399

"we may not be the biggest or the healthiest or the best educated but we always did have one thing that no other place did...we knew soccer was bullshit."


--bill maher, referring to the united states

400

"natural flavor with other natural flavors"


this blog entry contains writing by megaton with other writings by megaton.

401

my store manager gave me a $5 gift certificate ("good toward the purchase of any item at any albertsons or its affiliate locations!!!") for my efforts during a district manager store visit late last week.

i thought long and hard about how i was going to spend my bonus until i remembered it was worth 500 cents and i wasnt six years old anymore.

i would feel like a fucking moron handing one of my hard-working associates a five dollar gift card especially in light of the fact that it goes right back into albertson's coffers upon redemption. i think the suits in the front office must have forgotten that several non-retarded employees still remain on the payroll.

jesus fucking corndog christ.

at the very, very least give me a cold hard lincoln backed by our wonderful government so i can fuel my hybrid for another 120 miles and still have enough left over for a nasty, syphilitic blowjob from a delightfully emaciated crack whore down on broadway.

the good news is that ive received a few gift certificates over the years so ive had the opportunity to devise a feasible work-around. i locate the cheapest fucking item in the store, (one grape works nicely), scan my associate card in order to receive an additional 5% discount and convert the balance of the paper gift card to cash. i usually walk away a few cents shy of a finerooski.

ha! you didnt anticipate that einstein shit didja you crackerjack fuckers!



and yeah, jewel really is that pathetic.

402

i spotted a friend of mine at the gym this evening who was pressing 405 for reps. any spotter worth his lithium raises the weight off the rack so the lifter can concentrate on the actual process of bench pressing without wasting energy on the hoist. as i lifted the bar and positioned it over his chest i couldnt help but think of ryan kennelly's 903 pound competition press.




405 pounds is a shitload of weight; stack four plates on each side of an olympic bar and see what you can do with it.

903 pounds is insane. the fact that a human being stopped an absolute deadweight on his chest and authoritatively launched it to a lockout position is nothing short of mind-bending.

you know whats even more ludicrous?

the picture above reflects an 805 pound press. kennelly successfully and completely legitimately benched ninety-eight pounds more during a subsequent competition.

thats 97 pounds shy of half a ton.


i wonder when human muscle's ability to move increasingly absurd amounts of weight will equilibrate with human bone's capacity to withstand stress.

403

10,399 days later.

404

i have chiseled my list of potential porn star names to five strong candidates:

1. colonel wang
2. duncan hines
3, oral hershiser
4. t. baggins
5. earl nekliss


im leaning towards duncan hines.

405

pay begin date: 10/08/2006
pay end date: 10/14/2006
check date: 10/19/2006
gross: $1,018.48
net: $641.95

i photographed the following paycheck stub to scale:



my net pay this week was nearly four hundred dollars less than my gross; my actual, bottom line, take home pay after taxes, deductions and all the other heinous bullshit that gets eviscerated from my check every week is $11.46 per hour.

assuming a 48 hour workweek jewel pays me less than $30 grand a year.


what a pile of shit.

406

human races represent nothing more than silly human constructs.

we all have dreams, we all have aspirations, we all have hopes, we all have fears, we all have desires, we all have needs, we all have feelings and we all consist of billions and billions and billions of cells working synergistically to help us arrive at our perception of life's calling.

we are all homo sapiens; we are all human beings.




if we could all learn to laugh at the stupidity we could all learn to learn from each other.

407

everyone who knows me understands how much i motherfucking hate stupid, brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, dodo, doltish, dopy, dumb, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, irrelevant, irresponsible, laughable, loser, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, pointless, rash, senseless, short-sighted, simple-minded, sluggish, stupefied, thickheaded, trivial, unintelligent, witless, crazy, daffy, dippy, dizzy, flaky, freaky, goofy, illogical, incongruous, irrational, kooky, loony, nutty, preposterous, sappy, screwy, silly, dull, pedestrian, platitudinous, square, stale, stereotyped, stock, tired, trite, unimaginative, unoriginal, vapid, watery, characterless, colorless, commonplace, drab, drudging, flat, humdrum, insipid, interminable, irksome, lifeless, monotonous, moth-eaten, plebeian, prosaic, repetitious, routine, spiritless, stodgy, stuffy, tedious, threadbare, tiresome, unexciting, unvaried, wearisome, well-worn, retarded fucking email forwards.

they suck.

whenever i feel like reading something that makes me want to ram a freshly sharpened awl into my left eyeball i simply choose any email forward and brace myself for its inevitable asininity.

tonight's mailbox, dear friends, contained no exception; i opened the following odious shit-shovel fodder with my cessna airsickness bag close at hand:


"i received a telephone call last evening from an individual identifying himself as an at&t service technician (could also be telus) who was conducting a test on the telephone lines. he stated that to complete the test i should touch nine (9), zero (0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up.


luckily, i was suspicious and refused. upon contacting the telephone company, i was informed that by pushing 90#, you give the requesting individual full access to your telephone line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your home phone number."

ugh.


listen very, very, very fucking carefully:


if youre one of eight morons left on earth who still doesnt understand that you shouldnt give any personal information or perform any idiotic maneuvers at the behest of a voice on the other end of the telephone line you deserve to be charged nine trillion dollars a minute by some unscrupulous phone company based in bumblefuck bangladesh.

if you ever doubt the veracity of a caller's claims hang up the fucking phone and fucking call the fucking company the fucking person fucking says fucking he or fucking she fucking represents. genuine companies who concern themselves with the privacy and welfare of their paying customers will understand your skepticism and appreciate your conscientiousness.

capiche?

