FAN: The Next Twitter, New Killer Social App

This just in, if you Tweet, stop, it's over. There's a new killer app that's taking over social web 2.0. Before we get to the new app, let's take a virtual walk down internal memory lane. Remember the early 90's when most companies started using email? Wasn't it great? You didn't have to call anybody in your office. You got 7 or 8 a day. It was all internal and it was fabulous. Then you got hooked up at home on sweet, sweet dial-up. AOL. NetZero. ...remember how happy you were when yo uheard the fuzzy scratchy noise meaning you finally connected after dialing only 11 times! Yes kids, there was a setting on your dial-up app where you told it how many times to redial in case your retarded provider didn't have enough lines in your area. Your office probably connected to the outside world and now you could send and receive email virtually all day. Sigh. Then you got bored, right? You started receiving jokes. You got the same jokes from 18 different people. You were going to get paid by Bill Gates to forward email. You were warned about this virus and that virus. You chuckled at the forwarded emails containing the origins of such famous sayings as "the whole nine yards" and "don't look a gift horse in the mouth". Boring. But then came adding pictures to email and it was fun again. For a few months. Your friends would scan in a photo of their kid and email you a file that took 2 minutes to download even at 56k. You would give up after the top of the baby's head and eyeballs were finally painted on the screen. Chat rooms came and went. Forums were full of scary trolls. Email was boring again. The thing that changed was the amount you would get. You had so much to answer and so many to send that you started making them much shorter. Instead of a few paragraphs you sent one paragraph. Maybe two. I know, instead of sending out emails about myself I'll start a blog. I can write a few paragraphs again and I don't have to send all those long emails. Now my friends know what I'm doing if they read my blog. This is so cool! Enter texting. Now I don't even have to talk to you! I'll just text your phone so you don't have to check your email. Perfect. We can text back and forth like we're talking. It's too hard to type all those letters so we'll make up abbreviations. idk. srsly? fu. Social networks sprung up out of nowhere. I'll leave my blog entries and updates on MySpace. Huh, what? You don't remember MySpace? It was Facebook before, well, Facebook. Now I can leave even shorter updates on Facebook. A few sentences here....a few sentences there. "Don't bother me at work today, I'm very busy." "Hey it's Friday, guess who is going to get shi-at faced tonight?" People got really tired of the long Facebook entries. People were writing like 3 or 4 sentences. I don't know about you, but I don't have time for that. It was literally taking me 8 or 9 minutes a day to read all of my friend's updates. Tweet Tweet. Somebody turned me on to Twitter. I could run Twitter while I was online and see what my people were up to. "Boss is a dickhead" "Going to Pilates home in an hour". I could get them on my phone and I wasted fewer time.....until now. I got a Tweet this morning to check out Bla.com or Bla for short. They kind of ripped off Twitter, but not really because they are forcing you to choose you words, or word more wisely. You see, Bla only gives you 8 characters and you can only transmit 8 Blas per day. Old school if you think about it. We're back to 8 bytes. Badass. I checked a friend's Bla's yesterday. Oh yeah, no more getting confused about how to use the words "Twitter" or "Tweet"......a Bla is simply a Bla submission. It's recursive use of the word itself. Is that correct? Should I just say "It's recursive"? Anyway. I checked her Blas.

6:52 - awake 7:41 - Trfc sux 8:14 - @work 9:27 - bozstill 9:28 - dickhead 11:32 - strbux 2:31 - daywtend 5:22 - trfc sux 6:14 - mcd drvt 7:10 - ihvbrats 8:22 - fnlykdbd 8:23 - vodka 8:37 - vokda2 9:11 - vofkda 10:21 - hubfrsky 10:22 - noefnway

I hear the makers of Twitter are frantically working on a monosyllabic vertical. Sup

