MAJOR NEWS STORY WE SOMEHOW MISSED

This is big.

(If you sent this in, and we missed it, we apologize)

Comments

[Lairbo, aka "Canoli Boy"]

Graz
I'd always heard it was a "toss onto the ceiling" test for doneness. Damn. Now I'll never get my security deposit back . . .

ps: Wurst Thread, Ever.

[Mr.Fishair]

Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll whip out my spaghetti just to Pasta time away.

[Graz]

But, Leetie, that ad there shows that they do come in choc......

Erm....nevermind.

[Leetie]

Actually a minty creme filling, Graz ;)

[Christobol]

"That was, by far, the absolute worst childrens' birthday party I have ever witnessed. You should be ashamed, really."

"Shutup and help me refill the penis pinata with mayo, we have another party in an hour."

[Leetie]

lol, great visual!

[Mr.Fishair]

Yeah, way to use your noodle Cbol!

[Christobol]

One of my favorite childhood "spaghetti" jokes.

Man sees his doctor for a checkup.
"One last thing, doc, I've got a question."
"Yes"
"Well, it's about 'Mr. Johnson' "
"Who?"
"You know, 'El Snake Del Trousero' "
"Sorry?"
"My tally-whacker"
"Ah"
"When I was a teen, and I got aroused, why, you couldn't pry it away from my belly with a crow bar."
"Yes, that's..."
"Then in my twenties, I got to where I could pry it out, say, a couple inches."
"Well, what you have to..."
"By my thirties, I could darn near get it perpindicular, you know?"
"This is perfectly..."
"And now, hell, I can point it towards the floor!"
"Mr. Pastanoodle..."
"My question is: Just how strong am I going to get?"

[kat]

Have you heard the story that George Clooney told on himself when he was on the Late Night Show?

[Leetie]

Mmmmm.... duck sauce

[rhealist]

Duck sauce... the sixth Pencil Jelly flavour???

[pogo]

FDuck - Em' are ducks?

SchadeB - Never seen Ben Aflack. Does he work for an insurance company?

[SchadeBoy (aka Mr. Incredible)]

That was supposed to be Affleck - with a k at the end. Oh well. It's not like anyone is missing him, anyway.

[slyeyes]

shadeboy, they already had Dean Cain play him in a made for tv movie, The Perfect Husband this past February. Didn't watch it. Why watch a movie version when we've been hit by the real thing everyday on the news.

Can you believe that...even before the verdict, there was a tv movie about it. Sheesh.

[pogo]

Sboy - details, details. I honestly don't know what Ben Affleck looks like, but know who he is. It was kind of fun to picture him as a duck who does ads for an insurance company. I used to watch TV.

[Zeroette]

They're all way too small in the end, so what's the difference ?

[pogo]

Zeroette, I suppose it would be non-PC to suggest the receptacle could perhaps be too large?

[slyeyes]

Oh, the comments I want to make to Zeroette...about being too small in the end..... but......
will.....
try......
to....
restrain........

[pogo]

It's OK Sly, I probably already exceeded the limits of civility.

I can't wait for Christobol to do the script for the call to the "ENCORE DELUXE VACUUM SYSTEM" customer support line.

[trillian]

BTW: Size isn't everything... IT'S THE ONLY FLIPPIN' thing.

Especially after several kids.

*omg... too much information!*

[Mad Scientist]

For the Stephen King fans -
How many were thinking of the nursery rhyme that started
See the Turtle of enormous girth...
Just me?
Ok then

Fishair - Parafilm can be much fun in the bedroom as well as the parking lot and warehouse.

[Leetie]

Mad, ME too!

MMMmmm enormous girth..
And I love Parafilm!

[Mike Weasel]

(psst, Mad, can you slip some out of the lab before you leave tonight?)

[trillian]

*ring*

EDVS Support: "Hello, Encore Medical, 'You lack 'em, we vac 'em.' May I help you.

Customer: Do you have the Encore Deluxe Vacuum System in extra large girth?