408

redux:

the associated press reports that "a private jet, carrying yankees third baseman alex rodriguez and six others, overran a runway at bob hope airport on friday and was brought to a halt by an arresting system."

hmmmm.

related events tend to transpire in sets of three; i hope the next yankee involved in an adverse plane incident is none other than derek "the crotch pheasant" jeter.

jeter will, of course, have to temporarily remove his pygmy cock from steinbrenner's pasty ass in order to board an aircraft.


(crossing fingers)

409

yankees pitcher cory lidle died today when the plane he was piloting crashed into a new york city apartment building.

i couldnt help but ponder the senseless tragedy this turn of events represented; 24 players still remain on the yankees god damn roster.

410

"can you tell me where the peanuts are?"

sure. get in your car and drive twelve-and-a-half thousand miles east. youll find them in the bin labeled "im as far away from jeff while still being on earth as possible."

"are the fuji apples a dollar a pound or a dollar each?"

each. if they were sold by the pound the sign would say "each" instead of "lb." its basic physics.

"i got a piece of cortland apple skin stuck in my throat."

motherfucker! i told the apple i wouldnt pay unless he completed the job.

"$1.99? you call that a sale?"

no. i call it a price.

"i have this new recipe from betty crocker thats supposed to be good for you with lots of antioxidants and --"

excuse me. when you arrive at your question ill be in the back room etch-a-sketching my cock with a walrus tooth.

"where did these tomatoes come from?"

vines.

"is it safe to eat spinach?"

sure. just dont swim for half an hour afterwards.

"are you the produce manager?"

absolutely not. im the master of the universe.

"if it says buy one get one free can i just buy one and get it for half-price?"

okay, but ill need to fuck your daughter in the ass first.

"how do you eat these pineapples?"

i usually chew and swallow.

"when will the pink lady apples arrive?"

when theyre good and fucking ready, bitch.

411

see you on the other side, you sexy beast.

8.31.99 - 10.5.06

412

i received my annual associate performance and development review this afternoon from my department manager:

skill ratings:

customer service: above expectations
job knowledge: above expectations
quality of work: above expectations
dependability: above expectations
appearance: meets expectations
motivation/initiative: above expectations
teamwork/cooperation: above expectations
training: meets expectations
involvement: meets expectations
loss prevention: meets expectations

strengths:

1. ability to recognize prioritized needs
2. quality and craftsmanship
3. pride in work - strives to make department look good
4. team player - works well with others

improvement opportunities:

1. attitude - the past is done, work with what we have
2. be open minded about change

comments:

jeff has done an excellent job at this store. he has great skills at all levels. his concern about the department is greatly appreciated. jeff continues to be the most consistent worker in the shop. thank you.

overall performance rating:

above expectations

overall potential rating:

satisfactorily placed

____________________________________


...stack another granny smith apple, motherfucker.

another year of torment laboriously oozes into the annals of shit.

413

after reading crashtest comic's hilarious comment pertaining to my last post, i read an entry on his blog regarding dateline's ongoing "to catch a predator" series.

hes a decent writer with colorful and frequently passionate argumentation skills; unfortunately, he uses his creative abilities to share misguided ideas.

crashtest comic wrote:

"What is going on here is another, very subtle example, of THOUGHT POLICE at work. Let me explain, before you accuse me of raping the young.

First of all, the person that the Perv was chatting with was never a child, but an undercover police officer. This is Entrapment, and it is illegal for police to do this."


quite a few things occur in an episode of "to catch a predator."

entrapment isnt one of them.

ill preface the following by reminding my readers that i possess a degree in law enforcement; i actually studied both state and federal law, took a myriad of proficiency exams and finished with a perfect grade point average. i was also raised by a man who was a judge for more than a quarter of a century.

dont fuck with knowledge, boy.

entrapment occurs when law enforcement officials persuade a bystander or other individual who otherwise harbored no intention of committing a crime to engage in criminal activity.

the major distinction between crashtest comic's absolutely incorrect conception of entrapment and bona fide entrapment is that all the men in dateline's series initiated contact with individuals who they believed to be underage boys and girls. this is called solicitation of a minor and its classified as a felony in many states.

had the police sent messages to people who were minding their own business on the internet and somehow persuaded them to engage in inappropriate behavior the defendant might have a case for entrapment.

the difference, however, remains obvious.

furthermore -- and this is what pisses me off about the dissemination of completely inaccurate information -- the people who fielded the solicitations from men were employees of a watchdog group called perverted justice. perverted justice is staffed by civilians and does not work either at the behest of or under the tutelage of any law enforcement agency.

why does this matter?

just as the rules underlying search and seizure actitivies do not apply to civilians so too is the concept of entrapment limited to those acting in an official, law enforcement capacity. the people working for perverted justice could have told the men they were the second coming of christ and nothing illegal would have transpired.

oh, and by the way.

the idea of "thought police" is absurd. nobody in the universe can police your thoughts because nobody knows what they are. although freedom of speech has limitations freedom of thought has been, is and always will be absolute.


i think your post made me fart.

414

i love october.

my lungs always pine for the cool, clean, crisp whorls of air that tirelessly haunt september's last breath.