The 60's are over, fellas. Maybe y'all weren't paying attention when the comet struck, but that doesn't make the surface-mounted, hand-cranked pencil sharpener any less extinct. You might as well sharpen a pencil with a meatgrinder for all the finèsse you can squeeze out of a Berol Giant or a cough Boston Ranger. The Ranger looks impressive, and will put fear into your enemies, but those old dinosaurs jam like an M16 Mk.1 on the Mekong. Just try and explain to the examiner that you couldn't complete your SAT because you're No.2 Faber was twisted like a hexagonal pretzel.

It's the twenty-first century, boys. Get with the program. Today, it's all about reliability, performance, and mobility. That's why YouBitch officially endorses the Staedtler 5123 "Triplus" MPSS.

The lines of the Staedtler are modern, and functional. The triangular design provides the kind of stability and ease of use expected in a modern MPSS.

But ease of use doesn't have to come at the expense of flexibility:

The Staedtler 5123 "Triplus" provides two (2) sharpening access points for simultaneous sharpening of multiple subjects.

But beauty isn't always only skin deep:

Inside the 5123 you'll find two (2) stainless steel shaving elements, handcrafted in Solingen, Germany. You'll also find the 5123's generous shavings reservoir suited to the most demanding sharpening tasks.

In conclusion, the Triplus is the Nissan Skyline of modern sharpening systems. The advanced design and extensive use of space-age materials offer high performance with a degree of mobility only dreamed of in older, traditional sharpeners like those from Boston and Berol.

The Triplus, and other fine products from Staedtler Germany, can be found at McPaper for about €1.50.

It's Christmas time again. The Christkindlsmarkt is open, the Glühwein is flowing copiously, and I'll be damned if the concession stands outside aren't selling reindeer-burgers. Reindeer? At Christmas? You have to hand it to the Germans; despite their abysmal statist politics, they offer absolutely no quarter to the PETA crowd.

Here are some horribly grainy photos, taken with my phone, of the Augsburg town square, where this year's Christmas Market is in full swing

City Hall and Town Square, Augsburg

Augsburg's Christmas Tree

Lots of people chugging Glühwein (hot mulled wine). It'll warm your cockles.

Maybe I'll take a real camera out some time and get some pics for you folks. Christmas time is really beautiful over here, and this year it looks like we'll get some snow, too.

Well, peeps, it's been a hard week. Just got through cleaning out my apartment, and bribing my landlady with a large, just to get the hag off my back. Plus, I'm trying everything in my power not to have to paint the place. It's 92 square meters of cold bareness, with 3 meter walls. I'm not exactly sure what that is in real measurement units, but it ain't small.

Moving house in Germany is a major pain in the ass. You take absolutely everything in the apartment with you. The lights, the kitchen sink, the shower-head, even the kitchen counter and cabinets. You'll need them, too, because whatever shit-hole apartment you wind up moving in to next will have been stripped like a Benz in Five Points. It's a pathetic sight, an unoccupied apartment. They don't even have closets over here, for some reason. You have to have a shift-or-robe in your possession, or you'll be stacking your unmentionables in the living room in front of God and everyone. I sold my shift-or-robe for smokes over a month ago, so in case anybody wants to see real-life boxers with red hearts and little glow-in-the-dark x's and o's, just come on over; they're sitting over there next to the playstation.

There are advantages to moving, though. My Zippo fell out of an old jacket as I unpacked it. That thing's been missing now for 2 years, and I'd sworn I'd never buy another one since I can't keep up with them. Score!

Now playing in iTunes:

The Sex Fiends from the album "Poems And Insults" by Charles Bukowski

Tonight, the waitress at a bar actually said to me:

We're not bringing any more beer to the tables. It's too stressful.(!) If you want another beer, go to the bar and pick it up yourself.

Just in case anyone was worrying that the work-for-tips model was maybe inferior to the European work-for-salary-or-don't one.

