Your Daily LOL, Brought To You By The Episcopalians

As Mark Shea always says, God invented the Episcopal Church to help Catholics feel better about our troubles. That's why I love the Midwest Conservative Journal, where Chris Johnson documents the slow, painful death of that denomination with hilarious acuity.

Anyhow, someone alerted Mr. Johnson to this comment by an Episcopalian dad elsewhere in the blogosphere (emphasis added):

I raised my daughter in the Episcopal Church so she would learn the traditions of our ancestors, not so she would become a believing Christian.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLz and a thousand more LOLz!!! I laughed so hard I cried, I really did. Someone typed that with their serious face on, can you believe it?

As Chris Johnson says, definitely tee-shirt material.

Saturday Morning Amuse Bouche

Single men in commercials look good, drive fast, and drink beer. Then they meet women, get married, and become good-for-nothing doofy husbands. Sarah Haskins investigates.




Via Current

Saturday Morning Amuse Bouche

This Saturday's amuse bouche...well, I'm sorry, y'all, it's Twilight-related, because I read books 2 & 3 this week, so I've got it on my mind. Also, I'm a nerd with cats. Anyhow, Cleolinda Jones NAILS - and I mean NAILS - how ridiculous this story is, with her Twilight in Fifteen Minutes. Please, especially if you read the book and loved it, read this so you can a) laugh and b) know what I'm talking about when I say it annoys me.
I'm only going to quote one part, with Jacob in it, because, as I mentioned, if I was on a team it would be his. Click on this for the whole thing:

The Beach, La Push Reservation

[Angela, who is my favorite character after Alice (who is awesome), and Bella are huddled together for warmth while all the other kids go, like, ice-surfing or something.]

ANGELA: I really want to go to the prom with Eric--

BELLA: Not Ben?

ANGELA: Ben? No one named Ben goes to this school. Anyway: ERIC. I want to go with him but he will never ask me, woe.

BELLA: You should ask him yourself! You are a strong, independent woman. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
[I'm sorry, what? Did Bella Swan just call herself independent bond with one of the mundanes? Wonders will never cease.]

[And then Jacob shows up with his as-yet-unfursploded posse, who are all like, did you bring any Cullens? BECAUSE THEY CAN'T COME HERE.]


BELLA: Wait, what?

JACOB: Yeah, there's all these bullshit stories about how my people were descended from wolves and the Cullens were descended from themselves and my miniskirted ancestors made a truce with the Cold Ones back in the days of old or the '30s or something. And they can never, ever come to our beach, so there.

Big Saturday LOLz, y'all!

In Which Our Heroine Laughs and Laughs and Laughs and Laughs

Ladies and gentleman, I have much to do today and not much time to do it, but I had to take a moment to show you this, the reason the Internet was created:


A thousand LOLz, y'all!

Saturday Morning Amuse Bouche

Blatently stolen from Saint Superman, because I am too excited to go thrift-shopping with my girlfriends today to go scour the internets for something amusing, when this amusing thing has already been found for me. Y'all, Craig Ferguson (whom I will probably marry) has figured it out:

Velociraptor Say "Hey!"

Y'all know that Our Heroine has an unhealthy obsession with dinosaurs. In particular, my love/hate relationship with the clever velociraptor. The velociraptor is Karla to my Smiley, Professor Moriarty to my Holmes, Blofeld to my Bond. You get the idea. One day, Velociraptor Mongoliensis and I will meet face-to-face, and afterwards, only one of us will remain standing (the velociraptor, obviously).

I realize I haven't posted anything on v.raptors or other dinosaurs in a while, and I thought it was time. If only Jurassic Park had really played out like the clip below, my blood feud with the velociraptor might never have been born. (warning: extremely silly)

via Videogum

And Now a Public Service Announcement from Our Heroine

Norm MacDonald, my favorite comedian, will be on Conan O'Brien tonight. It may be a normal appearance, or there may be special Norm-y shenanigans, such as my most favorite Norm appearance on Conan back from way back in '97 (see below). They have special chemistry, those two. Check thou it out.

Our Heroine Looks into the Future

And I promise you right now, that this scene gets enacted in my brother's car at some point in the future. For real, with American accents.

In Case You Were Wondering, Our Heroine Does Not Support World-Dominating Secret Terror Organizations

As a general rule, Our Heroine does not wade into the comboxes on political blogs. Political comboxes are like rough-n-ready frontier towns at the turn of the century: there is no law, and only the strong survive. And Our Heroine, while blessed with some heroic qualities (like perseverence in the face of a baking disaster), is not strong.

