Donde esta Jorge Carlito Viejo?

Mysteriously, Jorge Carlito Viejo hasn't published in a month. When we last heard from him, he was biking for health, which led me to initially suspect that, given his relatively limited sense of direction, he was lost. You may ask, "Isn't getting lost for a month on a bike highly improbable?" For mere humans, yes. However, J.C.V. is easily distracted by the amazing and magnificent minutia of life. That, and being a guy, however extraordinary, he refuses to ask for directions.

I've called in a few chips (Lays, Pringles, etc.) and asked some people to investigate. Not surprisingly, I received some varied reports and rumours, the most plausible of which I shall relate to you here:

1.) Jorge Carlito Viejo was reportedly spotted in the employment of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Sovereign of the United Kingdom, as a masseuse. The rumour is though, that he was just using the occupation to get close enough to the Queen to ask her for her receipe for orange scones, and also to find out what she really thinks of Camilla. Unfortunately, he was dismissed after only 2 days for forgetting to remove his golf shoes before walking on the Queen's back (his famous toe-reador massage.) It was fortunate that he had only recently switched to soft spikes. He was last seen communing with the pidgeons at Trafalgar Square, which means they weren't actually pooping on him.

2.) Jorge Carlito Viejo has entered the Tour De Nepal, the world's most grueling bike race. He fared pretty well during the K-2 stage, but lost control of his bike in the final stage into Kathmanu when he collided with a feather. While convalescing in a clinic in Macao, where he was airlifted after his tumble, he had an inspiration and invented the seatbelt for bicycles, which unfortunately failed several key tests, one of which involved a bicycle going over a cliff.

3.) Jorge Carlito Viejo was elected Prime Minister of Andorra. He rode to popularity by promising to invade France and Spain, simultaneously, which went spectacularly well as they were all on vacation in Minsk. Unable to occupy 1,045,172 square kilometers with a force of only 19 men, Jorge Carlito's invasion force returns home, detouring for a tour of the Louvre and a weekend in Barcelona. He was then ousted in a no confidence vote by the Consell General de las Valls, when he recklessly described the head of the Andorran Democratic Center Party as "Dingo Brains." He has since retired to Cannes, where he is planning a film of his exploits called "How I Conquered France and Spain but Couldn't Master Stinking Tiny Andorra, the Little Weasels," with a cast thousands...excuse me, I meant 19.

My own theory is that he was abducted by aliens, and made their king, until he realized that the alien beings were made out of pizza dough, which resulted in violence and carnage unseen before in the galaxy, and also the finest pizzeria this side of Arcturus. The lesson learnt is, don't make a gourmet your king if you and your people are extremely delicious.

I realize some will think that's appalling, but it must be said, that is a fair lesson to learn.

Stew's on the move!

...Which is to say that he is moving into a new house today.

His new palatial digs will include an Olympic-sized swimming pool (with pictures of Johnny Weismuller painted on the sides), a massive parlour with a full wet bar and adjacent walk-in humidor, a 15 car garage for his collection of Hummers, a marble-floored dining and kitchen area, complete with a large freezer for his caviar and foie gras, a walk in wine cellar (all Mouton-Rothschild, the snob), 19 bedrooms, a golf lounge (with a place to hit and putt), a computer room with all the latest tracking software (so as to keep up with the blog), an art gallery (to hang all those Picassos currently rolled-up in his garage), a gym (complete with a full-time massuse named Helga), fourteen fountains on the grounds - three of which spout soft drinks, a small airfield with private plane (a Lear if you must know, although sometimes he flies the P-38), a boat dock for accessing the yacht (The S.S. Stew Magnificent China Washington Mountain - take that FONZ people!) and submarine, and underneath the house - a complete replica of the Batcave including easy access Batpoles and the Batmobile (it has a Hemi!) He has red Batphones too, but they go to me instead of Commissioner Gordon.

OK, I'm lying about all of that. Suffice to say, it's a large step beyond the mobile home he, his wife, and his 42 children live in now. How they all fit in that Yugo is beyond me.

OK, that's a lie too.

The real point is that he's occupied with moving today and, as I will be helping later this afternoon (after I get off my day job), posting might be curtailed a bit. I will try to add something this evening.

Cheerio!

No joy in Mudstadt :(

According to the German Ministry for Apathetic Angst there will be no smiling in passport photos from here on. Actually, some pinhead German government official is advising those getting passport photos to use a "neutral face" so that face recognition software being used on their security cameras can recognize them. Sounds strange to begin with but are we to believe if some terrorist comes running through flashing a wide-toothed grin he can beat the system. What if he decides to dress as Bozo the Clown and.... oh yeah, I forgot about THAT image, never mind.

