To Take Up Arms...

There is a time for everything, Solomon said, and so there must be a time for sleep. There must be, but but that doesn't make it easy to find. And about two evenings ago, it was more elusive for me than real estate on the moon.

It was just one of those nights. The kind that start two hours early, when your eyes begin to rebel against the light of day just as your boss is walking by full of energy that he is alarmingly ready to funnel into the gory task of setting you straight. The kind that won't completely kick in even two hours after they're supposed to, because those rebellious eyes have rechanneled their restlessness and sandpapered themselves into an insurrection against you in your weary hour of need. The kind that you must slog through despite the fact that you just watched a certain film about crystals and skulls and fiery ants that eat people alive, and every little itch on your skin is beginning to send tingles of terror and images of fiery red legs through your addled brain, and you are suddenly and strangely feeling more little itches than you thought possible just a few hours ago when your boss was glaring at you in the deliciously comfortable, air-conditioned facility.

That's how I felt, anyway, as I tossed and turned in a hot, sticky bed under hot, sticky covers trying to keep my hot, dry eyelids shut. Gradually I dozed off, feverishly reeling through fields of Martians and Aztecs and Soviet soldiers. The little itches continued in my dreams, magnified by the sincere belief that behind them were the malevolent little jaws of a hundred malevolent little army ants. My right arm, nestled safely behind my head, began to tingle with innumerable little needlepoints, and I could sense the poison at work. The dream grew louder and busier, until the jaws began to sound like Goliath playing a timpani (no hyperlink; just use your imagination).

Then I awoke, trembling and sweatier than ever, the crickets peacefully chirping outside and my heart racing wildly in a successful attempt to outpace their chirps by a factor of five to one. I tried to sleep again, but my mind was on autopilot at about 95 miles an hour, just like my car had been some time earlier. I put my head back on my lumpy pillow, and that was when I discovered my arm.

I say I discovered my arm, but the fact is that I discovered its absence. There was an awful itch on my nose, and I summoned my right finger to destroy it. Alas! My right finger had gone AWOL, along with my hand and biceps. My brain sent signals, but my muscles ignored them, and worse, the nerves wouldn't send back any reply. I reached around with my left arm and seized the delinquent appendage. It was cool, clammy, and limp, almost like a piece of dead meat or your two-year-old cousin when you have to carry him inside from a nap in his carseat and his lifeless, snoring mass seems to weigh ten times more than your barbells did at the gym earlier that day.

I lifted my carcass of an arm until I could see it. There was no mental connection between that thing and myself. For all I knew or cared, it could have been a hapless, five-pound bass or trout poisoned by CapeNature officials. Or it could have been the steaming lump of brisket that I had dropped on the driveway a while back. In the spirit of the unsettling occasion, I let this lump drop as well. It fell on my face with a thud which made me realize the gravity of the situation.

My arm was dead. I peered at it, in the dim light that an opalescent moon managed to smuggle around my window blinds, with a growing mixture of fear, surprise, and self-pity. "This is a sorry sight," I felt inclined to mummer. What could I do without a right arm? What would my boss say? What would my mother say? How would I type this post? I lifted the arm again several times and dropped it, with more curiosity than hope. Then, somewhere around the seventh try, I realized to my wonder that the ants had begun to arrive again. I dropped the arm several more times, and subsequently started pounding it with my left fist. The ants returned with a vengeance, tearing and devouring my lifeless flesh. With a supreme effort, I lifted the arm and curled my fingers. It was a fist of victory, and in a short time I was able to shake it defiantly at the ants themselves. Feeling the familiar blood course through my veins was such an exhilarating experience that it was almost worth the sleep it cost me the rest of the night.

Almost.

Prius. No.

If you're like me, you watch television whenever one of your close friends is being arraigned or when a significant sporting event demands attention. A couple weekends ago, I managed to watch all three Final Four games, including the requisite advertisements which were, I must admit, almost as entertaining as the spectacle itself. Almost.