I work sometimes out of an office in the back of an old movie theater.  This theater was converted some years ago into an upscale restaurant, but the old silver screen is still the dominant interior feature.  It's an old-style european movie house, with an upstairs gallery that circles the dining area, allowing the guests to look down on the large parquet surface that would have been the theater seating.  A few weeks ago, the owner decided to showcase a local artist.  She brought in about a dozen paintings, and they were hung next to the tables with little nameplates and price stickers in case anyone would be interested in shelling out 3000 bucks for a no-name close-up abstract of a persimmon painted with acrylics.  And I mean, hey, who wouldn't?

But I'm no art critic.  When I was a young man, I fancied myself an artist.  I drew constantly, toyed with painting, even made a few statues here and there in clay.  I intellectualized and agonized over the lack of acceptance that experimental art forms were seeing.  I argued endlessly over the role of art in society, and how dangerous it was to let conservative old men make the final decision on the age-old question What is Art?

I believe my first real artistic crisis came with that sophomoric Piss-Christ thing.  My first reaction to this photo was, well, that's art, but it's trash art.  The once-heated discussions turned into defensive tirades about fundamentalist Christians running away with American culture; because, you know, it's not like they're part of American culture or anything. But still, there was something about the photo that just didn't fit into my world-view.  It was supposed to be good, it was said, that so many people were talking about art and culture again.  That's Art; it moves you, and makes you think, right?  I changed my mind back then.  I decided that nobody really knew what art was, and the important thing was to keep an open mind to other people's view of What is Art?

With age comes more than just creaky knees and ass-pimples.  As I was sitting around the other day in the restaurant, discussing with some colleagues the new persimmon-paintings, we touched again upon that age-old dilemma.  Sure, some of the brushwork and composition of the pictures was pleasing, but was this art?  My colleague, who's a computer artist, decided it was not.  This is illustration, not art, he pronounced.  This does not speak to the soul, nor does it challenge the mind. I disagreed.  Here we come to the entry-eponymous Unified Theory.  "Art" is absolutely, positively, and irrevocably in the eye of the creator.  You say that cheese-sculpture you did of Jesus wearing a bikini and high heels and blowing George W. Bush is Art? Okay, buddy, it's Art. But here's a little something extra for you to think about:  What is Art? was never actually the question.  The question was always, and will always be, Who's Going to Pay for It?

It's kind of sad that this nugget of wisdom wasn't there for me in the eighties, during which I found myself wasting valuable drinking hours actually arguing whether or not interpretive dance qualifies as a valid art form.

The Bastige has some good thoughts on what's going on in Afghanistan.  I'm pretty confident that, in the long run, the U.S. action in Iraq will be remembered as a daring, impetuous jump-start to the next phase of history.

In Afghanistan, the short-run benefits are so great that even the most vocal WoT-defeatists try to keep it out of the conversation as much as possible.

Fall, 1988
Atlanta, GA

Trolling the Fall rush parties at Georgia Tech for free beer and women of easy virtue, I find myself in a conversation with a sweet-talking little Southern Belle.  The lights are low, the mood is right, and from the stereo come the melancholy strains of Johnny Horton's "Springtime in Alaska".

Turning to my blonde-haired, blue-eyed flower, I say, "40 below, huh?  You think he means Fahrenheit or Celsius?"  She rolls her eyes and, slowly but with purpose, walks to the muscular rugby player doing a headstand on the keg and strikes up a lively conversation.

Apparently she doesn't get the joke.

Well, the Internet is ablink today with the news that Colin Powell, the beloved Secretary of State, will be 'retiring' in the first wave of the 2004 purges.  I hope his new assignment as Chief Supervisor at the Barron Point Surveillance Station and Health Spa will agree with him. 

As news organizations and 60 Minutes rack their brains to come up with a successor, I'd like to put a little bug in their ear.  I happened to be acquainted with one of the Great Communicators of our times; a man who can build bridges, and heal the wounds that the events of the last few years have caused, both for ourselves, and our allies.  I speak of none other than my good friend and mentor, Mr. James Taggart.

