Cottonelle for Kleenex

This morning on the bus, I overheard a conversation.  I did not have a newspaper to read or a Blackberry to keep me busy, so I kept busy on the personal lives of all the other passengers.  Unfortunately, I wish I hadn’t heard it.

A man and a woman to my left, further back in the bus, sat in silence until the man broke it with “My ass hurts.”

The woman was probably at least a friend of his, and asked, “Did you hurt it by sitting on your fat ass too much?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure how.  It kind of sucks.”

The woman was amused at his pain.  She asked, “What did you do?”

“Well, a week ago I didn’t see that there was only one sheet of toilet paper on the roll.  When I used it, I was stuck on the toilet.  I leaned over to get another roll from under the sink, but when I looked, there wasn’t one there either.  I thought for a few minutes, and then I grabbed something else from the bathroom.”

“Eww! A Towel?” She was horrified.  So was the woman next to her.

“No! No, I tried a tissue.”

She looked at him, and he looked back with sincerity.

“It was actually kind of comfortable.  Much softer than toilet paper, but– I don’t know, I guess I must have had a reaction, because I’ve had a rash off and on for the last week.”

Everyone within earshot was wiggling in their seats.

Psych: Coolest Video Ever

You have been directed here thinking that this post has something to do with what you searched for.  Perhaps it was cool tennis balls, crazy trampoline sports, or the hottest gophers.  I’m just going out on a limb to say you did not type cool, crazy, or hottest in the search box alone.  Chances are, though, that your descriptor is a word on the left of this post.

I am conducting a test to see what sorts of words follow those adjectives.  It is in the world of the Internet that a blog post listing just “birds” does not keep the average user’s attention.  It is only by calling it the “coolest bird ever caught on video” does it seem to be worth a net surfer’s time.  I will post a follow up to this later.

Thanks to learnenglish.de for all the adjectives

Spore-aphernalia (56k warning)

Recently I came into contact with a college friend of mine in the journalism business.  He said that there is an article in the works about a video game named Spore.  He says that he’s spent hours fiddling with it, and this is surprising to me because I never knew him to be a gamer at all.  When I saw it and what it was about I was… amused.  Here are a few things that amuse me about it.

Creatures as Objects…or is it Vice Versa?

Yes, that’s right.  A sofa animal.  I think of it as a kind of odd reversal of the concept of personification.  Whatever the case, this is some really weird stuff!  Let’s continue…

Now you can have your animal and eat it too (wait… ah, never mind)

Yikes.  Some pretty dangerous crap you can make!  Speaking of dangerous…

Rip-offs

This little fellow looks familiar (electrifying depiction).

So does this one.

Ok, this one’s a stretch, but it is supposed to be Brian Griffin from The Family Guy television show.  All of these creatures made in the likeness of popular symbols of pop culture.  I guess it is not fair to call it a rip-off, maybe “intellectually inspired” is the appropriate phrase here.

Unreal

It is pretty remarkable that anything you can imagine can be made real.  I can understand why it appeals to my friend so much, who has a very creative and artistic mind.  I am not one of those people who can create monsters like this, but I can appreciate it.

Yes, that is a sperm cell on the right