Today, Barack Obama pulled ahead of Clinton in the superdelegate count. Still, some superdelegates are “on the fence”–and I think it’s because they’re scared of choices. So I figured I would help superdelegates overcome their indecision with this motivational video. [Updated with slo-mo banana eating and other things–thanks, Siobhan.]
A comedy theory: The smaller geographic area a news source covers, the greater the comedic potential inherent in the stories that news source publishes. Thus the nationwide New York Times is rarely funny, while my local daily rag, The Oregonian, is full of stories that read like some of the less-funny SNL skits (stories, for example, about a cemetery lake). How are local newspapers so funny? I imagine that on a day the Washington Post runs an article about increasing car bombs and declining oil revenues in Iraq, the Mosul Herald Tribune has a 2,700 word piece about a local Shiite pinball mechanic who is frantically training a duck to fight a chicken.
Although not all large news sources are unfunny. The BBC–which covers the entire world–has those wacky stories every day. And I guess a NASA newspaper which covered the entire solar system would be pretty funny, too–if only for the image of a 1920s newsboy in a spacesuit hollering, “EXTREEY! EXTREEY! READ ALL ABOUT IT! MANIC MARTIAN MARTYR MARS MASTER MOON MOGUL’S MALAYSIAN MEAL!” That would be really, really funny. So forget the theory.
Anyway… this all came to mind today when, after spending the good part of an hour scouring the NYT for something funny to blog about only to be depressed by dead Burmese and a dying candidacy. So I switch to The Oregonian’s website and the first headline I see is a story about the caffeine addled seventh-graders of Twality Middle School in Tigard, Oregon: “Energy Drink Rattles School.” Some of these kids are drinking as many as five energy drinks a day! According to an email sent by teachers to the entire school: “The result is that some students are literally drunk on a caffeine buzz, or falling off a caffeine crash.”
Of course I went over to the school to see for myself. Outside the school a ninety pound sixth-grader student had just mainlined three Amp(TM) energy drinks and was chasing a schoolmate with a 12-foot piece of vinyl siding he had stripped from a nearby Seven Eleven; another student had passed out on top of a flagpole; the surviving teachers had constructed a crude blockade from desks and energy drink machines (ha!) and had barricaded themselves in the women’s bathroom.
I turned away from the scene in disgust: There was nothing humorous about this situation. The Oregonian was right: Twality Middle School was a hell-hole. Then I caught the sight of the ragged edge of a newspaper. It was today’s edition of the student newspaper, the Twality Middle School Pioneer, smeared with blood and shit and Red Bull(TM). The lead headline: “Bobby Renquist Peed a Little On Himself in the Bathroom.”
Actually, I’m going to keep working on my theory.
Wow guys: apologies for the long blabsence (”web logging absence”)! This past week has been a whirl–and not in a good way like a Whirlpool(TM) bathtub, but in a bad way like a regular old whirlpool. I’m not sure that I can reveal what I’ve been doing this past week. Perhaps I’ll tell you once I’ve unpacked my safari bags, pasted the stub of my JetBlue ticket to the Serengeti Plains into my “Illegal African Hunting Safari Scrapbook”, replaced the tire on my jeep, dismantled my elephant gun, cleaned and stuffed my elephant, smeared aloe all over my desert-scorched skin and killed anyone who might suspect that I’ve been illegally hunting elephants in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. But probably not.
For now I want to show you what I saw when I was looking for a Pad Thai recipe on epicurious.com:
Welcome back to the Internet, me.
dalas and I made this video that played at Candidates Gone Wild last night [warning: inside jokes about Portland city politics]:
In our turbulent world of today I would like to offer up to you one small token of regularity: I eat breakfast each and every day. By my last count I have gone 389 days without a missed breakfast, which is more than twice as long as San Francisco has gone without a fatal tiger attack. This means that for every breakfast I miss San Francisco experiences two fatal tiger attacks. So it’s a good thing for the residents of San Francisco that I’m so reliable. To put it succinctly: I am as regular in my breakfast-eating as a Japanese high-speed train’s period.
