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Poll: 99 Percent of Americans Support HappinessApril 14, 2003 |
Washington, D.C. Glaucoma Martin A crowd of post-impressionists, all presumably in favor of happiness, gather outside Penn Station. any purported to be surprised by the results of a random poll Thursday of living Americans to find high numbers in support of happiness and/or general well-being all around. While the poll results don't show express support for the administration or opposition to the war on Iraq, many responders suggested that happiness for everyone was something they favored.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "most strongly agree" and 1 being "most strongly disagree," nearly 99.3% answered with 10 the question, "Would you like for everybody to be happy?" With a 3% margin of error, .6% ranked between 1 and 9 in their responses to the same question, while .1% were undecided on whether they wanted everyone to be happy.
According to the report, the results were clear across demo...
any purported to be surprised by the results of a random poll Thursday of living Americans to find high numbers in support of happiness and/or general well-being all around. While the poll results don't show express support for the administration or opposition to the war on Iraq, many responders suggested that happiness for everyone was something they favored.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "most strongly agree" and 1 being "most strongly disagree," nearly 99.3% answered with 10 the question, "Would you like for everybody to be happy?" With a 3% margin of error, .6% ranked between 1 and 9 in their responses to the same question, while .1% were undecided on whether they wanted everyone to be happy.
According to the report, the results were clear across demographic boundaries. Republicans, Democrats, and independents were all generally in favor of happiness for everyone, as were women and men, most whites and members of minority groups. Incomes ranging from high to very low, even poverty levels, responded similarly, as did Christians, Muslims, and those of other faiths. In general, uncertainty was expressed among 28-year-old white middle class Christian men named Trevor Bancroft, who sounded like they might have been drinking a little.
A very high number of respondents also expressed a distaste for bad things. Many stated that if they had their way, they would do away with bad things altogether, while a small number expressed a philosophical opinion that bad things might be sometimes necessary for the twain purposes of breaking up monotony and making good things seem better.
While varying numbers expressed support or disagreement with military action in Iraq, high numbers again responded in favor of everyone getting along with each other. Some suggested putting aside differences in favor of working together in harmony, but their suggestions were batted aside with sarcastic statements that the poll wasn't a democracy.
The poll results follows a confusing month for pollsters, who have been reporting seemingly contradictory results that show Americans have strongly supported U.S. troops and at the same time have been against war. Polling companies are saying it's a pleasant change to find so many Americans agreeing on the subject of happiness.
Poll experts, which we are assured exist, are describing the high numbers as a rare artifact in polling. Such high similar responses in a poll have not been reported since 1995's poll on whether or not child abuse was good, 1992's poll on whether or not people were afraid of dying, and 1985's poll on who preferred Pepsi to Coke, taken by the Coca-Cola Company as part of an advertising campaign. the commune news is untouched by a 10-foot poll. Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown is the living-challenged reporter and some kind of baseball player who works for free, since money falls through his non-corporeal hands.
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 February 3, 2003
Aye, She Chimmied Me ChongaTime to face the facts, Omar Bricks loves Mexican food. I am a certified Mexican Food Freak. Not to be confused with a Certified Mexican Freak, that's some kind of license you need to wrestle down there, keeps them from losing all their wrestling jobs to people from Tennessee. It's all a part of NAFTA.
Part of the fun of Mexican food is pretending you speak Spanish. Because what the hell do those people know, you could be Juan Fuckin' Valdez for all the waitress cares. She just wants to get back into the kitchen to do another line of crank before the buzz wears off. So you can really lay it on thick, rambling off some nonsense about chimichanga presidente allegro amigos. It's a blast. Sometimes you can even pass for a local if you order everything BellGrande and don't ask for mustard. They don't put mustard on shit down there, don't ask me why. Another trick is to put your exclamation points upside-down, if you happen to be writing something down. That doesn't come up much when you're ordering food, I know, but you'll impress the shit out of everybody if you can pull it off.
Sometimes I like to really do it up and go in there wearing a blanket with a neck-hole cut in it and some kind of crazy garage-sale hat. The busboys love that shit, I come in and it's all "Ah, gringo! Chinga tu madre pendejo!" It's like Cheers, it's awesome. One time I came in strumming a mariachi guitar I found in the trash and those guys had to hold each other back from...
º Last Column: Balls to the Wall º more columns
Time to face the facts, Omar Bricks loves Mexican food. I am a certified Mexican Food Freak. Not to be confused with a Certified Mexican Freak, that's some kind of license you need to wrestle down there, keeps them from losing all their wrestling jobs to people from Tennessee. It's all a part of NAFTA.
