[Wherein our hero posts a collection of queries, ponderings, and dubious trivia to clear his mind for the long weekend ahead. A happy holiday to you all, and remember: a good BBQ is a safe BBQ.]Benjamin Franklin's suggestion for the official bird of the new United States was the wild turkey. One of the great man's few missteps, it led to an unsuccessful bid at suicide-by-electrified-kite.
McDonald's is running a new commercial in which two coworkers are sharing lunch. One warns the other--who is eating a chicken sandwich from the Arches--that if he keeps eating chicken sandwiches he will turn into a chicken. In one of the darkest turns ever witnessed in a fast-food spot not featuring the Burger King, a Kafkaesque metamorphosis takes place in subsequent scenes as the man, indeed, begins to resemble a chicken. (In one shot, there is a fox in his hallway eyeing him with hungry fox-eyes.) Not shown are the scenes portraying the transformation of the burger-munching co-worker into an inambulatory mound of unprocessed soy filler, torn cowhide, minced hoofparts, and rat excreta.
With bleary, dead, rueful eyes.
Foxes are renowned throughout the animal kingdom for possessing the largest vocabularies of any four-legged beast.
The polar bear is a close second, though their habit of devouring rapt listeners has led to the species' largely oral history becoming shrouded in mystery and speculation.
While most hippopotami never learn to read or write, they are acutely aware that their name derives from the Greek (via Latin) for "river horse." Neither the hippos nor this observer are quite sure what the Greeks were thinking there.
Seriously, though, what's up with the Yeti? You just don't hear from 'em as much as you used to.
Upon his abdication of the English throne, Edward VIII embarked on a brief but lucrative alt-porn career under the pseudonym "Li'l Eddie, Lord Fucking-Hand." No copies of his work survived a direct hit during the Blitz, though Hitler, ironically, was rumored to have been a fan. The loss of the negatives filled the Nazi leader with his only regrets of the Second World War, and led to a debilitating period of self-doubt fueled by schnapps and tearful autoerotic asphyxiation.
Most common euphemism for masturbation [American English]: "spanking the monkey."
Least common euphemism for same: "tap-dancing with Ernie Borgnine."
Number of times it looks like Borgnine might make out with William Holden in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch: 7.Number of times he actually does: 1. The scene was deleted from the original theatrical release, though sources hail that long-lost clip as a brilliant (if whiskey-soaked) deconstruction of Wild West machismo that paved the way for future gay-in-the-saddle epics like Brokeback Mountain.
Is Borat [at right] wearing a man-thong stretched to the limits of Lycra, or a woman's bathing suit sold by hateful French shopkeepers?
Either way, Borat, nice shoes.
