Drink Rum

I haven't done a Friday's Amazing Retard Trophy in a very, very long time. Today, the 13th of the Fridays... I've got a new one.

It's me.

I know I usually reserve my bitter angst and scorn for heads of state or assorted members of popular culture, but I think I get the award this week for truly acting like a retard.

So last night, I received a shipment of frozen meat (thanks Phil!) packed in it's own styrofoam cooler and everything. I eagerly cracked the cooler open to behold the wonderment of pound upon pound of glorious glorious meat. I was a bit distracted on the phone while I was unpacking the cooler and for some reason missed the green wording in a huge font that said, "WARNING - DRY ICE! DO NOT TOUCH WITHOUT GLOVE!". So I just reached on in there and grabbed me a handful of dry ice. I feel sorry for the person on the other end of the phone because I'm sure my vocal explosion couldn't have been a comfort to one's ear.

That in and of itself... not retarded. Stupid... but not retarded.

It was when I had the, "Hey! I've got a pound of dry ice to play with!" moment that things began to unravel.

I plopped a small piece in to a mug of hot water and giggled insanely as it started smoking and making my Alice in Wonderland coffee mug look like something out of a mad scientist's lab.

"Tee-hee", I said.

If dry ice in hot water looked cool in a coffee mug, I sure did think it'd look cooler in a tinted liquor bottle! Luckily, I had an empty Grand Marnier bottle handy. I filled it up with hot water and plopped in a few chunks of dry ice. (Also, leather sword gauntlets are the most perfect dry ice handlers ever.) So the Grand Marnier bottle erupted in bubbly smoke and fun.

"Tee-hee-hee", I said.

And then I thought... I bet this would look super uber cool if I were to cork the bottle up so when I uncork it nifty smoke would come out. So I put the cork in the bottle and plugged it tight.

Now... anyone whose taken physics is probably thinking something along the lines of... "hey, you've got an endothermic reaction going on there... as that piece of solid dry ice turns itself into a gas... it's expanding... exponentially... and you just sealed that expanding gas inside a bottle... a glass bottle.

Let's take a brief trip in the way back machine... about 17 years ago I had decided that a good use of my time was to take a CO2 cartridge and place in into a 16oz Coke bottle and then put the cap back on it. When the CO2 was pierced, it would bubble and such. Every now and then it would stop bubbling, but if I tapped the glass bottle, it'd start bubbling again. Well after about 15 minutes, the bubbling stopped and went to tap the glass... and I tapped it and it exploded. My face was about 4 inches from the bottle at the time as I was looking in to see if more bubbles were en route. Boom.

I remember not being able to see. Everything was black and I remember hearing the explosion and being very wet. I figured I'd blinded myself... but I hadn't. When the bottle blew my eyes shut and stayed shut... once I opened them both and saw that I could still see, I was happy. I went into my bathroom to get a towel and that's when I saw that I have several pieces of glass in my face and was bleeding quite a bit. Three pieces were within an inch or two of my eyes. I got some tweezers and spent a very long time fishing glass out of skin. Not pleasant.

So the Grand Marnier bottle starts hissing.... like a very angry cobra. And I get the flashback of the exploding Coke bottle. In slow motion I reached for the cork to release some pressure before it blew, but I was too late. There was an amazingly loud boom... it sounded like someone fired off a shotgun in my kitchen. I hit the floor (hard) and then something hit me in the head. It was the cork. The Grand Marnier bottle was still intact but had fired its cork like a cannon straight into the ceiling and then on to my head.

Sadly... I'm now out of dry ice.

Posted by Monty at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been swamped at work so I haven't had much time to put out anything even remotely thought provoking.

I'm torn between how get's the FART today. I was thinking about giving it to G W Bush... for his normal round of stupidity. I was thinking of giving it VA politician George Allen for spam calling my house to tell me to vote for him and his homophobic self. But I think I'll give it to John Kerry.

As you may know John Kerry got caught trying to imply that Bush is stupid and his delivery made it look like he was saying that members of the US military are stupid. I'm giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt that he messed up the delivery of a weak joke, so the FART isn't for that... it's for his apology.

He shouldn't have apologized.

I don't think there's anything wrong with telling people that they should stay in school, get educated and stay the hell out of the military. It's a good way to get killed these days.

I'm not saying all people in the military are stupid. Some very much are, though. There's also a reason why recruiters are targeting troubled high schoolers too. The military isn't looking for the best and brightest. If they did, they'd pay better.