Part of the fun of Mexican food is pretending you speak Spanish. Because what the hell do those people know, you could be Juan Fuckin' Valdez for all the waitress cares. She just wants to get back into the kitchen to do another line of crank before the buzz wears off. So you can really lay it on thick, rambling off some nonsense about chimichanga presidente allegro amigos. It's a blast. Sometimes you can even pass for a local if you order everything BellGrande and don't ask for mustard. They don't put mustard on shit down there, don't ask me why. Another trick is to put your exclamation points upside-down, if you happen to be writing something down. That doesn't come up much when you're ordering food, I know, but you'll impress the shit out of everybody if you can pull it off.
Sometimes I like to really do it up and go in there wearing a blanket with a neck-hole cut in it and some kind of crazy garage-sale hat. The busboys love that shit, I come in and it's all "Ah, gringo! Chinga tu madre pendejo!" It's like Cheers, it's awesome. One time I came in strumming a mariachi guitar I found in the trash and those guys had to hold each other back from coming over to high-five me. They love it when they see white guys who are down with their culture.
Mexican food is great because it's all interchangeable. You can order anything off the menu and it's no worries because it's all the same shit. They might put the cheese on top instead of on the inside or it might have rice and beans instead of beans and rice, but it's not like they're suddenly going to whip out a tray of duck's nuts or anything like when you're fucking around with the menu at an Asian place. About the worst thing that can happen is you get shredded beef instead of ground beef, I guess they have a lot of problems with turbo-prop planes crash landing in cattle fields down in Mexico or something, I don't know. But overall the risk factor is pretty much no promblemo.
The biggest problem I ever had with Mexican food was one time in a restaurant when I wanted to re-enact one of those scenes from the Westerns where the big fat Mexican guy is sitting there with chiquitas on his lap and he's drinking beer and eating grapes or whatever. You know the guy, always laughing at the white guys, never takes a shower, gets shot at the end. Anyway, I wanted to be that guy for the course of a meal, but the waitress just wasn't down with it. Why she'd rather be busting her ass carrying hot plates instead of sitting on somebody's lap and eating grapes is anybody's guess, maybe she wasn't really Mexican.
Come to think of it, I don't think there are too many big Mexican families in Wisconsin that are cranking out blonde waitresses named Gwenyth these days. Shit. That's the last time I'll eat at Chili's.
"Authentic Mexican" my ass. Bricks Out. º Last Column: Balls to the Wallº more columns
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|  August 19, 2002
The Child Star Collector's GuideI'm a ravenous collector myself—be it shoes, dresses, slacks, blouses, socks, or jewelry, if you can wear it and it impresses people, I can collect it. But it's not just limited to normal collectible items. I also collect strange and fun items that most people don't know about.
For quite a few years now I've collected valuable birth control pills. It's a peculiar market that takes a lot of time and effort to learn about, and I've expended the time and effort. My agent even jokes I've spent so much wasted time on my hobby I could've been taking acting classes or pursuing more auditions—he's a terrific kidder.
Birth control pills become collectible when they're not taken and result in pregnancy—obviously birth control pills that are taken cannot be collected, at least not without grotesque invasive procedures. Birth control pills that are not taken and have no consequences are plentiful, especially when taken by people who are not having sex. The real diamond out there is the birth control pill not taken and ends with a baby. I started out collecting them after I found out my mother said she already had one, though she never told me the full circumstances of how she got it and how she knows it resulted with pregnancy. Since I already had that one to start me, I started seeking out other valuable birth control pills to start a collection, not only for fun, but to provide some financial security in my golden years, 35-40.
It's a hard...
º Last Column: Wearning to Pway Guitah º more columns
I'm a ravenous collector myself—be it shoes, dresses, slacks, blouses, socks, or jewelry, if you can wear it and it impresses people, I can collect it. But it's not just limited to normal collectible items. I also collect strange and fun items that most people don't know about.
For quite a few years now I've collected valuable birth control pills. It's a peculiar market that takes a lot of time and effort to learn about, and I've expended the time and effort. My agent even jokes I've spent so much wasted time on my hobby I could've been taking acting classes or pursuing more auditions—he's a terrific kidder.
Birth control pills become collectible when they're not taken and result in pregnancy—obviously birth control pills that are taken cannot be collected, at least not without grotesque invasive procedures. Birth control pills that are not taken and have no consequences are plentiful, especially when taken by people who are not having sex. The real diamond out there is the birth control pill not taken and ends with a baby. I started out collecting them after I found out my mother said she already had one, though she never told me the full circumstances of how she got it and how she knows it resulted with pregnancy. Since I already had that one to start me, I started seeking out other valuable birth control pills to start a collection, not only for fun, but to provide some financial security in my golden years, 35-40.
It's a hard market to get in on, I know that from experience. People look at you like your crazy when you ask them if they have any valuable and rare birth control pills for sale—by my best guess they either don't know the market or are hoarding their own private stock. But a few guys, who at first glance seem pretty unreliable and swarthy, in fact have a great collection that they're occasionally willing to part with, for the right price. From one guy I got six different pills of differing value, one resulted in the birth of Freddie Prinz, Jr., and several others led to the births of the members of O-Town, though they're obviously not as valuable as, say, the birth control pills that caused N*Synch—birth control pills both despised and priceless.
