I guess LOSER was already taken

License plate spotted today at 7th and E Sts. NW:

X US REP

Ice-breaking, date-raping...whatev

This past summer, Anheuser-Busch unveiled a game it calls Bud Pong. The company, which makes Budweiser, is promoting Bud Pong tournaments and providing Bud Pong tables, balls and glasses to distributors in 47 markets, including college towns like Oswego, N.Y., and Clemson, S.C.

Bud Pong may soon expand into more markets, said Francine Katz, a spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc.

"It's catching on like wildfire," Ms. Katz said. "We created it as an icebreaker for young adults to meet each other."

Beer companies like Anheuser-Busch have made promoting "responsible drinking" a matter of corporate philosophy, partly as an answer to criticism that they market to youth.

But Ms. Katz said Bud Pong was not intended for underage drinkers because promotions were held in bars, not on campuses. And it does not promote binge drinking, she said, because official rules call for water to be used, not beer. The hope is that those on the sidelines enjoy a Bud.
...

Thomas J. Johnson, a psychologist at Indiana State University, has published seven articles on student alcohol use in peer-reviewed journals since 1998 and has studied thousands of students who play drinking games. He found that 44 percent of men who played said that they did so to sexually manipulate other players. Twenty percent said they had done things after playing a drinking game that could be defined as sexual assault.

[Note: a whitepages.com search for Francine Katz in St. Louis produces exactly one match. So, if you're feeling confident and want to give our fair spokeswoman a ring to ask precisely who it is she expects to believe that Busch really intends for people to play beer pong with water, I'd be interested to know how she answers. You could also ask her what it's like to be a woman who gets paid to peddle the world's #1 date rape drug.]

Found Sound

There's a very cool sound/art constellation scattered around Northwest. Listening booths are located on the sidewalk; you go inside to hear the pieces. I've seen a couple of the booths, but I haven't actually checked any of them out yet. I hope to change that this weekend. The "exhibit" closes November 5. Go to Found Sound DC for more info.

Start a band just for the name

A Vatican-recognized university is offering a course in exorcism and demonic possession for a second year, concerned about the devil's lure - particularly among young Italians.
...
"The aim of this course is to express a clear vision of the phenomenon," said Italian Bishop Andrea Gemma, a leading exorcist who delivered the opening lecture.

"Exorcism ... is an important prayer of the church to help those who believe to be, or who really are suffering from a diabolic infestation," he told his audience.

Oh, God, wherefor art thou?

Though this page delights in kicking religion around in a mean-spirited, less-holy-than-thou way, it's sometimes good to reign in the pope jokes and let good ol' disinterested science have a crack at it -- in this case, by reducing religion to biology. More or less. Anyway, read for yourself. Interesting piece.

Tic tact

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes

It's only 6:17 a.m. Central time, and President Bush is already facing his second question of the day about Karl Rove's legal troubles.

"Does it worry you," NBC's Matt Lauer is asking him at a construction-site interview in Louisiana, that prosecutors "seem to have such an interest in Mr. Rove?"

Bush blinks twice. He touches his tongue to his lips. He blinks twice more. He starts to answer, but he stops himself.

. . .

Certainly, Bush retained many of the gestures that work well for him: the purposeful but restrained hand gestures, the head-tilted smile of amusement and the easy laugh. But he seemed to lose control of the timing. He smiled after observing that Iraqis are "paying a serious price" because of terrorism.

Shaming technique aimed at blog comment spammers

The first person who posts a comment under this post is a big stupid pile of shit.

You don't say

Recently overheard by a friend in the Museum of the American Indian here in DC:

"Some of them look Chinese."

Visually Feasting on the Engorged Sinews of Laboring Lower Limbs

Combining metal and ballet is such an obviously good idea that I can't believe it took so long for such a union to emerge. New York's Ballet Deviare is, to my knowlege, the only place one can go to see this concept in action. If anyone's up for a post-New Year's trip to the Stupid Apple to see Jim Malone of Arsis perform with the ballet, you know where to find me.

Opinion of a U-Lock Justice

"The advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it's fun . . . An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it's not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it."

If you, like I, have a shrine to Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer in your living space, you might want to go ahead and add another candle. Make it a scented one: this man deserves it.

World's Worst Menu

Walking dogs has made me pay attention to how disgusting the ground is. The area on and around city sidewalks is littered with all sorts of foul-to-lethal items--which the dogs that I affectionately call my "shiteaters" are bent on ingesting. So my eyes need to be a step ahead of their noses. They're not always. So I've developed the following philosophy for the times when a ground nugget makes it past their lips: if it doesn't sound crunchy, at least it's not a bone; if it does sound crunchy, at least it's not a condom.

