Well, *I* thought it was profound.

Normally, a short update like this would go on my Facebook status, but I thought this was a clever enough phrase to appear in a slightly less ephemeral format.

The supreme law of the land isn't the Constitution. It's the law of unintended consequences.

(Don't believe me? Remind me sometime to tell you the story about how the Ottoman Empire caused the American health care system.)

Some ways to leave your lover Paul Simon didn't mention

Flee from the state, Kate
Leave no forwarding address, Jess
Slip her a dose of arsenic, Nick
Wait for the extinction of the human race, Chase
Spend more time with your model railway, Jay
Replace your entire wardrobe with faded Spider-Man t-shirts, Mert
Come down with catatonia, Sonya
Try to make a difference in Palestine, Caroline
Tell her you aren't going to sacrifice your dignity by getting a job, Bob
Stop taking your Thorazine, Jean
Escape this dying planet in a space ark, Mark
Start hitting on girls on Ventrilo, Joe
Go stalk your ex, Rex
Become morbidly obese, Denise
Post on your Myspace pretending to be a friend whom you instructed to tell the world that you'd secretly been dying of a mysterious disease for months and didn't tell anybody because you didn't want to hurt them and you passed away in your sleep last night at the hospital and "I LUV U" was the last thing you said, Ned

Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity is out of the question

Yesterday I had lunch at Denny's, and I finally decided that my desire to have a sourdough scrambled egg and ham sandwich outweighed my lifelong aversion to having to say the words "Moons Over My Hammy." (Don't ask how a guy who can perform a racy drag routine and who gets knocked on his ass weekly by rollergirls who are at least fifty pounds smaller than he is can be too embarrassed to do anything, much less order something at a restaurant.)

The secret was to say it very quickly and kinda sorta drop the "h." Also, I was eating alone. If I'd had a friend there, I probably would've just ordered an omelet.

I don't remember this happening in "1984"

So Fiji's new military government is trying to prevent the newspapers from talking about politics. Fijian newspapers, driven by their desire to fulfill their public duty to bring them the news that matters, have devoted themselves to presenting apolitical news.

I don't know how the Pulitzers work, but I think the Fiji Daily Post deserves one for its hard-hitting reports on paint drying, men getting on buses, and staff breakfasts.

Jaysus, Mary an' Joseph

I have never met an actual Irish person. I have been in the same room as one, and I have met many Americans who identify as Irish even though they couldn't tell you what a taoiseach is* or what the best Irish band is**.

I suppose that if I ever get an Irish friend (and before anyone out there objects that I don't drink enough to make any Irish friends - I'm looking at you, Mr. Linnan - you should remember that De Valera rarely drank either), the time will come when I will ask said Irish friend, "What is about your heritage that is such a magnet for goddamned..."

...and here's where the problem comes in. I can't really make a proper description of the kind of sad bastard American who gloms onto Irish mythology without using a word that is also a slur against gays. Frankly, the gays I know tend to have too much taste to get involved in robe-wearing forest-romping pennywhistle-tootling nonsense, so when I say that Irish heritage is a magnet for goddamned fruitiness, I mean that in a totally non-homophobic (and non-Hibernophobic) fashion.

Take, for instance, the world of Winter Rose, who has decided that she's some kind of unholy combination of "Garden State" and "The Black Cauldron." Her home page is a little like that of your average teenager with a "You Laugh Because I'm Different, I Laugh Because You're The Same" bumper sticker, but the more you read of the "Blessed Solstice" and "Immortal Beloveds" and "Current *Pretties* Rose Covets," the more bumper stickers appear on the car you envision her driving. By the time you start reading her embedded Livejournal, her Passat is shrouded in half-illegible fonts proclaiming "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" and "Blessed Be" and maybe even "For the Horde!"

By the time you read "Musings Upon My Faerie Blood And Traits....." you will, if you have not had your spleen removed and all negativity washed away from you, feel your eyes narrowing and the corners of your mouth tightening. Don't believe me? Try this on for size.

So As A Whole, I'm Selkie, BeanSidhe, LeananSidhe, Rusalka, And Gwragedd Annwn/Vila....... Strongly Tied To Sirens, Mermaids, Naiads, And Kitsune........