FAN: Amish Beliefs

So my little princess is studying the Amish in social studies. My wife made like Alex Trabek while we tried to beat each other with the answers. I learned things while playing the game the last two nights that I didn't know before. I don't want to get into that because I feel a little silly when my nine-year-old knows things that I don't, but a hilarious thought came to my head while soaking up all the Amishisms. I understand, as part of their belief system, not using automobiles. I understand not having televisions and or radios. I understand not using electricity. I'm not sure if there is a certain date (year) that is used to cut-off all technological advances....I don't know that much about it. And no, that's not the funny part to me. What's funny to me is that listed among the Amish facts under the umbrella of simplicity, not decorated and the like is this gem: The Amish do not wear belts. Hmmm. I'm gonna hafta let that one maronate a bit. Belts? Surely they aren't comparing a piece of rope with a knot in it to "mysteriously catching magic voices out of the air and playing them on this box born of Satan". I can just hear Ezekiel screaming in anguish the day his son ran up to him saying "Father, Father, look Father...Hence forth this ropeth holdeth up my trousers, sir". His father's scream ended with a right hand across the mouth that sent the youth stumbling backwards onto the ground. As he slowly wiped the blood from his lower lip while looking up into his father's enraged eyes, he'll never forget the words he spoke "Jebadiah, you have disappointed me son. We have given you shelter in our house with no spark strings. We have fed you with our corn and cattle. We have given you fancy book learnin'. We have given you everything son, and you....you.....you slither the evil serpent around your tiny waist....to hold your pants up like magic, boy.....like a warlock.......this is how you repay us?". The dude in the picture is wearing GLASSES. He can't wear a belt? Are their shoes slip ons or are they allowed to tie them? Seriously. Think of how stupid that is. There has to be a better reason and I will research it later tonight. When I'm done laughing. They can use rope to lift the side of a barn but not their pants?

FAN: Cobolsaurus

I switched jobs (again) a few weeks ago. It's weird for me because after spending 13 years with one company and close to 4 with another - I've now hopped around a bit for my last 3 stays. I keep telling myself I'm looking for the last place to stay another 12 years. That will put me out of the game just around the time Princess finishes college and then if I want to still work at 52, I can go be a greeter at Walmart and kiss the corporate life goodbye - or at minimum work for myself and who cares if I hardly make anything. What's interesting to me about this stopover is that so far I haven't run into a Cobolsaurus. I've seen plenty of female BAradactiles, though....and I swore the big asteroid that hit took them all out, but when I make some arcane reference to a "copybook" or an "88 level variable" nobody laughs or wants to wax poetic about their past. Is it I that needs a mirror? C'mon! I haven't written a line of COBOL since 1997. It just so happens than coming out of school in 1991 afforded me insight into a different world. I'm young enough to talk architecture with today's Geese and Mavericks but I can still complain about them with people who understand VI and JCL and get a kick out of it when I say I used to know a girl in ops who had the best IDCANS. Will dinosaur industries like insurance still have batch jobs running 10 years from now? I don't know. The new model seems to be more dynamic. HTML gets thrown into a folder and some "listener" is waiting for it and it gets updated automatically. Who knows? Who cares anymore? I want to go work on some cool ass software somewhere. Of course, only if it will pay me the amount the insurance industry is paying me and only if they can promise to stay in business for a few years. Otherwise, I may as well just get comfortable somewhere where the asteroid has already hit, even though it's not "Google Type" cool software. I think you have to move to Seattle to do that and I'd end up shooting some fashion-coffee drinking wiki twitter freak.

A Few Thoughts For iRobot

Christmas brought Muriel to our house this year to do some vacuuming. We received an iRobot Roomba Red as a gift this year (thanks pops!) and my daughter named it Muriel after the maid on The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. Roomba Red serves not only as a floor cleaner, but also as the most expensive cat toy on the planet. My two intellectually challenged felines are fascinated by this strange object that glides over the floors. Typically they will stay in the same room as the robot and only move if they find themselves in the immediate path of the intruder. Trust me, it's been stuck on long curtains and an extension cord since we've been using it - and it will not surprise me the day I come upstairs from the basement office to find Muriel spinning, smoking and gasping with 2 legs, a tail and a cat ass spinning around in circles spitting cat hairs out instead of picking them up. Either that, or one of them will saddle the damn thing up and I'll find him sitting on it wearing a pilot's scarf and goggles....chasing the other one that will end up 50% in the belly of the beast. Enough with the cats - anyway - we liked it so much that we added the scheduler and homebase. Now Muriel can come out every few days, vacuum and find her way back to the home port and plug herself back in. Nice feature! So nice, in fact, that we've now ordered a Scooba! The Scooba vacuums , wets with solution and dries hard floors like kitchens and bathrooms. Sweet! Maybe they'll fall in love and reproduce. I can have one in every room! No, even that's not why I started to write about this. I'm writing about this because it's 2007. We put a man on the moon in the 60's! You'd think in 2007 we'd have more capability than simply cleaning floors. True, true....iRobot added the "Dirt Dog" for your workshop, but that's just the Hummer of Roombas. I'm talking forward thinking ingenuity. If I were CEO of iRobot, I'd be introducing a new concept every month until they fired me. My agenda would look like this:

Poopba - This stinky machine would clean litter boxes. Scoop, shake off the loose pieces, bag...repeat. Tie bag. Refill. Scooba can then clean the Poopba.

Snowba - This bad boy would snow blow my driveway using the same technology as the Roomba with one major difference. It would roll and blow instead of roll and suck. Easy modification.

Prickba - Prickba has some engineering issues to be worked out as the prototype can only be used once. This is how early versions work: person pisses you off while driving, you get in front of said person, pull lever which drops Prickba on the road from the under carriage of your vehicle, Prickba waits 1.42 seconds and then explodes with the force of 10 sticks of dynamite. Legal issues are still being worked out.

Choreba - Let's say your wife has a great idea or a project that you should attempt. She can press a button on the Choreba and detail the specs which Choreba will record. Choreba will then wait until her footsteps are out of range and use it's sensors to find you. It will then laugh maniacally as two robotic arms emerge: one with her specs on a crumpled piece of paper, and one holding your favorite ice cold alcoholic beverage.

Jackba - Jackba was designed to be used on those nights when your significant other isn't really in the........huh?.....oh rats......I can't finish this now......my wife needs me to do a chore for her. Make mental note to elevate Choreba to first priority after becoming iRobot CEO.

We Want You

This is from an AP story released today:

The fugitive terror chief Abu Hamza al-Muhajir said experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences — especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" should join his group's jihad, or holy war, against the West.

The Associated Press missed some of the coverage though as they mistook a pregnated pause as the end of his plea. Steel City Slant's recorders were still rolling as al-Muhajir continued his request for particular fields. "We need the proctologists to massage and stretch our tiny assholes. We need someone who can build a perfect turkey kaiser, with just the right amount of mayo. We need someone who can shine the shoes so good that his own image is visi.....oh, we wear sandals...OK forget the shine boy and instead make it someone who can tie the two cans together with the string to make a next generation "talkie" device. We need one brave soul who will experiment with the bathing every day. I would like one person who can explain to me why we still dress like it is 67 BC. I would like somebody to teach me how to groom my goddamn moustache evenly as it is much ticker on de one side like the goat and yet the other side is not so tick like de goat but still OK I guess. I would like it if the same man could then explain to me the eyebrows as I try to pluck dem to match but as you can see I cannot. I would like to talk to someone about getting me a pair of the sunglasses like that cool guy from Saudi Arabia wears when he is on the TV. I would like a PR person to get my name out there so I am recognized for the genius that I am....Hitler, bin Laden...ah-muharjir. I would like a plumber or two so I could stop de pooping in the sand and covering it up much like your domestic house cats and I would have them put in some indoor plumbing but not with the ass picks like the Brits have since they scare me when I am there. Finally, I would like it very very much if you could send me some of the western porn so I can stop masturbating while thinking about the soft, subtle sexy curves and skin of my secretary's ankles. Ummm, die all you Western dogs.

Yeah. Thanks, Abu. Isn't Abu the name of the monkey in Disney's Aladdin? In the words of great American Johnny Carson, "May the flies of a thousand camels infest your mother's armpits."