A few people have already gotten passports and we have some of the first proofs to give you a feeling for how it's going.


Dortmund Mueller


Werner Stuffleheimer


Klaus Tinklespitz


Heinz Glockenspiel


Johann Schwarz

I got to thinking about it and neutral facial expressions are about all I ever see on German people, Helmut Kohl excluded of course.

Give This Hole a Home!!

The hole in question is a massive Black Hole spotted by the Hubble Telescope, as reported by CNN. (Those of you who thought this post was about something entirely different - Shame on you!!!)

This Hole needs a home!!

This poor, deprived cosmological body has no galaxy of its own to live in, meaning that it cannot, to paraphrase the CNN article, slurp up matter from the galactic center. How can we expect this desperate light-sucking monster, with a massive gravitational pull to feed, to get along without its fair share of matter-slurping? Currently it is just having to live off of space junk, and with Voyager and other Earth deep space probes not due to reach it for at least another 1,000,000,000,000,000 years, this means some seriously lean times inbetween. This hole may have to live on ramen and cat food until then! Where is the outrage, people?!!

Sure, the CNN article describes this particular black hole as a "rogue." However, I'm sure it is just misunderstood and would settle down provided a nice galaxy to live in. It probably wouldn't need much space, and wouldn't play its loud rock and roll CDs after 10 p.m. at night, or leave beer bottles all over the outer rim.

So please, if you have a galaxy or a spare flat or cottage, this hole needs a home!!

Write to:

Give A Hole A Home!
PO Box 010101
Nunavut, Canada

or E-mail:

homeforahole@yahoo.com

Phashion?

Stew, is it just me or were the Italian and American fashion designs sported on the models in your post, highly phallic in nature?

I just assumed the French one was reflective of some Parisian fashion designer's secret wish to have two.

I looked at that particular design again and kept expecting Charles Laughton to leap onto her clevage shouting "Sancutary! Sanctuary!!"

Fashion by Frank Lloyd Wright

Saw this article entitled "Architecture Inspires Latest Fashions" and had to hit it with something. Here you go.



and my personal favorite



Now that's Italian, American, and French fashion for you there.

DOUI versus the FONZ - Part the Third!!

Well, I have been waiting anxiously for a response from The Friends of the National Zoo in regards to their farcical contest to name their baby panda, a contest which is remarkably similar to one presented here on DOUI by our own Stew Miller. Unfortunately, nothing formal has come down the virtual pike from FONZie's people. I did however recently receive a message that could possibly be a private communique from the zoo. It contained the following text:

"Propecia
Ultram
Viagra $3.3
Cialis $1.2
Celebrex
Meridia
Xanax
Valium
Levitra
Ambien"

Now, aside from the fact that whenever I get a message about Viagra or Cialis I am instantly reminded of the Monty Python sketch about mollusks ("There's a man at the door with a mustache." "Tell him I've already got one."), I was initially confused. Surely, this must be just more spam and boring spam, at that. Then, like quicksilver, my mind raced to another, alternate possibility. Someone was trying to send me a secret message! However, my wife denied it completely and I was left with a third possibility, one that was so simple, so innocuous, that its cunning devious genius shone by omission.

How better to approach DOUI with a compromise on the naming of a new panda, than to do so with a plain little message purporting to be from some third-world-based spam hack! It was absolutely brilliant, or, quite possibly, I'd been up too long that evening.

I realized that, rather than the names of popular pharmecuticals, I had been sent a list of compromise panda names!!!

After marveling at the extraordinary lengths that a bunch of Bat Guano analysts would go to, in order to avoid a public confrontation with us, I suddenly realized that this was a compromise in name only. I realized that the FONZ were trying to take back control of this process by choosing a whole new slew of names, and forcing us to play by their rules and forget that the whole panda-naming contest appeared here first!!

Therefore, if you are listening oh FONZ-types, I am responding on behalf of our blog as follows:

We will only accept the compromise if the panda names mentioned are modified in the following way to reflect our own panda-naming efforts:

Here are the names in the compromise I am suggesting (I'm really just trying to squeeze all the colons I can into this post. I'm short on my colon quota this week. As you may have guessed, I'm also short on my number of colon-related jokes as well.):

• Propecia Stew Magnificent
• Ultram Stew Washington Beijing
• Viagra $3.3 and not a penny less for Stew
• Cialis $1.2 Canadian and a Stew
• Celebrex! Celebrex! Dance to the Music! (Stew!)
• Meridia Stewridia (not Chlamydia)
• Xanax Keeps Stew from Panics
• Valium Stew Verisimilitude
• Wingardium Levitra Stew
• Ambien Stewdios

If FONZ chooses one of these names for the baby panda, or one of the names I suggested previously here, here, or here, I will cease this silly campaign. Otherwise, onward and pandaward, or something like that.