EDVS Support: Well, sir, what size are you looking for?

Customer: Oh, somewhere around 7 or 8 servings.

[Leetie]

must..... not.... mention.... Jeff.... Meyer...Penis

oops

[prefer to remain anon]

Honestly, there can be too much of a good thing. One man was so large it felt almost like giving birth; not pleasant! Give me skill over size. Please.

[Chicken Leetie]

*spasm*

[Mad Scientist]

no problem Weasel!
*slips roll of parafilm under her labcoat*
Umm no boss that isn't a strange bulge in my chest at all. What? Enormous girth? nah? Just a roll of parafilm see...

[Mike Weasel]

I happen to like your chestal bulges... ;)

And with that, I'm agoin' bowlin'.

[punky brewster]

yeah ... it can be too big ... if it's too, oh, let's say, "vertically enhanced" then it feels like it's hitting your spinal cord and sends shock waves that make you sweat ... in a bad way. If it is too "girthalogically motivated" it doesn't move all that well in and out of its "storage compartment" ... on the other hand ... if it is "vertically challenged" it has a tendency to keep slipping out of the fox hole ... and if it is too slim and "in need of a sandwhich" then you get the whole whistle thing going ... or as our favorite Leetie like to say ... QUEEFage. :) Goldie Locks had it right ... that one is too big ... this one is too small ... but Fed Duck's is just right!

(or so says the ladies bathroom stall)

My job here is done.

[wysiwyg]

Afternoon campers.

As I sat here this afternoon contemplating this thread (the water from the melting icebag for my head dripping down my collar, the remains of a large greasy breakfast laced with analgesics and vitamin B cooling on the plate beside me, and the children up the other end of the house to reduce the noise levels to a dull roar) as I sat here, a thought crossed my mind: why had nobody made a sort of strap-on adjustable penis expander?

I don't spend a lot of time pondering such things, I hasten to add, it takes a fairly unusual combination of circumstances to trigger this sort of thinking, like having so throughly burnt the earwig out of my brain last night that this morning I can't recall any tunes at all. I can see I'll need to spend some time with the stereo this afternoon to retrain the remaining brain cells to recogise music again.

Any way, off a-problem-solving went the sub-conscious, leaving the rest of me to get on with reading the Saturday obits with a view to finding out who else might have tried to remove an earwig last night.

I can tell my sub-conscious is hard at work on something because strange unrelated thoughts keep popping into my mind as the sub-conscious is breaking down the problem into its different components. So as I trudged the wake-up ritual of showering, dressing, replacing the ice, etc, things like this kept occurring to me:

External Size: has to be adjustable to suit both the occassion and the partner - larger for blind dates and women with children, smaller for the vertically challenged, and so forth. Perhaps air-inflated?

Internal size: has to be adjustable, because apparently different guys are different sizes. I have to admit this was a bit of a surprise to me, having not spent *any* time around inflated "percys" in my entire life (apart from my own of course). I'd always assumed they ended up being about the same for what is the obvious biological function. Sure, I'd heard people talking about there being different sizes, but apart from freaks of nature, I had just put it down to the same part of human fallability that causes witnesses to an armed robbery to disagree on the height of the perp.

Fastening: needs to be removable, but firmly attached to function. A strap? Glue? Dynabolts?

Color: must come in an attractive range. This is both part of the SNAG training I have absorbed from the Honey over the years, and because you only have to look at the iPod to know if you don't produce your products in a range of perfectly horrible wafty colours, you got nothing. Give me back the bright, decisive colors of the 60's any day, but it won't sell.

Disposable or reusable? This is a critical aspect of the design process, and goes straight to the profit margin and turnover calculations. Men have shown they are not prepared to stick their willy back into something like a condom once it has been used, regardless of how well it had been cleaned. But when it comes to poking the same instrument into an unknown and potentially highly infectious environment multiple times in a night instead of a condom, there apears to be no problem. In fact, even a preference. Go figure.

