I Vomit on 2004

I spent a good five minutes last night, in between glasses of a decent pinot noir, trying to figure out how I'd end the year on this-here weblog.

I mean, the reality is, anyone who gives a shit what I think about anything already knows that 2004 wasn't my favorite year.

I'm outraged about the ongoing slaughter in Iraq, depressed about the presidential election, and furious over our government's inability to provide something so simple as flu shots. (If I get the flu this winter, I'm going to send a sample of my vomit to Washington.)

But you already know that.

So, instead, I'm going to finish the year with some funny shit, a mix of things I've stumbled across the past few days and links sent by Dave Lewis and other like-minded readers.

There's no theme or agenda here; it's just pure entertainment.


"To flash a fake breast adds insult to injury"


Complaining to the Federal Communications Commission about "indecency" on television has become a growth industry for a group called Parent's Television Council.

From Mediaweek:

"The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, [FCC chairman Michael] Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, 'a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.'

"What Powell did not reveal -- apparently because he was unaware -- was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003 -- 99.8 percent -- were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group."

This year, it's more of the same ... with one exception. The Jackboob Incident during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show generated a flood of real complaints from people unaffiliated with the radical clerics of the Christian-industrial complex.

And those complaints generated a flood of counter-complaints from people who think the government has better things to do than monitor yet another desperate attention-seeking stunt by a member of the Jackson family.

The Smoking Gun has a bunch of the actual emails received by the FCC, and it's funny stuff.

A few highlights:

* The one on the opening page is from someone who claims to have once owned a strip club, and says "to mix sex/violence like this gives a really wrong message." He or she concludes: "[T]o flash a fake breast adds insult to injury."

* This one is from a "sex offender therapist," who thinks Justin Timberlake should've been arrested for sexual assault.

* This guy has a firm grasp of the big picture: "It starts out with just one boob at the half-time show, and in a few years half the population is walking around naked." (Let's all hope it's the better half!)

* This one is scary: He wants to imprison all members of the media for being, among other sins, "anti-Republican" and "pro-death for babies and seniors". (I didn't realize we media people were so enthusiastic about killing old people. I guess I should've paid more attention in journalism school.)

* Among the counter-complaints, this one is funny, but this is my favorite: "What are your objectives? Giving equal time to the right tit? ... Stopping the men of this country from enjoying a woman's breast? (Shame on you, France, you bunch of topless-women-enjoying bastards!)"


Surfin' tsunami


I'm not by any stretch of the imagination making light of the most incredible natural disaster of my lifetime.

The headlines this morning say the death toll is up over 135,000, with rumors that some countries are deliberately undercounting their dead.

But in every tragedy, there's some weirdness.

For example, this says that people are already back to sunbathing on the beaches where dozens died just days before.

"Engineer Paul Cunliffe, from Manchester, arrived on an almost empty flight from Malaysia. Gin and tonic in hand, Mr Cunliffe said he and two friends were booked into a beach-front hotel that had escaped serious damage, and had been assured of a 'wonderful holiday.'

"'Our friends think we're mad. The only risk we face I think is if there's another quake. We love the place that much and we thought we would take the risk,' he said.

"Further south at Surin Beach, where 10 died, tourists also were out in force."

Want something even weirder?

A British surfer claims to have ridden the tsunami:

"Gary Wolf is one of a large group of British tourists that is currently sleeping on mattresses in the conference room of a Colombo hotel. He told Haaretz that he was out on a surfboard when the tsunami hit.

"'Suddenly I saw that the rocks near the shore had simply disappeared,' he recounted. 'At first, I didn't understand what was happening and I concentrated on surfing. When I finished surfing, I discovered that I was on the highway, about half a mile from the beach where my room was. Fortunately, the waves pulled me and my surfboard into shore instead of out into the ocean.'

"Wolf is a professional surfer who regularly enters international competitions.

"'Had I known what was going on, I might not have left the water,' he said. 'I might have tried to continue enjoying one of those moments that will never recur.'"

Did he really say "enjoying"?


"I'll have a glass of water, hold the lemon"


In Germany, there's a restaurant for anorexics, which is part of a very weird trend:

"[T]heme restaurants are particularly popular in Berlin. The city already boasts two 'blind restaurants' where patrons eat in pitch-darkness, served by blind waiters, as well as a café for the deaf."

But that's not the weirdest story Dave Lewis has sent me this year, or even this week. Consider this as a companion piece:

Some doctors believe they can implant false memories of bad food experiences into the minds of dieters to help them lose weight:

"In one experiment in the study, the researchers asked 180 undergraduates about their food preferences. Each student ranked 62 different foods on a scale of one to five.

"Later, the students returned to view a 'profile,' supposedly produced by a computer, of their food preferences as children. Half were told they had gotten sick from dill pickles as kids, and the other half were told hard-boiled eggs did the same thing.

"Then, the students took several more tests that, among other things, asked about their early food experiences and which foods they'd eat at a barbecue.

"After analyzing the new round of test and survey results, researchers found that 25 percent of the students in the pickle group appeared to think -- thanks to the planted memories -- that they had indeed gotten sick from the food as children. The number was 31 percent among students told they got sick from hard-boiled eggs.

"The planted memories also affected the willingness of the susceptible subjects to eat the food at a barbecue or even eat a related food (such as egg salad).

"Most of the subjects didn't fall for the fake memories, but previous research suggests those susceptible to implanted memories may share traits in common, [the researcher] said. 'If you're somebody who tends to have lapses in memory and attention, you might be more susceptible,' she explained. People who are adept at visual imagery may be more prone to suggestion, too."

Just what we need: More ways to take advantage of weak-minded people. I mean, bottom line, isn't that what all of 2004 was about?

Tags: entertainment