P.S. : : : There, that should cover this week.

The Blackout at Bob's Big Boy Burbank

At the Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank, power was out for about 90 minutes. "All we could serve were salads and cold sandwiches, no hamburgers," manager Frank Rodriguez said. - Associated Press concerning the Sept. 12 blackout in L.A.

Scene 1

(Fade up at the counter of Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, CA. It is a lazy summer afternoon, waitresses and busboys are busy taking orders and cleaning tables. Frank Rodriguez enters and says hello to a few of the patrons before sitting down at a table.)

Frank: Fred, how are things up at the studio? (he takes Fred's bill and signs it before giving back to one of the waitresses going by)

Fred: Oh, we've been busier. I've got a new Lindsey Lohan/ Fred Grandy vehicle we think is going to blow people's doors off.

Frank: Oh, yeah he was Beaver on the Love Boat right?

Fred: Gopher. His nickname was Gopher. We're into the fifth rewrite now but we think it's progressing well only we can't convince Lindsey not to sing. We may just have to throw a Herbie on her.

Frank: (Getting up to leave) Hey, good luck on that! Talk at ya later Fred.

(Frank starts to enter the kitchen when the lights flicker and then go out. There are screams heard in the distance and Julio the head cook goes running out of the kitchen in flames crashing through a large plateglass window at the front of the restaurant. Frank runs to the front, grabs an extinguisher and puts out Julio then pulls out the ISO 9001 manual.)

Frank: (breathing hard) Gotta be something in here about power outages! Let's see, follow flowchart 3.2.5 to determine emergency situation to respond to... chart 3.2.5, 3.2.5, here it is, does the emergency require immediate action to extinguish a member of the staff engulfed in flames...boom baby, hit it the first time. It's a power outage for sure.

Waitress 1: Frank, what's going on? (she is firing an AK-47 at looters who are trying to steal some frozen pre-formed hamburger patties)

Frank: Book says it's a power outage, where the hell is FEMA!?!?!?! Ok, Tess break out the MRE's, Cobb salads, and frozen roast beef and rye sandwiches and load up the howitzer. Rita, get me all of the gauze bandages and iodine you can.

Waitress 2: What are we going to do about Drew Carey's stripper, she wants a warm-up on her mocha java?

Frank: (beads of sweat forming on his head) (to himself) Come on Frank calm down, think man think...(to Waitress 2) Offer her a free doughnut and give her a coupon for a free ice cream cone.

Waitress 2: (look of deep passion) I love you! (grabs a doughnut and heads out)

Frank (raising hands to the sky in a Willem Dafoe Platoon sort of way) Why did you do this to us, WHHHYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Scene 2

(Later that minute)

Julio: Frank, power's back on.

Fin

ISO - Is it of the devil?

In my short lament last Wednesday I informed our readership, hello to all five of you, that I had been saddled with the unfortunate task of dealing with my companies ISO 9001 certification. For those of you unfamiliar with ISO 9001 it is a certification process by an international body to show that your company follows a consistent process so that dogs and cats don’t go sleeping together and the like. The origins of what we now know as ISO – International Sensibility Obstructers, date back to World War II and British munitions factories. Seems the Tommies had a problem of blowing themselves sky high because some dork with a pencil protector wasn’t there to audit their internal processes. Personally, I’m all for natural selection and if the little buggers couldn’t keep from incinerating each other the general population was probably better off, at LEAST they knew the munitions worked.

I will now endeavor to explain in detail the workings of ISO 9001. First, the discreet lamentations of the momblyfarbs reach a cacophony as the soothing winds blow down the box canyon walls making butterflies and moths swoon. The large dangle toads flip leaves of grass into the morbid torrent as languid porpoises wilt alongside rivers of sweet nougat. After that the process turns to auguring down cantaloupe fields in feather winged doughnuts while lizards ignite torches and search for portly investment bankers swimming in the courts of public opinion. At least that is how it was explained to me, only they were more vague and confusing.

Since you may not have the sense of what most ISO lovers feel I’ll show you how the great munitions plant disasters of the forties were solved with a pictorial display.

I hope this gives everyone a little sampling of my world these last few weeks. If not please e-mail me and I will come to your house and throw habanero salsa in your eyes.