Besides the "Dude" ad from Budweiser, which I hope doesn't catch on more than it already has (do we really need more reasons to say "dude?") and the "number one cheers" commercial (also from Budweiser), the funniest ad was for a car.

I know, a digitally enhanced jumble of carefully engineered steel and rubber gliding through a closed course under the controlled guidance of a professional driver could be described by many adjectives, but "funny" isn't one of them. Most car ads are designed to appeal to women, so the 30-second spots may show safety features or the on-board computer, but they are unlikely to make the viewer laugh out loud, to spell out a common internet acronym.

One car ad broke the female appeal mold and, in the process, invited a good natured ribbing.

Toyota had the most unintentionally hilarious sales pitch for its Prius, the most fuel efficient car on the road, according to heavily suspect EPA mileage figures. Yes, FCN did just link to Mother Jones. That's not an endorsement; you'll get over it.

If you haven't seen the "Yes" ad for Prius, you need to. A grainy YouTube copy (vaguely reminiscent of a pirated camcorder capture) is embedded below:



On it's face not that funny, right?

Pictures of smiling upper middle class Americans hopping out of or into their new hybrids with the word "yes" emblazoned on a convenient sheet of bright white cardboard. Only one of the happy owners (we assume they are owners and not starving actors willing to sellout for the commercial interests of the bourgeois) holds up a sign that says "si." We can tell from the man's complection that he is French, where the word "si" means "if." This man is undecided and is raising a sign that says "if my wife agrees to the exorbitant monthly fees we will owe Toyota for the next three years and if I can convince my engineering buddy that battery disposal is not that big a deal, I will consider purchasing this vehicle."

And all along you thought "SI" stood for Smithsonian Institute.

The ad played several times; Toyota has to spend that energy conservation grant money somehow. On the third time through, I noticed how little is said about the product itself. The fuel efficiency, safety and crash test ratings, dealership locations, onboard features and legroom dimensions are all omitted in favor of the not so subtle admonition to say "yes."

It's like the DEA's "Say 'NO' to drugs" campaign, except the key word is changed to "yes." And we aren't talking about drugs. And that PSA isn't run anymore. Now we are counseled to talk with our parents about drugs, so they can tell us if we should use them experimentally or not. Come to think of it, the Prius ad is nothing like the drug commercials.

If you look carefully, you might be able to see some information about the Prius in the fine print at the bottom of your screen and at the end of the spot. It doesn't come through legibly in the YouTube copy I've embedded, so you can take my word for it or start watching a lot of TV.

In sum, Toyota is trying to sell women cars by omitting important information and just raising a white sign emblazoned with the desired response. Here at FCN we think that's sexist, childish and pretty doggone funny.

So funny, in fact, that we have made our own ad for Prius. It uses a little reverse psychology to sell the cars. Ever been told you can't step on the grass? What did you do? Ever been told you can't spend twenty grand on a new car that has a hard time going faster than 70 MPH (unless being driven by Al Gore's son)? What would you do?

That's what I thought. Anyway, here's the image. Hopefully Toyota will use it in its next campaign. Who knows, it might actually help sales.

Why do girls read humor blogs?

It's a phenomenon as antiquated as the medium it expresses itself upon and yet it remains as enigmatic as the retrograde motion of the stars. If Ptolemy, Shen Kuo and Hipparchus were alive today, it would no doubt stump them. If Hwang Woo-Suk were still a credible member of the scientific community, he would falsify data and claim to have busted the phenom. If Winona Rider saw the solution in a department store, she would shop lift it. But that isn't necessary, because we here at FCN put our best minds to work on breaking the code and discovering what it is, exactly, that makes humor blogs so popular among the female gender.

While we may have falsified some data, no cute dogs were killed in the process. Take that, Hwang!

