The New Yorker cover was Wrong!
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by Big Ugly Man Doll
Turns out, he’s actually Jewish:
Big Ugly Man Doll
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Y Chromosome
Counting Sheep
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by Big Ugly Man Doll
When you’re as big and as ugly as I am, it comes as a surprise to some people that I actually sleep in a bed. (Of course, I only sleep for 2 hours and 17 minutes every 26.5 hours, but still.) Anyway, if you’re like me – and I am not for one minute suggesting that you are – it’s possible that you, too, sleep in a bed. With a mattress.
It may have sheets.
And if you do sleep in a bed, and it does have sheets, then this post is for you, Gentle Reader. The rest of you are invited to observe only.
Most sheets are made from mattress-repellent fibers, which makes them excellent for use while hiking in the marshes of Squornshellous Zeta, but less effective for covering standard bedding on much of the Sealy, Serta, Simmons, and Tempur-Pedic planets nearer our own sun. In fact, you have likely woken up more than once to find yourself with your face pressed to a bare mattress, sheets wrapped around your ankles, wondering what happened. At least one of those times, you didn’t also wake up wearing “loud shoes” and having an “inexplicable” headache. It was just that the sheets were trying to kill you.
Yes, those lovely percale cotton bitches with the flower pattern that doesn’t really go with the drapes as well as you think it does, those things want to kill you. I’m convinced that when you’re not home, all the bed sheets bunch themselves up, grab the remote, and turn on Chuck Norris and Vin Diesel movies. (I’m certain that explains the pay-per-view charges. And who knew sheets like porn? You’d think they’d have seen, well, anyway that’s odd.)
So, since the sheets won’t stay on the bed for the 2 or so hours that I’m relaxing (with my eyes open, of course!), I’ve tried a few tricks to keep the fitted sheets firmly attached to the mattress. I will share them with you now:
- Straps
- Effectiveness: Not Very Effective
- Downsides: These are single-purpose straps meant to clip the sheets to the mattress. The sheets viewed them as “single use” and fed them to the dust bunnies when I was sleeping. I never found them again.
- Superglue
- Effectiveness: Very Effective
- Downsides: High cost of THAT much glue makes this an expensive option. The glue did seem to stun the sheets. Also, wait until the glue dries before getting into the bed. I cannot emphasize this enough.
- Staples
- Effectiveness: That Was Easy (But Only Moderately Effective)
- Downsides: The sheets were able to turn many of the staples during the night, so that they either let the sheets pass or, in several cases, actively participated in the cause. I woke up wrapped and bleeding, looking far too much like Christ at about the 10th station than I prefer.
- Duct Tape
- Effectiveness: Moderately Effective
- Downsides: Since “percale” is actually French for “Teflon” the sheets were too slippery for even the inimitable Duct Tape to adhere well. I had to wrap the whole bed, getting the roll of tape under the mattress (between the mattress and the floor). Needless to say, I promptly got a call from the ASPCA about my heartless murder of 3,472 dust bunnies who had been building a culture of values, harmony, and understanding under my bed until they got stuck to the tape. I say fuck ‘em.
- Fire
- Effectiveness: Abject Failure
- Downsides: This attempt didn’t go so well. The only things to survive in the room, in fact, were the fireproof sheets (which did NOT melt into the mattress like I’d hoped they would) and 2 cockroaches, who got high while watching 862 dust bunnies shrieeeeeeeeek as they hopped around, lighting each other on fire trying to get out. I had to buy a new Sertans-Pedic.
- Quikrete
- Effectiveness: Moderately Effective
- Downsides: Hard, and itchy if you get in before it’s cooled. Also, as with the glue – don’t test it until it’s hardened. Believe me. Just take my word for it.
- Negotiation
- Effectiveness: Abject Failure
- Downsides: I asked the sheets what they wanted. They showed me a book entitled “To Serve Man”. Bitches.
- Couch
- Effectiveness: Very Effective
- Downsides: I just bought that new Sertans-Pedic. Besides, the dust bunnies miss me. The cockroaches told them that the sheets lie, in exchange for me dropping a few buds now and then.
If you have any ideas that have worked for you, or that you think might be worth a try, I want to hear from you.
Soon.
Because I can hear the sheets giggling.
Time Suck of the Week
Posted on July 20th, 2008 by Big Ugly Man Doll
Now, I’m not saying that this is the right time suck for you. (Yes, you. You know who you are.) But I will say it’s worth your time, to have a few of your moments sucked up by reading an on-line magazine (see, you don’t even have to get up!) called Abyss & Apex.