Other marketing angles: glow in the dark? different textures? Add-on power attachments? Are there any lessons to be learnt from the tool-manufacturing industry here?

Pricing: what's it worth to a guy to satisfy their partner? $5? $10?

Other uses: Could it be designed to, say, also serve as a car-jack or attachment to the home theatre system?

At about this time, my conscious put together these random thoughts and said: "Woah! Sub-conscious, just what the hell are you up to?". The sub-conscious, of course, didn't respond. It never does, it just lurks. But it wasn't hard to figure out what it had been up to when I looked back over the chain of logic.

Time for a reality check: Is anything that is, by the very nature of its operation, going to prevent the guy getting his jollies merely so the girl can get hers, going to sell?

Of course not. It'll be the marketing equivalent of trying to get a brick to fly. Of course there might a few scattered sales: those who are so emotionally dependent that you couldn't scrape them off with a knife, Christmas presents for those people that have everything and you have to buy something for but don't like, and so forth. But nothing that would support mass-production in order to get costs down and profits up

So I say this to my sub-conscious: why don't you get to work on something USEFUL, like a plan for how to pay for the spring-cleaning AND Christmas.

[punky brewster]

wysiwyg ...

Wow.

Dynabolts?

Car-jack?

Power Attachments?

It's the "Tool Time" Super Penis.

Wow.

[punky brewster]

I think Wysiwyg should take over the Dave Barry Holiday Gift Guide in 2005 (when DB takes his extended "holiday") ... Imagine the creative gifts he'll come up with?

[Jeff Meyerson]

Punky, LOL for "girthalogically motivated"

wysiwyg: Wow, get sick more often if this is the result. Bravo and what Punky said. Car-jacks and Dynabolts for all!

[wysiwyg]

I just got back from the "Orgasmatron" thread - I'm trying to get it up to the "classic" category of over 300 posts.

Don't forget its my sub-conscious that does the creative thinking, the rest of me exists as a sort of brake on its activities and is rather boring I suppose. The best times are when I poke an idea into the sub-conscious, and the answer comes straight back on the spot, as was happening with the bus story during The Climbing, and more recently the ESA story. This mostly seems to happen when the mental filters the conscious has erected to protect itself are depressed, like this morning.

I'll have to start up a blog to capture the other ramblings of my sub-conscious. Much of it goes to waste as being entirely off-topic with what is going on around me the rest of the time.

In the meantime: thank you very much for your kind appreciation.

*takes a bow, realises this was a signficiant mistake under current conditions and runs to the cupboard for more analgesics*

[Uncle Omar]

Small Penis on Board wbagnfarb

Midgetg Hermaphrodite Lesbian Nuns wpagnfarb

[Alex D.]

Hmmm...does Jennfer know about this? Don't they have V!@9r@ or (!@1!$ for that now?

[SAB]

Sometimes you just cant trust a man with a bumpersticker in his hand....a Trojan bumpersticker...so to speak...bwahahah

[Mike Weasel]

Hehe, punky said "extended."

[Mad Scientist]

heehee Weasel said punky said extended.

heehee I said extended weasel

[Eleanor]

I can't believe we're still pondering (pandering?)about this, but I also can't believe that I checked in this morning - 8am - here on the west coast to see what was going on - wysiwyg - I feel your pain - how about an extender for that? and BTW, since I'm new to the blog, what do your initials stand for?

[Susan]

wysiwyg-Your subconscious does work in odd ways, but very interesting ways.

Punky-loved your size descriptions. "Girthalogically motivated" My daughter is at work with me and wonders why I keep laughing. Just can't explain it.

[pogo]

Sandy - what's really scary is Cheney is just the Vice President!

[Sandy Beach]

Oops. I've watched other people stumble with this form, now me too.

Pogo--Scary indeed, but I suspect that the vice president is really the one we have to worry about.

