I am trying to write the next thing, but it is very boring. So watch out.

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Even Wikipedia does not know why Craig Slist wants me to support Wikipedia.

All it knows is that Jaffa Cakes are very controversial.

Obviously, these things are cookies. However, they are sold as cakes because for some reason cookies in England are “value added” taxed, but only if they have valuable chocolate added to them, yet cakes aren’t ever. Rather than argue that this differentiation is stupid and arbitrary, Jaffa Inc. convinced a judge that the cakes are in fact cakes because they get hard when stale, and that worked, and so they are not subject to the extra tax. The American legal system isn’t the only one that’s silly.

I think it has something to do with cakes being considered “food” and biscuits being considered snacks. If they have chocolate on them. Because that’s just the way the English do things. You couldn’t very well have your afternoon tea without cake, could you? Why it’s the most important meal of the day old boy. As it is also the only one without bacon in it, a suitable substitute is required. Next they’ll be wanting to tax our chip butties and our monocles, what?

The issue on that page is whether or no it’s relevant that Jaffa was in Palestine at the time when Jaffa cakes were invented, even though it isn’t, since these things are Jaffa-y in name only, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to be aware. Here, though, it is only brought up to be a source of contention, because a surprisingly large amount of people have been killed over what a very small geographical region is called and this makes everything right. Jaffa has also been a part of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, just not at the time when a silly sugary object was created elsewhere by people oblivious to the conflict.

I have eaten some. They are rather a bit like hostess cupcakes… and those are neither cookie nor cake. I’m not sure what they are. Not “natural,” certainly. They’re whatever pop tarts are. Some weird manufactured things that are too soft to be cookies, but too industrial to be cakes.

The picture on the box is, not surprisingly, enlarged to seem larger. I neglected to take a picture of this box to prove that to you, but I’ve requested that you believe stranger things than that which is printed there. “The squidgy orange bit,” as the package so regrettably refers to the squidgy orange bit as, is never centered and always has a clear seam around it which makes it look simultaneously smaller and uninvited. Yet the box claims both the biscuit itself and the orange part are considerably larger than they were at some unspecified previous point in time, a thought which upsets me. These things are schmofully inadequate as they are.

As to where I acquired Jaffa cakes, myself being a resident of some united states, I went to Big Y, the WORLD CLASS MARKET. It is a classy market of the world. It brings me classy goods from all over the world. Small, local, struggling brands from far off places often find their ways into the big y’s famous shelves.

Ahoy there, rabies! I done found the carbonated treasure yup.

If I had ever considered wandering from y’s influence for any reason, I now know things can get no better, with good old Eli around. What say you, my good, albeit inconsistently drawn man?

Whaaaaa? Can I do nothing to change your mind? It would be a dark fact indeed if you left. The morning just doesn’t grow the same without you! You simply must stay!

Please do not be angry, Adol! That is not what I wanted at ol!

Alas, what a tragic existence! I can already feel my life pulsing toward ruin. I hate to spend valestine castle’s day alone!

Fine then, be off, fair Adol. You were my idol (Maybe I will construct a doll to remember you with). I was a fool to think I had anything to offer you; you already have 057 RING. Perhaps I will go to the pet shelter and get a Dogi of my own. I will differentiate him from yours by gluing a hat to his head.

Wait, come back! I have good news!

That’s the spirit. Though I think you’re supposed to drink the stuff rather than dump it and sail over it.

On a related topic, at this time of year when people pay tribute to their advertising masters so that they may be spared from elimination, I give praise to this advertisement for doing the improbable and making the graphics seem worse than they actually are.

All I want to do is eat.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yoderhunt.

