Here’s a blast from the past, Dr. Jack Kevorkian (a.k.a. Dr. Death) is getting out of the pokey after doinig 8 years of a ten year stint.  For those of you who weren’t paying attention Dr. Jack was the guy who built a death machine (literally) in his basement with old soda bottles and some fishing line and started hooking people up to it.

Since Dr. Jack was pushing people into the hereafter in Michigan, where along with 49 other states its illegal, the doc was tossed in the slammer for his ‘assistance’.

Here’s the thing.  The “Right to Die” crowd couldn’t have made a worse choice for their poster child.  First of all the man is crazy.  Second, according to the picture below he’s a giant.  Those microphones are smaller than his index finger.  He’s got to be at least 30 feet tall.

Then there’s this. I actually used to own this record. It was less than great but the reactions people had to seeing it in the CD case was well worth the $2.00 I paid and the room it occupied in my CD wallet.

So Jack’s getting out.  I’m sure he’ll be up to his old antics again in no time.  Picking off the sick and old and screaming on CNN about how mean the government is for not letting him murder people.

My google homepage gives me an Ask Yahoo every day.  Today’s was the best question ever: “What is emo?”

The short answer is emo is best defined by looking at ‘emo kids.’  They have lots of weird hair, tight clothes and can be found at the mall looking sad and hungry.  They’re the kids you either want to hug or feed. 

If you’re interested in Emo music, bands like My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday seem to popular choices. 

Is this funny?

This week’s sampler is all about cartoons. I hope you enjoy it.

• AllSimps.com has what appears to be a complete collection of Simpsons Episodes. Though they say they don’t host the files, I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before they get the dreaded cease and desist letter. I just finished watching one of my all time favorite episodes, Catch ‘em if You Can, from season fifteen. Here are a few favorite lines.

Bart: Wicca is just a Hollywood Fad.
Lisa: That’s kabbalah jerk!

Here’s another:

“Take a hike you Shatner stealing Mexico touchers.” - Canadian Coast Guard to US Coast Guard.

• This site has a very impressive collection of quotes from the Tick animated series that used to air on Comedy Central. You can find entire episodes without too much effort on YouTube or Google Video. Some favorites quotes:

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

You’re not going crazy. You’re going sane in a crazy world!

I’m betting that I’m just abnormal enough to survive.

Well once again we find that clowning and anarchy don’t mix.

Y’know, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can’t let the package hide the pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don’t cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspapaer of justice! Bad dog! Bad dog! And you don’t do it for money. No! You do it for love! You know, I’ve learned something this week… on justice and on friendship, there is no price. But there are established credit limits.

You know, come to think of it, I’m not afraid of ants. I never was. It’s just when they all come running out of a lady’s pants like that… yech, creepy. And isn’t sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you’re good and crazy, ooh ooh ooh, the sky is the limit!

Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once! Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope! And you’ve got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception!

That’s it for this week.

The great thing about America is that anybody can decide that any random day is a ‘world-somthing-or-other-day’. Official recognition from the powers that be aside, you can register a url, spread the word and plan events.
Here are some highlights and one is even today!

• International Talk Like a Pirate Day is today, September 19th. The site has tips on how to talk like a pirate in English and German, how to pick up pirates for both men and women and and English to Pirate translator for those who wish to participate.
• World Jump Day was July 20th, 2006. The plan was to have everyone in the world jump at the exact same time, just to see what would happen. I bet it would have caused global warming somehow. Since I didn’t participate I guess I’ve done my part to combat the problem.
• World Vegan Day is November 1st. I checked, you don’t get to eat vegans. Just the opposite. You’re supposed to eat, get this, plants, only plants.? No milk, eggs or cheese either. Sounds like a bunch of hippies to me.
• World Sousveillance Day, which may now be part of World Equiveillance Week celebrated in January of 2006, sought to bring awareness to the surveillance of public life by building owners, police and whoever else may be recording the goings on. They seek to equal things by…taking pictures of the cameras. They’re ‘watching the watchers’. Right.
• World Juggling Day was back in June. I’m dissapointed that once again both the blind and those without arms were under represented. It just sickens me to see such hatred in 2006.
• World Tuberculosis Day was presented by the World Health Organization and was one of those raise awareness lets see if we can get Bono to guilt American’s into sending money type things. Unfortunatly the key-note address could not be heard over the constant coughing of the crowd.
• World Leprosy Day looks to do what all the others do, only they have a much cooler disease. What do you say to someone with Leprosy? “So…leprosy huh? Um…that’s catchy, right?”

Let’s go out with a bang….