If I were John Kerry, I'd stand by my statement. Get an education and don't get sent off to die as the puppet of a mental midget.

Posted by Monty at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday's Amazing Retard Trophy goes to George Worthless Bush this week.

Not for the usual stuff. Not for lack of vision. Not for his sexual alignment with the religous right. Not for ignorance or maliciousness (circle one). Not for any of the usual things dum dum has done.

No, this one goes out for his dim witted idea to have a 9/11 speech on Monday.

It's scheduled for 9:01PM EST, which means it'll pre-empt Monday night football.

I think that, in and of itself, should be reason for impeachment.

What amazing enlightenment are you going to bring to the 5 year anniversary?

How's Iraq? Screwed? Ya don't say?

Afgahistan is all right though... wait... no it isn't.

Luckily everything in Iran, Korea, and Lebanon are working fine and the economy is booming.

What in the hell can Dubs say that warrants a national address? 3,000 dead Americans... terrorist hate freedom... gays are bad.

Awesome.

Posted by Monty at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, no... the FART isn't going to the French. They can't help who they are.

No, the trophy today goes to the UN. For 2 reasons...

1) Putting the Lebonan Peace Keeping Force Under French Leadership.

2) Thinking France would do anything productive whatsoever.

That's damn stupid.

French leadership is a joke.

Not a funny joke either. The French Leadership joke is like:

Knonk, Knock!

Who's There?

The Milkman of Paris.

The Milkman of Paris who?

Shut up, swine I don't have to answer your rediculous questions or bathe!

I don't hate the French so much as find the useless.

I'm really thinking we should divide the UN into smaller groups instead of the two we have now... being the UN Security Council and all the rest.

I'd divide them in countries with nukes, and without. Then sub-divide the "nukes" group into people that are useless (France) or useful (China). Then we get the useless nuke countries to fight Israel. It doesn't really matter who wins.

Speaking of Israel... the UK is now in charge of that debacle. Those idiots started the whole mess and then abandoned it.

Nevermind... back to the point... Trophy, UN, France, Gay.

Posted by Monty at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nobody.

I'm leaving for the beach shortly and in honor of that, I didn't post anything this week. To help ease you into the complete lack of posting next week.

So..

I'm gone donkeys.

I'll be back in a week or so.

Posted by Monty at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's FART goes to the retarded kid in Utah that got his neighbor to put up the cardboard, "Caution: Retard's in the area" sign in his yard.

He gets the first award for actually being retard, versus figuratively retarded.

Although Bush will probably try to contest that one day.

In reality, it's Friday and I have a head ache.

Posted by Monty at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brad Pitt.

Once glam-boy, then baby maker husband of the big lipped version the Tomb Raider chick, now personal savior.

Jesus Pitt has taken it upon himself to help save the world... and encourage you to do the same. He's not saving the world by contributing millions of dollars towards organizations or helpless people. He's doing better... he's talking about it.

Getting on camera and discussing how tired he is about thinking only of himself.

Good for you Pitt.

I'm tired of thinking about you too. Your stock went up with me in Snatch and 12 Monkeys... even Ocean's 11, but since then you've been a vapor trail of talent and a sonic boom of blather.

Wow... don't know why I suddenly went into flight metaphors.

Anyway... shut up and right a check, Pitty.

Posted by Monty at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today's post is less negativity than usual.

It's probably not healthy to be mad at the world all the time so I'll keep my FART short today.

Home Owners Associations... every single one of them.

Yeah, in theory they're supposed to protect property values blah, blah, blah... but in reality it's just a layer of government bs. It's not even run by intelligent people usually... often it's the neighborhood busy bodies.

We have a management company that runs ours and I've taken a liking to pissing them off.

On another note... the Pink Floyd PULSE DVD came out on Tuesday.

I finally got time to watch it last night... it's only 4 hours of content so finding time was hard.

It's very snazzy. It's 4:3 ratio is annoying... but it was filmed... actually it wasn't it was video taped in 1994 and widescreen home entertainment didn't exist. That aside, the video clean up they did was amazing. Also... surround sound.... wow.

Very wow.

If you like Pink Floyd... the DVD is worth a pick up. It's $15 at Best Buy.

Posted by Monty at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...Me. Because I haven't posted anything this week. Boo Hiss!

It was a good news week too.

North Korea is launching missiles at Japan.