As an example of his diplomatic abilities, I'd like you to read the following exchange.  With a troubled mind, I had asked for his help in settling a dispute over the U.S.'s intentions in Iraq with a German colleague.  Mr. Müller (not his real name) wrote:

          <blockquote><p>In World War II, it was all about the liberation of 
            Germany. Admittedly, it was liberation for the germans, but just 
            as a by-produkt. In 1941, there had been Nazis for quite a while, 
            as well as the concentration camps, but the Americans hadn't jumped 
            into the mix; that they did only when the Germans and Japanese 
            declared war on them. Then they had to. But the goals of the war 
            were different: Quote from a brief to the American OB [not sure 
            what OB is, probably High Command], 1944: &quot;Germany will not 
            be attacked with goal of liberation, rather as a defeated nation 
            in the interests of the Allies&quot;</p></blockquote>
          <p>Who ever said that we &quot;liberated&quot; 
            Germany, I asked myself, or were even thinking about it? Germany wasn't &quot;occupied&quot; 
            by the Nazis. They WERE the Nazis.&nbsp; Mr. Taggart, the consummate diplomat, responded:<br /> </p>
          <blockquote><p>&quot;You should quickly agree with the [German] about 
            the goal of WWII. Our goal, stated from the first, was to defeat 
            Hitler and the Nazis and dismantle their Third Reich. The fact 
            that when that was done Germany could again become a civilized 
            nation was just gravy. He can rest assured that if we had had 
            to kill every goose-stepping Jew-gassing Hitler-worshiping continent-raping 
            master-racist one of them to do it, there would be no German People 
            today, except perhaps in zoos!&quot;</p></blockquote>

But there's certainly more to diplomacy than just flowery words!  Mr. Taggart is also a man with solutions.  For example:

The Muslim Problem in Europe:

Seems like the Dutch have all of a sudden discovered they have a small problem. And of course Chirac has been put on suicide watch because his dear friend has passed away. Maybe the rest of Europe could deport all of their muslims to France. Then instead of speaking German they could learn to speak Arabic.

The Burial of Arafat

Well, he is apparantly truly dead this time! But I've got a stake to put through his little heart, a fine oak tree to bury him under, and some holy water to consecrate the ground with!

The Mending of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance

I have been really entertained with several news articles I've seen about how all the various world leaders have sent Bush congrats, and how several of them are saying they hope that now Bush will "work with them" to "bridge our gaps" and such. They need to look at the election results again, apparantly. Bush won, not them!

A man of integrity, sensitivity,  and nuance.  Send George Bush an email, suggesting Mr. James Taggart for Secretary of State!

I mean, you know, not that there's anything wrong with that...

johnny say:

I give my woman half my money at the general store I said, "Now buy a little groceries, and don't spend no more." But she gave ten dollars for a ten cent hat, And bought some store bought cat food for that mean-eyed cat.

When I give her ten more dollars for a one way ticket, she was mad as she could be. Then I bet ten more that if she ever left she'd come a-crawlin' back to me.

When I woke up this mornin' and I turned my head, there wasn't a cotton pickin' thing on her side of the bed. I found a little old note where her head belonged It said, "Dear John, honey, baby, I'm long gone."
 

 

Evil Conservative, who I must add to my links because he's a total hoot, has found an absolute classic.

The whole we're sorry thing pisses me off for so many reasons.  It's fine that they do it, I mean, nobody takes it seriously, but living over here makes me more sensitive to crap like that.  C'mon, folks, show a little spine!  Europeans don't like Americans, they never have, and they certainly won't like you any more just because you make a frownie-face and a little sign that says, "yeah, America sucks, but I'm different, see?"

Nobody likes a sycophant; do what your conscience tells you, not what you think will make people like you more.  Didn't they teach y'all this stuff in Sunday School?

People in Europe like to talk on and on about things in America. Germans in particular are egregious knuckleheads when it comes to anti-Americanism.  Michael Moore is God here.  It's really quite easy to be God in Germany, it seems.  You just have to scream louder than the rest of the people, and compare everybody to Hitler.  Germans apparently have some inside track in recognizing the next Hitler.  Well, they should.

