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"AFTER WE WERE SUCCESSFUL in our Pencil Carving , one thing came up to us for a change in it...."

"To take carving in the wood of a pencil", is certainly what pencil carving is all about. But we are required to be skilled enough for delicate woodwork in carving out a pattern like some kind of a tracery without making any miscut on the naked lead inside.

And to think you've been just chewing on them all these years.

ON MAY 11 Allah posts the cryptic:

Dealing with personal stuff. Back whenever inspiration strikes.
Posted by Allah at May 11, 2004 02:29 PM

ON MAY 17 Andy Kaufman Returns with the cryptic:

I'm back

Hey everyone. Greetings from planet earth.
Posted by Andy Kaufman at 6:49 AM

Careful analysis to the limited text available from the Kaufman site as well as a quick pass through Concorder Pro reveals telling similarities between the two pages.

Still the question remains:

Is this the face of Andy Kaufman or Allah?

The person who says "pocket" first pays for the beer.

Procter & Gamble (PG) is going to start printing trivia questions and answers on its Pringles snack chips, a move analysts say could be a hit with young people.

If by 'young' they mean people who have yet to graduate from second grade, they could have a winner.

From the obituary for Kay Robinson Pruitt in today's reviewjournal.com Las Vegas Review Journal

Condolences may be e-mailed to www.myers-mortuary.com

Responses will probably be optional.

"Remember to always wear your hard-hat on the job."

IT'S GOT FORKLIFTS, chain saws, decapitations, stump-grinding, and, for that finishing touch, it is in German.

Put them all togther, connisseurs of safety films will put this one up for MOVIE OF THE DECADE SO FAR.

This is a 17 megabyte movie but we think that after you see it you too will say: "STAPLERFAHRERKLAUSDERERS!"

"Cut, print, that's a wrap."
LARRY WACHOWSKI, who knows how to depict humans trapped inside of a bad reality, it going for the gender gold according to the Gothamist

To update our post last year about the possibility of Matrix co-creator Larry Wachowski getting a sex change operation, it seems that Wachowski is going ahead with it. Friends confirm to the Chicago Sun-Times that Wachowski, who has been calling himself "Linda," will "complete the process of becoming a woman.

Twice in One Day.... Aieeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Not content to ruin my morning with a Tom Oliphant column in the Boston Globe, The PBS Newshour (No longer paid for by people like me) saw fit to drag this consummate weirdo before its cameras just as my evening began.

Look, I’m as tolerant as anyone, but this guy just freaks me out! The look, the haircut, the bow tie, the mannerisms, the enunciation, the fey turning away. What era, what subculture, what species, what planet does this sock-puppet represent? He seems to me to be a demographic of one.

Can somebody please get in touch with Scout Productions and book this guy for a Fab Five makeover pronto? I mean, I could sort him out for the camera with about $1,200 (cheap), but he obviously needs professional media training, three qualuddes, a cup of ether and about six strenuous bong hits. For starters.

Oliphant’s appearance on PBS this evening was so over the top as to beggar description. A choice quote from his opining on the Kerry Medal brouhaha that I felt compelled to write down went like this: “Kerry wanted to throw... er... return... some ... ‘decorations’.... if I may use the term....”

To which we can only answer, "Why, yes, Tom you may... but only if you promise to check into ideological detox by dawn tomorrow. They've got openings in a DEA-funded program for wholesale brain transplants and you are pre-qualified."

Unless and until Tom Oliphant gets his image straight, he should be forbidden to appear in any public forum. It can only harm our chances for a full and fair election for voters of every persuasion if we are continually presented with a liberal commentator that every time he speaks makes us hear, ever so faintly in the background, the tune:

The priss goes on, the priss goes on.
Media keeps pounding a rhythm to the brain.
Democrats have finally gone insane.
La de da de de, la de da de da.

Democrats were once the rage, uh huh.
History has turned the page, uh huh.
The terrorist’s the current thing, uh huh.
Gunships are our newborn king, uh huh.

And the priss goes on, the priss goes on.
Media keeps pounding a rhythm to the brain.
Democrats have finally gone insane.
La de da de de, la de da de da.

Pundits sit in chairs and reminisce
Kerry’s chasing Bill to get a kiss.
The news keeps going faster all the time.
Dems still cry 'Hey let’s tax you another dime?'

And the priss goes on, the priss goes on.
Media keeps pounding a rhythm to the brain.
Democrats have finally gone insane.
La de da de de, la de da de da

Unless, of course, Oliphant is being paid by the Republicans as part of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy. In which case, it is a brilliant use of soft money. Tell me where to send a check.

From Frontline Photos : An Iraqi man throws gas onto a burning Army Humvee in Baghdad on Monday. An explosion leveled a building in the northern part of the city Monday, setting four nearby Humvees on fire. Two U.S. soldiers were killed in the blast. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.

Okay, but I'm willing to bet the cause of the next explosion will be glaringly obvious.

Here's one of those moments in modern photojournalism that make you want to see the next frames on the roll. What could be about to happen?

Note the position of the open flames licking at the man's shoes. Note the languid arc of the glimmering gasoline just above.

At the very least, this photo is an argument for more time spent in school on the subject of "Cause and Effect." Looks like there's about to be a pop quiz.

Cruel people would caption this "Which evil twin has the Tony?"
Even crueler people would caption this "Which evil twin had little Tony?"
But we would never do that.

