A Chatterly Christmas

When I saw the CD on the counter, I knew it needed an album cover.

OneRepublican

This is the album cover for OneRepublican's new album, Waking Up. Here are some sample lyrics from their new single, All the Right Bills:

They got all the right bills and all the wrong clauses,

Someday we'll vote it down.

They get all the right insurance and all the wrong health care,

Someday we'll vote it down.

Team Jacob's New Recruit

"I'm the true alpha male."

Another Jelly-Filled Mess

I rock the look. I'll be the first to admit it. Never has one man made one shirt look so darn good. 

 

Perhaps I should take a step back and explain myself. For those uninitiated into the Jellyfish Conflict of '09, no explanation will be provided. The twists and turns; alliances and betrayals; heartbreak and anguish are simply too much to be explained. Suffice it to say that my dear friend Klarissa and my mom-away-from-mom Sister Ludwig made me a shirt. Here's me rocking the look:

Now I fit in with my gelatinous relatives

I'm not sure what this turn of events means. One could be led to believe that this is a peace offering:

Smoking the peace jelly.

However, those two are far more devious than their pleasant appearance suggests. Perhaps it's a way to make me look stupid or go against my principles. Perhaps "kick me, I'm a liberal" is written on the back in invisible ink. Or worse yet, perhaps it's made of recycled fibers! This would be terrible indeed.

However, I think it seems more likely that my neighbors are just overly kind to me. Somehow, they found it in their kind hearts to forgive the room vandalizing, name calling, ferocious young man next door and help his sense of fashion at the same time. Maybe it's a dis against my fashion sense, but I appreciate Klarissa and Mama Ludwig all the same.

Earth Day: We've Finally Got Those Tree Hugging Dastards On The Run

Nation, it's no secret that I start off a large number of my blogs these days with the phrase "Nation, it's no secret that..." It's also no secret that I hate the environment. That's why I was so happy to see today was "Earth Day." I can only guess that, like "VE Day," this means we've finally won the war on the environment. To celebrate, I cleaned the house this morning, using cleaning appliances like the vacuum cleaner and the dishwasher to enlarge my carbon footprint (bigger IS ALWAYS better).

There are a number of arguments for saving the planet; all of them are stupid. I will take time to debunk one of them, mostly because I want to use the energy in my laptop battery:

Nation, there's been a whole lot of talk about preserving the planet for future generations. This smacks of age discrimination (I'd like to smack everyone making this argument). Sacrificing quality of this generation to better the lives of younger generations? (it stands to reason that unborn generations are younger than this one) Classic age discrimination. Already our quality of life has diminished from that of the height of the Industrial Revolution (sort of like the French Revolution, except trees lost their heads). We are no longer allowed to dump industrial waste into clean waters, or release harmful pollutants into the air. It's clear that our "Constitutional" rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been infringed upon. 

Nation, I demand that we, as the Siebert Nation (pronouced "See-bear") take the planet in the stranglehold of democracy. Send a letter to your Congressperson. Send several letters. The more trees we cut down, the more they'll get the point. Refuse to recycle. If it's not new, it belongs in a museum or a dump. I think I've made myself very clear here. More clear than our "Clean-Water-Act-Mandated-Cialis-And-Various-Other-Pharmecutical-Laced-Municipally-Cleaned-Water." Happy Earth Day Nation, we've finally got the tree huggers on the run.

Shattered

Nation, I'm a broken man. To be honest, I don't even feel like a broken man, I feel more like a broken nothing. I used to believe in love, but now, I see that, like Santa Claus, it was nothing more than a way to sell Coca-Cola. 

Someone very dear to me stomped on my heart. Or rather, she chomped on it.

Yesterday, I decided to make peace, and I decided to make a token of our friendship and my forgiveness for her putting up those terrible posters. I spent days agonizing over the perfect symbol. It had to be something amazing, and yet be meaningful. Finally, I hit upon the perfect idea, something that would endure the test of time:

I thought that finally, things would be alright between us.

Sadly, today when I opened the door, I found the shatter remnants of my gift:

Nation, I'm crushed. Nothing can console me but a half gallon of vanilla ice cream. I now know it's too much to ask to be understood and accepted. My tears run into my ice cream and make it taste terrible, a bitter reminder of my pain. But I eat on, sadly devouring the ice cream like she devoured my love for her. I hope it tasted as bad as my ice cream does.

Magnet School

I've created science. I know this a bold claim to make, but I feel that in this instance I am justified. Today, I conducted an experiment on my dog that has rather important implications. Where Pavlov made his dogs salivate, I made my dog produce a liquid of a different sort. 