The entire country is full of moonbat lefties.  Even the conservatives here are moonbat lefties.  People who seem perfectly normal are just barking mad once you talk politics with them.  For example, no one talks about German politics.  The economy sucks over here.  I mean, it really sucks.  I'm homeless at the moment, as is a good friend of mine in Hamburg.  My colleagues, all of them intelligent, talented people in diverse fields, are to the man being hounded by the Finanzamt, the German equivalent of the IRS for money that just isn't there.  I've got them on my ass, too.  Nobody has any money, there's no work to go around, and there are beggars in the streets, kneeling on every street corner in the bitter cold with plastic cups out, silently waiting for you to bump them a euro.  It's heavy at the moment.  But still, Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine, has cover stories devoted  almost exclusively to American politics.  There seems to be an unspoken rule at the the moment that it's best just not to talk about German affairs.  Nobody wants to read about paying $4 per gallon for gas.  Nobody wants to think about the government taking 80% of your paycheck in income tax, value-added tax, solidarity tax, eco-tax, heating-tax, and force-fed health insurance. 

Real-life Nazis are winning seats in the Bundestag Landtag* in eastern Germany, and an increasingly bitter, impoverished public is getting sick and tired of kissing bureaucrat ass.  Eventually, they are going to start listening to these master-racist retards and start annexing things again.  And morons like Johannes should really start worrying about the direction Europe is headed, instead of criticizing things they are incapable of understanding.

*-corrected by commenter Doug. For an overview of the German government's structure, looky here.

Wednesday, I was in bed with a voluptuous, naked woman and a tumbler of 18-year old scotch, and I had my laptop open reading election reports. I remember thinking to myself, thank God I have wireless.

When, exactly, do you admit to yourself you have a problem?

So, this is what life is like after the Election. I think I'm having some sort of post-partem depression. Maybe I've got empty-nest syndrome, now that George doesn't need me anymore. He's all grown up now, I know. Still, wouldn't kill him to call me every now and then and see how it's going.

Hmph. Kerry would've called.

So, it's looking good for Bush folks everywhere.  I'm cautiously optimistic that this time next year, our long-planned Project Radioactive Earth will finally have come to fruition.  If we learned anything from the 2000 election, it's that disenfranchisement works.

Overheard on German talk radio this morning:

Announcer: I figure most of you choked  on your breakfast pretzels this morning when you read the news that, amazingly, Bush was re-elected.  So, our question today is, are you happy with the election results?

Caller 1: When I read the newspaper this morning, I became physically ill.  How could the Americans do this to us?  To the world?!

Caller 2:  I don't know what the last caller was thinking.  I'm extremely pleased with the election results.  People in Europe have to learn that Americans will always do what they perceive to be the right thing, no matter what the Germans or the French think.  They believe that actions speak louder than words, and  so far, all the action has come from the United States.  The rest of the world would rather sit around and talk about [terrorism].

Caller 3: I'm very impressed with the Americans. It should now become clear to German politicians that they will have more success if they concentrate on German politics than if they continue to obsess on the Americans. 

So, the world was watching, as John Kerry warned.  And from what I've heard, they may have even learned something.  There was an 'expert on American politics' on the show as color commentator.  His take was that the over-simplification of the election by European pundits has really created a psychological rift between the Europeans and the Americans, and that the Europeans are on the wrong side of it. 

It was also very interesting watching the coverage on television last night. They had people in Washington, D.C. having a little Kerry love-in.  They had some old fruit talking who was rouged up like a two-dollar whore, spouting Mooreian inanities about Bush and Halliburton.  The moderator just sat there and nodded sadly to everything he said.  They then had the self-same expert who was on the radio this morning on, and he basically tore the guy a new one.  The untouchable Michael Moore was roundly spanked, which is not a pretty mental picture, I don't care what kind of fetishes you have.

So, if this election does indeed go to Bush, it may have a uniting effect.  I find it much more likely that the US and Europe would come together on the US's terms than it would with an apologetic Kerry administration crawling to the UN, begging for forgiveness.

