Stolen Dreams

(A man with no shame. This is an actual picture of a man searching for coins.)




It turns out that in NYC it is perfectly legal to go coin hunting in the local fountains. One would assume that it would at least be frowned upon, but according to an NYPD spokesperson this form of thievery is perfectly legal. I can imagine little children wading into the water not knowing any better and innocently scooping up the shiny coins in the water, or a homeless person taking a quick bath and scooping up some lose change at the same time, but in any other instance to do such a thing means you have no soul. These are no mere coins, these are dreams and wishes. The only people who have the right to take them back are those that cast the wishes, and they may only take their own. Even young Mikey Walsh knew this in The Goonies. He would not steal other peoples wishes from the wishing well, and nor should anyone else.

This is America

I would like to take some time to commend the security gaurds at Yankee Stadium for ejecting a fan for getting up and trying to go to the bathroom during God Bless America for the seventh inning stretch. In case you haven't heard about this yet, on Wednesday, August 27th, during the seventh inning stretch of the Yankees-Red Sox game, a fan, a Red Sox fan no less, got up during the singing of God Bless America to go to the bathroom. Upon walking into the tunnel he was aprehended by a police officer who went on to eject the fan from the stadium. The fan said that he got up while the song was beginning, and that it was rather urgent, and yada yada yada. He even went on to say that he doesn't care about God Bless America. Well sir, if you don't care about God Bless America than you're in the wrong country. This isn't Switzerland or something where you can just get up and urinate during the national anthem. This is America. We stand and remove our caps when that glorious song is played, and if you don't do the same, well then get the hell out of our stadiums.

Answer for applebottomjeanlova99

applebottomjeanlova99 writes:

for all those youngsters out there, what would you say the tell tale signs of a snow day would be? Also what are the telltale signs that if it starts snowing while you are in school that there will be an "earl dismissal?"

Well applebottomjeanlova99 you threw this one up there for me and hopefully I can hit a home run with it.  First off, in general, the best tell tale sign of a snow day is that crisp, fresh powder piled up on the roads.  Just to be safe I would say around a 5 inch accumulation gives a high probability of snow day.  However, what you're really looking for is accumulation to begin at around 2:00 AM and have it continue snowing through about 8:00 AM.  You don't want to give that nasty ol' snow plower any time to commence plowing while it is no longer snowing, so as long as it starts during the night and doesn't end until after school would normally begin, you're probably in the clear.

Snow days are also affected by the amount of snow days previously used in the school year.  If it's mid-winter and you've already used up the given number of snow days, well than it's going to take a lot more snow for school to be cancelled.  However, if you haven't used any snow days and winter is almost over, well then it's possible you'll get a snow day with just a couple of inches.  You never know.

As far as the telltale signs of getting let out early because of snow goes, there are really two main ones.  The first involves the buses.  If you here the roar of the buses around midday and you see those yellow monsters coming around the corner, you're probably lookin' at an early dismissal.  Seeing all those beautiful, yellow vehicles pulling up to the school means they are probably there to take you home, and if it's at midday, you're probably going home early.  Lucky you!

The much less known telltale signing of going home early involves the hot lunches.  Every school must be able to provide it's students with a warm and healthy meal.  Some lucky brats are just too good for bagged lunches and so the school has to provide them with food.  You may be wondering what this has to do with early closures.  Well, if you catch word that the cafeteria is no longer making hot lunches it means you're going home early.  The school stopped making food because there will be no students there to eat them, meaning your day is almost done.  If you somehow find out earlier than everyone else that hot lunches are no longer being made, well by golly you better stand up and yell at the top of your lungs, "they stopped making hot lunches!" All the other students will be so happy and so grateful that you informed them that they're going home early.  You can also yell the same phrase if you see a few snow flakes coming down and you want to get everyones hopes up that they're going home early.  It's equally as funny.

Todd's Stories #9

As many of you know by now, growing up I was a strange child. From the mask wearing to the get-it grabbing, I was (and am) the type of child hilarious stories are written about. What many of you may not know is that I was also a very sickly child, and in this edition of Todd's Stories I shall lay out for you a few examples of my sickliness.

The first example is not as much of sickliness but of my overall odd physical attributes. We all know of my escapades while wearing my head gear, but the head gear wasn't my only dental issue. I had braces for several torturous years, and before and during that my teeth were grossly disfigured. The culmination of my terrible teeth was when I had a double tooth with another tooth behind the double tooth, at which point I looked like Sloth from The Goonies, and all three of those teeth had to be pulled out. I also had several other teeth pulled out, all of which were excrutiatingly painful.

My next example of my sickliness was my horrific case of the chicken pox. While normal children get a red bump here and there, I had them covering every inch of my body, and I got them during the summer when it was the hottest. I had them in my hair and in my hears. I had them on the bottom of my feet and on my tushy. I had them everywhere, and during the scorching hot days I had to stay in the tub all day in cold water to make it a little less itchy. Simply no good.