In the interest of full disclosure (never a priority here at FCN, but still occasionally stimulating), the good people at Life From the Toaster first brought this quandary to our attention last week. If you want a free CD and are a guy (some people just aren't liberated, we know), visit his site and place a comment on his post. What CD, you ask? What are the chances of winning, you ask? We don't know; just go comment already!

Goodness, full disclosure can be really painful.

Uncle Wally put some work into the Malthusian science of Demographics. He installed a (chocolate chip) cookie on our blog that logs arcane information about visitors like screen resolution, web history and propensity to spend money online. By cross-referencing this information with a database of "technically" legally retrieved information purchased from a seedy Haitian-based web dealer, he discovered that the vast majority of FCN's readers are females. The results of his study, complete with mind numbingly complicated line charts will be published in the April First issue of the journal Science.

Now to that "Woo-suk" data we promised: FCN's readership clocks in at 11 unique visitors since December of 2006. We are proud of each and every one of these visitors who form the entirety of the FCN few and make up what we like to call "The FCN Dozen." In the spirit of the baker's dozen, we are one shy because we gave up early. But we still find a way to be proud of our accomplishments.

Gender ambiguities in Uncle Wally's data don't let us know for sure how many of our readers are female and absent an absolute guarantee from him, we are reticent to share his conclusions. We will, however, say that the majority is undeniable.

The limits of Uncle Wally's research were reached when we asked the basic question "why?" That's when we put FCN's best minds to work (sorry Wally) and came up with the following 5 reasons for feminine preference for humor blogs:

1) Spending Opportunities. FCN gives you, the faithful few, many opportunities to flex your expenditure muscles and invest in our gear. Actually, "invest" isn't the best word, since our products depreciate faster than that real estate you're holding a sub-prime mortgage on. But that difference does not matter to our female readers. No sireesir. The average woman spends 400 hours a year shopping or nine years over the course of her lifetime. Fully a quarter of that time is spent (note the pun?) on clothing and FCN is loaded with great clothing items.

2) Relationships. When the three of us got together a couple years ago to start writing humor, we didn't strategize ways to fit every sordid detail of our failed love lives onto this site. We simply resolved to tell mostly truthful stories about ourselves and, for some reason, messy relationships, failed dates and poor decisions with women dominated the content. Just about every major series on FCN and many of the minor ones involve a girl. And none of us has a serious girlfriend just yet, so more stories are inevitable.

3) Relationships, continued. If Days of Our Lives couldn't resolve its relationship problems in 43 years, we shouldn't be expected to do so in one paragraph. Guys that are interested in relationship issues are the exception and those are the guys reading FCN. Girls who are interested in relationship issues are the norm, hence the popularity of relationship humor among that demographic. Boy that sounds nerdy.

4) We are just unfathomably cute. Despite the fact that we have never uploaded an unaltered picture of ourselves and the faithful few who don't know us in person have no idea how handsome or ugly we may be, our daring good looks translate well through our writing and attract the opposite gender. C came up with that theory all by himself and he is really, really proud of it, so please don't knock it in the comment section. We haven't figured out why our unfathomably cute looks don't help us out in our real lives, but we maintain confidence in this theory nonetheless.

5) FCN offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a college male. Granted, that glimpse is also offered in most popular media, television, music and movies, but we like to consider FCN unique and valuable despite these ripoffs. Just as we watch chick flicks to understand women, you read FCN to get to know guys. Our unrestrained honesty is an education for female readers whose friends lack our unwaivering commitment to transparency and are unwilling to submit themselves to embarrassment and self depreciation.

If that doesn't make things crystal clear, I don't know what will. As always, ladies, we appreciate your readership, even if, like so many other things about you, we don't understand it.

Runaway Car

On my way to school the other morning, I swung by the gas station to fill up the seemingly bottomless tank on my car. If you think this post is going to about the high price of gasoline, you read way too much FCN. For once, we are deviating from this popular and very relevant theme to discuss another pressing issue at the pump.