[slyeyes]

Here's the link to the article in Sandy's post

Dick Cheney

[pogo]

Sandy - I'll avoid any real political comment on this Blog - not the right forum. But if you'd care to meet for a beer...

[Sandy Beach]

Yup, you're right. Will confine all further comments/speculation to Dick's dick, which is after all the subject at hand. I can meet you at the bar, but will probably require a double bourbon.

[pogo]

Good idea! And now that you mention it, since it's a fairly dismal day here, I have a bottle of Booker's Bourbon given me by a customer which I have been nursing along for going on 3 years now. I believe a wee dram might be in order. (I know, Scotch is measured in "wee drams" but I have no idea what you would call a a small quantity of Bourbon. A shot I suppose.)

[Sandy Beach]

Maker's Mark at this end. Bottom's up!

[Eleanor]

Jack Daniel's here - count me in! And I'll have a Cheney on the side!

[Leetie]

Does Shiner Bock count? That's what I'm drinking.

[slyeyes]

OK, let's play "who's the sexiest politician?"

Do those two words go together?

hmmmmmmmmmm...I'm thinking.....

[Leetie]

sly, that's a riddle that can't be solved

[slyeyes]

yeah, Leetie...I'm still thinking....

[Eleanor]

"sexiest politician" - hmmm - must be Bill Clinton - all you have to do is ask him (in more ways than one) -

[wysiwyg]

Eleanor: You are not the first person to ask what "wysiwyg" means. I've thinking of changing the name to be something more recognisable outside the IT industry (where the term had its genesis), but I haven't gotten around to it because it has a level of brand recognition now and I'd have to go through all that being-funny-all-the-time-so-people-notice-me stuff again.

Still, Slyeyes has its declared it too vowel-challenged and I have a great respect for her perspective, the sweetheart, naive relatives notwithstanding.

There is another reason for changing as well: there is some pervert out there who has already registered the name at all the sites I want to get access to, so I have to keep inventing new ones.

I tried delegating the task of coming up with a new name to the sub-conscious, but it has been sulky and uncooperative, probably because it was the one that came up with wysiwyg originally - as well as under the pressure of only having a minute or two to get my first funny crack in before the blog wandered off in a different direction, as it does constantly.

I've been thinking about just shortening it to just "wiz" or "wizzy". But the first is a bit too close to "of Oz" for my taste, and the second sounds like I have a urinary tract problem.

Perhaps I'll blossum into somthing completely different. Maybe a pseudo support animal like Fed Duck or Mr Fish. Crapweasel? Nahhh, too long, and someone might think I'm in politics.

Or perhaps to something anatomically descriptive, like Slyeye's name. Big Nose? Nah, its been done, and anyway I don't have a big nose.

Maybe something from a book like "Bootle-Bum-Trinket", the name of James Herriot's boat. Nope, too hyphen-challenged.

Maybe something dramatic like "Crash-N-Burn", but I haven't liked Tom Cruise (whose name, by the way, translates appropriately to "Pinky Gizzard-Lips") ever since the rat bastard dumped that shining example of Australian womanhood, Nicole Kidman.

Or something romantic and Italian-sounding like "Meriphistimo" as in "beat me with limp pasta until I'm weak at the knees, Meriphistimo". Possibily, possibly.

Or another acronym like "LTTG", which I've seen used, but the meaning of which escapes me completely.

Perhaps something visually inspiring like Punky's name. For some reason the first time I saw her name I formed a mental image that appears to continue to align with her online personna: a sort of compact, curvacious, insatiable, feisty sort of being. But while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, its also an indicator of a weak spirit, and I'm treading too close to the gods to try something imitating that name.

Decisions. Decisions.

I had a similar problem with my company name. A company name has to be relatively short and memorable, be available as a domain name on the Internet, sort to the top of a Google search, submit to being turned into a logo, preferably up the start of the alphabet, link into a mission statement, and so forth. Under pressure of having to choose something, I settled on "OTOBAS" (short for On Time, On Budget, According to Specification - its a project management company). OK, its still not brilliant, but it passes the basic tests - unlike some major companies around these days.