I'm Predicting a HUGE Work Stoppage

Video stores will be unmanned. Comic book shops will close. Tower Records will suffer. Mall gaming stores and Radio Shacks will not even open. Geek paradise is upon us. Christie's auction house is hosting a 3 day event October 5-7 which will feature over 1,000 lots and 4,000 total items from the original Star Trek series and the 10 movies that followed. Sunscreen sales will be up that week as many 30-45 year old pasty males will come out of their mother's basements to make the trek to see the merchandise live. Even though the October sun is tame - many of these individuals haven't seen real sunlight in years. Said Tommy "Beamer" Scotts, 37 of North Carolina, "One time I opened the smallish curtains on the basement window in my bedroom and I completely forgot it was before 4:00 PM and the brightness of the sun shocked me. My eyes hurt for several days after that mishap." Surrounding stores in Christie's neighborhood are stocking black long sleeved shirts in greater numbers than usual for the event. Other stores are clearing shelf space of things like toothpaste, hair gel, deodorant and condoms and replacing them with Doritos, Mountain Dew, M&M's and thumb drives. We went over to Christie's today and a line has formed already with 9 devoted "Trekkies" already queued up. We asked the first gentleman in line, Danny "Sulu" Wong 34 of California, why he needed to be first in line. "I simply must have the 3rd knob from the right on the Enterprise panel controlled by the one known as "Control Room Personnel Man #2. Being here first assures me of my prize possession." When we explained to Danny that Christie's was an "auction" house and he didn't need to be first he got nervous, broke out in a sweat, wet his pants and claimed nobody had yet taken Ebay's business model to the brick and mortar level....called us stupid and could still be heard laughing as we walked away. We asked the last guy in line how he got permission from his job to miss over 4 months of work. He replied that his mom was going to mow her own lawn until he returned and that the car could indeed go several months without being washed. Online sales giants like Amazon, Overstock and Shop.com are expecting to do HUGE business those three days as most net shoppers will feel at ease knowing that 99.8% of all hackers will be closely monitoring the auctions instead of phishing for buyer fraud. ManOnMan.com and ILoveDick.com however will be down for maintenance those three days. Watchdog groups for the internet in general are predicting the fastest speeds ever due to reduced net traffic for the period in question. We'll keep you updated as the dates draw closer. The next angle we'll take on this developing story is "What to do when you encounter a female that's not your mom or sister ". Should be interesting.

When Will Women Learn?

Some sandwiches need to be served cold (click here). For instance - leftover holiday turkey, meatloaf and ham. We don't have enough facts about this, but I'm wondering if the roast beef was leftover, or straight from the deli counter? If it was from the deli counter, then I am with the deceased - it should have been cold. However, if this was roast beef that was previously cooked in the home - the stupid wench had no right trying to serve it cold. And hey, he didn't mean to kill her, he was just beating her a little because she was stupid. Now, here is the take home quiz....had it been deli meat mixed with jarred gravy...should it have been heated? YES! Gravy is the clue here - anything with gravy needs to be heated. This woman clearly did not know the intricate heirarchy of meats and serving temperatures and for that she deserved to suffer a little, not die. Isn't it a tad ironic that the murder weapon ended up being the exact device that was meant to facilitate the missing heat? In my opinion, Clem should be beaten to death with a frying pan, because you DO NOT heat up roast beef in the micowave! You should choose your smallest pan and heat it up on the stovetop mixed with gravy. In the absense of gravy, the roast beef should be thinly sliced and then heated in the pan with a little warm water to get the consistency for a good roast beef sandwich. It's really a pity these people are just so uneducated. If she had just said. "you know what honey, i'm tired today, let's just go to Arby's" none of this would have happened.