The Battle for Fun

Stew and I were having lunch today when he mentioned that a car in the car park, outside the Mexican restaurant we frequent on Mondays, had the following personalized licence plate: CAPTFUN.

This led to a host of questions by me, centering on on central premise: Just how "fun" can someone who puts "CAPTFUN" on their license plate truly be?

First of all, if they were really fun, they'd have put CAPNFUN instead, because "Cap'n" is infinitely more fun that "Captain". Case in point: From the following two names, choose the person you think would be more fun.

1. Cap'n Crunch
2. Captain Bligh

Obviously, most of you chose #3, "Maude" (cue "And then there's Maude!")

However, the second choice for most of you would be Cap'n Crunch over Captain Bligh. "Cap'n Crunch" suggests a happy-go-lucky aged seafarer, handing out sweetened corn cereal to the masses of sugar-addicted children of the western world, with none of the awful downsides that one would find with, say "Captain Eo."

Captain Bligh, on the other hand, brings to mind horsewhippings on a salt-encrusted seadeck, repressed buggery, being cast adrift in a leaky dinghy (no jokes, Stew) and desperately clinging to life, and dozens of potentially inbred inhabitants of Pitcairn Island. While this may be standard fare for a Quentin Tarantino film (especially if everyone cuts off each others' heads with a sword or large kitchen implement), it is hardly the stuff of traditional "fun."

So, I propose the following: I shall hereby refer to myself (for the purposes of this bit and whenever it suits me afterwards) as "Cap'n Fun." In doing so, I hereby challenge "CAPTFUN" whoever they are (my current best guess is TV's Bob Saget, who seems to go for that sort of thing...although I don't remember seeign him in the restaurant) to an online "fun-off." This "fun-off", while sounding like a kind of bug spray against fun, will actually consist of a series of taunts lobbed at one another. Since only a half-dozen people seem to read this blog regularly, I thus stand a fair chance at victory.

So, "Captain Fun", whoever you are (Bob!), just what kind of funster are you? How fun can you possibly be, with the title "Captain?" Rather formal isn't it? Why not just go with "Chief Warrant Officer Fun" (CHWOFUN), or Lieutenant Colonel Fun (LICOFUN)?

Where's Tenille, Captain? Where's your little Skipper's hat and electric piano? How about a verse of Muskrat Love? (Although in fairness, America covered it first.) Captain, indeed! You had a bleeding variety show and I'm not sure you spoke a single word! Ah, The Captain and Tennille, right up there with Shields and Yarnell! In fact, I suspect they were the same people. In private, I'm sure your lovely wife sings "Love Will Keep Us Together" whilst doing "the robot." (No double-entendre intended)

Capt. - The ball's in your court!

P.S. ...and don't try to play the Captain Kirk card on me! That'll just get you ridiculed as a Trekkie. Or I'll bring up Mr. Tambourine Man! How fun could that be?

Just so you know...

When looking for Pierce Brosnan photos for the previous article, I typed in "Pierce Brosnan Goofy" into Yahoo's Image Search (with the filter on mind you) and got this picture.

Bond No More!

Pierce Brosnan has finally given up the Walther PPK. No more shall he ask for medium-dry vodka martinis, shaken, not stirred (he can go back to his real love: Jolt Cola.) No more shall he careen about in an Aston Martin, except for those films in which BMW had got the sponsorship.

He's Bond no more.

Which is just as well, as the former Remington Steele was entering Roger Moore, Sean Connery territory. Seriously, how many people will believe a Bond who can get the senior-citizen discount at the local Denny's, not that the real Bond would deign to eat there. Of course age was the reason Brosnan was sent packing out of MI6 and not pictures like this one. (Relax ladies, it's just a role in a movie...maybe.) The real Bond though couldn't be magically transformed into a younger, goofier version, the way Jack Ryan was transformed from Harrison Ford into the gonad-prankstering Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears.

Of course, what would the real Bond be like? I can't imagine for a second that he'd be anywhere as dashing or as much a bird-magnet as the various actors who have played the role (with the exception of Roger Lazenby, who came across so wooden that he was in constant danger on the set of being devoured by termites.)

A real James Bond...one can only imagine...(cue cliched daydream camera transition)

**********

(Scene: An unnamed American city in the year 2005. A jet black car speeds down a street. Suddenly, machine gun fire riddles the tires of the car. It screeches to a halt and a bald and sinister-looking man, holding a nervous-looking white cat, jumps out and runs down an alleyway past two gentlemen of limited means.)