But, as long as we are on the subject - and I am already prejudged a oil price junkie - my latest fill up was ridiculously expensive. I would write the total price down, but most of the faithful FCN few would find it too fantastic to believe. So, I scanned my receipt, blotted out a few private and unimportant details and posted it to the right for you to enjoy and be amazed at (click to enlarge).

A little topography before we continue: My filling station of choice is situated at the top of a small rise. It isn't any great hill or imposing mountain (I live in the central valley for Quetzalcoatl's sake), but it is enough of an elevation increase to deserve a mention.

So back to the story: I pulled in front of the pump (#5, as the receipt will testify) and hopped out of my car, locking the door behind me. I was careful to bring my keys with me. I waltzed (1,2,3-1,2,3) over to the pump and began fiddling with the "easy to use" pay-at-the-pump feature. The screen was asking me to enter something, but the morning sun behind me created a glare that rendered the request incomprehensible. I put my keys on top of the pump and used my hand to shield the sun. After I punched in my zip code, I selected my grade and turned around to begin pumping.

That's when I noticed that my car was nowhere to be seen. I'd heard about people stealing vehicles while their owners where purchasing gasoline, but I'd never been a victim of such a brazen crime. Still, I hadn't heard the car start and it was possible...

There, not fifteen feet from where I had parked it, my car was creeping forward and no one was sitting behind the wheel. My car was stealing itself!

Quickly, I replaced the nozzle in the guzzle and sprinted to the door. Locked! And in my haste to get over I had forgotten my keys! I ran over to the other side of the car and tried the passenger side door, to no avail. I tried the trunk, irrationally thinking that it might be unlocked. It wasn't. Had it been unlocked, I have no idea what I would have done, although the idea of me riding in the trunk of my unmanned car does have a flippant nonchalance, like something Charlie Chaplin might do (WWCCD?).

I looked up at the rest of the parking lot and mentally projected a trajectory for my uncontrolled vehicle. It was headed right for the road. While traffic was lazy, it was present and images of my car looking like bad coleslaw flashed through my mind.

Maybe, I thought, I could run to the front of the car and push it to a halt. I started moving away from the trunk when I remembered the gentleman in Tiananemen Square who held back the Chinese army by prancing in front of a column of tanks, but figured my car might not be as considerate as the red commies. Standing in front of an unmanned mobile vehicle is not my idea of a fun school commute.

The consternation and requisite sweat were building when I remembered my keys sitting atop the pump. By the time I retrieved them, my car had merged into traffic.

I wish they put as much emphasis on teaching cars to drive as they do their drivers, because my car didn't know the first thing about the rules of the road: It didn't stop at a stop sign and merged without signaling. People sometimes say I drive dangerously. I say my car drives dangerously - I just go along for the ride.

There had to have been some kind of providential intervention on the scale of Moses and the Red Sea or at least "No Country For Old Men" for my car to have escaped unscathed. My keys and I arrived before the police or a human carjacker and I was able to safely navigate back to the pump.

Of course, as crazy an adrenaline rush as I got from that experience, it didn't come close to the buzz I got when I paid for the gas.

Somebody beat us to it

This proves that dereliction is always the best approach. When we actually try for something - something meaningful and important - and make an attempt at history that will allow our names to live forever in the giant book of winners, someone else does it before us. Over the weekend a new world record was set with 4 1/4 bananas eaten in one minute. Now that's some news that wont make Drudge. The video above is a documentation of the effort and ensuing success.

All I have to say is that man had better not be one of the Faithful FCN Few who stole our idea and got into the record book himself. If you count yourself among one of our eleven readers Scott Whateveryourlastnameis, be sure to give us a shout out of some kind. Please? I mean, we're practically begging here.

Deep seated hatred, sour grapes and avowed vengeance aside, we extend heartfelt congratulations to the gentleman who managed to scarf down four good sized bananas in a minute. He deserves every ounce of ink the record book will devote to him next year. Great job Scott.