• World Rat Day is just what it sounds like, though it does limit itself to the ‘Fancy Rat’ that is sold in pet stores. I can see how it’d be a tougher sell, but they should consider including the more common rat as well. Sure they spread disease and are terribly ugly, they had a pretty big role in shaping the world as it is today.

It may be late in the day but it’s still Sunday. My day was sort of hijacked but it was all good.

• With Pluto not being a planet anymore, NASA has added some rock out past the degraded block of ice as our new ninth planet. The new planet was originally dubbed 2003 UB313 but has been renamed Eris after the Greek goddess of discord, which oddly has caused more discord.
• The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai is once nice place.? I do find it a bit funny that they offer specials for Ramadan.

Not a lot this week.? Sorry.? I’ll do better next week.

So it’s been over a week since my last post. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, my loyal readers, but due to a hectic week at work I decided to take a bit of time off from the blog. As far as last week’s Sunday Sampler goes…I just didn’t feel like it I guess.

This week has been quite an adventure. On Monday night I was over at R’s house when T called. A friend had taken a fall while holding her son A. The friend had gone to the hospital and T was really, really upset. I headed over to calm her down and help ensure the child was okay.

When I arrived A was in bed. I decided that we should wake him up so I could really check on him. Have you ever tried to wake up a four year old after only twenty minutes of sleep? Let’s just say that a sleeping four year old is just a willful as an alert one. After what seemed to be too long he finally started responding to us, answering questions and looking at us long enough for us to see his pupils seemed to be the same size. We let him go back to sleep but woke him again thirty minutes later; that really pissed him off.

I went home not long after the second awakening. As I lay in bed that night, I kept thinking about calling T and telling her to wake the boy, I was going to take them to the hospital. I didn’t. The next day at work T told me he was fine the next morning but was in a pretty bad mood.

Today at work I confessed to M and A that I’d dressed in drag on three seperate occassions; twice in my Lee University days and once for a church skit. They were very excited when I told them I had photos of one of the parties. We went inside and this photo was a huge hit. C said: “You should go back to that look.” A said: “I wouldn’t have picked you out of that photo if you hadn’t said you were in drag.”

Finally, just to get caught up on this week: This made me laugh, this made me think (though the comments do a good job of destroying his proof) and this made me want one.

We’ll have a sampler tomorrow.

….Rocky Top! You’ll always be…

Oh, sorry, didn’t see that you’d arrived.? I’m still riding high on the Vols big win over Cal yesterday.? Go Vols!

• NOTCOT.org has a very simple design hundreds upon hundreds of interesting links to share.? I spent hours on the site.
• Guerrilla artist (vandal) Banksy has taken aim at Paris Hilton and her new ‘album’, replacing copies of the disc with his own creation.? He’s changed the artwork, the tracks and even the liner notes.? Here’s the article from the Independent Online.
• Coming up on the big 5 year anniversay of 9-11.? Here are some photos that remind us exactally what happened without any politics or conspiracy theories to get in the way.
• And finally, someone has asked that the letter mentioned in this post be explained for non-English Majors, trivia buffs or Czechs.? Gregor Samsa would be the main character in Kafka’s Metamorphisis.? He turned into a bug.

And finally I would like to extend an invitation for submissions for the Sunday Sampler.? My internet availability is about to change a bit and I won’t be able to spend nearly as much time searching the web for good links and stories.

I stumbled across a page from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency that really made me laugh.? I’ve spent two evenings on the page now and have probably seen very, very little of it.? Here are some favorites, aside from the one linked above.

• The entire lists section is very entertaining about half the time.? The titles give a pretty good idea of what the list is about, so click with care kids.
• A brand new post of a letter rejecting Gregor Samsa for SSI.? This is a pretty high brow joke.? English majors and trivia buffs will get it, probably no one else.
• This one, one of many monologs imagined by the writers.? It is really only interesting because I once saw a gator and a shark living in harmony.

There’s a lot more - but be warned some posts may be offensive.

We’ll kick off this week’s Sampler with a little bit of stillspinning news. We got our very first comment spam this week. I’m glad to see we’ve caught the eyes of spammers - it means we’ve managed to get found my people who didn’t get a link.

Okay, and awayyyy we go.

• There’s a new girl on my team at work, M. M reminds me of me when I was in high school; it is actually sort of scary. M sends me her daily report she always includes a short message. The last two have been really good. “I say squee” and “Doing a German Dance”.
• The Canadian and Dutch have been in an on-going land dispute over a piece of rock sitting near the Artic Ocean. Both nations have sent officals and troops to the rock, though thus far the battle has been limited to bits of litter representing each nation’s culture. Maybe the UN should send sAme peace keeping troops to keep things under control. (source)

Sorry there wasn’t a lot for this week’s sampler.? Maybe next week…