My third example of my sickliness comes with my asthma. Although I am one of the lucky ones that was able to overcome asthma with age, I did have terrible asthma when I was younger. I had to use various types of inhalers and steam machines just so I would cough a little less. When I began to violently cough up flem and other grossnesses, I can assure you it was not a pretty site.

A final example of my sickliness was my knack for getting swimmers ear. In fact, I got swimmers ear so frequently I had to have ear plugs made specially for my ears so that no water could get in. Imagine how cool I looked jumping into the pool with a red ear plug in my right ear and a blue ear plug in my left ear. Cooler than you could ever imagine, I'll tell you that much.

I had other issues growing up as well, but these are some of the more sad yet comical issues I had. Although I am now the portrait of all that is man, in my younger years things weren't quite the same. I was the definition of a dufus, and though my stock is rising now, trust me, things weren't always that way.

The moral of the story is that sometimes the slow, fat kid with asthma and one tooth can grow out of it. Sometimes.

Since When Are Grapes Exotic?

Around two weeks ago a new type of premium grape made its' glorious debut in Japan.  Bunches of the grape were being purchased for as much as $910.  One hotel manager paid that amount for 1 1/2 pounds.  That comes out to roughly $26 a grape.  Can you possibly imagine paying $26 a grape.  Maybe for a banana or some type of fruit that really has more substance, but not for a grape, made almost entirely of water, no matter how delicious it is. 

(This lucky buyer was happy until he found out that they were......seeded. Dundundun.)(I made that up, they may or may not be seeded).

The average size of one of these delectable ruby red grapes is a little smaller than a ping pong ball.  They are tomato colored and have been under development since 1994 in a state led project.  Who takes that long to develop a grape, and what country gives government funding to create a grape?  

The only excuse for these grapes being so expensive is apparently fruit in general is expensive in Japan and is often given as a gift.  For such a crafty and wise people, the Japanese apparently don't know shit about fruit.  The grape would have to be like an orgasm in my mouth for me to pay $26 a grape.  But who knows, maybe it is.

Fast and Furious: Before the Wheels Started Spinning

It seems as though all of my wildest dreams have finally come true. Not only is there a new Fast and Furious movie coming out, titled Fast and Furious, which once again turns the ignition key of the feud between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, but now Vin is also set to direct a 20 minute prequel to the original The Fast and the Furious. Luckily for fans world wide, Vin will direct the prequel, and will also star in it alongside Michelle Rodriguez and Sung Kang.



(From the original The Fast and the Furious. With those long blond locks and that ripped body, what can't those two do.)





My only hope now is that they will ask Ja Rule to reprise his role as Edward, the quick tongued but slow driving jack ass.

David Beckham The Theater of Dreams (actual title)

Yes it's true folks. The musical version of David Beckham's life is now in the works. And what a lovely musical it will be. I thought Legally Blonde The Musical was going to be good, but the story of David Beckham blows that out of the water. With those killer good looks David Beckham can bend it on stage for me whenever he wants.



(This scene will unfortunately not be recreated in the musical.)






The creator and scribe behind this brilliant idea is British dramatist Mark Archer. He was quoted as saying, "His rise from obscurity to international stardom, his universally acknowledged gifts as a supreme sportsman, and his Hollywood lifestyle all have the elements of an aspirational fable." That's for sure. He also went on to say that the musical would include, "powerful, gospel-like rock." I can't imagine wanting to see anything more than the life of David Beckham sung out on stage to "powerful, gospel-like rock" ballads. Simply brilliant.

David Beckham was quoted as saying, "Me thinks me life would make a wonderful musical."

Flying Turd Wreaks Havoc

Recently in a museum in Switzerland a giant inflatable poop, created by American artist Paul McCarthy, escaped from the museum and caused damage in the neighboring town.  It took down a power line and broke numerous windows before the big dump finally deflated.  The art work, rightfully titles, "Complex Shit," is roughly the size of a house and was carried by the wind 200 meters.  The art piece has a safety system which usually deflates the turd during a storm, but it failed to work on this night and the poop simply flew away.  

Being attacked by a giant piece of shit could quite possibly be my worst nightmare.  This actually broke the window of a little girls room.  Imagine the problems that that girls is going to grow up with.  The reoccurring haunting dream of being chased by a giant poop.  It doesn't get any worse than that.  Not to mention the nicknames she'll receive.  The little children in her school will call her such things as, "giant poop," "poop face," "poopy mcpooperson," "doody butt," and many others.  The possibilities are endless.

Harry Potter Soon to Have One Less Advantage Over The Rest of Us

(Nahhhhh Harry, nahhhh.)