However, Ace of Spades had a review up of Quantum of Solace, and I wanted to see what the consensus was, because I liked it, (though with reservations) so I dived into the comments. And I can't wait to share one of my most favorite comments evah.

First: my reservations. Really, one reservation. The movie was too strong on realpolitik. I mean, I know that Haiti is mostly an impoverished hellhole, and I know that good governments sometimes get in bed with bad dudes to keep even worse dudes from making trouble, and I even know that spies can suffer from moral lassitude. But when I want a healthy dose of real-world spy drama, I'll read Graham Greene or something.

This is a Bond movie, people. Bond does not do Haiti (or Bolivia) to thwart petty tyrants and bring water to the sweaties and grubbies. No. Bond does Paris, Biarritz, Prague, etc. He plays high-stakes Baccarat against the agents of world-dominating secret terror organizations that want to nuke the moon, for pete's sake (I don't know why they want to nuke the moon. They just do. Ok? Deal with it!)

So, basically, I thought Bond was too constrained by "reality" in this film, but not in a good way.

The comments at Ace's were hilarious overall. And there was a debate about how corporations were portrayed. I didn't share in the opprobrium for QoS on this count, because the only corporation in it was really a world-dominating secret terror organization masquerading as a corporation -- and I didn't get the idea that you were being told that these are interchangeable entities.

However, I have been sensitive to this anti-corporatism in other movies where I didn't think it belonged like Iron Man (most recently).

So, since I've been getting kind of tired of this exact same trend, this totally frantic-sounding comment from someone named Cautiously Pessimistic made me horse-laugh. (and horse-laughing is not something to which I readily admit.)

Does anyone know of a movie where the eeevil corporation turns out to be an intentional force for good? I'm getting increasingly tired of every freakin' corporation being evil personified that wants children to die in the streets because their blood turns into gold or something. If anything, having a good corporation in a movie would be a plot twist without the twist, because everyone will be waiting for the CEO to take of his mask and say, "FOOLED YOU! I'M THE ANTICHRIST!", and be totally taken by surprise when it doesn't happen.

I would like to write this movie now, just to make him happy.

A Public Service Announcement from Our Heroine

The winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced! The real winner is awesome, but not my favorite. Below are my real favorites. I think I can win the whole magilla next year, folks. I write bad sentences now without even trying. Imagine what Team Heroine could do with only the addition of a financial sponsor and an Eastern European coach.

My favorite

Creeping slowly over the hill, the sun seemed to catch the small village nestled in the valley by surprise, which is a bit unusual really, as you'd think that something with a diameter of 865,000 miles and a surface temperature of 5780 degrees Kelvin, and which is more normally seen from 93,000,000 miles away, wouldn't be able to creep anywhere, let alone catch anything by surprise.

Malcolm Booth
Brinsworth, Rotherham, U.K.

My second favorite

Like almost every other post-Hegelian neo-hipster angst monkey at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Rene flatly rejected the labels society placed upon him.

Bob Salsbury
Spokane Valley, WA

Our Heroine Finds The Holy Grail of Literary Cartoons

Oh! I am seizing up with happiness. I found my most favorite New Yorker cartoon online today.

For years now, whenever I feel glum, I only have to think about this cartoon and I start giggling. I've even sketched it for people! I could never find it again after that one time in the magazine, and it became the Holy Grail of cartoons for me. But now, it is shrouded in darkness no longer!

Mr. James Joyce, I don't enjoy reading your fiction, but I can only be grateful to you for being the writer you were, because it inspired this:



If you can’t quite make it out, Joyce's refrigerator “To Do” list reads:

1. Call Bank
2. Dry Cleaner
3. Forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
4. Call mom

Is it totally pretentious to get this on a mug?

(H/T Walking Raven, who closed-captioned it and got it on a shirt)

Special Guest Post By: Rick Astley

Who wants you all to know that...

Our Heroine Loves Jokes About Evolution

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

I really want that on a shirt.

Our Heroine Was Clearly An Insufferable Child

Ok, y'all. So, when the original Star Wars came out I was also three, like the wee lass in the video above. And my Dad took me and my two boy cousins to see it, and I was deeply, deeply awed by it.

And I remember, even now, asking my Dad why Darth Vader was fighting against Luke and his friends, and my Dad, not quite sure how to explain "universal domination preceding institution of a totalitarian dictatorship" to a toddler, opted for a simpler approach. He told me that the two were fighting over who got to be the good guy. Now, this was something he knew I'd understand, since I was always arguing with other kids over who got to be the good guy during games. But this time, seeing the same argument in the context of a grown-up movie, I had the sudden understanding that bad guys thought they ought to win too.