I’ve witnessed some low and tacky attempts to get people to view a website before, but a newspaper promising the opportunity to watch actual kids die is new to me. Hence why it’s in the news paper, I suppose. And this is the New Haven Register,

but I think it ought to be held to SOME standard, if it wants its demise to actually be lamented when the only thing left is the CNN-style news it’s supposed to be better than. Still, it is, at least, not as bad as West Haven,

whose newspaper is apparently an ad that looks up my ip address to find out what towns I live near but is otherwise oblivious to matters of local interest. I think they should do some fact checking, though, since I am in Madison, and I can’t, anyhow, give much credence to breaking news that is a question. Can I? Get the story straight before you FLASH me, please. However, you see, it MUST phrase the headline/onlyline as a question because it’s trying out for Jeopardy! google actually isn’t Hiring Americans To Work From Home and this, like every ad that’s ever appeared in its own window, is a trap of tricks. Implied untruths and and false representation of your business are a-cocaine, thankfully. I do praise it for finally figuring out what state I’m in;

I was getting annoyed at being associated with those weird, beard, fail-happy Alabama homeowners.

I do find it funny –and oh ho ho, how I laugh!– that WEST HAVEN, among other incorrect guesses, is the town it goes with to appeal to me. West Haven is the trashiest town in Connecticut. EAST Haven, home of the discarded McDonald’s bags and shopping carts-in-marshes, at least has Tweed Airport in it so if you steal enough wallets you may be able to afford a ticket to a real airport from where you can imagine you might go somewhere nice one day. This here… is Chicago, near Midway Airport. I took pictures here specifically because it reminded me of West Haven (despite it being superior by virtue of the exit station). Low buildings with voids behind them, overgrown fenced lots with no apparent function, absence of non-homeless pedestrians because the only active businesses are gas stations… the sort of things that make one glad to only be passing through. I know this is Chicago, though, because I remember seeing lots of billboards for “The Princess and the Frog” while I was there, which no town in Connecticut is worth outbidding creationism enthusiasts for the attention of. No, I don’t have a picture of that, but try driving through Meriden sometime. Considering how they feel about apes, I reckon they wouldn’t cotton to the idea of people evolving from frogs.

Chicagaw, though, and I can’t think why, has ad space to spare. So, anyway, there’s a guy with a purple hat and a gap in his teeth. He is the princess. And so the fat alligator with a trumpet must surely be the frog, because those are the only two characters I recall seeing on the signs.


Here is a sign with a frog, in Connecticut, outside Ocean State Job Lot, which is like the equivalent of a Wal Mart brand Wal Mart. Christmas Tree Shop[s] laugh[s] at Ocean State Job Lot. Job Lot laughs right back, though, since people actually steal from there. Ocean State Job Lot is not to be confused with Big Lots, though I’m sure it wouldn’t mind and neither would notice. Ocean State Job Lot doesn’t have the endorsement of megastars like Coach’s Jerry Van Dyke. Just frogs.


Such an honor! Anyone would feel like a princess.

chase the chuck wagon, Crocs | How to lose a guy in (4) days | !

Howdy. I type “howdy” a great deal more frequently than I say it.

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Why does every store I go into have “boogie-woogie santa claus” on its custom mix loop? That’s easily the fifth most embarrassing Christmas song.

=========================================

Obama asks moms to clap their elbows together. Previously I identified this motion as “weird turning situps,” ever the brilliant wordsmith, forgetting –and I can’t think why I’d want to forget such brilliant marketing– that at no point in the sequence does the woman sit up. She just does the horizontal chicken dance ad infinitumptious. Which is ironic, since chickens don’t have teeth. We will see that teeth are vitally important in this matter soon enough.

Note that this crummy, deteriorated, cropped gif file is a full 20 kilobyes bigger than the full flash animation, which uses jpeg-compressed frames. These fine advertisers UPGRADED to bring us superior quality of needless, inexplicable animation loops.

Get with the program, Home owners! First you gave that baby epilepsy and now you’ve ruined this citizen’s teeth. You’d better hop to it before a problem arises that has not yet been solved through use of a secret technique discovered by a mom in a different banner ad about awful teeth, or before Obama asks that mom to return to school.

Home owners versus teeth round 2. By now they’ve weirded out all their roommates, family members and hostages with their weird teeth (even if it IS good dental work for Alabama) and have taken to living in their cars. But does this guy REALLY know what he’s talking about?

