Giant Poop Terrorizes City

No, not this, it's a story in today's Metro:

BERNE, SWITZERLAND. A giant inflatable dog mess, the centerpiece of an exhibition at a Swiss museum, broke free of its moorings, brought down a power line, smashed a window and landed in the garden of a children's home. The wind carried the house-sized fake poop 200 yards.
METRO

Forget the creepy eggman, this is the now the best thing ever. I especially love how every news outlet that's picked up this story has used different euphemisms for "dog turd." But I am disappointed that no one referred to the escaped crud balloon as "loose stool."

Here's some more about the incident, which happened July 31 but is only being reported internationally now, from the UK's Guardian:

...The exhibit, entitled Complex Shit, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion...

The installation is part of an exhibition called East of Eden: A Garden Show, which features sound sculptures in trees and a football ground without goalposts. The exhibition opened in May and is due to run until October.
The centre's website describes the show as containing "interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones".

Because I love you, here is a picture of the giant pile of dog crap.

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My Hometown: The Good, The Bad, and the Completely Made Up

Every kid that ever went to elementary school in Weymouth has been to Abigail Adams' house. They also went to the state prison for a ninth grade field trip for health class for some reason. I think the moral was "Be sure to wash behind your ears, or a big guy named Angel with a giant crucifix tattooed on his chest will do it for you." Anyway, I'd imagine the the Abigail Adams house has seen a spike in attendance since HBO aired it's critically-acclaimed John Adams miniseries. There's no way to tell for sure, short of looking it up, and I don't feel like doing that. But they must be keeping busy, otherwise they would have had time to update their website. When was that thing designed, 1996? Get with the times, Abigail Adams' Birthplace and Museum! Book Laura Linney to give some tours or something.

The point is, every kid growing up here knew the wife of the second President of the United States was from Weymouth. And thanks to Johnny Depp and Blow, we know major cocaine supplier George Jung hails from here, too. So are Daily Show correspondents Rob and Nate Nate Corddry. There's a little sign near a house were Hal Holbrook grew up.

On a more serious note, in 2001, after the Fourth of July fireworks display on Wessagusset Beach, a kid named Matt Nagle was involved in a huge brawl and was stabbed in his spinal chord and paralyzed from the shoulders down. He volunteered for groundbreaking medical procedures and in 2004, became the first person to control an artificial hand using a brain-computer interface. Basically, he had a chip implanted in his brain, and the hand was controlled by his thoughts. That's freaking crazy. Unfortunately, he died last year, three years after getting the implant and over six years after he was stabbed. He was a year behind me in high school, but I didn't know him.

But there's more. You know "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you," the first words ever spoken on a telephone? Mr. Watson was Alexander Graham Bell's assistant, Thomas A. Watson, born in, you guessed it, Salem MA! Um, but he's buried in Weymouth, and that's all that matters, right? In 1883 he founded the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, on the Weymouth Fore River, which is actually in Quincy, near the Braintree town border. Over the years many warships were built there, especially during World War II. The shipyard closed in 1986, and the 328 foot tall Goliath crane, which always looked like one of those Imperial walkers from Star Wars to me, was sold to Daewoo and as of last month, is being dismantled to be relocated to Romania. I probably should have taken some pictures. I wonder if it's completely gone now? Nuts.

Hey, know who else I just found out was raised in Weymouth? Creepy Saw actor Tobin Bell. That part is completely true. Now for something completely made up, I direct you to the bastion of accuracy, Wikipedia, for Mr. Bell's entry:

In 1991 Bell opened "The Tobin Bell School of Acting" in his home town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Among the more famous alumni are Ben Affleck, Michael Clarke Duncan, Keanu Reeves and Jenny McCarthy. Tara Reid was also a student at the school but failed to pass the rigorous six-month course. Tim Curry is known to be a generous backer of the school and an admirer of Bell.

Zing. Well played, Wikipedia editor All Hallow's Wraith. It seems that's gone undetected since May 2.

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Why, Lord? Why?