Enron Kingpin Dies Mysteriously.

Snooty Champagne Manufacturers Don't Like Their Products Being Associated With That Hippity-Hop Music.

And other assorted things.

I'll try harder next week, I mean it. I was just too busy to make with the posts.

Oh, yeah... I'll post something next week about how much I like fireworks and why I support the right for idiots to blow their fingers off if they want to.

Until then... boom and stuff.

Posted by Monty at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So yesterday the US military forces blew up al Queda's vice president or deputy nutcase or whatever his title was. He was the Dick Cheney of al Quesedia.

Zarqawi is dead. War's over. Let's go home.

Or not.

Because the American people are so highly skeptical of the government these days, someone in the high command (probably not Bush... he's in the high chair, not high command) decided the best way to shut up the skeptics was to give the media a photo op with a framed picture of bloated corpsey head of Zarqawi.

OK... the American public is now aware that he's dead. And there was much rejoicing.

I want everyone... and by everyone I mean the four people who read this... I want everyone to think really hard about this for a second.

How do fanatical extremists react to seeing the dead heads of people they hold in high regard?

Do they:

a: Say, "crap, cap'n is dead... we surrender"
b: Take a few months to reorganize and then return with a new business model
c: Plead no contest and take 30 days in Abu Gravy Train and 5 years no terror probation?
d: Get really pissed off and start blowing things up and killing people.

Ask an Israeli to take that test and see what their experiences have been with killing off terrorist leaders and gloating.

Or maybe ask yourself a question or two... you're not an extremist... you're not a hell bent psychopath.

How did you feel when you saw images of American soldiers or civilian bodies being dragged through a street, beheaded, or burned and hang off a bridge? OK, now take that and mix in some jihad and shake with ice and serve.

I was going to make a joke here about imagine how you'd feel if you saw Dick Cheney's dead head on the news tonight, and how about 70% of the US would be thrilled... but I decided that that was in poor taste. I have no idea what the actual statistic would be.

So al Queda's number 2 is dead. That, in and of itself, is a good thing. He was a bad guy. He was not the brilliant mastermind of all things bad in the world, but his death removes a tactical problem for the US military. That... is a good thing.

The bad thing here is the media hypification of this turkey's dead head.

It shows that the US military still does not understand the war they are trying to fight. They do not understand the enemy they are trying to help with one hand and kill with the other. They are clinging to the old military logic of taking out the C3 (command, control, communications) and then cleaning up the rest later. Cut off the head and the body dies.

The problem here is that we're dealing with a different type of lifeform... these guys are hydras... cut off a head, two more grow back. You can spend an inifinite amount of time cutting off heads.

As Alan Rickman once told Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest... "What does it want? What is its motivation?"

Allen replied that it was a rock, it didn't have motivation.

There is a motivation in Iraq though. Instead of saying "bad guys" hate us because we're free or some other such nonsense, maybe find out why they hate us... and maybe fix the problem instead of the fixing the symptoms.

The US military planners and high command get the FART this week.

In a special award, I'm giving Harry Truman a FART award too. Since he started all of this mess.

Posted by Monty at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This is a big one and pretty well deserved.

I'm giving this one to the entire legislative branch of the federal government.

This week saw a lowly Looosiana representative get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. While no charges have been filed against William "Big Buck, No Whammie, Stop!" Jefferson, there appears to be quite a lot of damning evidence floating around out there. I could be wrong... perhaps money in the freezer is the best investment opportunity these days. Or he's a filthy politician. You decide. Go read a paper if you want more on (moron) Jefferson.

So the FBI raided Grubby McNasty's office and pulled lots and lots of files to use in their case against him.

And Congress is mad.

How dare the executive branch (the Justice Dept is part of executive branch) attack Congress! It's a violation of the seperation of powers or another easily digested sound bite. It's unconstitutional. Unconstitutional.

Congress is determining what is constitutional.

And now un-dum Bush is getting involved and freezing the raided files for 45 days. Do you think he's going to use that time to make friends in Congress? You betcha. I'm sure Rove is tickled now. Probably by a mexican hooker.

Here's where it gets educational.

The Constitution does have language in it designed to prevent the Executive branch from using law enforcement powers to blackmail or influence or intimidate the Legislative branch. No one wanted King Washington scaring congress. Fair enough. But if a Congressman is caught doing no no stuff that isn't directly tied to a pending vote or legislation... he's fair game. According to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court? Who the hell are they? Oh that's right... they're the ones who actually have a constitutional mandate to interpret the constitution. Wow... that sounds like what Congress and journalists are trying to do. If only there were some way to get the judicial branch of the government involved so they could execute their check and balance on the situation.