Terror Plot Thwarted Through Clip Art?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. We hear all the time on the news how a simple prop in a terrorist video or a single word in a press release can trigger an attack. Terrorists are very adept at using symbols and signals. I may have uncovered a local plot myself. A little background first. My office likes to eat Chinese food on Wednesdays. I've included the front and back pages of the menu from our closest provider of oriental cuisine. Well, Ok, we call it Chinese, but as you can see from the menu - they serve szechuan, hunan and cantonese. Needless to say, it's an oriental establishment.....or is it? Maybe they are North Korean and hate all Americans? Look at the cover of the menu. Do you see anything odd? At first glance, it looks like every other oriental takeout menu in the US. You have the "all you can eat" price, the frolicking Panda bears on a fan and the obligatory oriental symbols which could say "Die a horrible death you filthy American, you" for all we know. Now, look near the top at the chef/waiter. First of all, he doesn't look oriental to me. He's chubby and he has round eyes. Also, notice the duplicity - he's wearing a chef's hat, yet he's carrying the tray like a waiter would. Interesting. Lastly - look what's on the tray for God's sake. It's a....it's a....chinese rootbeer float? WTF? And a sandwich? And what's the other item? I can't even tell. Creamer? Sugar? For what? This chubby round-eyed profession confused "spy" is delivering a bologna sandwich and rootbeer float - there is no need for either creamer OR sugar. You figure it out. I can assure you, there is no sandwich on this menu. And not only are there no floats, there are no beverages. Hmmmmmm. How can I tell it's a sandwich and not a burger? Fool! It's cut in half! That's an obvious clue. While A&W serves rootbeer floats, they do not serve sandwiches. To me, this is a clue about an establishment that serves both floats AND sandwiches. Let's turn our attention now to the back page of the menu. You guessed it, the lunch specials. Here you will find things like Moo Shu Pork, General Tso's Chicken and......singing tomatos? Three of them....with nine musical notes. That's 3 notes each and I'm positive that's significant. I'm not sure about you, but I've eaten about 1,132 chinese meals since 1990. Not once have I come across a tomato. Why not singing water chestnuts? Why not, indeed. There is also a single tomato prominently featured on the front of the menu, yet strangely enough, it is not singing. In fact, it appears to be unanimated. Does "unanimated" equate to dead? And what of the onion? Oh, how I wish I had paid closer attention while my daughter was in her Blue's Clues years. Broccoli is also prominently featured on the cover. I don't know about you, but broccoli gives me gas. Tomatos signify something Italian to me when I see them on a menu. But, since there is no lasagna listed here, what should I assume? Surely the mafia of the boot country wouldn't have anything to do with this sinister plot? Yes, this menu rivals the Dead Sea Scrolls for it's complexity and leaves many questions unanswered. For instance, notice they open at 11:00 AM but the Lunch Buffet doesn't start until 11:15 AM. I'm going down there tomorrow, incognito, to see what happens if I order the Lunch Buffet at 11:08 AM. Will the cashier give me a knowing wink and assume I'm in on the plot? Why did they choose to add another line under "Only $5.25" for "Take Out Lunch Buffet $5.25"? Why not just say "Also Available To Go"? I'll tell you why...they needed to get the words "Take Out" on the menu because it's part of their evil plot. While an untrained eye might not catch it, I was quickly able to unscramble the name of the establishment "Panda Pavilion" to get part of the message: "Di Paopl in a van". So, for the unfortunate who cannot see through this cloak and dagger menu - let me translate it for you. On the day of 5/25, sometime between 11:00 and 11:15 AM, a slightly chubby man who may or may not be wearing a chef's hat but will have round eyes, will smash a van loaded with gas right into the local Friendly's through the TAKE OUT window while screaming "Die People". If you "sing" about this plot to anyone, 3 guys from the Chinese Mafia will make sure you end up unanimated by putting 3 bullets each right into your onion. Case Closed.

Bonds Did Not Do Steroids

This just in, Barry Bonds did not take illegal steroids. Stop talking about it already. Why did he gain 57 pounds of muscle and his head swelled up to the size of a good mellon? Gland problem. His gland started to act up about 3 months after Big Mac broke Roger Maris' record. Here are some other hot stories coming over the wire.....It WASN'T the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor, Bobby Knight DOESN'T have an anger management problem, T.O. ISN'T a media whore, Daunte Culpepper DIDN'T touch a stripper (he was playing dice), Pete Rose DIDN'T bet on baseball, Jerry Jones DIDN'T have plastic surgery, Ricky Williams DIDN'T smoke enough pot to get a small village higher than a kite, Paris Hilton ISN'T a slut, Oprah ISN'T really that fat, Rosie O'Donnel ISN'T really that big either....well, yeah she is.....

Ok, you get the point.....let's try to end on a really good one....