Will Wright, inventor of Simcity, Simant, The Sims and Chlamydia, at his regular job often has no helpful advice for me. I don’t think that’s actually him but I always imagined he looked like that and would put himself in his own game for some reason. Either way, he’s on the town council and making me uncomfortable. Now I really AM in Creep City. “No no no, you do what you want, and I’ll complain if it isn’t what I would have done.” I feel like we’re married OOH GOTCH YA, marriage!

He used to have a beard, but he shaved it off

and gave it to this fellow, who was so happy he proceeded to launch several homemade fireworks he built in his shoes.

But hark! I hear the sound of another picture approaching.

Howdy is never a good sign.

“Dr.” Bennifer Ankle Wright, economist, lawyer, and actor, chief contributing editor of 20eh’s worldwide financial clowndown. The whole family was in on it. See the full story in my upcoming book, Oh oh ah uh oh, the Wright Stuff, coming swoon from Gorbo publications. Thank you and goodwelcome.

In November I went to the The National Big Apple Comic Convention meeting. I have since forgotten why. The only souvenir I have not in promotion for the event itself is

,
because I thought the guy who made them was giving one to me for free but then I asked anyway what it cost and he wanted five dollars for it and I would have felt bad if I didn’t buy it. I will have to show you what is inside some time.

I don’t like talking to people and leaving. It feels rude (not that posting the product of somebody’s independent labor and going “ha ha that! moving on” isn’t, but in this situation I have paid for the privilege). But staying can also seem rude. It may even be the case that if I stay it will be double, because I hate that song.

I just don’t like that whole museum that watches back setup. I’d rather be on the other side of the relationship. Then the awkwardness is someone else’s problem. Also, from a fixed position there is no pressure to keep moving. The only pressure is to move merchandise. And if there is one thing I excell at above others, it’s drawing attention to trivial things I have made and demanding money dollars and getting that.

You can’t see other displays, if you are one, but I’m probably not interested in most anyway. And if I was I wouldn’t want to spend my money so it may be better that I do not know. One time, I wanted Oreos. But also, to save money, I instead purchased Walmart brand Oreo imitations*. That proves I’m serious. It’s certainly not fun to eat these.

*I know Hydrox were invented first but I’m pretty sure Wal Mart is after Oreo customers, who are simple enough to catch but difficult to transport back to camp.

I see now among my clutter this object that I gained in Boston, advertising a “New England Fan Experience.” That’s the problem. I’m not a “fan.” George Takei’s voice is fun to imitate but I’m not in awe of his life, no.

A fan, I’ve never identified myself as one and I don’t feel like one. The conventional meetups were designed for FANS to meet their false idols and deliver praise, and buy stuff because they want it, not because they fear to upset the people who went to the trouble of making or collecting it and renting space. If all they can make me feel is pity, why didn’t I stay home and just sponsor some of those starving African children all the camera crews are so busy not feeding? And if I start actually thinking about that I’ll feel worse because I probably won’t do it.

And I wonder if anyone really considers itself a “fan” of this guy. Unless he invents pasta sauces in his spare time I’m skeptical his name and potentially imaginary profession bring much enthusiasm to the masses. If he’s anything like this Prego I’m sure his is at least an entertaining presence.

I saw Mark Evanier (he did some stuff, I hear) twice. Once upstairs near the armory (dueling apparently still a fairly common practice among the comic book club) and the second time, in the hotel lobby, where I briefly stared at him awkwardly, from a distance, wondering if I should say something (I did not). At that immediate moment it sounded like he was telling someone else about how a person had said something to him about his website, and I decided it would be peculiar if I did the same. I did think that he might be interested to know that due to my relative inexperience with the forces behind American comics he was the only name-tagged person in attendance that I knew by sight and why.

In my mind Mr. Evanier still owes me for encouraging more courageous readers to bask in the oddity of Skidoo, the not so wacky but rather boring and annoyingly improbable Skidoo, and he surely knows it, otherwise he would not have recently expressed an intention to attend less conventions outside the vicinity of N. America’s west coast this year. The strange thing is that he lives in Stockholm.