The most treasured in my collection—and I'll never tell where I keep it or how I got it, though a drug addict down the street hooked me up with it, that much I'll tell—is the birth control pill that failed to prevent the birth of Prince Charles of the Whales. It's a real rare and old birth control pill from early in the century, back when they made them to look and smell like Altoids. And I got it real cheap from the guy. What a sucker!
My birth control pill collection has grown so much that I had to give up some of my other hobbies to concentrate on it, namely my collection of Who's Your Daddy? memorabilia, which office nerd and financial wizard Ramrod Hurley actually said is worth quite a lot of money now. Still, it didn't mean as much to me as my new collection, although I hate the idea of all that lost money.
I had it all, too— Who's Your Daddy? bedsheets, Who's Your Daddy? pressurized cheese, Who's Your Daddy? "cast sings the blues" CD, and Who's Your Daddy? birth control pills. Too bad I couldn't cross over that collection with my latest in some way, but those damn things work too well, from what I've heard. Anyway, that stuff was so rare that some of the items fetched a price between $100 and $2,000, so I almost wish I had held on to some of that stuff. Instead of selling it to Ramrod Hurley. But hey, a collector's pride is in adding the rare and hard-to-find to your collection, not in financial payoff. At least for me. Ramrod Hurley seems happier with his new Lincoln Towncar. º Last Column: Wearning to Pway Guitahº more columns
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Milestones1998: Future turncoat Raoul Dunkin joins the burgeoning commune staff, blatantly lying about his desire to learn more about alternative journalism and liking Red Bagel's haircut.Now HiringTaxi Driver. Duties include awaiting passengers, driving passengers to and from desired locations, growing increasingly paranoid, cutting hair in extreme fashion and shooting pimps in bloody finale.Top 5 commune Features This Week| 1. | Abe Lincoln: Tall Motherfucker | | 2. | Michael Jackson's Dating Tips | | 3. | The Dog Did It: A Dummy's Guide to Solar Wind | | 4. | Uncle Macho's Pepperoni Puree | | 5. | A Tedious Summation of All Your Flaws: Past, Present and Future | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Orson Welch 10/18/2004 Good morrow, gentlefolk. I have just returned from my bi-monthly excursion to the Clatterton, New Jersey Renaissance Festival and I mourn the loss of medieval times. Even more so, I curse the inventions of televisions and motion pictures. What better time to review the upcoming DVD releases.
In Theaters
Van Helsing
Hugh Jackman is Jack Shit in this re-telling… re-telling? Not quite. In this completely farcical defecation of the original Bram Stoker character who hunted Dracula. Only if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn formed a boy band could Hollywood more ruthlessly violate a literary classic. The special effects are amazing, and by special effects, I mean the genius editing done by the marketing department that fooled...
Good morrow, gentlefolk. I have just returned from my bi-monthly excursion to the Clatterton, New Jersey Renaissance Festival and I mourn the loss of medieval times. Even more so, I curse the inventions of televisions and motion pictures. What better time to review the upcoming DVD releases.
In Theaters
Van Helsing
Hugh Jackman is Jack Shit in this re-telling… re-telling? Not quite. In this completely farcical defecation of the original Bram Stoker character who hunted Dracula. Only if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn formed a boy band could Hollywood more ruthlessly violate a literary classic. The special effects are amazing, and by special effects, I mean the genius editing done by the marketing department that fooled countless individuals into seeing it at the theater. No doubt the DVD will sell well, too. Possibly the greatest injustice we'll suffer this year.
Garfield: The Movie
Remember the 1980s classic cartoon strip "Garfield," about the wisecracking lazy cat who loved lasagna and hated Mondays? No? That's precisely why the demonic forces of Tinsel Town have seen fit to smite us with a live-action version of this forgotten Rubik's Cube of a character. In this, Garfield learns that jealousy can lead him to misjudging a new friend, and we learn that animals should be harmed in films.
Dawn of the Dead
This complete rip-off of the 1985 George Romero zombie sequel is actually the most original thing coming out this week. Not a compliment. The make-up effects and casting is much improved from the original. In fact, let's just say that everything is much improved from the original. Still not a compliment. Not a shred of unique thought slips into this movie, it's locked up tight. You have to respect the serious devotion to unoriginality exhibited by the director, whatever he was, as the original modern parable of the living dead walking a shopping mall is not lost on today's audience. Today's audience, of course, also living dead. How clever that an audience can watch a thinly-veiled metaphor insult the bejesus out of them and they still possess enough capability for cognitive dissonance to deny they're the very ones being mocked. But not you, of course, dear reader.
I must go, before the smirk on my face begins to slip. By the way, if anyone knows how long a full roast duck or turkey leg will maintain in a modern refrigerator, please let me know. It's a long way until next month's RenFest.   |