Richard Gere ISN'T really fruitier than a bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Sectarian Violence Has To Stop

Every net feed I see, every headline I read, every teaser I hear...it's all about Sectarian Violence. Frankly, I'm sick of it. In this day and age, there is no reason in the world for sectarian violence. I like my cup of coffee just as hot as the next guy, but I'm not going to hit the poor girl if it doesn't burn my tongue. Just the other day my shirts came back from the cleaners heavily starched instead of lightly. Now from what I'm hearing in the news, this would have been the perfect time to just drop her with a godd, stiff right cross - but I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Instead, I just made her take the shirts home to do them herself. She will learn. They are trainable. There is no need for violence. A friend of mine, a not so bright one at that, was trying to explain to me how every war that was ever fought is based on sectarian violence. I nodded my head and agreed with him, but c'mon. What, they had sectaries back in the day when Hannibal crossed the Alps? "Listen honey, I said 10,000 POUNDS of peanuts...POUNDS!". Give me a break. Oh, and I suppose William Wallace used one for what, to buy face paint and schedule orthodontic procedures for his band of freedom fighters? This guy probably doesn't even know the typewriter wasn't invented until 1829. Besides that, from what I hear, they prefer to be called Administrative Assistants these days. So, from this day forward, I ask that all Administrative Assistant Violence be stopped. With your help, we can rid the world of this ugly behavior.

A Republican's Dream

I had a weird dream last night. It started out with VP Dick Cheney on a big game hunt. He was in a black Chevy Suburban with several handlers around an open bar. He was throwing back gin and tonics and babbling incoherently. The Suburban was flanked by a Secret Service vehicle and an ambulance. They stopped at the hunting destination which apparently had a cover charge of some sort. Someone paid for the entire group and a barrier was moved to allow the vehicles into the hunting area. It looked like it was designed for walkers. Apparently not everyone there knew this was a hunting area as a family of 5 walked past eating popcorn and stopping to take pictures of the animals. The driver pulled up to a large sign marked "African Elephants" and stopped. As Cheney left the vehicle he could be heard complaining that the area the elephant was in was much too large for a man of his age to track down. The area was gigantic. Some estimates put the area at between a tenth and a quarter of an acre. Making it even more dangerous, it was enclosed by an electric fence and a small moat. As Cheney sized up the beast and waited for it to move closer to the fence, a crowd of shocked onlookers approached. Cheney could not understand what so many families and children were doing at his newly discovered hunting paradise. Not being a technical individual, he used Google to research a good place to find large game close to his home. He had no idea that he could leave the US and get to "Zoo" so quickly. Cheney lined up the large mammal and pulled the trigger. The elephant turned it's huge head at the sound of the blast just in time to see Mrs. Claire Johnson, 42, wife and mother of 3 drop to the ground with a huge GSW to the chest. A secret service agent took the fall for this episode because he apparently muttered "shoot that big mother" seconds before Cheney squeezed the trigger. Mrs. Johnson, God rest her soul, went about 425 and Dick did have a few cocktails. "What's next?" Cheney bellowed. Checking his Palm Pilot, his handler replied "ummmm, you have a pheasant hunt with both Clintons at 1:00... Bill called last night to confirm and asked what kind of spirits you preferred."

Cartoon Riots Come To An End

The LA riots continued unchecked late last night as thousands upon thousands of angry African Americans looted Watts and nearby neighborhoods apparently over the lack of an African American character in the popular cartoon comic strip "Peanuts". "Peanuts" has come to symbolize American cartoons as possibly the longest running and definitely the most lily white cartoon woven into the American fabric of Sunday comics. "Yo, even the dog white!" shouted a rioter as he threw a brick through a 7-11 store front. Several people who were interviewed claimed to have no idea what "boondocks" was and those that did had no idea that it was in most national newspapers. When confronted with this information most easily dismissed it wondering where their black Charlie Brown was. "We need a face! A recognizable face in the world of comics...." a defeated woman explained. When I asked her how the 52" Samsung plasma TV she had her sons carrying would make up for this injustice she told me her sons needed a bigger TV to share "The Proud Family" experience on. Using this as ammunition I asked her about the fact that "The Proud Family" (an African American cartoon) is run constantly on The Disney Channel. "That show just reinforces stereotypes that all blacks speak in ebonics...From 15 year old girls right up to grandmothers!". Pointing this out as a contradiction for wanting the 52" TV she said TV was different than "print" comics and told her oldest to "get that cracker" so I ran. I narrowly avoided a splinter group who was demanding a black muppet on Sesame Street. They were chanting "Oscar, Kermit, Grover, Bert....No black muppets so you gonna get hurt!". I dodged into the library and found a workstation, brought up Google and started doing some "Peanuts" research as I seemed to remember an African American character. I quickly discovered that there WAS a forgotten character in "Peanuts" named Franklin. I ran into the streets with copies of Franklin pictures imploring the crowds to stop. A group approached me and pointing a gun to my head daring me to repeat one famous line Franklin ever said...or even a plot that centered around him. Thinking quickly, I said "Oh, HELL YEAH, yo, remember that time he knocked up that bitch Sally and carjacked Peppermint Patty's moms?" They shrugged, nodded in agreement and solemnly walked away. Now knowing they were wrong, the crowds dissipated and went home with their new comic hero, Franklin.