Yes, everybody in the whole prison ate the same meal at the same time and got quigley for hours because it was laced with paper laced with a thimbleful of LSD and nobody realized they were eating paper. I just thought you should know. A plausible setup would have replaced the lsd with msg, but even for a prison that would be irresponsibly draconian.

In continuation of the previous postoid, I suppose it’s nice to see the Boop force expanding outside of southern gas station marts.

Though these are Wacky Wobblers and not, in fact, Ant Farms, that does not rule out the possibility of the existence of Betty Boop Ant Farms. There just aren’t any here. I can’t imagine a situation in which the Betty Boop people turn down a suggestion made by somebody. Quite simply no one has yet asked “hey, don’t we make Betty Boop Ant Farms?” I have a suspicion that sign hasn’t been accurate for the last 200 displays. When’s the last time you saw a stack of ant farms for sale anywhere, regardless of cobranding, regardless of proximity to the hellmouth Alabama?

However, if you’re in the market for dog sized laced denim featuring anachronistic homages to other trash marketing icons, and for whatever reason have fifty dollars to your name, you’re probably better off investing in becoming a public drunk (fortunately there are just as many Jim Beam signs available as for B. Boop, though buying artwork in sign form could in itself be enough).

If you’d like that denim in red you perhaps already are. But aren’t you glad that there’s somebody who will sell you red jean junk to force on your dog, and that it’s totally within the law? You have a crazy addiction that annoys creatures weaker than you and it’s totally fine!

Yet I am worried. One of the non-participant attendees of the February brain-damage-club art show suggested that some of my results, specifically this tragic scene could potentially sell well on jean jackets, contributing, quote, “People eat that [rubbish] up.” And so I dislike the boopster not just for being tacky and representative of a sizable delegation of my least favorite things about commercialism, but also for being my potential competition in the commercial tack market. Who does she think she is?!

I realize what an insensitive question that is to ask of someone suffering from an obvious identity crisis, so hopefully most of her identities won’t be offended. Hey, if Boop is so patriotic, why does she display that flag in a way which so flagrantly violates official pedantic flag etiquette? HA HA GOTCHA DUMB COMMIE BROAD! FIX MAH DINNER! Happy Labor Day!

Once you’re beyond the phase in which you desire to purchase pre-framed pictures of Betty Boop you may find yourself wishing instead to buy pre-framed pictures of indistinct white-clothed men who appear to be playing golf / have various skeletal abnormalities. If that is the case it’s a lucky thing you found this wall. Though I can’t help thinking what an opportunity was missed by not including Matlock in the Andy Griffith-sponsored transition to geriatric weekend television favorites. In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that this wall is not in a Florida gas station mart but rather the gift-shop of Connecticut’s own Barker Character, Comic and Cartoon Museum. I went there twice and both times the museum was closed but the store was open.


Fortunately, these were for sale.

Also available, Budweiser Lizards, low-resolution ntsc screengrab framed with button-operated audio accompaniment, yours for 200 dollars if you can endure the trials administered by the truly frightening Coca Cola sun guardian (id est: not run screaming in the opposite direction). I like to think the lizards have been waiting in this poorly-lit alcove forgotten ever since their ad campaign was, but I also like ice cream cake and I haven’t eaten that in about as long. This is the perfect loophole for someone whose family members have decreed a strict prohibition on the further purchase of Big Mouth’d Billy Basses.
I remember being the only person in my class(es) who didn’t think the frogs and their self-referential sequels were hilarious. It didn’t really matter because I was in sixishth grade at the time and none of us were old enough to buy beer. Although I’m sure in some way I’m attempting to imply that it did, in fact, matter, all the more so because we could not purchase beer, but if I absolutely had to see one I’d prefer rubber reptile puppets above mega oaf man-men thrusting bladder-fluid at me constantly.