So, that's my serious commentary; we now continue with with our regularly scheduled sick little drawings and vagina references.

With all the petulant in-fighting going around at election time, sometimes it's good to remember that the USA is really the best country in the world.  Don't get me wrong, I love lib-baiting as much as the next fascist-jackbooted-brownshirted repug, but it's really all in good fun.  Today, the people of the United States are deciding what they want their future to be, and we're sending the world a message.  That message may well be that we've kind of taken a shine to being the world's abusive drunken uncle having 'Nam flashbacks like the last 3 years, diving behind the couch every time a car backfires screaming 'Charlie's in the bush goddammit, Charlies in the bush!' and unloading the 12-gauge at random into the woods behind the house, fuck me what the hell was that all about?  Or, we might just elect the ugliest, lamest, panderingest pussy to run for president since McGovern.

But you know what, Mr Terrorist?  No matter who wins the election, we're still going to kick your ass. We're going to do it without even trying.  In fact, we're going to kick your ass without even looking like we were trying.  It'll be like, whoops, what was that?  Sounded like we just kicked some terrorists' asses back there!  Maybe we should turn around and see if he's alright?  Nah, we'll be late for the hockey game if we do that.  We're going to kick your ass so hard, even Allah will cringe.  There ain't enough virgins in heaven for all dumbfucks like you we're going to be sending his way the next couple of years.

And once we're done kicking your ass, we'll kick your brother's ass.  Then your dad's ass will become acquainted with mister government-issue desert-color camel-stomper boot, model 1994.  We'll slap your mama if she gives us any lip as well. Then we'll burn down your fucking house, plow salt into the ground, even though it's made out of sand, anyway; it'll be like Odysseus at the beginning of the Iliad, except we'll be doing it because we're blind drunk instead of trying to act all crazy-like.

We're Americans.  We kick ass.  That's what we do.   Now, you beautiful bastards, get out there and VOTE, I don't care who you vote for.  Although if you vote for Bush, the whole ass-kicking thing will be over quicker, seeing as we won''t have to sit around waiting for the German Bundeswehr to get back from getting their nails done before we can get the show going.

Whining, simpering twat Roxanne, guest-blogging over at the occasionally liberal Kulture Kitch'n just took a load off my mind. You see, about 3 years ago, plus or minus a few weeks, I had this horrible dream, no doubt induced by an overzealous, Orson Wells "War of the Worlds"-type radio play, that Islamic terrorists hijacked four passenger jets, and flew three of them into buildings in Washington and New York, and crashed the fourth one in Pennsylvania. I know this is crazy, but you know how vivid dreams can be sometimes, so stick with me. In this dream, over 3,000 people died within an hour; people from all over the world, not just Americans. And the craziest thing was, in this dream I had, the crime was perpetrated by a believer in the peaceful, benevolent religion of Islam, known the world over for its benevolent peacefulness.

It was all an illusion. Osama bin Laden, hunted unjustly now for three long years, doesn't actually exist. He's Emmanuel Goldstein, you see? Emmanuel Goldstein was the bogeyman invented by Ingsoc to give a face for their people to hate. Goldstein didn't really exist. George W. Bush, that diabolical genius/slobbering retard, invented OBL to motivate us all to give up our right to smoke in bars and give more money to the military-industrial complex. Oh, yeah, and reinstate a draft, almost forgot that one.

Enough of that shit. One immutable truth, is that liberals love to quote Orwell, but not one of them understands him. Liberals, and really all statists, should stay as far away from Orwell as they can, lest they get some on them. Orwell was a social democrat, but in Europe you're either that or a fascist: There is no political conservativism over here. Orwell's greatest fear was runaway leftist statism (the 'Soc' in IngSoc stood for socialism, in case you missed it, Roxanne), and that's what 1984 is about. Roxanne should probably try to actually read the book before she starts trying to apply it to modern politics. Between 1984 and Animal Farm, she might eventually get the gist of what Orwell was really talking about.