Most of the time, we try to keep AD a pervert-free zone, -- with the exception of certain political figures. However, every so often a little Jackson has to pop up like poison toadstools after a spring rain. It got us today when we noted that:

Michael Jackson has dumped his high-powered attorneys, Mark Geragos and Benjamin Brafman. Jackson is replacing them with Thomas Mesereau Jr., best known as the lawyer recently fired by Robert Blake. -- E! Online

We don't know much about trial lawyers but when you take on a lawyer "best known as the lawyer recently fired by Robert Blake," we'd say it's time to pump up your PayPal account and start scanning eBay for "underwear, solid steel."

This from the spam can this AM . I think the recipe is;
One can of rap,
A cup of Nigerian English,
Two random fortunes from the Fortune File
Blend well before spamming:

From:  
"Wanly L. Spangles" 

To:  
Publisher 

Date:  31 Mar 2004, 07:01:02 AM

Subject:  Publisher, Supreme medication for you!

Well!
Incidents should not govern policy
but, policy incidents

Publisher, looking for a place
to order medication?

Adaptability is not imitatione
It means power of resistance and assimilatione
Loving kindness is greater than laws
and the charities of life are more than all ceremoniese

If you care enough for a result,
you will most certainly attain ite

We are able to ship worldwide
The only time you don't fail
is the last time you try anything -- and it workse

Your easy solution is here
You are completely anonymous!

The sooner I fall behind,
the more time I have to catch upe
The highest exercise of charity
is charity towards the uncharitablee

From now on, all my poetry will be signed “Wanly L. Spangles,” and I will never cease my search for “Supreme Medication”

Jermaine Jackson(L), brother of Michael Jackson, Jackson family spokesman Firpo W. Carr(C) and Khawaja Khurshid Reshi hold a rug with a woven picture of Michael Jackson April 19, 2004, in Manama. Jermaine Jackson, in the Gulf to promote understanding between Muslims and his fellow Americans, said Tuesday that Muslims are 'the new Negroes in America.' Jermaine, a convert to Islam and dressed in white Arab garb, has been speaking about Islam and U.S. 'adventures' in Iraq (news - web sites) to enthusiastic audiences at Koranic centers and universities in the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain. -- Reuters

Just when you think you have finally explored to the absolute limit of the world's capacity to boggle your mind, you discover that there are yet vast arid plains stretched out before you.

As for freshly-minted Muslim Jermaine's propostion that "Muslims are the new Negroes in America," all we can say is that has got to come as a shock to Smoking-Americans who have held the position for well over 20 years.

And while we're at it, what's supposed to happen when that rug is used for prayer? Color me nervous, but I wouldn't start kneeling on that five times a day.

===
Praise be to Allah for the pointer.

Omaha crime ripple continues:

They broke into our office again. This is the third time in three weeks. We had been barricading the door, and when I say barricade, I mean with a big board, medieval-style. We finally got the front door re-keyed, and the culprits just chipped away at the top of the door, unlatched the bolt that went into the ceiling, and pushed the door open.

Then they stole the deadbolt.

From: red elephant

Continuing today's strange obsession with automobiles,
we direct your attention to: Sportka .

Pros: Real Media Player not required, Graphic Cat Imagery.
Cons: Windows Media Player required, Graphic Cat Imagery.

Mr. Hyman Schnaterfunkensprunk of Lighthouse Point, Florida, will be
paying $250 a year to have his name on his Hummer."

For Immediate Release

April 16,2004

Fred O. Dickenson, Executive Director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles shared a podium in Fort Lauderdale today with Governor Jeb Bush announcing the roll-out of the much anticipated "Bigger Vanity Plate Program (BVPP)"

The program, first suggested by Dickenson in May, 2003, allows motorists in Florida to obtain vanity license plates of up to 250 characters. "Floridians have often complained that all the best plates are gone because of a limit on characters," Dickenson remarked. "Those days are over. Now the citizens of our great state can come back to the DMV again confident that their rights to express themselves on our highways have been protected."

Governor Bush praised Dickenson for "his vision and insight in conceiving of and making this program a reality. And it wasn't just the imagination of Fred that made it happen, it was his knowledge that this was not only possible, but profitable. It makes for a rare marriage of good government and good business."

At a fee of $10 per year per letter, BVVP is projected to bring in more than $4 billion annually to the state's treasury.

"It is our hope," Governor Bush concluded, 'that other states in similar financial straits will see this program as something to emulate. Since it is clear that all Americans will in the very near future drive SUVs, it's time government made license plates that fit the dreams and asperations of our people."

Link: PERSONALIZED PLATES - Florida DMV - FL DMV - Florida Department of Motor Vehicles

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• No Miscut on the Naked Lead
• Allah Leaves Andy Kaufman Returns: Coincidence? I Think Not.
• Munchies for Morons
• Is There E-Mail After Death?
• When Bad Things Happen to Good Forklifts
• "It Takes a Man Like Me to Make a Woman Like Me"
• The Priss Escalates
• The Darwin Awards in Real Time
• Micahel Jackson's New Liar for Hire
• The Poetry of Spam
• Jackson Family Race to the Bottom Accelerates
• The Final Insult
• Satan's Automobile
• FLORIDA DMV ANNOUNCES "BIG-ASS" VANITY PLATES
• There Goes Volvo's Safety Cred
• The Passion of the Bones
• Al and Tipper Payola Moment
• Digital Nose Jobs On Demand
• Smog Free Nuclear Missiles
• Just When You Think You Can Trust the Pentagon