The idea that bad guys thought they ought to win, or had a right to win, was totally new to me. I had always assumed that bad guys knew they were bad. Also, I assumed they knew that because they were bad they were going to lose, and thus, that they didn't really want to be bad but kinda had to be bad - temporarily - just to move the story along. Which is why, before that movie, bad guys never scared me.

But the idea that bad guys had an agenda apart from, "Well, if I don't act mean to Princess Leia, what's Luke Skywalker going to do for the next two hours?" And, that they actually wanted and expected victory, despite the fact that they had to *be* mean and *do* mean things to get it, was heretofore INCONCEIVABLE to me. It meant they would probably *stay* mean even when the story was over, and that was really scary, because it meant it was their choice.

Anyhow, I write all that, not to be unbelievably pompous, which no doubt I was, but really just because that video reminded me that the Star Wars movie prompted me to have my first ever "deep thought" (also my last ever) and that it was, in a dim way, the knowledge of evil.

But also, just like her, I really liked the shiny robot who worried.

Our Heroine Illuminates the Difference Between Protestant Vs. Catholic Heaven

I think I may post this clip on my blog once a week forever, it is just that entertaining to me. I love the whole thing from start to finish, but this week, my favorite line is the first one, spoken by the dee-lightful Ned Flanders, "Bart and Homer can't go Catholic, the Romans have been separate from us since the schism of Lourdes in 1573 and that was about our holy right to come to church with wet hair! Which...we've since abolished."

I know, I know, I'll say it for you: I am such a geek! (but a well-accessorized one)

Our Heroine Has Intestinal FORTITUDE!!! Eats PORTIONED Meals!!! Enjoys NOURISHMENT!!!

I don't know why things like this crack me up, but they do. If I had the powers of the strange like these folk(s) I would definitely run around putting the strange everywhere, including eBay. (h/t Dale Price)

Some of my favorite bits of feedback:

• Millenia ago your merchandise roamed free. I didn't bid then and I won't now.
• There was NO REASON for you to call my house and yell at my children. Still, A+
• Nux VOMICA! I invoke you, BEAST! But I only do so because you are HONEST! "A++"'

Read the whole thing: eBay Feedback Profile

Our Heroine, Like Sartre, Seeks a Single Recipe Which Will, by Itself, Embody the Plight of Man in a World Ruled by an Unfeeling God...

...as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups.


We have been lucky to discover several previously lost diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. These diaries reveal a young Sartre obsessed not with the void, but with food. Apparently Sartre, before discovering philosophy, had hoped to write "a cookbook that will put to rest all notions of flavor forever." The diaries are excerpted here for your perusal.

October 3
Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

October 4
Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6
I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 10
I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole
Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustated.

October 25
I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

November 15
Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word cake. I was very pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off.

November 30
Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Betty Crocker on the wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling blue spruce in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the tender limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I only got third place. Moreover, I am now the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit.

December 1
I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months, and I am now experiencing light tides. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less. From now on, I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook
by Marty Smith, Portland OR
from Free Agent March 1987 (a Portland Oregon alternative newspaper),
Republished in the Utne Reader Nov./Dec. 1993

Our Heroine Asks, "Where are the Jusserands of Yesteryear?"

This excerpt from Auchincloss’ biography of Teddy Roosevelt made our heroine laugh heartily in appreciation of the tongue-in-cheek chivalry of a bygone age. (H/T: Izzy)

TR needed a good deal of physical exercise, particularly to control a waistline responding to his hearty meals. He played tennis with aides, but he preferred riding and long hikes. On one of the latter, accompanied by some more or less willing diplomats, he encountered a stream that could be forded only by the removal of all clothing. J. J. Jusserand, the French ambassador and TR’s good friend, emulated his host except for a pair of pink gloves. Asked why he retained these, he replied: “In case we should run into ladies.”

Our Heroine Denounces the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France

Which Twentieth Century Pope Are You?

You are Pope St. Pius X. You'd rather be right than newfangled.
Take this quiz!








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Our Heroine Has Admin Privileges

Our heroine is an aspiring grad student, no longer toiling my days aways as a corporate stooge on Wall Street. But when I was in the office, I said and did things very much like Strongbad. Please note, however, that my ideal job involved royalty, couture and smooth, shiny hair. Space whales and pantsuits never factored into the equation.

New Strongbad at work email