Scientists are now saying they are one step closer to creating materials which would enable invisibility. Researchers demonstrated for the first time that they could cloak a 3-D object. The cloak works by using artificially engineered materials to redirect light away from the object. Cloaking uses materials known as metamaterials to deflect light, radar and other waves around the object.



Take that Harry Potter. That dumb ass cloak of yours isn't special anymore. Soon all of us are going to be running around with capes that can hide us from the world. This cloaking device, once it gets into the open market, will make it easier for all of us to rob, steal, and murder. It will also make it much easier to watch people (for me women, but whatever floats your boat) get undressed through their window without having to worry about whether or not they can see you. It also makes it easier to play funny tricks on people. Imagine just standing in the street and letting people bump into you. They'll think they're running into nothing and go crazy, but in reality they will have just hit you. It's wonderful. You can also rob a bank without anyone knowing. Just walk right up to the money, momentarily reach your hand out of the cloak (the workers will just see a floating hand and freak out), take the money, and leave.

More likely than any of the previously mentioned uses for the cloak are military uses for the cloak. If you think we killed alot of people now wait until the day when no one can see us do it. The only reason we haven't murdered every last Iraqi is because someone will see us do it, tell on us, and then we'll be in trouble. There would be riots and protests all over the world, even here in the U.S. However, if no one knew we were even there and we just killed everyone, nothing would come of it. It's perfect. Total world domination here we come.

Take That Weather (As said by a Chinese person)

Having the Olympics in your home country is a huge deal, and the Chinese realize this. As such, they are not going to let anything ruin it, and that includes the weather. That's why in the past week the Chinese goverment has been cloud seeding. They use cannons and rockets to shoot silver iodide into the clouds into the sky, hopefully forcing them to rain and thus create precipitation. The idea behind it is that if it rains enough before the Olympics, during the Olympics precipitation will be limited (yeah, I'm sure that'll work). The goal of the seeding is also to wash the pollution from the air (which obviously did not work. See pictures of the fog-like haze of pollution which floated around Beijing for proof. Nice try China. We know you pollute a lot, a little cloud seeding isn't going to change that.)

China is the world's number one advocate of cloud seeding. They spend about $90 million a year on research and implimintation, and while other countries attempt cloud seeding as well, China blows them all away (with wind, another type of weather China is attempting to control.) Cloud seeding has worked in the past, but by no means is it gauranteed to work. The science behind it is a little bit, "cloudy."

With China already well on its' way to becoming the economic powerhouse of the next decade, if they gain control of the weather there will be no stopping them. Our only hope would be if Halle Barry was actually Storm from X-Men and could counter-balance the Chinese' weather attacks. The Chinese already have the most advanced technologies and billions of little Chinamen, with the weather in their grasps their is no telling what they would be capable of.

The truth is, the Chinese are trying to scorch the skies like in The Matrix. They've been able to keep a tight lid on it up until now, but it turns out the country is being overwhelmed with artificial intelligence robots which run on solar power. Hopefully Keanu Reeves reads this blog and calls Morpheus to put a stop to the robots before it's too late.

Rule of Life #6

When you are walking around on sidewalks and such and people are around you, use your brain, use your eyes, and be considerate of others. Don't be one of those idiots that just stops in the middle of the sidewalk and looks dumbly around and causes the person behind them to drastically have to change their walking. Don't be one of those idiots in a group of idiots which span the entire length of the sidewalk and walk at an irritatingly slow pace and do not allow people to pass them. Don't be one of those idiots that thinks that he/she can only walk in a perfectly straight line and ends up shouldering other people. Walking is really quite simple. You just have to be considerate of others, you have to use your eyes to see where other people are, and you have to use your brain to recognize when you are being an idiot and annoying other people.

If you are still having trouble, try taking some lessons from Howie Peej:

Why Let Your Children Live When You Can Mummify Them With You?

DNA tests have recently begun to determine the lineage of two fetuses buried in the tomb of King Tut, but it is already being speculated that the unborn children are the offspring of King Tut himself.


(So adorable.)






Some experts believe that if the children are not Tut's than they were probably placed in the tomb to allow Tut to live as a newborn in the afterlife (why would you want to live as a newborn for eternity? If these aren't Tut's children then the stupid Egyptians really screwed him over.)

You may be asking yourself why a king, with no children born to carry out his lineage, would mummify his only two children? One reason, which many experts believe, is because the two children both died as babies, probably stillborn. How you can determine such a thing, I'm not quite sure, but that is what many people believe.

I think the more reasonable explanation, and if this is the case I'm with Tut on this one, is that he just want to be buried with all of his possessions. Screw everyone else. King Tut, like any rational man, wanted to be buried along with everything he owned, including his children. Also, if he has to be mummified, why should his children be spared the same fate.