Perhaps I should step back and explain myself. With Grandma out of the house, our dog Floppy has been looking rather depressed. I had heard that victims of serious depression could be treated with electroshock therapy. I concluded that it stood to reason that a magnet could possibly produce the same effect. I decided to proceed with a process I called "recalibrating the dog." 

I held two medium powered magnets to either side of Floppy's head. I could see no immediate difference. Suddenly, Floppy moved aside, and I saw a small puddle beneath him. Yes, the magnets had relaxed his poor depressed brain so much that he had lost momentary control of his bladder!

I can already see far reaching effects of this discovery:

• I already know my computer would be relaxed by a magnet. It might be so relaxed that it would lose control of its Arithmetic Logic Unit. 
• Barrack Obama has been criticized for being too attached to his teleprompters. Perhaps holding magnets to his head would help him relax enough to say what he really feels. ("Uh... I need to change my pants. And... uh... that's change you can believe in.")
• Economists everywhere could quickly be converted from their doomsday messages with a couple of magnets around their ears. They could also stimulate the economy when they need to dry clean their soiled pants.

I would go on, but the magnets have gone straight to my head and my pants are getting cold and damp.

I'm A PC Vampire

Yesterday, I saw Twilight. I'm still not sure why I said "yes" when my dear friend Klarissa called and asked if I wanted to see it at her house. I tried to read the first book over the summer, and I read for about ten minutes (the length of my break from life guarding at the Rec Center) and I determined it was not the book for me. The prologue was painfully cliché, and I couldn't give a darn about Bella's relationship problems with her father. 

I'm happy to report that the movie was much better. First, it was shorter. Second, much of the annoying introspection was replaced with a slightly attractive girl's moody staring. I'd rather watch the slightly attractive than read about them any day. Lastly, the special effects were amazing. 

I'm joking. A two year old probably could have done the editing. 

And an only slightly older child could have written the dialogue. 

That's assuming, of course, that they had learned what a spider monkey was on their kindergarten trip to the zoo. 

There was, however, one thing that I really enjoyed: all the product placements. There was Rainier Beer, and Google Books! Even in the face of stifling juvenility the free market rules supreme! I'll put out my own product placement, one that is bound to make Microsoft rich!

The Green Scare

Nation, it's no secret that I hate St. Patrick's Day. At least, now it isn't. You might ask, "Mark, why would you hate such a great holiday?" The answer is simple. St. Patrick's Day is nothing more than a liberal scheme to make us all accept the 'green' agenda.

Need more proof?

• St. Patrick's Day isn't a federal holiday. It's a social holiday. What else starts with social? Hmm... I don't know, maybe SOCIALISM?

• The pressure for everyone to wear green is violently conformist. It's an attempt to create a green wearing proletariat to topple the dark suit wearing elites of society.

• Shamrock culture glorifies the four leafed clover over the normal three leafed variety. With this 'the more leaves the better' view how long is it before our children begin seeking out a certain seven leafed 'clover' and start smoking it?

• The myths of plump leprechauns and their pots of gold sitting at the end of a rainbow sounds mildly familiar. Like chubby Congressmen with their welfare checks sitting in Washington?

I think there's no doubt now that there is a St. Patty Plight. It's only a short leap from wearing green, to pinching loggers, to leading PETA rallies. There's also no doubt that we need a charismatic visionary to lead the crusade against the Blarney Brethren. Mark McCarthy, perhaps? 

I urge everyone to band together to fight this liberal scheme. Waste an extra piece of paper today just to show them who's in control. Let your car idle while you listen to the end of that song on the radio. Make a GreenList of known (and unknown) liberals. Let's hit 'em while they're smoking shamrocks.

Guest Writer

I've decided to host a guest writer on my blog. This writer is none other than my computer! This week, for a lab in one of my computer classes, we were given the assignment to write a random sentence generator. I did so, and now I'm using it to write my blog. So here it goes (note that I've added punctuation; the program is not totally omniscient):

Nation, I am enraged because I read that snakes had convinced Hitler that hiding in a picture frame is good. I'm even more angry because I saw the Pinko Commies had a scheme to assassinate Pol Pot with a piece of recycled aluminum. I think we need to destroy liberals with an iPod capable of making anger so we can let Stephan Colbert use a guitar to dispel the myth of explosions in the Middle East. I'm calling for us to make Barrack Obama conjugate a million verbs. My computer is so much better than me I want to strangle overgrown kangaroos with a flower pot.

Here are some great lines that my computer generated:

I'm even more angry because I just found out sinful preachers have convinced David S. Carpenter that punching alligators is good.

We need to make Kyler Ludwig conjugate a million verbs.

My computer is like Barrack Obama on steroids.

