The Rifle Umbrella, from Gadget Brando!
Here’s a Good Way to Get Yourself Shot by Cops
Category: Uncategorized
Mark Twain Let’s Loose on a U.S. ‘Victory’
So how did Mark Twain react to a “glorious” American victory during fighting in the Philippines in 1906? Angrily. And with good reason. The set-up is this: American troops found 600 enemy Moros — women and children — hiding in a volcanic crater. Over 500 U.S. troops, with native allies, dragged artillery up to the rim and a “battle” followed — one in which all of the Moros were killed. Fifteen U.S. troops dies and, if the most publicized injury is a fair indicator, they likely died by friendly fire.
This prompted Twain, who was in the middle of dictating his autobiography — dwelling on the one-room school house in which he was educated — to a multi-day tirade. At one point he takes particular issue with a note from President Theodore Roosevelt congratulating the American general who commanded this “brilliant feat of arms” that “upheld the honor of the American flag.”
Sayeth Twain:
He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms – and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines – that is to say, they had dishonored it.
Kapow! You can also get just a taste there of Twain’s disdain for the hypocrisy of organized religion. (Someone’s taken the trouble to excerpt a little more from this section if you’re interested.)
2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 31,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 108 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 350 posts. There were 20 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 15mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was December 10th with 1,544 views. The most popular post that day was They’re Called BABY Wipes.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were theawl.com, twitter.com, facebook.com, Google Reader, and daddytypes.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for ken wheaton, boudin, the first annual grand prairie rabbit festival, word o wheaton, and whale vs boat.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
They’re Called BABY Wipes December 2010
19 comments
2
Your Stinking Corpse August 2010
8 comments
3
About November 2008
15 comments
4
The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival August 2009
12 comments
5
Gumbo for Dummies December 2008
10 comments
It’s Gonna Blow!
Things I’ve ate in one 12-hour period in Louisiana.
Nine Chicken McNuggets (hey, I was starving when I got off the plane).
Two links of boudin.
Handful of cracklins.
Two plates of crawfish etouffee.
One bowl of gumbo.
And some chaudin.
Beans, Beans Are Good for the Smart
Interesting in advertising, marketing or the sound of my voice? Have ears and want to listen to a podcast? Then get thee to The BeanCast.
Joining host Bob Knorpp this week for his year-end show are: Bill Green, Publisher, Make The Logo Bigger, Co-Host of AdVerve; Angela Natividad, Writer/Marketer, Live and Uncensored, Co-Host of Adverve; John J. Wall, Co-Host, Marketing Over Coffee.
And ME.
There was all sorts of talk about Facebook, Super Bowl advertising, as well as a lot of suggestive joking and some old fashioned ranting and raving. Check it out.
Last-Minute Holiday Gift Suggestion
Have you seen these Singamajig things? No? Well, they’re adorable, hilarious and will provide hours of entertainment for the kids. Okay, they’ll provide minutes of entertainment for the kids before the adults snatch them away to play with them and make videos. Like so.
or this
or this
I Just Want to Give Thanks for One More Thing
Doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to do a Thanksgiving post close to a month after the fact, but I just want to thank the forces of the universe, the United States military, and all the geeks, nerds, technicians, CERN, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, Jeff Bezos and many many more for inventing the Internet, the Web, Amazon, etc.
Much like I wonder how people worked 9-to-5 office jobs before the internet era, I wonder how people survived Christmas shopping without the web. Don’t get wrong, I actually dig going to a mall at least once during Christmas season or knocking over Japanese people in Soho or elbowing yuppies trying to push their double-wide stroller through the single-lane Christmas shops at Union Square. What I don’t like doing is having to, you know, actually buy things while there. And considering that 99.9% of my gifts must end up in Louisiana anyway, well, forget about it.
The Internet is probably one of those things that’s stopping you from seeing me on the evening news after an unseemly incident with a Santa Claus.
They’re Called BABY Wipes
One day, in the last ten years, I was standing in someone’s bathroom, going about my business, when I noticed a tub of Baby Wipes on the back of the toilet. This struck me as odd as there were no babies in the house. If there were no babies in the house, what could they possibly be . . . using . . . the . . .
EWWWWWWWWWW.
Continue reading “They’re Called BABY Wipes”
Skin So Dry
Hi! Are you tired of soft, supple skin worthy of a human. Would you rather have the sort of reptilian skin that would make a geriatric iguana puke with jealousy?
You’re in luck!
Continue reading “Skin So Dry”
Movies Worth Skipping
Saturday night, I watched two movies, one you might consider skipping and the other you should never, ever, ever, watch. Ever.
One is called Teeth, and is about a young woman who is afflicted with vagina dentata. That’s right, she’s got some teeth all up in her junk. Angry teeth that bite, giving me a new image when I say the word “nubbin” (which I actually say quite a bit). Now, you’re probably thinking that as a dude, I had huge issues with this movie. I did not.
The biggest issue I had was that the director, in an effort of symbolic overkill which took me completely out of the moment showed thick black pollutiony smoke coming out of the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE! (Neither do tooth-vaginas, but still.) The cooling towers of power plants emit steam, not smoke. But other than that, not a bad flick. The bad guys get it. And how.
The other movie? The Human Centipede. This is a movie in which a mad scientist kidnaps three tourists and creates a, well, human centipede? Think about this. How would a mad scientist do such a thing? Why, by sewing these people ass-to-mouth. This is something I don’t even watch in porn! I never came remotely close to watching “Two Girls and a Cup.” I swore up and down I would never watch this movie.
But some sad puppy-dog eyes from a pretty lady–and, yeah, a challenge to my manhood and a trade-off that she’d watch a couple episodes of Archer–and next thing you know, I’m watching a Japanese guy apologies to the woman stuck in the middle because he’s got to take a dump and it’s got nowhere to go but straight into her mouth. Don’t even get me started on the infection that sets into the face of the third part of the human centipede.
At any rate, if you don’t want to see that sort of thing, don’t watch this movie. Ever.
KEN WHEATON 