Going Bananas for the Guinness Book of World Records

Of all the things to accomplish in this time on earth (sky diving, street miming and dropping a twenty dollar bill out of a sky scraper to watch the masses scramble down below) one of my highest priorities is to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. This respected book, published in volume format every anum, lists the greatest accomplishments and other physical feats of the last 52 weeks. It tells which woman has the longest beard (an 11 inch Moses motif), how many phone books a strongman has torn apart, longest spaghetti nasal ejection (just over nine feet) and the heaviest weight pulled with the the skin of one’s back. The performances listed are so astounding, so compelling, and so just plain random that they drive even a normally derelict individual to at least make an attempt at greatness.

There is a finite number of names the record keepers can fit onto the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records. Most people who try never get into print and are relegated to the oblivion of “almosts,” those who suffer all the disadvantages of an attempt but don't get to be recorded in infamy. That makes those who are fortunate enough to be blessed with recognition that much more awesome. It is a great achievement, a high honor, a noble goal. Greatness, majesty and splendor are all words that describe what a placement in the book of records means. Readers may have to fight against disgusting natural impulses when they read and see pictures of a record, but they always turn the page and go back for more.

I am particularly impressed with the food records. Participants gulp down large quantities of food and, in order for the record to be counted, must keep the food down for twenty minutes. Trips to the bathroom are monitored by Guinness staff who ensure that all food eaten stays in the stomach. The regulations also stipulate bites per spoonful limitations and one person was disqualified mid-attempt for speaking with his mouthful. Despite these strict rules, some significant appetite erasing records have been set. Various brave souls have eaten large quantities of mashed potatoes, pork rinds, and even salted peanuts in order to get their names immortalized in the big book of records. One Atalanta resident managed to eat 27 dozen oysters in ten minutes. Given that oysters are an aphrodisiac, the night after the attempt must have been immensely frustrating.

The key to breaking a world record is to find a record that seems deflated, something you could do better on. A fingernail that is less than three or four inches long, a toy collection that is on the low side of 1,000 count and a miniature tomato larger than an ounce are all likely candidates. Once you find your target, start training and get ready to become a record holder.

My personal target, after perusing the 2008 edition for over four hours, is "most bananas eaten and pealed (not necessarily in that order) in one minute." The number for the banana record is so low that it looks like a typo. It looks like something I could do without practice, training or preparation. According to Guinness, the most bananas eaten in their natural state in one minute is two. Dos. Zwei.

Without Guinness’ unbiased witnesses and a reliable timer on hand, I will not make an attempt to beat the record (the effort would be wasted without official recognition), but I have thought about banana eating strategy, including jaw and throat elongation for maximum banana packing and, at least in my mind, I can conceive of eating at least three bananas within the alloted time. The number I could actually push down the hatch depends on their relative size. If I were allowed to by the Guinness people, I would visit the supermarket and pick out the smallest, puniest and softest bananas possible. And, as long as I am making an attempt, I may as well smash them a little.

Speaking of smashing, I think that might be a good way of getting the bananas down quickly. After peeling them open (one by one) I will mash them with my palm so that they don’t get stuck anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract and form an embarrassing cork. After that, my only strategy is just to masticate as quickly and efficiently as possible. I will leave all manners behind (except those mandated by Guinness) and get banana into stomach without a lot of formal introduction.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

If one of you wants to set a world record, find your own category to make a try. And, if you decide try to steal away my chance at glory before I make an attempt, as I suspect many of the less scrupulous among you are considering, send us a video so we can share it with the rest of FCN.

And stay clear of oysters.

Smile, You're On Google Earth!

The other night a couple of friends and I dragged our sleeping bags outside and, roughly a hundred feet from our comfortable beds, lay down on some uneven cement to watch the stars and sleep in the great outdoors. The material we laid our heads on was designed more for aesthetics than comfort, but our goal in spending an entire night outdoors was so pure and altruistic that we scoffed at all insinuation that a little hard ground could deter us.