OBL is Goldstein; the World Trade Center was the Reichstag Fire; 2+2=5. I guess I should have expected it from a site that spreads the hatred and filth of Mr. "White Devil" himself, Malcom X, as if it were Sunday Sermon inspirationals instead of crypto-Islamist racism. Culture Kitchen is de-linked, and I would advise anyone to read it, if they think that the Democratic Party is still a sane choice. Liza was an idiot to let someone like that come in and blow their cover of entertainingly-vapid progressive 'thinking'.

Get back in the kitchen, girls, and leave this thinking stuff to people who aren't on crack.

Hallowe'en is still in its infancy here in the Germany.  The kids don't really get it yet, as far as I can tell.  First of all, they don't dress up.  Two of the little freeloaders just came by about an hour ago; and instead of costumes, they merely had their faces painted like Gene Simmons.  Well, to be fair, one of them did have a red trash liner hanging around his neck like a cape.

Unfortunately for our little kobolds, they came to the one house in Germany that is not supported by the all-encompassing nanny state.  I should put up a sign that says "Auslander" on my front door.  Then again, with the strong German influence on the new EU Constitution, that  will probably come soon enough.

One thing that's really nice about being an American in Europe, is that some things that are absolutely un-cool in the States have value here.  For example, I have an "Apollo 13" promotional t-shirt with "A13" on the front, and a "Hardee's" logo on the sleeve.  In the States, I wouldn't even dream of wearing that horrible piece of shit for anything other than yardwork, but over here I've actually gone clubbing in it.  And gotten compliments, I might add.

In that vein, for my greedy little hallowe'en geister I had nothing to give, candy-wise.  I considered dropping a couple of smokes into their bags, but thought better of the idea once I saw I didn't have many left.  For a desperate moment, I even considered filling a couple of Zip-loc bags with Quaker Quick-Grits and telling them it was heroin. Fearing the retribution that might come from German children who get shorted on dime-bags, I scrounged further until I found a couple of Pez refills.  I tossed them into their bags, and told them it was actual, honest-to-goodness American candy they were getting.  Good thing they didn't speak English, or they might have actually read the wrappers.

The little morons actually thanked me.

Winter, 1999
Paris, France

Walking down a street in Paris, I notice a large, wrought-iron gate in front of an old building with the words "Le Mtropolitain" ornately engraved on it.

"Le Mtropolitain," I muse aloud.  "Is that an opera house or something?"

My travelling companion, mouth agape, turns to me and says, "It's the subway, dickhead."

So, I'm sitting around the apartment, and figured I'd do a little blogging.  It seemed like something better to do than spending hours slo-mo'ing through old Star Wars movies looking for nip-slips.

No, I'm not here to talk about the effects of alcohol on men.  I'm here to talk about what happens to members of the weaker sex.  Men may do some stupid things in the haze, but some things that women do leave me dumbstruck.  For example, when my doorbell rings at 3:00AM.  This happens more often than you'd think, and is almost always one drunk girl or another.  Ahh, the single life.   Unfortunately for me, it's usually the strange, pot-smoking, "18" year old  neighbor, hitting me up for spaghetti sauce.  I usually give it up, even though my current financial situation leaves me with about two packets of spaghetti sauce per week as my sole source of calories.  What can I say, I'm a saint.  Wednesday night, however, it wasn't the neighbor, it was my girlfriend who rang the doorbell at 3:00AM.  Deeee-runk.  Blotto.  Cooder Brown, she was.  No, I don't know about most guys, but when I show up drunk at my S.O.'s place at 3 in the morning,  it's not to check the meter, except maybe in some clumsy metaphorical sense.

