What Would the Internet Do?

I'm sure you all know of one of those people who feel compelled to forward you every damn thing that comes into their email inbox - pictures of kittens, delete-this-and-you-hate-Jesus chain letters, jokes you thought were funny in the 6th grade, etc. I am on the email list of one such person.

She works for the IRS in a department that's in charge of outreach programs to low-income taxpayers, so the financial literacy program at my job works with her a lot as a member of a coalition. She may send 20 messages in a day, all from her government address. One time she even invited her whole address book to her daughter-in-law's baby shower!

I've put up with these stupid emails since I started working here because she seems like the kind of person to hold a grudge and make my job difficult if I piss her off. I also believe that she would cut us off from other organizations and resources if she gets mad at us. However, a few months ago she forwarded the email referenced in this Snopes article along with some hateful, bigoted commentary about the entire religion of Islam. Keep in mind this is coming from her irs.gov work email. I was so disgusted and angry my head nearly exploded. I immediately sent out the link to the Snopes article to everyone who received the email, and one person contacted me privately saying she was glad I did.

My boss got the same email, and we talked about how we could address this with her supervisor without getting into a big, nasty showdown with this woman that would make it difficult for us to carry out programs for our clients. We don't have any idea who her supervisor is or how to get the phone number. Getting through to the IRS isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Before we could decide what to do the IRS lady sent out an email apologizing profusely for sending out false information and filling our inboxes with unprofessional messages. She promised to only send out work related emails from then on. We figured she had already gotten in trouble, and that was the end of that.

Well, that lasted less than a week before the stupid "humorous" emails started again. At one point she sent out an advertisement for tickets to the Evander Holyfield fight. WTF?

Here's where the dilemma comes in. Last week the person who took my old position called me to ask if I had seen the IRS lady's latest email. She forwarded a bunch of pictures taken during the demonstrations about the cartoon of Mohammed of protesters with violent messages on their signs. She didn't add any commentary to the email, but the forwarded message included ugly statements about Islam again. This time, however, she had specifically left me and my boss off the email.

Something has to be done about this, but I have no idea what. Yes, those pictures were accurate, and angry crackpots were carrying signs about butchering and beheading those who mock Islam. But, that is just as wrong and crazy as those excellent "Christians" who disrupt military funerals to chant "God Hates Fags" or Catholic priests who molest children and work to cover it up. This woman has no right to spread hate and fear of an entire religion, much less to use government resources to do it. (Just because the president, the military, and the congress does it, doesn't make it right. That might not be a completely fair assessment, but I thought I'd beat you to it.)

At the same time, we need her help (or at least her department's help) to run a program that does a lot of good for the people we serve. If we make it harder for them to get the services they need by standing up against one wrong, we commit another one. Addressing her directly does no good. Even if we could figure out where to complain, doing so anonymously seems cowardly. Doing nothing seems even worse.

WWTID?

Story time with Grandpa

My grandpa told me this story when I was really little, and sometimes it pops into my head at the strangest times.

Once there was a little girl who had a jolly old grandfather with a long gray beard. One day the little girl asked her grandfather, "When you go to sleep at night, Grandfather, do you tuck your beard under the covers with you, or do you keep it on top of the blankets?"

The grandfather realized he really wasn't sure. He never thought about it before. So, he told the little girl that he would pay attention when he went to bed that night and tell her the next day.

That night, as the grandfather settled into bed, he tucked his beard under the covers. That didn't feel comfortable, so he thought he must leave his beard on top of the covers at night. However, when he untucked his beard, that didn't feel right either. He spent all night tucking and untucking his beard, trying in vain to remember where he usually kept his beard while he was sleeping.

He didn't sleep a wink that night, or any other night ever again, until he finally died.

Porn or Pony?

Take the disturbingly difficult "Porn Star or My Little Pony" quiz.

I only got 6 out of 12.

I had no idea.

I just scored awfully high on the "Are You a Lesbian" test.

Lesbian You are 89% lesbian!

Well it would appear to me that you are a fully fledged lesbian. Or at least you'd definitely set a lot of women's gaydars going. (Please don't be offended if you think you're straight, you just fit a lot of the lesbian criteria)

This test tracked 1 variable. How the score compared to the other people's:

Higher than 80% on lesbianism

Link: The Am I A Lesbian Test written by LadyLove86 on Ok Cupid

However, I did not do so well on the "How's Your Gaydar" test, so maybe I am a lesbian and just never noticed. (I couldn't figure out how to post the delightful man-orgy graphic that came with my results.)

You remarkably only scored

25%

You would've been better off guessing.

You personally got 5 of the 20 people correct and were better at recognizing guys than girls. Overall, you guessed better than 0% of all test takers.

I shall make you a star!

Like any proud mother of an exceptionally beautiful fur-baby, I want the world to see how precious my little Dizzy-wizzy boo boo head truly is. I have submitted Dizzy's picture to Cute Overload. If they post her picture, she really will be famous. The site has been written up in everything from the Washington Post to Entertainment Weekly. For April Fool's Day this year Slashdot featured them, and the tagline for the day was, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!"

Here's the photo I sent in:


My second choice was this one:


What do you think? Should I send in the second one?

Anyway, Cute Overload isn't all fluffy bunnies and jelly beans. It cracks my shit up, too. This post just about gave me an aneurysm. This lady found a baby possum in her toilet in the middle of night. She speculates what would have happened if she hadn't discovered the possum before she sat down.