Wino 1: Watch it man! Some of us are trying to relax here!

Wino 2: Shoot, dude! That was totally uncool.

(A helicopter swoops out of the sky. From within the helicopter, a tuxedoed man swings down on a wire to the ground. Just before he reaches the pavement, he does a backflip into the air over a parked car, and draws his gun just before landing on both feet. He dashes into the alley.)

James Bond: Gentlemen, did you see a man, holding a cat, run through here?

(The two gentlemen of limited means look up at this figure. He is gravelly-faced, with a slightly countried British accent, made proper by sheer will. He is tall but only moderately so, not so as to make him more interesting to that of the opposite sex.)

Wino 1: Who the hell are you?

James Bond: Bond, James Bond. I'm on the hunt for Blof...

Wino 2: BOND?? Man, you ain't no James Bond!!

James Bond: I assure you good sir that I most certainly am! Now, if you could just tell me which way...

Wino 1: Naw, man. You can't be Bond!! You're all plain faced, son. Bond is like, Pierce Connery Moore, Jack. You're kinda Robert Lance Henrickson Redford Shatner DeVito.

James Bond: Listen, those are just the movies. I assure you, I am agent 007, Commander James Bond! Now please, I am in a great hurry! Did you see...

Wino 2: Prove it, dude!

James Bond: What?

Wino 2: Prove you're James Bond.

Wino1: Yeah, man! If you're James Bond, then you can do one of those Bond deals!

James Bond: I really don't have time for...

Wino 1: Wait, I know just the thing!

(Wino 1 produces a bottle of a dark liquid from his waistcoat.)

Wino 1: Here! (He hands Bond the bottle.) Tells us what wine this is.

Wino 2: Yeah, dude! If you're James Bond, identify that wine!

James Bond: I really don't have time for this.

Wino 1: (to Wino 2) See, he doesn't want to do it, 'cause he ain't Bond!

James Bond: Oh, all right!

(Bond unscrews the cap on the bottle, wipes the mouth of the bottle on his sleeve, and takes a sip of the liquid inside. His face screws up unpleasantly.)

Wino 1: Well?

James Bond: (with disgust) It's Ripple.

Wino 1: Yeah...but what year?

James Bond: ...This one. (He hands the bottle back to the first gentleman of limited means.)

Wino 2: Impressive!

Wino 1: No, no, that was an easy one. We've got to come up with something harder!

Wino 2: Wait, I know! (He produces a deck of cards.) Everyone knows that James Bond is the worlds' luckiest gambler. (To Bond) Here, draw a card and hold on to it.

(Bond reluctantly draws a card and holds it to his immaculately tailored jacket.)

Wino 2: (Drawing a card and holding it up) There, I got a King of Diamonds. Let's see him top that!

(Bond turns his card around, revealing an Ace of Spades.)

Wino 2: Whoa! Very Bond, dude!

Wino1: I'm still not convinced!

Wino 2: Two out of three?

Wino 1: Naw, man!! Let's see him pick up some chicks!

James Bond: I'm sorry, I really don't have any more time...

Wino 2: Yeah, dude! You should be able to pick up a couple of chicks, just like that!

James Bond: Listen, the helicopter pilot was a beautiful blonde woman. Would it help you to know that I had my way with her on the flight over here...while she was piloting the copter!?

Wino 2: Oh, man...you could just be saying that, dude.

Wino 1: I completely agree with my associate. We need to see some impressive chick magnetism right here in the alleyway.

James Bond: Oh...very well!!

(He snaps his fingers and 5 gorgeous, scantily-clad women run into the alleyway, wrapping their limbs around his body in ways that cannot be specifically described on a PG blog.)

James Bond: Satisfied?

Wino 1: No, no, no, no man! I'm mean, think about it. How do we know you aren't just Arthur Fonzarelli, pretending to be James Bond?

Wino 2: Excellent point, dude!

(The two gentlemen of limited means exchange high-fives.)

James Bond: All right!! All right. I have a foolproof method of proving that I am, in fact, James Bond.

Wino 1: Sounds good to me.

Wino 2: Shoot away, dude!

(Bond does, fatally wounding both gentlemen of...oh, we'll just come out and say it, Ripplely-challenged men!)

James Bond: Licenced to kill, you see.

Wino 1: That's... definitely... Bond, man. (He gasps and dies.)

Wino 2: Dude! (He gives the "I love you" sign and expires.)

James Bond: (Sighs) That's the third time today.

(Bond and the scantily-clad ladies run down the alleyway, disappearing into the shadows.)