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Don’t I know it. It’s like a boost of energy for me. If I skip breakfast I crash way before noon. Noon is when I have my meth. So I eat breakfast. Every. Single. Day. The content of my breakfast does vary considerably. Sometimes it’s as simple as a bowl of cereal; other times it’s as elaborate as 43 bowls of cereal.
Don’t just take my word for the importance of breakfast: A new, chilling study just found that eating breakfast makes women more likely to have male babies. I say “chilling” because, look at this quote from the NYT article:
In the United States, for instance, the proportion of adults eating breakfast fell from 86 percent to 75 percent between 1965 and 1991.
According to the study, that change could be responsible for the slight decrease in the number of boys born in America. Scientists aren’t sure why eating breakfast leads to more male babies, but I have a theory: Girls are scared of breakfast. They’re all: “Waaaah, I hate breakfast! I’m not gonna be born!” Stupid, scared girls. They wouldn’t know what was good for them if it was fortified with 12 essential vitamins and minerals.
I did some calculations: If the rate of decline in breakfast-eating continues at a similar pace, the only babies born in America by 2343 will be female. America as we know it will be dead. I imagine our future Amazonian descendants will figure out some way to reproduce without males, thus continuing the species. But that’s not the kind of world I would want to, or could, without being ritually slain and eaten as a symbol for thousands of years of patriarchal oppression, live in. Which is why I would like to introduce a new advertising slogan for breakfast cereal:
DON’T KILL AMERICA: EAT BREAKFAST
Loading …I just blogged about the new “gang toilets” that will (hopefully) be installed in downtown Portland. How do you feel about peeing in the same room as someone who has different genitalia than you?
Personally, I don’t mind unisex toilets at all. I think an even more cost-effective route would be to just install a giant porcelain trough in the center of the room and everyone can just go at the same time. Come on, it’s the 21st century! A man has been pregnant!
Portlanders: You guys all know that I am involved in, and concerned with, matters of public (and extraterrestrial) urination. Today the leader of PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human), Carol mcCreary, sent along a preview of the new public restrooms she’s been working a lot on. These will be in Ankeny plaza, right next to the Skidmore Fountain. She wants our feedback. Perhaps the most controversial feature is the fact that the toilets are unisex–a first for Portland. Take a look, tell me what you think!:
FEATURES:
FUN FACT:
The layout of this type of public restroom, where everyone pees together, is called “gang toilets,” which may make going to the bathroom strangely attractive to mislead youth.
Sorry for the delay: Here’s this week’s video!
(Music: Gui Boratto - “Scene 1″)
Maybe you remember when, more than three months ago, I attempted to squeeze into the Apple Bottoms jeans that is a summer internship at Essence Magazine, the premier lifestyle magazine for African American women. I figured as an Asian American male I could contribute an interesting perspective on the black female experience. For instance I could make a list of the prominent black female characters in the films of Wes Anderson. There, I just did. But today I received this email from Essence Magazine’s internship coordinator:
Dear Adrian,
While we were impressed by your verve and short stature, I’m afraid an internship won’t work at Essence Magazine this summer. You’re just not right for our editorial vision. May I suggest Chinanow Magazine?
Best of Luck,
Zachary Chan, Internship Coordinator
OK, that was a joke. But I really did have an interview with Slate magazine for an internship. I tried to impress them with my maverick style by telling the editor of their campaign blog that I thought politics was “kinda boring,” and “lame,” and “for sad pedophiles.” Turns out, people don’t like it when you insult the things that are most dear to them!
So, now I am looking for summer employ. Any leads? I have lots of experience as a journalist and as a maker of stupid Internet videos. Please email me at repletewithadrian@gmail.com if you or someone you know is looking for a creative, smart person for the summer, or if you know of any promising p3nis-enl4rgement medicine. My ideal job would probably be the kind of thing where I could slay my boss at the end of the summer and crow over his bloodied corpse, ” THE STUDENT HAS BECOME THE MASTER!” Like, publishing?
PS: As an added bonus, if you give me a job I will send one hand-decorated greeting card to a loved one, and 128 eCards to someone you hate.
No time to blog because I have a paper to write. But I am definitely working on this week’s video (premiering Friday) and I think it’s going to be good. Just check out this preview:
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