No thank you, I couldn’t bear it OH NOOOOOOOOOO THEY’VE GOTTEN TO MEEEE TOOOOOOOO!!!!

America’s the greatest american dog america. So we’re essentially showing state fair contests on national television now. Can Amazing Frog Race and The Biggest Pumpkin be far off? And this Sunday on FOX don’t miss an all new Joe Yodeler, with WBAH news anchor Zip Turgenson and The Honorable Mayor Horace T. Honeypot, plus special guest judge Ogby Jones of Country Bogart.

I’m just saying that unless the show is looking to find a canine companion for this guy, I don’t really see the point.

It’s certainly not like most dogs are concerned with being thought of as better than other dogs, American or otherwise. Should we risk trying to make them? A dog with an ego isn’t going to be satisfied eating the contents of a can you dumped on the floor. They’re going to at least start demanding crystal goblets like the Fancy Feast cat, and we’re going to have a real crisis in our midst. You’ll have to flag down that chuck wagon yourself.

They might even care if there are pictures of dogs on the food you buy for them.

You can bet they won’t be satisfied sharing homes with dummies any longer.

Not without some serious changes.

They’re not going to put up with this anymore, either.

Though they might still let you help if you’re polite about it.

chase the chuck wagon | How to lose a guy in (4) days | !

I’ve heard a couple of times recently (well, about this time last year) that “Peewee’s Playhouse” has entered a re-airing schedule and had its shows released on the dvd disks. As someone who never watched the show, only saw Peewee’s Big Adventure (Peewee no Daiboken) once, years ago, I must say: Paul Reubens is creepy and Peewee is creepier. Is it possible there’s a new audience for this? Ehhh, disregard his problematic incident in 1992, and he still has an incredibly off-putting presence. He reminds me of a Drew Friedman illustration. That moves around. It’s not surprising that he does bits for Jimmy Kimmel “Live,” a program unlikely to be affected by a writer’s strike, these days.

Which brings me to

(this was the most economical storage option) Dr. Steve-O. Imagine if Peewee Herman was a real person who thought he was cool and never bathed.
Also observe the brilliant slogan: CURING AMERICA’S WUSSIES, ONE WUSSY AT A TIME. I can only presume that’s intentionally stupid. Because otherwise I have to explain how it’s wrong, and I’m just not in mental condition to do so with that… hominid staring at me. I will say that I’d rather be a “wussy” with a mysterious unnamed illness then whatever myriad others Steeb-O has. I refuse to receive any sort of treatment from a guy who’s “famous” for intentionally applying electricity to his own scrotum and filming it. Not so much that I’m afraid he’d encourage / attempt to enforce that sort of behavior in others, I just don’t want to be near the doof. I don’t want his essense in my imminence. I’d rather feel the essence of Emeril (something I would not like at all!). It would be like the time I saw a pipe protruding from the ground near the road and put my left arm into it, and when I pulled the arm out it was covered with black goop. Except instead of my arm it would be my soul. The muck washed off, but it was muy awful and… evidently I remembered it for sixteen years. Regardless of what Stevosaurus is doing in sixteen years (my guess is “rotting inside a box”), I don’t want to remember this then.

Over the summer I’ve seen a lot of whining about the planned Geico cavemen tv show, and thankfully very little support, but a point a lot of people fail to acknowledge is that if the men don’t live in caves they’re not really cavemen. That’s bothered me ever since that second ad which showed three of them sharing an apartment together. Just the fact that the first one was an ad, naturally, bothered me, but the cave error itself did not become evident until later. Clearly the krippendorfs aren’t in a cave, so what are they so offended by? They’re just excessively hairy men with oddly shaped skulls, aren’t they? Unless they lived in caves recently, they can’t really claim it as part of their culture any more than I can. And if they did live in caves, like whole communities of them, just because they didn’t know any better, then they probably were kind of stupid, and likely lacked the computer skills the offending fake geico ad-within-an-ad implied they did not have.