All you have to do is show up and pay money

Sunday, October 16
Warehouse Next Door
7th + New York Ave. NW

Pash
Amestory
A New Spelling of My Name

And don't miss the other hot shows at the Warehouse that weekend!

Eraseyourhead

David Lynch makes two things: great movies, and me want to throw bricks at him. You may disagree with the first thing, but I imagine you understand it, so I'll move right to the second thing. Months ago, maybe a year ago, I went to see David Lynch speak at American University. The topic wasn't cinema, it was something called transcendental meditation (TM). Appearing with Lynch was Dr. John Hagelin, former presidential candidate of the Natural Law Party among other things. Both are big, even leading, proponents of transcendental meditation (pop over to Wikipedia for some concise info on the practice). The majority of the TM movement's claims, as loyal MA readers will discern, is nonsense. Their rhetoric is full of vapid, evasive new-ageisms. I attended the talk knowing that it would be as stupid and infuriating as it turned out to be. And then David Lynch and his goofball spirituality slid off my radar. Probably the sign of a healthy radar.

Well, he's back. He returned to AU last Tuesday with his ubiquitous sidedick Dr. Hagelin to announce that the university would be part of a two-year research project studying the effects of TM on college students. The Eagle, the AU newspaper, provided this write-up of his visit. (All you conspiracy theorists take note of the part of the URL that says /paper666/... oooo, spooooky...) The article is naively deferential, as evidenced in this passage:

Transcendental meditation is the most thoroughly researched and widely practiced program in the world for developing the full creative potential of the brain and mind, improving health, reducing stress and improving academic outcomes, according to the David Lynch foundation website.

Oh, really? Well this website thinks that transcendental meditation is the metaphysical equivalent of dog diarrhea. Why not print that? It's just as relevant.

Lynch himself offers up some choice quotes, such as, "Real peace is not the absence of war, it's the absence of negativity." Hmm. So, would such a state be all yin or all yang? The spermy part or the oily part? Since negativity is usually associated with darkness, I'm guessing we'd lose the black half. Now, I prefer the aesthetics of black to those of white, but the image of us all oozing through life as so many dollops of happy ejaculate is certainly one worth conjuring.

According to the article, the study is being funded by a partnership of foundations; there's no mention of official university endorsement, financial or otherwise. But I encourage those of you closer to the ground up at Ward Circle to make sure of that. In the meantime, mind Mr. Lynch's erudite dissection of the poo-puddle he's peddling:

"True happiness isn't out there. True happiness is within. But where is this within and how do you get there? This is transcendental meditation. There's an ocean of it. It's called bliss. Bliss takes where happiness leaves off. If students can feel this bliss then that's all you need to know."

True happiness may not be out there, David. But you sure are.

In a hard-fought match between two titanic forces in historical momentum, the blind continue to lead the blind by an indeterminate amount

Don't you love all the recent government ads asking us if WE are prepared to deal with a national disaster?

Space-time continue, um...

During my band's rough-but-not-regretted tour of the UK a few weeks ago, I turned, by standard Western ageing parameters, 27 years of age. Regardless of what time of day one enters the world, birthdays are usually all-day affairs beginning at midnight the day of. And in my case, that's not far from the beginning of my actual life cycle, which (according to a reliable female source) commenced at 1:33am on August 31 in 1978. (Remember! That's 1978 "A.D.," as in anno domini, as in year of our Lord, as in, could anything possibly be stupider.)

If memory serves me, it was sometime after midnight on September 1 that our tour van broke down. Apparently, for a vehicle to operate properly, its cam belt needs to be, in technical terms, "not broken." In practical terms, all this meant for us was that the van stopped running and we had to pull over; no flying parts, no fires, no terrified soiling of selves.

BUT! Let's assume for a moment that something more serious had gone wrong and that I had been killed. No, no, dry your eyes, I'm fine; I just meant for the sake of the proceeding argument. Had I died at or around the time our van broke down, I would have been 27 in British Summer Time, but still 26 in Eastern Standard Time, my home time zone. What age would be listed in newspaper accounts of my death? Would it be different in the UK and the US? How does this work? If you have an inkling, please post it in the comments.

Do not call it a comeback

I have been here for over a year.

Same underwhelming mix of random crap.
Same belief that religion is the worst thing ever.
Same militant defense of the Drudge Report.

Please forward contents to friends and family members who attend primary school.