Oh wait... didn't a federal judge issue the search and seizure warrant? Hey... judges are part of the judicial branch... and the judicial branch is in charge of maintaining the constitutional intergity of US laws.

Wow.

Eat a big one legislature.

Also... the Senate gets extra attention for the rider the attacted to their latest immigration bill... apparently now the US will "consult" with foreign countries prior to issuing new border controls or security measures.

We won't play nice with the UN regarding Iraq, but we'll make sure Mexico is happy.

Because Mexico is... I don't know.

I'm sure since President "Our People Will Do the Work Your Blacks Won't" Fox of Mexico was crying to Bush about operation Mexico is an Eye Sore... the fence of doom.

Everyone should know by now that I think George Bush is a big dumb animal. Why in the hell we care what Mexico thinks is beyond me. Oh crap... this was supposed to be about Congress.

Here's your award Congress.

Also... please join me in boycotting Mexico.

Boy this was an angry Friday.

Posted by Monty at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today's award will actually be presented by Becker who wrote a justification for the award in a few short sentences that would have taken me three paragrpahs to articulate. Becker sez:

"Rep Pat Kennedy bashed up his car at 2:45 am. The arriving cops said he was drunk, but the higher ups pulled a half-assed coverup.

Why the FART? Because he has seven dollars more than God and he doesn't have the presence of mind to just hire a chaufueur. If it were me, I'd be getting tanked in the back seat of a limo while Kyle Petty drove my fat ass around."

Thanks for the FART Becker.

Becker is a decent family man... you can tell because he left out the hookers, drugs, and guns that would have been riding around in the limo with me if I were King of the Forest.

Also, keep an eye out for the return of the alcohol posts and reviews. I'll be tinkering with an old favorite recipe this weekend and I'll be posting recipes and reviews Sunday or Monday.

Posted by Monty at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy Friday, ya punks.

It's a happy, toe-tappy, non-nappy fun-filled Friday in the sunny suburbs of the wiley Washington metro area. I've had so many, many things (thank you commandant L'sarde) to write about this week... so many (many) in fact, that my brain jammed and I wrote nothing. The mental constipation has finally cleared. Today mark's the return of the old weekly piece... Friday's Amazing Retard Trophy.

And the winner this week is... drum roll please... actually, in this case skip the drum roll and go with a French horn instead.
The winner is...
Head Frog Jaques Chirac.

Being French almost got Blaque Jaques Chirac the award, but the fact that he is personally financing and pushing technology in France to overtake the IT world demonstrates that he's equally brain dead as he is smelly. So very, very smelly.

Firstly... France. This question is for you. France. Why did you elect a le President that got his hinder beaten by Bugs Bunny? I swear that little guy is an idiot standing up there on his damn dam with a cannon yelling, "hey rah-beet!" only to be blown up by said rabbit who was standing behind him on a bigger damn dam with a bigger cannon.
"Hey Fren-chee!"

And don't counter with the fact that Washington DC elects crackheads for mayors. I'd take a DC crackhead over a French midget with a 5 o'clock shadow at 10 in the morning.

So France wants to beat out Google to be the best search engine ever... yay for them. Great to have ambition. Who is building it? The French government (they're helping between finger wagging sessions), the French IT company (there's one), and a German IT company. Hey France (bon jour!)... if you act surprised when you get this new google (le google) machine delivered to you from Germany and open it up only to find Artie Johnson sitting inside with specticles and spiked helmet claiming how the whole project is "very interesting, but also stupid"... you have no one blame but yourself.

I actually think it'd be funny if the Germans helped the French build a new search system. Convince them to spend all of their resources on it and aim for the top. And the day it's unveiled... invade. There'd be panzers in Paris, but the french fried frogs would get the best search result possible in a POW camp. Good for you.

If there's anyone who is French and is reading this. I would like to actually apologize. I can get a bit spun up some times. I'm very, very sorry you're French.
Vive le us.

****As a side note... Bill O'Reilly isn't going to be the icon graphic forever for the F.A.R.T posts... he's just filling in today.

****Another side note (at the bottom)... Becker is the one who turned me on to this little piece of international debris... the French guy, not O'Reilly.

Posted by Monty at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)