How about Aliens in America? That has to be the worst tv show I swore long in advance never to watch with “Aliens in” in the title since Aliens in the Family. I’m personally tired of goofish overdone Indian accents. I don’t know how authentic this one is, but it certainly sounds a lot like the fake ones I’m sick of. In one ad the Indian, from India, a largely (but not entirely!) Hindu country, praises “Allah,” and over something trivial, so… yesh, probably expect some letters, in the event anyone watches. Why did I write that? I don’t know beets about religion and shouldn’t talk like I do. If anyone should be getting angry letters it is me. WHY WON’T ANYONE SEND ME ANGRY LETTERS? Considering it’s a country with people who’d set a bus on fire because the government doesn’t believe an army of monkeys built something thousands of years ago, there’s a chance some of them have similarly sensitve relatives over seas. Yikes, even if the monkeys did build it, they obviously aren’t using it now. I don’t see the problem. Yet there is one. I’m glad we don’t let banana snatchers in the army over here.

Another one I suspect less than the best from is every one. But specifically, there’s one just called Chuck. I will no longer tolerate no good oafs with no skills getting by on dumb luck all the time. Inspector Gadget, while illegally retarded had gimmicks and tricks; all Chuck has is his name. MacGyver, that was someone worth paying attention to. Chuck’s just “Chuck,” a name intentionally chosen to highlight how ordinary and low class the twerp is. Chuck is Everyman. I hate Everyman. Not every man, just everyman. There are decent men in the world, why does the one which represents all of them have to be a useless slob? I’ve never watched the Family Guy, not even when one of my personal idols Robert Bunny James II told me it was great, not even before all the popular people who hate it started saying so, but I easily can see that Family Guy himself is the least interesting person on the show named after him. The Kings of Queens and The Hill seem to barely not live out of dumpsters. What the gives?

Back to Chuck, Chuck meets a woman who is a spy, apparently good at what she does, and not a realistic spy, either; one of those action spies that does neat things, but of course the show can’t be named after or about her. And if it was it would have to be like an E Surance ad anyway, and no one smart wants that. Ideally this program will be canceled before woman disgraces her entire family and Everywoman (as portrayed by Chaka Kahn) by doing sex with Chuck. There’s also a movie called “Good Luck Chuck” which for all I know is about the same Chuck. I need less chuck in my life. If you tossed all them chucks in a wagon, I wouldn’t chase it.

I told you no! Help! Rape! Rape!

In short, I’m not impressed by ads for anything new, and I don’t want to be, since I watch too much junk anyway.

I also gratefully feel uninclined to observe Back to You. You (and I mean whatever “you” happens to be reading this, and not necessarily the same you addressed in the television program’s title) know, I never get tired of sabotaged teleprompter jokes. Ha ha, see, local news anchors, they’ll read anything you put in front of them, get it? Because people on local newses are dumb. That’s why they’re local. Not network news, though. Serious Business. Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Terry Moran, Not Peter Jennings, Bob Costas, they’re professionals. Then there’s the Kelsey Grammer factor, which I’ve whined about plenty of times. Maybe he’s become less annoying in his time off a regular series. I may not even resent Back to You if it’s successful. Who knows, it may find itself added in future printings of National Lampoon’s Sunday Newspaper to the list of productions it swears ripped it off. But probably not! Exclamation point

Here’s how to know if you’re a conceited ass: you’ve ever referred to something you did in the past as a “Rosetta Stone.” I might as well call Umiliphus the Rosetta Stone of hacky celebrity cameos in sprite comics. That is, unless you can prove the ones with Bill Gates came first or that CATS from Zero Wing is a celebrity.
As unlikely as it is that some guys made some thing in the 1970s and then got suddenly re-involved 25 years later just to fellate their careers on the back cover of a book version, it’s not impossible to believe. Anyway, the word “lampoon” always made me mad.

By the rourke, don’t try and convince me two people are comedic geniuses and then tell me one works for Rolling Stone magazine and another wrote The Breakfast Club. I realize you already did and it’s too late to change that, but for the future just keep my words in mind. I’m glad we had this chat.