Repealing the Syntax

I once stopped Red Leader from stealing the Eiffel Tower on the same day I freed hundreds of political prisoners from a North Korean gulag. US Attorney General Gonzalez used to call me "The Human Paddywagon". I convinced Tom Hanks to pass on Waterworld and to check out a little script called Forrest Gump instead.

In short, I've cleaned up more messes than Gallagher's road crew, but nothing I've ever undertaken has even approached the epic magnitude of these guys:

Incensed by a "no tresspassing" sign, Jeff Deck launched a cross-country trip to right grammatical wrongs.

He enlisted a friend, Benjamin D. Herson, and together they got to work erasing errant quotation marks, rectifying misspellings and cutting unnecessary possessive apostrophes.

...

In 2 1/2 months, Herson and Deck traveled the perimeter of the country, exploring towns and cities in search of typos. They found 437 typos, and were able to correct more than half of them.

For anyone who ever tilted his head in disbelief at a sign advertising "Rice Krispie's Treat's" or warning that "Your Being Watched", Deck and Herson are doing gods' work.

Brother-in-Law Links™

• Trippy theories on some classic films, and one on... Radio Flyer?
  
  
• I've always preferred the term "'That Guy' Pics" to "Photobombs", but I still tip my hat to the special appearance by Osama bin Laden.
  
  
• You think the guy sitting alone at the corner table of the regular strip club is creepy? Just wait 'til you see the winners at the Star Wars-themed strip club.
  
  
• Farmer has sex with a horse while his buddy records it, then dies from massive internal injuries. Just another day in WAVE Country.

Hat tip to Darrell for marrying my sister.

This is Madness!

Many before me had the idea, but this was my Friday art project:



If it's still there on my way out today, I may have to swipe it for casa de Finch.

I'm Thankful for Howard Hesseman

Has there ever been a television series that didn't air the obligatory Thanksgiving episode, where everyone in the peer group is somehow (wackily!) prevented from having dinner with their actual family, and instead spends it with the rest of the (wacky!) cast?

From Cheers to Friends (a multiple-repeat offender) to Felicity, the recipe is a stalwart, and I guarantee if your DVR keeps even moderately busy this week, you'll catch at least one of your new favorite shows dusting it off again.

Fortunately, thanks to Al Gore's Internets, everyone on earth can bask in the glory of the WKRP in Cincinnati "Turkeys Away" episode. For those enslaved by IT overlords who refuse you access to Hulu.com, whet your beaks here, then check it out from home.

Learn all about the first Thanksgiving here.

Learn how to say "thanks" in two dozen languages here.

Read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation here.

And remember the words of Johnny Carson:

Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then they discover once a year is way too often.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Jeff Flake: The Fozzie Bear of Congress

Don't get me wrong. I would rather Congress spend 100% of its time writing bills to congratulate Super Bowl-winning teams and whatnot, than slopping together more consequence-ignorant, corporate-welfare, nanny-state, liberty-reducing laws.

Still, to see Representative Jeff Flake's (R-AZ) response to HR 784 is just plain fun. The bill was introduced to "honor[] the 2560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius and recognize[] his invaluable contributions to philosophy and social and political thought." Seriously.

Flake's response, which accompanied his vote against the bill:

He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill.

At press time, it is unconfirmed if he followed his statement with a hearty "Wokka wokka!"

Check out Flake here.

Even Superheroes get the TSA Blues

In the past, Avian Silver handled all of The Guardian Force's air travel manually. Since his extradition for trafficking in illegal stomp porn, however, we have all been subject to the carnivals of ineptitude formerly known as commercial airports.

Recently, a stalwart minion of the TSA relieved me of my nail-clippers, despite the fact that the clippers were already missing the little under-nail gunk extraction blade. Very well. But my ultra-stabby, spring-loaded, aluminum-tipped umbrella of doom? No sweat; step right through, sir.

Que será, será. Really, I'm just excited for an excuse to post this:


Cartoon via XKCD; link via (surprise, surprise) Hit & Run.

His Out-of-Frame Hand is Choking a Puppy

1000 Guardian Force Superbucks to the first person who puts this on a T-shirt and sends me a picture.



(Incalculable thanks to the Internet's most disturbed librarian: SugarFree.)

Crimefighting for Gumshoes by Chase Leeds

Remember those terrible jokes in kids’ magazines like Boys Life, Highlights, and Barely Legal that paired a fake book title with a clever(ish) author’s name? Think: No More Broccoli! by Kurt Child, or Succeeding as a Lawyer by Sue Yu.

Well, Ann Forest Burns just happens to be the spokeswoman for the American Forest Resource Council, a coincidence that makes this superhero smile. The AFRC is a clever(ish)ly-named timber industry group opposed to President Obama’s reversal of a Bush policy that doubled the amount of logging allowed… Oregon forests… endangered owls… old-growth— Okay, seriously, no one cares.

Whole snorrific NYT article here.

Five minutes’ worth of third-grade name humor here.

See the World! Fight for Liberty! Shirk the Responsibilities of your Personal Life!

The Guardian Force will be holding open auditions on Friday at the Empire City Convention and Government Center from 08:00 to 17:30. After last year’s fiasco, Mayor Daliani has asked me to explicitly mention that singers and dancers – no matter how fabulous – will not be considered. Also no Baldwins, please.

Blast, Nightblade, Ultragirl, and I will interview applicants on a first-come, first-served basis. In addition to raw power, we will be judging specifically on witty banter, dramatic flair, chutzpah, moxie, and costume design. Please be prepared with a headshot, resumé, and a two-minute melee combat routine.

Special note to gadgeteers: You are not superheroes. Take your utility belts, your slightly-faster-than-normal mopeds and your smoke pellets, and go LARP with the rest of the geeks.