So, I'd had a couple of beers myself, at a separate location, and I figured we're on the same wavelength.  But women are different, and can be difficult to read.  I cajoled her with tales of travel; I plied her with extravagant promises, such as introducing her to Acidman, whom I've never met, and judging by some of his recent posts, probably won't get a chance to.  But, women being what they are, drunk or no, she resisted my advances.  Turns out, she had her own ideas.  At some point she told me to go to bed and wait for her there.  "Oh yeah", I stimulus-responsed, "this is the life".  After a while, I think I fell asleep.  At any rate, my girlfriend, who was indeed drunk in case I haven't mentioned it yet, managed to invent food in my kitchen.  There was no food, none.  I can vouch for that fact.  There were noodles, yes, but the neighbors had already nationalized any sort of noodle-sauce there might have been.  There were some "vegetables" in the refrigerator, but only for show, and certainly nothing identifiable by phylum.   Nevertheless, she managed to concoct some sort of delicious, fiery-hot curry to eat with the noodles.

And then she cleaned my kitchen, and went to sleep.  I'm still not entirely sure what all happened; it's like some sort of weird dream.  My kitchen looked like the apartment from trainspotting when I went to bed, then my drunk girlfriend shows up at 3 in the morning and cleans it up, cooks dinner, and goes to sleep.

Dames.

SCORE!!!

Only a crazed, bloodthirsty Hitler guy could do something so monstrous, so eee-ville.  Kinda makes me want to vote twice.  Again.

According to this article at Little Green Footballs, not only are Canadians in Afghanistan, they actually name their special forces, "Princess Pats".

Princess Pats?  Homos. 

One small tip:  Don't win your World Series so early in the century.  It only makes it harder for the fans. 

"And the mean guy won't stop it with the bu-nn-nn-ieees..."

One more week, and it's all over.  I can't wait till this bullshit ends.

Sometimes, it's good to be number one.

Velociman must be feeling indestructible.  I'm not quite sure exactly what was in that moonshine at the Blogfest, but it's turned him into some sort of Nicholson-Joker self-destructive psychopath, daring God to strike him down:

I've always wanted to taste this most English of comestibles. A yeast byproduct, I believe, and something one either loves or hates. Like grits. Or scrapple.

Well, the lovely Christina is bringing some back for the V-hovel from England. Bless her.

I'm going to have a tasting, if anyone is interested. Of the Marmite, fools.

I'm thinking a consistency somewhere between peanut butter and apple butter, with the flavor of a well-worn tie-rod end. If I'm lucky.

I had to eat Marmite's bastard cousin, Vegemite, for four straight months while travelling in Australia.  Just because they don't have peanuts down there, they scrape the bottoms of the giant brass brewery-urns out, and put it in jars and call it breakfast.  A well-worn tie-rod would taste downright subtle next to this filth.  Think chewing on Claude Akins' fungus-lined toenails, licking out the crusty old toejam, then washing it all down with a can of flat Schlitz that has cigarette butts floating around in it; that's pretty close.

Get the man some peanut butter.

Hymen, meet Prom Night.

It just hit me what an absolutely disgusting name that is for a religious holiday: Maria Himmelfahrt (August 15).  It sounds like a fake name mischievous youngsters would give to a substitute teacher in Catholic school: "Has anyone seen the Himmelfahrt twins, Maria and Christi?" Christi Himmelfahrt, by the way, is May 20.  Mark your calendars.

For all his faults, and there are few, Jim Goad knows the ladies:

in my endless locker-room sojourns where the conversations invariably become gritty and depraved, I've never encountered another male who confided to me that he fantasizes about committing rape. Not once.

It's absolutely true.  Rape doesn't excite men, it scares them.  It sounds too much like work to be erotic.  Maybe that's why women, even worldly, educated, intelligent women like Key, think rape scenarios would make good porn:

Rugged-looking character hangs out in the alley admiring the view which is being openly flaunted for him. Tension builds. Eventually, she throws her apartment key into the street before turning her back and disappearing from sight. He tears in, throws her against the wall, shows no mercy, she gasps, she devours, she claws...and in the end SCREAMS...

I would quote more, but I just couldn't stomach it.  In their hearts, women are brutal, vicious, sexual deviants, driven to heights of ecstasy by the smell of fear and the sight of blood.  A woman can't watch two or more attractive, professionally-upholstered people having good ol' consensual butt-sex  in a swimming pool; it can't keep their interest.  They want the violence, the fear. They need it to get their disgusting sexual juices humors flowing. 

Perverts.