If I may digress for a moment, there was a large accounting/management consulting mob over here called "Arthur Anderson", which you could reasonably guess was a practice started by someone called "Arthur Anderson", Or perhaps partnership started by someone called "Arthur and another person called "Anderson". Everyone knew what they did, and all was right in the world. Then there was that phase of all the major companies changing their name. Arthur's went to "Spherion". Spherion? "I want to restructure my company and I need a management consultant. I know, lets go to that place with the funny round name that reminds me vaguely of a part of the male anatomy!".

Changing names can also be fraught with danger, as happened recently when Price Waterhouse Coopers (another big accounting firm) wanted to change their name to "Monday" (Monday?!? Where the hell did that come from? What drugs could they all have possibly been on to agree on that name?). As you do, they set up an internet domain name called "introducingmonday.com", but, well this shows you what can happen. I gather they have since given up the idea.

So as you can see, its a difficult issue to consider. In the meantime I just let the system automatically post wysiwyg for me so I don't get embarrassed by my lips moving as I sub-vocalise What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get.

P.S. As I mentioned earlier, the term wysiwyg (pronounced like "wizzy-wig") was born in the IT industry, at the time screen displays were moving from the original fixed format layouts to the sort of thing you see these days. The idea is that what you saw on the screen is what you get when you printed it out. The comments box you type into on this blog is not wysiwyg - that is to say, the text you enter there that includes all the formatting commands to, say, create a link, looks quite different when translated into the final post.

The original joke with the name was: because you can't see me, you can't expect anything from me, but its worn off now.

[wysiwyg]

Quote from the article: "Its like a scud missle".

So that's why they so much trouble locating the scuds during the first Iraq war - sneaky terrorists were hiding them in the most unlikely places.

[Eleanor]

wysiwyg - I love you! thank you -
p.s. are you with the CIA?
p.p.s - I understand totally (and I'm not a Valley girl) what you mean about having (or trying) to be very funny all the time when you're new to the blog (as I am) so that you'll (not yule) be noticed - sometimes it's exhausting, and if you can't think of funny stuff, sometimes you just have to beg to be acknowledged - and it's worked for me -

[pelagicsal]

wysiwyg-
Having been an IT fringer for awhile now, I like your moniker.
Open to much creative interpretation!

[wysiwyg]

Eleanor: Funny you should respond like that, I've just been off trying to drag the orgasmatron thread over the line with a post to you about contributing to these threads.

And, no, I'm not from the CIA, unless that's an acronym for "Caught In the Act", which used to happen to me all the time when I was younger. These days I just lead the honest life. More or less.

[Uncle Omar]

pogo: Since Black Jack has (or had, have they changed?) as one of their slogans, "Tennessee Sippin' Whisky" I'd guess that you could call a wee dram of bourbon a "sip."

wysiwyg: How about "vwllss" (vowelless) since you've been accused of being vowelistically (?) challenged ...
Just kidding -- I like your ID, and I got it about the second time I saw it.

Elean or: Hi (again)

[wysiwyg]

Rita: I've left some further entertainment for you on the orgasmatron thread....

[Jeff Meyerson]

wysiwyg: if you've read Dave's column today (I'll give you the link if you haven't) -- and going by the James Herriott boat name you mentioned -- how about "Poopy Pants" for your new name?

Dave's column

[pogo]

Uncle O - If you are still around today I have to point out that Col. Daniels produces Tennessee whisky - not Bourbon. A fine whisky none the less.

[wysiwyg]

Jeff: Not bad. Good alliteration, visually striking, can be shortened easily ("Hey Poopy, blah, blah, blah").

Couple of problems though: I live geographically almost the completely the other side of the globe from Erie, so it would seem to be bad form to muscle in on their noteriaty, and while I've celebrated my 18th birthday a bit over 18 times now (people are beginning to suspect I'm lying), I don't regard myself as incontinent just yet.