It could also be that King Tut was just such a loving father he didn't want his children growing up without their true father. As such, he had them mummified and buried along side him. King Tut was simply afraid that his children would grow up without their father and not knowing the ways of the world, and so he wrapped them up for all of eternity. It's what any good father would want.

A Fight Not Worth Fighting

Some people fight to save the rain forests. Some people fight to end world hunger. Some people fight to end the war in Iraq. Some people fight to end racism and discrimination. Andrew El-Khadi fights to keep the place open where posers of all the above mentioned gather. That's right, Andrew is fighting to keep a Starbucks open near him in Bay Ridge. One of the many Starbucks to recently close it's doors was Andrew's go to place for that jolt of java, and he won't stand for it. Andrew aims to gain signatures for his petition to keep the Starbucks open, and once he gains 100 he will present it to the chain's district manager. However, Starbucks has said the decision to close the doors of Andrew's Bay Ridge area coffee mecca is final.

I understand the idea that something doesn't have to be as big as ending AIDS in Africa in order to fight for it, and I'm all for it. The story of the man who stands up for what he believes in is a story I love to hear, and one which will never get old. However, with all the things in this world worth fighting for, why fight to keep Starbucks open? Why fight to keep the harbinger of the end of American culture alive?

Stabucks is like a disease. It spread all across the world sucking in innocent pedestrians who were simply looking for some place to relax and drink a good cup of coffee. However, what those people got instead was a place where the coffee really isn't that good, and it costs a crap load more than it's worth. A place where all of the employees are emo children who have an air about them as if they are better than you. A place where a normal cup of coffee cannot be ordered, and where a "tall" is the smallest thing you can purchase. A place where it's pretty much all luck whether or not you get the drink you thought you ordered, and a place where some sort of caramel or vanilla swirl has to be added to everything.

Despite the rapid rate of infection all across the globe, it seems as though we may have found the cure for the Starbucks epidemic. That's right, it turns out the way to close the Pandora's box that was opened and which led to a Starbucks being placed on virtually every corner is really quite simple. It's by using your head. Once you realize that the coffee at Starbucks is really not that good and is extremely over priced and once you get tired of the obnoxious struggling musician or poet behind the counter, it's quite easy to stop the spreading of Starbucks before it gets any worse. Just go to Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds where you can order your coffee in English, get it faster, get it a fraction of the price, and have it taste just as good, if not better. It's really quite that simple.

To be fair, the idea behind Starbucks is not a bad one. A place where you can go to relax and drink something delicious is a place that I will never turn down. However, when you can see multiple of those same stores on the same block in every city in the world, it's a bit too much. The air of an Italian cafe which they were going for is completely lost when the company just wants to put up as many stores as phsyically possible as fast as possible and make as large of a profit as possible. The dream behind Starbucks is a good one, but the execution was awful.

Good luck to you Andrew, and to every other poor soul out there not yet freed of their Starbucks addiction.

Answer for One of the Bens, juss keeding its always pasinkoff

One of the Bens, juss keeding its always pasinkoff writes:

Hey Bod,
How much can a male use facebook until it starts to get a little weird? And does saying "tag that" everytime someone takes a photo of you ever get old?

Well One of the Bens, juss keeding its always pasinkoff, that is a very good two part question and I'm glad you asked.  A male's manhood can often be judged by how much they frequent facebook, and seeing as how I am all that is man, my standards for excessive facebook use should be followed religiously.  That is unless you want to be deemed as unmanly as a guy frosting his tips (I did it once, it was a mistake), in which case don't follow my advice.

One major indicator of facebook weirdness is the number of applications you have.  Anything over two or three applications is weird.  Once you get past that number you are spending far too much time on facebook.  I get it if you enjoy reminiscing about the past with the Oregon Trail Application, but once you start getting involved in which superhero you are and shit like that, you've gone too far.

Another major indicator of facebook weirdness is how frequently you update your status.  Personally, I have my own rule of never updating my status because I think it's stupid, but if you feel the need to do it, try to keep it to at most once a week.  Any more than that it becomes blatantly obvious that you spend far too much time on facebook.

A final indicator of facebook weirdness involves stalking.  Some people, especially females, learn way too much about others via facebook.  When you know about people being in relationships because you've looked through all their pictures and can tell they are dating, that is weird.  Or when you meet a friend's friend and you know who they are through their pictures on facebook, that's weird as well.  Any sort of facebook stalking is weird, and although it's pretty typical from females, if your a male and you do it it's really weird.

The "tag that" quote depends on the situation and who's saying it.  If you say it like, "yo, tag that bro," and you are joking, that will take a long time to get old.  If you say, "yo, tag that bro," and you are serious, that's pretty sad.  Saying "tag that" can be very funny, but if done by the wrong person and the wrong time, it can be horrifically unfunny.  So, just use your best judgement and try not to over do it.  Good luck.