This picture is on my server. I vaguely remember making it, but I can't remember why. I'm sure there was a good reason for it at the time. Anyone from the old days have a better memory? I think it had something to do with NYPinTA.

EDIT: Um...found it. Turns out it really was to torture NYPinTA. Sorry about that...

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A Real American Hero

I got an email this morning, purportedly from "Allah Stemple," with the following subject line: Fat Chinese Man Kills And Eats Brother Because He Was Hungry. So did lots of other people. I was then encouraged to watch the video. Given the recent horrific events in Canada, using this as a subject line for spam is probably in poor taste. Actually, under any circumstances this as a subject line is in poor taste. Still...what could possibly be the point of sending something like that? And what did that video link lead to? It almost certainly wasn't a fat Chinese guy eating his brother. Hmm, now that I think about it, it doesn't say "his brother," just "brother." Maybe he was eating someone from a religious order, or a black guy. I'd like to think that the video link contained a massive virus, that would have caused my computer to implode and emit a terrible sulfuric smell that lasts several days, but I was too crafty to fall for the old bait 'n switch. Haha, Allah Stemple, hoist your trickery on some other rube! But more than likely, it probably doesn't lead anywhere or do anything or have any point whatsoever. After hours of soul-searching, I ultimately decided against clicking on it.

Hey, wait a minute...Allah Stemple...Allah's Temple! It's like Topsy Kretts! I think I got spam from terrorists! And by not clicking on a fat Chinese guy video, I may have very well just saved America.

So, you know, you're welcome.

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My Left Foot

I started to write this over a month ago, then thought better of it and let in languish in Draft Hell, then later thought, this is a perfectly good post. There are some people that don't have any posts. So here you go...

I noticed something this weekend that somehow went undetected for 29 years. Something that shocked and horrified me and left me completely confused as to my very existence. The middle toe on my left foot is the shorter than the rest of them. Well, not the pinky one, but the two on either side of it. It looks like one of the bone segments is missing. This is messed up.

Is it possible that I've somehow overlooked this my entire life? Feet fall slightly above the veiny backside of the wrists as my least favorite body parts, so I suppose my conscious effort to avoid looking at them could have kept me from discovering the horrible truth. The even more unsettling question is this: what if this is only a recent occurrence? What if at some point I actually lost a bone? For two consecutive summers after I graduated high school, I accidentally smashed my bare left foot into the coffee table while turning the corner from the living room to the dining room. Both times, the doctor said you can't exactly put a tiny cast on your toes, so each time it just sort if healed on it's own. Maybe it got smashed so hard and so repeatedly that it's now permanently stuck in a "shy turtle position." I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to make of all this, I'm freaking out.

Well, not long after that, I looked again, and the toe was normal sized again. That makes even less sense than when it looked like a bone was missing. This has left me with an interesting theory and a solid conclusion. The theory is that due to previous damage, sometimes the middle toe on my left foot inexplicably regresses into my foot. And the conclusion? Feet are gross and should not be looked at or thought about under any circumstances.

Missing bones or not, I've always had problems with that foot. Despite my best efforts, the shoelace on my left shoe always comes undone while I'm walking. It's untied right now. On every pair of shoes I've ever had for as long as I can remember, the left lace always comes undone. Double knots do nothing! Occasionally, extra long laces prove to be the culprit, as my right foot will inadvertently step on the excess lace and pull it loose. But I have actually witnessed the lace shake itself undone entirely on it's own, simply by the movement of my foot walking forward. It's maddening.

On the other hand, err, foot, The right shoe is fine. Laces don't magically untie themselves, and the big toe is the largest, with each of the others progressively smaller, just as God intended. So why does my left shoe refuse to stay tied? Does the size-changing toe have anything to do with it?

Zig-zagging up my body, I get pains in my right hip sometimes, but not my left. I guess that's because when you walk, one foot is working in conjunction with the opposite hip. Isn't it? I think my whole body is being thrown out of whack because my left foot is all weird.

And now, in an amazing feat of showmanship (feat...hehe) I will now predict not only who will post the first comment, but what it will say:

Michele said...
GO TO THE DOCTOR!!!!

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