"What if I didn't turn on the light? I hardly ever turn on the light at night to pee. What if I went to pee and it brushed against my butt? Or if i was wiping and it touched my hand? Karen thinks that I would have thought I had a opossum baby, which is possible. Then we would have to name him Jesus and it would be a miracle to be investigated by the church."

Here are a few more of my favorites:

Orangutans? Cute? You wouldn't think so. You'd be wrong.

Chihuahua puppies = cute.

OMG! Kitten belly!

Just try not to overload on the cute.

Oh no! Not Floyd!

Breaking news: Floyd Landis has failed a drug test after his sample showed "an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" after his kick-ass performance in stage 17 of the Tour de France. He has been suspended but has requested additional testing of his backup specimen in the hopes of being able to prove that the abnormal results were either caused by natural processes or a mistake.

It's been reported that Landis was pissed off about his poor showing in stage 16, which caused him to lose the yellow jersey and slip into 11th place, and that anger fueled his awesome comeback the next day. Could anger and exertion have caused a rise in testosterone large enough to be detected? I have no idea, but I have to admit that I will feel betrayed if these doping allegations are true. I watch the Tour to marvel at the feats of strength and endurance that human beings are able to accomplish through dedication and determination, not to see the perversion of medical technology and bunch of bike-riding cheaters.

I have my fingers crossed wishing that Landis will be vindicated, but if he's not I hope they throw the book at him.

Yield. To. Ramp. Mother. Fucker.

You may have noticed these things called "signs." They are intended to provide you with instructions to follow as you are driving. For example, if a "sign" states "Yield to Ramp" that means if you are driving down the access road, and a car is coming down the exit ramp (as referenced on said "sign") to join you on the access road, you will be expected to *yield* to that car.

If you don't know what yield means, I am not going to explain it to you. Please turn in your drivers license and proceed to purchase a comfortable pair of walking shoes. I don't even want to see you on a bicycle. A bicycle might dent my car when I run over your non-yielding ass.

Girls do it, too.

Sports blogging!

Floyd Landis won the Tour de France on Sunday and is only the 3rd American to do so, putting him in a league with Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong. His ride provided plenty of drama from the start. He wasn't even in the start house when it was his turn to begin the prologue as he was dealing with a last minute cut in his tire. He made it off the line about 6 or 7 seconds behind and ended up 9 seconds out of the lead. Later in stage 7 his handlebars broke, and he had to switch bikes in the middle of the stage.

However, in stage 11 he earned the yellow jersey, and hung on to it in stage 12. Although he gave up the maillot jaune in stage 13 to Oscar Pereiro as a tactical move to force another team to take leadership of the race and give Team Phonak a chance to conserve energy for the big climbs.

The strategy paid off as Landis regained the yellow jersey on top of l'Alpe d'Huez at the end of stage 15. This put Landis at a statistical advantage, as 75% percent of riders in the lead on the legendary l'Alpe d'Huez go on to win the race in Paris. (Thanks, Phil Liggett, for that little tidbit.)

Shockingly, Landis "bonked" on the climb to La Toussuire in stage 16. He slipped from 1st to 11th place and lost 8 minutes to the new leader. Pereiro had the yellow jersey back, and there seemed to be no way Landis could regain it.

To everyone's amazement Landis surged ahead on the slopes of stage 17, setting a pace no one could match up inclines as steep as 10%. Landis took the stage nearly 6 minutes ahead of his nearest competitor and only 30 seconds behind Pereiro in the overall standings.

The stage 19 time trial gave Landis an opportunity to use his particular talents as a time-trial specialist, and he clinched the lead, guaranteeing him a victorious finish on the Champs Elysee in Paris.

I'm not particularly a cycling fan, but the super human strength and determination it takes to ride over 2000 miles over 3 weeks through the Pyrenees and the Alps is mind boggling. On my best day of riding ever, after months of training, I barely managed 65 miles through the punishing hills of Oklahoma. I can't think of any other mainstream sporting event that requires the awesome effort put forth by the Tour riders.

Someone at S's work today observed that each American who has won the Tour de France suffered from some serious physical ailment. Greg LeMond won the 1989 Tour with 37 shotgun pellets in his body after a shooting accident. Lance Armstrong was a cancer survivor, and Floyd Landis rode with a necrotic hip bone. The French can't even beat our cripples. How sad.

P.S. The Blogger spell-checker doesn't recognize the word "blogging." Time to update the ol' dictionary, guys.

The Enbloggening Begins

I'’m not sure why it seems fitting that my first post should be about how lame I am. I was all excited about hanging out and watching Dr. Who on Saturday night. What did I do instead? Fell asleep. Why didn't anyone call me? Traivor* did. My cell phone was out of batteries.

I just got this new phone, and I felt all cool and shit to have a color screen and a camera, but the battery doesn'’t seem to last long enough. It doesn't really matter how awesome my phone is if it never works. Not that this phone is awesome except relative to my old one. It was free, which probably explains the crapitude.

However, the awesomest phone in the whole world will never make up for how lame I tend to be. I have a really good reason, but that's another post.

*Is that your preferred webonym? What's the etiquette when calling someone by name?

I Got a Blog

It's not quite done yet

I got a blog

It's probably gonna suck

I got a blog

I'll write in it

I got a blog

I hope you'll read it

(With apologies to Tripping Daisy)