When we first started making plans for this outdoor night adventure, I had expected the party to include Reginald, who often tags along in unpleasant activities if his friends are doing them. In fact, Reginald was all ready to go, extra stuffed sleeping bag and all, until we told him there would be no tent overhead. He insisted, for several argumentative quarter hours, that a tent is an absolute must for any outdoor adventure and that he wouldn't go along without it. We intoned that a tent defeated the purpose of star-gazing and invited him to stay inside while we roughed the outdoors.

Only after we implied that we would be going outdoors no matter what did Reginald get a wide-eyed look in his earnest commie eyes and beg us not to go out alone.

"It's Google; they'll see you." Reginald whispered the words as if Google had a sound detection device in the room with us. Then he ran into the room he appropriated some years ago, shut the door and, as is his custom, pulled the comforter over his head.

Are you reading this, Luce? He pulled the comforter over his head, like a small child; like a scared papoose in need of his Sacajawea. Reginald's afraid of Google! A search engine with fewer employees than that little town in Iowa that John Edwards was campaigning in yesterday, and he runs for his blankie! Poor Reggie!

Ok, back to the story.

Only slightly discombobulated by Reginald's behavior, my friends and I made our way outside and lay down on the hard cement. Small pieces of gravel had accumulated between the decorative cracks in the deck and I had to wiggle for several minutes before finding a place to rest that didn't stab me like Brutus. Then, if I could ignore the jostling of my friends, I gazed at the wonder of the star-scape in tranquility until an appendage started to fall asleep.

The first part of the night followed a seemingly endless cycle of adjust, pain and readjust, until I discovered I could live with something poking into my back or no feeling in the left part of my body. The affliction was severe, but I could cope.

At about 2:37 AM - for reasons that will soon become apparent, I checked my watch to memorialize the moment - a series of bright flashes filled the sky. I saw the first of what looked like small sulfur-fueled explosions come up from the western horizon and then ease gently overhead, creating a colorful line in the sky. One by one the tiny flash bulbs entered my vision and then slowly eased away.

"Hey, did you see that?" I shook my friends to see if they had noticed the spectacle. Their murmured replies expressed disgruntlement at the rude awakening and the fact that they had missed the lights in the western sky.

Maybe, I thought, the explosions were the result of an overactive imagination fueled to eccentric ramblings by the hard surface upon which I was laying. But I've never had these kinds of dreams before, even in past rough excursions. Maybe it was some terrible accident like a plane crash or space satellite failure. Or perhaps I had witnessed something I shouldn't have seen, like a missile test, alien invasion or the posthumous rise of Anna Nicole Smith. In fact I couldn't think of any good reasons why the explosions weren't all of those - maybe even at the same time.

Later that morning, after a pained levitation exercise and a shuffle into our house that was more fitting for Bill Walton, I sat down in front of Steve to resolve a hunch. Something Reginald had said made me wonder if those late night flashes were generated by the worlds' most fantastic search engine.

I ordered my computer browser to Google Earth and entered my address. Then I zoomed in as far as the pixels would allow and strained with bloodshot eyes to make out the image. There, clearly impregnated into my computer screen, was the image of three teenagers lounging outside a large house, at least the house looked pretty large zoomed all the way in.

I couldn't believe it! I had made the Google pictorial! Reginald was right! How in the world Reginald was able to figure out that Google was taking pictures that night is a query too distressing to even contemplate. But he had, and they did.

I wanted to scold Reginald for not telling me more sincerely, so I could have made some signs beforehand or had a Google photo party, but instead of going to see him, I printed the image and showed it to my friends, both of whom had an attack of the privacies and became hysterical.

My new picture makes me very proud. I sincerely wish I could show them to you without completely violating my personal privacy. Regardless, the pic shows that Google and I have a connection; we picked the same night to do our thing. And the photo really isn't that bad, either. If you squint just right, the pixels align to almost make it look like I'm smiling. Almost.