I found it this week, and I assure you, it does not suck – except my time, which it sucks delightfully. In particular, two stories from the current issue – The Number of Angels in Hell and Väinämöinen and the Singing Fish (by the delightful and talented mrissa) – stand out as excellent. Not to mention the guest editorial by Dear Cthulhu. I mean, it doesn’t get much better than having the ancient old ones penning your copy!
I’ll bet he’s a bitch the production room, though: “Where’s that thrice-damned shoggoth with my coffee? If we miss deadline once more this month, Yog will have my mglw’nafh heads on a five-sided platter! I know they say Cthulhu wgah’nagl fhtagn, but that doesn’t mean you slacker scum get to as well! And if that damn shoggoth is fhtagn on the job, I’ll have its tentacles making coffee on Rl’yeh – the hard way!”
On the topic of magazine covers, or, Oh Bama Lama Ding Dong
Posted on July 15th, 2008 by Big Ugly Man Doll
This weeks’ _The New Yorker_ cover, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, has a cartoon of Barak and Michelle Obama.
Yep, that’s the one. There’s been a lot of talk about it on both sides of the punditry, and reactions from both campaigns. Obama told Larry King, “It’s a cartoon … and that’s why we’ve got the First Amendment. And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what’s happening with the banking system and the housing market and what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon.”
The New Yorker, which (full disclosure) the Big Ugly Man Doll reads weekly when he can keep up with it, was unrelenting and unrepentant. Having gone to press with the cover, titled “The Politics of Fear” by Barry Blitt, New Yorker editor David Remnick told CNN that he believes the irony will be clear to most Americans. “The idea is to attack lies and misconceptions and distortions about the Obamas and their background and their politics. We’ve heard all of this nonsense about how they’re supposedly insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism.”
I have to say this goes to show how far out of touch The New Yorker is with the rest of middle America. The magazine’s subscribers will get it. The folks walking past and seeing it on the stand, maybe not so much.
Sen. John McCain said Monday that the cover was “totally inappropriate.” This is self defense on McCain’s part: You can just imagine what next week’s cover will look like, right?
Yep: Cindy, sobbing over a coffin in the Rotunda.
Headline Roundup With The Big Ugly Man Doll, or, the Darwin Awards Get Local
Posted on July 14th, 2008 by Big Ugly Man Doll
This past Friday the Washington Nationals, currently in the cellar, managed to lose two MORE fans in what can only be called the worst doubleheader ever. These two fans, possibly having seen M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s The Happening once too often, decided to stand up while riding on the open top of a National’s-sponsored tour bus as it drove under an overpass, which turned out to be the last thing on their minds. Always wear your seatbelt. Besides, so what if your team is 16 games back? It’s not that bad. (Easy for me to say while the Cubs are on top. Check this space in October…)
For other new and creative ways of dying, we need look no farther than Anheuser-Busch, which has collectively decided that $52 billion is worth dying for. As they become Anheuser-Busch-InBev and sell out to Belgium, god-fearin’, gun-totin’, beercan-crushin’, right-thinkin’ Amuicans everwhar are putting down their cold ones and singing:
There goes the King / There goes the King / There goes the big Number One
Them profiteers / They got my beer / but they will not get my gun!
When you sold Bud you sold a mouthful
When you sold Bud you sold your soul
When you sold Bud you sold your soul
And America wept.
Mind you, I don’t much care for Budweiser – I’m more likely to crack an import than a mainstream domestic – but I feel the same way about Bud as I do about Harley-Davidsons: I don’t own one, but I’d hate to lose something so quintessentially American.
Speaking of things quintessentially American, we seem to have a new tradition for entrants in the Miss Universe pageant to live up (down?) to. For the second year in a row, the American entrant in the pageant failed to meet the crucial challenge of walking and smiling at the same time, tripping over her feet on stage. I guess this Crystle doesn’t shatter too easily…
Last, the Formula One chief is under fire for having kinky sex. His detractors claim, “There was a general attempt … to present it as some kind of worthy activity … as though it was all being carried out under the guidance of the Bondage and Sadomasochism Regulatory Authority.” Man, talk about Big Government. I didn’t know we had an agency for that! Imagine applying for a job there, doubtless using the Government SF-69 form.
That’s about it for the headline roundup – all the news I can make myself give a damn about. Tune in next time!