The liberal media had convinced a guy named Steve that gnawing through a guitar is good.

We need to let Pol Pot kill hamsters so we can unstop the toilet with an iPod capable of hiding in a large pencil.

I just found out women named 'Gina' have been using Richard Nixon's toothbrush to melt the polar ice caps.

Now I think we all know the dangers of letting a computer write humor. It's terrifying that my computer can write all this stuff. It could say anything it wanted to while posing as me. I want you to know that my computer is the best computer in the whole entire world, and if I could, I would make blood sacrifices to it every third Tuesday of the month. I will most definitely be giving it a RAM massage after I'm done writing this.

Integrating the Inappropriate

Today in my Calculus 2 class (slogan: "this time it's not Calculus 1"), we learned about improper integrals. Now, before you start thinking this was some great math drama about an aging single math professor who falls in love with a 30 year old graduate student who writes beautiful integrals, I should tell you it's not that interesting. In fact, it's so boring, I won't even describe what they are. 

However, I do think there are other ways that integrals are improper. Just look at the way integrals are drawn: 

Look at those curves! No wonder math majors have a hard time meeting women; they have unrealistic expectations from working thousands of math problems! The more I thought about these insidious symbol objectifying mathematicians, the more I realized just how pervasive their symb-ography is. Just look at the pi, the most innocent of numbers:

So curvaceous! Think about the toll these unrealistic symbol expectations must take upon the poor sigma sign:

It's time we step up and put an end to the flagrant use of symbolic augmentation and stop these lecherous lecturers. Write all your math using flat symbols. Write your congressperson and make Congress pass a Flat Math Act. Tell them it's sort of like a flat tax. Support members of your family that struggle with math image problems. If all else fails, save yourself the heartbreak, just stop doing math. 

Adding Insult To History

He did it again. So much for being a gracious winner. That's right, last night, Barack Obama rubbed his election over Arizonan senator John McCain in the good senator's face with a second victory. This victory was much more important, because it had far more commercials, which meant a much bigger chance to restart the economy (than $800 billion, I mean). I am, of course, speaking of Obama's actions to win the Super Bowl.

I'm sure this accusation upsets the liberals out there. "He didn't even give the Steelers hope!" and "Change would have been for the Cardinals to win, not the Steelers!" and "He wasn't even playing!" are probably the general arguments. Oh yeah? 

I knew the guy who ran the 100 yard interception return touchdown looked too skinny! 

Mr. President, you should have let the Cardinals win. Everyone knows it's a long standing tradition that the new president lets his opponent's team win the Super Bowl. You get to sign the bill to shut down Guantanamo Bay, and John McCain's Cardinals get to shut down the Steelers. It should be a fair exchange, but you've tipped the scales of justice. Look at what you've done:

That's why I'm calling for Barack Obama to set things right by stepping down from the Presidency and allowing John McCain to take his place. Unlike the Cardinals, who had a long history of losing, Senator McCain had a long history of winning office. But you, Mr. President, have put an end to that history with your own historic election. Now you've gone and won the historic 43th Super Bowl. And that's adding insult to history.

Managing the Microwave Menace

Today, at University Forum, I listened to a speech entitled, "Microwaves, Icebergs and Global Warming." Naturally, I assumed that he would be refuting any evidence of global climate change. So when I heard the words, "global warming is real," I nearly went berserk with rage. I ignored the rest of the speech, instead desperately visualizing myself punching the speaker in the head each time he mentioned global warming, in an attempt to preserve my dogmatic conservative paradigm. 

I was largely successful.

However, after the speech ended, I was left with no idea of what had actually been said, and only vaguely remembered animated displays of ice fluctuation. I can only guess from the title of the speech that microwaves are the cause for "global warming." 

Obviously, microwaves are now a luxury the liberal schemers out there are trying to get us to give up. I don't care if it's gonna kill the planet, I want my leftovers warm. You liberals could try to tell me otherwise, but I won't be paying attention. I'll be imagining myself punching you in the face.

i, CoinFlip

It's a pretty well known fact that I am an aspiring nerd. This next week in my Data Structures class (it's as deliciously scandalous as it sounds), the project is to write a program that predicts what the user will guess in a coin flip. Sounds innocent, right?

Wrong. This computer program learns based on the user's guesses. That's right, it learns. If the user uses any type of pattern, whether consciously or subconsciously, the program will learn and take advantage of it! 

This is terrifying. It could spell the destruction of our nation and our movie industry. I'm sure you're thinking, "What could a program that guesses coin flipping predictions possibly do?" Well, here are a few examples to show just how insidious this program could be.

I'm considering not doing the project. But I think I'd rather get a good grade in Professor Barker's class than prevent the destruction of mankind.