Note: Pick up the new "Peanuts" book which features Franklin in "Give me all your money, Charlie Brown" next week in all participating stores.

Bush Forces Olympic Committee to Add Winter Skeet - Sends Cheney

President George W. Bush today threatened "severe consequences" on Italy if the International Olympic Committee did not immediately add skeet shooting to the Winter Olympics. Skeet has been a staple of the Summer Games since the inception of shotguns, but sensing another gold medal is now within reach - Bush is trying to strongarm the committee to quickly add Skeet to the winter slate so longtime family friend and Vice President Dick Cheney can put his previously private skills to use for the better of the country. Cheney and his small entourage of 87 medical workers boarded Air Force 2 (Dubbed "Double Barrel" by Dubya) early this morning in anticipation of Bush's demand being met. When asked for a comment, President Bush exclaimed "Anyone that can stare down the barrel of a shotgun and blast pellets into one of his best friend's faces has the steely resolve necessary to compete at this level". Mr. Whittington who was shot by Vice President Cheney wanted to give a statement but could not because half his face was shot off. We'll try to get that comment for you just as quickly as Mr. Whittington's lips grow back. When told that he would be shooting at clay pigeons, Cheney reportedly asked "Clay is just the color of the birds, right? I mean, they're still going to bleed and die...RIGHT?"

Let it be known that Still A. Fan has never voted for a Democrat for President - but this story was just too damn funny to pass on.

Fairy Godmother Comes Under Heavy Scrutiny

My 6 year old daughter borrowed Disney's animated classic Cinderella when she was about 3 years old. We watched it numerous times on VHS and bought the Special Edition 2-dvd set when it came out in late 2005. The Disney channel broadcast the movie last night at 8 pm and it never ceases to amaze me that my daughter will sit through commercials to watch a movie on TV that we own on dvd. Only half paying attention, I grabbed my laptop and started to browse online. Mind you, I've probably seen this movie 10 times in the last 3 years and I've been familiar with the story my entire life. I can't believe I never questioned this before...was the Fairy Godmother good or evil? How can I ask that question? Simple. Ask yourself this: If the FG was so nice, why in Walt's name did she impose the midnight curfew? Why? Why, I ask you? Cinderella was cooped up in the attic with a dried up prune of a stepmom and two bitch on wheels step-sisters who tore her dress off so she couldn't go to the ball. I think the ball started at 8:00. So, with travel time by horse and carriage (and who knows what traffic was like back then or how far from the castle they lived) to get there and back - she really in essence gave her - what - about 90 minutes at the ball? Maybe 2 hours tops? She was setting her up to fail! If she was really looking out for her, wouldn't she give her the entire night...change her back around 6 AM? What if Cinderella got lucky and Prince Charming wanted to get busy? By the time they finally met, danced, got the small talk out of the way and tried to politely excuse themselves to the royal hot tub - she would have been out of time. I say the fix was in and the Fairy Godmother was actually an evil witch of some sort. Maybe when the 7 angry little people chased the Evil Queen (posing as the old hag) off the cliff in Snow White she landed safely in water and came back to haunt yet another young lady in distress since she failed with Snow White. By the way...if that Evil Queen in Snow White could cast spells and stuff, why was she running away from 7 dwarves? I mean really, what were they going to do to her? Bloody her shins? Sneeze on her to death? And another thing, if you're going to make a poison apple - make a poison apple! Don't make it put her to sleep, make it KILL HER. She sent the Huntsman to kill her the first time, not put her to sleep....why chicken out on the second attempt? Cartoon characters are maddening and don't really follow logic all that well. Stay tuned for my next Disney rant - why an elephant cannot possibly flap it's ears fast enough to get airborn.