Are supposedly contained in this single image…

Here’s the reference key.

Via YesButNoButYes

Great tongue in cheek enviro-themed video from production company Three Legged Legs…

For those of you still a bit confused as to why a giant emu seems to be staring you down while you seek out new and creative ways to humiliate the AIG company, look hither.

Here is our official promo spot, lost into the aether until today’s posting…

Download Mep Report Promo

Listen Now!

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And here is our last posted podcast episode, number eleventy-one:

Download Mep Report #111

Listen Now!

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Gerontologist Aubrey de Grey is at it again. In an article from the Daily Galaxy, de Grey claims that, “…most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries…” and ““The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today..”

1,000 years? Hold your horses there, Methuselah. Laserfalcon only claims to be on his way to 400 years of life. If many of us have got ten centuries of existence to plan for, we’re going to have to really start working on our leisure time skills. I mean, yes, I’ve played over 1000 games of MVP 2005, but that barely got me through three months of total existence.

It’s time to really push the envelope. We’ve got to develop more efficient ways of wasting time, and fast. And, when it comes to questions such as these, I often look to the Japanese. They rarely disappoint.

And so, we have immortal leisure activity #1, Human Tetris:

This could occupy societies for a few decades, perhaps. But eventually, someone would figure out that you can smash through the styrofoam with reckless abandon and never be eliminated…

So, let’s see what else the Japanese have for us:

Yes. Yes… Mmmmhmm. I find this appealing.

…
…

Ehhh, what?

Ah… my supervisory staff has informed me that I’ve spent the last 16 hours acting out various Ronald MacDonald-fueled hallucinations. They found me head-butting a barber-shop pole while throwing very large shoes at passers by. I need to shake this off and ponder immortality another time.

Well played, Japanese pop culture. Well played.

Or at least that is the sort of riveting storyline that sells craptastic Quiznos subs these days.

Senavene April 2008

A year ago, I took Senavene to the post office.  She was strapped to my front wearing all pink, half covered in a pink blanket, with a pink pacifier in her mouth.  Why?  We were given LOTS of pink, I swear.  I put “yellow please” on the registry, but I don’t think anyone paid attention.

Anyways, what did the teller ask me?  “How old is he?”  How old is HE?

After 14 months of this, I can honestly say I don’t care that people continue to call her a boy.  I’m told it’s common for babies with very little hair.  Most moms tape a bow to their daughter’s bare heads.  But honestly I don’t care.  I simply respond by telling them how old she is.  I’m more fascinated by how someone’s brain would ignore all the social clues in the form of pink paraphernalia and use the male pronoun.  Not only that, they quite often also say that “he is really beautiful.”  I can’t blame them.  I mean she is gorgeous.

Sent image to Wilhelmina kids, but no response...sigh, there's goes her College Fund

But again, I digress.  My question is: are most people stupid or are their brains on auto-pilot and make errors because there is no gender neutral pronoun?  People can’t say “how old is it?”  That would piss any parent off.  So, they either need a gender neutral pronoun or come up with some convoluted phrasing that sounds weird — “how old is your baby?”  “Pardon me, have you any Grey Poupon?”

So to continue the sexism, SNL came up with a skit focusing on MALE bald babies.  Because don’t we all feel bad for the bald male babies?

Pay no mind to creating something for the poor, misunderstood FEMALE bald babies.  Well not any more, thanks to the mental prowess of the fine people at Baby Bangs.  So, which one do you think we should get?  We’re taking votes.  I think I’m liking “Fairy Tale Flowers.”

Tales of Mere Existence is a fairly popular YouTube animated comic strip that I follow from time to time. Here’s a newly released episode…

From my new favorite internet show… Supernews!

A study featured in New Scientist this week showed that average people have a spectacular capability for short-circuiting their own judgment when in the presence of an expert.

This new data happens to fit perfectly into TMR’s 85% Theory. The theory states that since a large majority of professionals and advice-givers are incompetent, people should always take advice with a grain of salt and do their own due diligence before making decisions.

So, while I temporarily have the support of the scientific community on this one, let me preach for a moment: Don’t listen blindly to doctors, lawyers, accountants, politicians, brokers, astronauts, or clergy (or scientists). These people are just as fallible as anyone else. They are just as self-serving as anyone else. They are just as complacent and mistake-prone as anyone else.

Expert status is just as much a function of good publicity as it is of real practicable wisdom. You are almost always the most qualified advocate on your own behalf . And you always know yourself better than anyone else ever can.

In the words of Emerson,

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”

Image via Kim Richter.com

Flickr User Techthis, seems to be on a roll. Another excellent periodic table. Though I would nitpick here and mention that I’m pretty sure Intellivision was distinct from Colecovision. As such, it fails to get a mention.

Link to larger image.