[wysiwyg]

Actually, WRT a new name, one option was thrust upon me by the kids playing the back end of the Shrek 2 movie at full bore, over and over and over:

La Vida Loca

Fortunately the earwig this normally injects into my brain discovered there was nothing left to burrow into, and is currently passing its time in a bar waiting for my more complete recovery.

The name attracts me because it is indeed a crazy life, and its the crazy things in life that seem to catch my attention. It even comes with its own dressup kit, featuring someone that bears a striking resemblance to me (at least until the pink shirt goes on), even if I'm the only one around here that seems to think so.

But I'm not sure about all that taking your clothes off and dancing around in the rain. Not good for the chill-blanes.....

[wysiwyg]

A pedant acquaintance of mine has just pointed out to me that when I said "18th birthday, a bit over 18 times" its really more like 30 times

But I'm just putting that down to rounding errors like any good statistician would.

[La Vida Loca]

*Tries on the new name - finds it a bit sung around the crotch, but realises that can't be all bad....*

It has just occurred to me to wonder whether or not the girl in the Ricky Martin clip of La Vida Loca was actually Punky moonlighting from her real job.

The girl looks a bit taller in the clip than my mental image of Punky, but the rest seems about right:

She's into new sensation
new kicks and candle light
she's got a new addiction
for every day and night

.....

she never drinks the water
makes you order French Champaign
and once you had a taste of her
you'll never be the same
she'll make you go insane

Hmmmmmm......

[Eleanor Silvers]

wysiwyg: due to a posting by Irene on the Orgasmatron thread (did I use the word correctly?)(where I left you a message) I read the postings from when Dave announced the end of his column - I read the song from CBol to Bye, bye American Pie - brilliant!!
I see what you mean -
By the way, does anyone know if Dave reads these comments?

[Laguito Mojito]

Yes Eleanor, Dave sometimes reads these comments. He sometimes comments. He sometimes laughs at these comments, and he occasionally has spaghetti - how many servings I do not know.....

[wysiwyg]

Nope. But we suspect he sneaks a quick look now and then because of posts like this, which scored a 352 without even trying.

While I hopefully have everyone's attention

I'm launching today a special site to pull together a sort of farewell card for Dave when he starts his sabbatical at the end of December.

The site is here:

http://dwcm.blogspot.com

Please take a moment to sign the card....

[wysiwyg]

A POX on all spammers, and their progenitors!

I'll repost the link to the Dave Barry Farewell Card site, just to be sure people see it:

I'm launching today a special site to pull together a sort of farewell card for Dave when he starts his sabbatical at the end of December.

The site is here:

http://dwcm.blogspot.com

Please take a moment to sign the card....

[slyeyes]

Interesting that after Eleanor asks if Dave reads these comments, we get hit by spam.

Maybe they would be interested to know that a spammer was sentenced to 9 years in prison

[Jeff Meyerson]

As for spammers, I take my lead from Pee Wee's Big Adventure:

Bloglit #2: I say we kill him!
shouts
Bloglit #3: I say we hang him, then we kill him!
shouts
Bloglit #4: I say we stomp him!
shouts
Bloglit #4: Then we tattoo him!
shouts
Bloglit #4: Then we hang him!
shouts
Bloglit #4: And then we kill him!
shouts

Although 9 years in jail isn't bad either.

[gecko]

I'm only commenting to bring the total to an even 200. Of course, no obsessive-compulsive disorder here.

[brat]

Jeff -

I say we "Hit him, beat him, burn him, make him write hot checks"

[Somewhere North]

There's something to be said for the medieval hang and quarter him....

By the way, the count is now 202 which means we have 98 to go to make it an even 300. Let's go, gecko

[La Vida Loca]

I reckon an "open ended" sentence would be a good deterrant, but then I guess the prison system already provides for that.

To quote a skit I saw a long time ago:

"I say we hang him!"
"Nah, hanging is too good for the likes of 'im, its a good kick up the arse he needs!"