I Have A Very Deep Connection With Shape~Shifting *Faerie Bride* Maidens.......

Selkies {Seal Maidens} Valkyrie {Swan Maidens} Kitsune {Fox Maidens}
And Also Shapeshifting Deer Maidens

My Patron Goddesses: Blodeuwedd, Cliodna And Fand Are All Faerie~Bride Shapeshifters.......

I Also Have A Powerful Affinity For Vampires And Ghosts {Especially Spectral Maidens/Ladies}

They Seem To Actually Seek Me Out!

And Last, But Never Least, I *KNOW* That I'm Elven.......Something About The Elvish Languages And Culture Totally Captures Me! I Am Obsessed With Tolkien And Convinced That There's More Fact Than Fiction In His Works! I Feel An Extremely Deep Connection To Elven Princesses.......Especially Melian, Lúthien And Arwen.......

If you are like me and use the Internet as an opportunity to become the bully you never got to be in high school, then perhaps you'll be willing to move on to her entry in National Novel Writing Month, entitled "BeanSidhe's Wail." It appears to be some kind of goddamn fanfiction for her goddamn Renfaire choir full of goddamn freaks using "elegant" Irish names like Moira and Rowena and Cerys (they're never Bláthnaid or Gormflaith or Dearbháil) who are also goddamn fairies who were the goddamn inspiration for everything every brilliant artist ever did (I am going to try that sometime and say that one of my ancestors is the real genius behind the "Washington Post March"). Every time she writes something like "Enchantment" or "Shimmering" or "Magick" I feel like a leprechaun is smacking me in my temples with a shillelagh***.

So, Ireland, I bear you no ill will, but you're really going to have to do something about these losers or else you'll soon find me marching the streets on St. Patrick's Day wearing a Rangers kit and a giant medallion of Oliver Cromwell.

*it's the Prime Minister
**it's Thin Lizzy
***spelled correctly on the first try - who's Irish now, you narcissistic loon?

Putting the "God" in "Godawful"

In his review of "Manos Hands of Fate," Keith Ellison of Teleport City explains the appeal of cult films.

"...cult films are the place you can go and be taken by surprise, to see something completely outside of the expected. We watch these films for the thrill of discovery, for the joy of witnessing something that would not be done in any other film, by any more talented and predictable filmmaker. Cult films are the places where true vision and madness find free reign, unfettered by industry and commercial training. In that freedom, yokels like me find great entertainment. Manos appeals to me because it is so wrong, because it is so unlike what any of us expect from a movie. It is the breath of fresh air in a stale environment full of movies in which damaged, quirky people try to reconnect and cold, disillusioned suburbanites struggle for feeling in a sterile environment. In an industry laden with clumsy messages and delusions of importance, the utterly baffling nonsense of Manos has more to say to me than any dreary lesson taught to me by a more competent film."

Why have I just quoted this block of text? Because I have recently encountered a trailer for a film that I believe is so incompetent, so head-scratchingly baffling, that if it wasn't for the shadow world of Christian film (motto: "We don't have to try real hard on this, so long as we're moral") then I don't know how it would ever be made.

Behold! "C Me Dance," from Uplifting Entertainment. It's the story of a ballerina who gets cancer (that's uplifting?) with "Law & Order" titles superimposed over her life, and then AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WTF.

Monday Challenge!

Today I encountered the phrase "Malibu Sprinkles."

Your Monday Challenge is: In what context did I encounter the phrase "Malibu Sprinkles?"

(also, if you didn't get the memo, Treasure Valley Rollergirls, streaming LIVE from the Qwest Arena in DOWN-TOWN Boise tomorrow night at 7pm MDT. Link's here.)

Ben Silverman, watch your back

New brilliant idea for a TV show:

Reality TV competition genre, a la "The Apprentice" and "Hell's Kitchen."

The prize: a job at an art studio (or a scholarship to a prestigious art school)

The competitors: popular DeviantArtists.

I know I've picked on DeviantArt recently, but that was before I discovered this hilarious incident in which one of DeviantArt's most popular artists ventured into a forum for professional artists and flipped out at any sign of criticism.