document, you’ve run Tidy or a similar app to check my X/HTML skills.
4. The statement (0x2b||!0x2b) makes sense to you.
5. You find 4 funny.
6. You note with disgust that it always evaluates to true, since 0x2b != 0.
7. Point 6 disgusts you, because under languages other than C++ (e.g. Java), it would throw an exception,... [More]

Did Somebody Say Macho? by Zack 'Geist Editor' Parsons (Something Awful) takes on the daunting task of creating an objective scale determining any given person’s “Macho-ness”.

The macho-factor is a 2-dimensional matrix defined along the Swayze-Eastwood Axis and the Shatner-Kressley Axis (Kressley is the dude from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”, who, apparently, is the cultural opposite of a guy who “was probably watching re-runs of “TJ Hooker” when his wife drowned in the pool”).

There is, of course, a helpful questionnaire to help you find... [More]

Here’s Aaron McGruder’s helpful contribution to Bush’s re-election strategy. This is the Boondocks from March 22 − March 27.

I know it’s too late for Saint Patrick’s Day, but here it is anyway. Some of you can probably use it any day of the week.

Feet cold and wet.

• problem − Glass being held at incorrect angle.
• solution − Rotate glass so that open end points toward ceiling.

Feet warm and wet.

• problem − Improper bladder control.
• solution − Stand next to nearest dog, complain about house training.

Beer unusually pale and tasteless.

• problem − Glass empty.
• solution − Get someone to buy you another beer.

Opposite... [More]

Why is it that so many people in America believe in it, right or wrong?

They’re taught to from a very young age.

Installment 28 (MNFTIU) made me laugh, but in a sad way.

Installment 30 (MNFTIU) just made me laugh. Quoting that is waaaayyyy easier than poking holes in Bush’s space plans myself. I’m reproducing choice quotes below just to have them, but I’d browse to the link so you can see the little office dude in a space helmet delivering the lines.

“
Wait a minute … how are we gonna get to Mars?

“Check it out — we’re going to build a base on the moon! Then we’ll literally FLY TO MARS!!! In space!

“And we all have to... [More]”

The most amazing practical joke was perpetrated over New Year’s. Friends foil Olympia man’s home (The Olympian) shows pictures of an apartment completely, and I mean completely, covered in aluminum foil.

The pranksters covered doors, door framers, the toilet, everything … they even:

• “unrolled the toilet paper in the bathroom, enveloped the bath tissue in aluminum foil and rolled it back up again”
• “used foil to encircle Kirk’s spare change — each individual quarter he had left atop a living room bookshelf”
• “overed... [More]”

Drinking Responsibly During the Holidays (The Onion) is a list of rules for kids of all ages:

• If you are a woman, remember: Women are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol. If you are a man, remember: Women are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol.
• Always drink from the bottle labeled “XXX.” The bottle with the skull-and-crossbones on the front is poison.
• Drinking alone is a telltale sign that you know better than to put up with anybody’s bullshit.
• Drinking more than seven nights a week is not... [More]

…Harvard Feminist Goes Off Half-Cocked… on Plastic is about repression on campus. A bunch of people on campus tore down a “nine foot tall snow-phallus on university grounds” (Harvard, if you must know). It was mostly women irate that it was “offensive because it was pornographic”; offended because “[a]s a feminist, pornography is degrading to women and creates a violent atmosphere”. Whatever that means. I’m not being flip. That is an honest evaluation of the intellectual content of that... [More]

From today’s Onion:

“Bacon Good For You, Reports Best Scientist Ever”

“ROCHESTER, MN − Bacon, long believed to contribute to heart disease and obesity, possesses significant health benefits, according to a study released Monday by Dr. Albert Gruber, the best scientist ever. “My research has found that three strips of crispy, mouthwatering bacon every morning can actually reduce cholesterol and help slow the aging process,” the awesome Gruber said. “What’s more, the bacon’s positive effects are... [More]”

Three Texas surgeons were arguing as to which had the greatest skill.

The first began: “Three years ago, I reattached seven fingers on a pianist. He went on to give a recital for the Queen of England.”

The second replied: “That’s nothing. I attended a man in a car accident. All his arms and legs were severed from his body. Two years after I reattached them, he won three gold medals for field events in the Olympics.”

The third said: “A few years back, I attended to a cowboy. He was high on... [More]

XXX!!! See Horny Teens Hide Weapons Of Mass Destruction!!! XXX!!! onPlastic announces that the US has been spamming Iraqi citizens for the last month, causing Iraq to “disable Internet access for the entire country”. Below is a sample of these emails, captured and presented by Plastic poster, Chatsubo.

“Texan Unable To Trick NASA Into Hauling Old Washing Machine Off Lawn”

New For Christmas: Do Me Barbie, found on Plastic, tells of FAO Schwarz’s refreshing departure from classic, fully-dressed barbies. This is a great idea and should prove very educational for young ladies wondering what assets they need to get ahead. Ahem. As if the size 38DDD rack Barbie has traditionally sported isn’t indication enough. Now, she pulls out all stops as she “exudes a flirtatious attitude in her heavenly merry widow bustier ensemble accented with intricate lace and matching... [More]”

Being a cop

1. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
2. Police Departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
3. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
4. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
5. All handcuffs can easily be opened with nothing more than a paper clip.
6. If you... [More]

Andrew Lipson’s LEGO® Page has some pretty amazing creations, chiefly his recreations of some of M.C. Escher’s works. You can see “Ascending and Descending” to the right.

I guess while we’re at it, you can check out this site with computer-generated art. It’s very difficult to tell the difference on some of these. The whole site is tightly linked together and takes you seemingly randomly from one ‘painting’ to the next.

So one of these is taking impossible art and trying to make physical... [More]

Bookworm Hi ScorePut your vast vocabulary to good use with this cool Java game from PopCap Games called Bookworm. It’s a Java game where you have to select words like in a word jumble. The more letters in a word, the more points and so on. Hard-to-use letters have higher value. If you link a few longer words together, you’ll be granted gold or green blocks, which multiply the value of the word score. If you link too many short words (like 3 or 4 letters), you’ll get flaming blocks that eat through one letter... [More]

Seanbaby’s been on vacation/hiatus or in hiding almost as long as Osama, but I found him. He’s not updating his own site anymore because he’s writing for The Wave, “The Bay Area’s Best Entertainment Mag…Ever”. In fact, I just found his latest article, Video Review: Turkish Star Trek, in which he notes:

“The teleportation effects are, like all Turkish special effects, a strange combination of retarded and rad. The four men stand as still as possible while the camera goes out of focus. Ten... [More]”

I was just kicking around Snopes the other day and found this transcript. Snopes is an urban legend tracking site and has discredited the veracity of this incident, but it’s pretty funny nonetheless.

ACTUAL transcript of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. This radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10-10-95.

Americans: “Please divert your course 15 degreesto the North to avoid a collision.”

Canadians:... [More]

This web site, GWBush.com is the unnofficial George Bush homepage. The best part is the stickers section in the store, where you can find beauties like:

1. “Regime Change” Starts at Home
2. Democracy was getting old anyway
3. Don’t Blame Me, My Vote Didn’t Count
4. Vote Republican — it’s easier than thinking!
5. If you can read this, you’re not the president
6. I wasn’t using my civil liberties anyway
7. George W. Bush: America’s Last President

…and finally, my personal favorite:

“Bush — born on third... [More]”