The Cynic Gazette

To quote one of the greatest fictional characters of all time, Gob (Jobe) from Arrested Development:

“Oh COME ON!”

There’s a *new* reality show on Lifetime which pits American “psychics” against each other in a challenge-format entertainment show called America’s Psychic Challenge. For any other skeptics out there who just thought to themselves “oh my sweet zombie jesus on a crud cracker,” all I can do is say “I feel ya, dog.”

I want to say, “who cares? It’s Lifetime. It’s entertainment.” I can’t.

While I find the concept of this show to be ridiculous fodder for the local vomitorium, we’re going to watch it and find out what alternate title is most suited to this show:

• America’s Best Guesser
• America’s Crappiest Testing Criteria Challenge
• America’s Cold Reading Challenge
• Make James Randi Cry
• America’s Shameless Fraud Challenge
• Will Women Freak Out if Sex And The City Isn’t On For An Hour

We’re hooking my laptop to the TV to watch episode 1 tonight… right after the new episode of Bones.

Cobra Commander’s a bad guy. I mean BAD. But is he puppy-kicking bad?

Yup.

I found what I believe to be an image of the face of Jesus on the lid of my cream cheese container, and of course, put it on eBay. I don’t need it, having seen it before. And, well, I’m Jewish, so it’s just sort of … “nifty.”

Here’s an image, and the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320249867306

I’m pleased to offer the newest product from Snyder Heavy Industries, Snyder’s Homeopathic Birth Control Tonic, and I’m offering it at zero cost to the consumer. Because here at Snyder Heavy Indurstries, we care, and are hoping to get a Wholefoods distribution deal since they’re a leading retailer of homeopathic pills.

How does it work? I thought you might ask. Samuel Hahnemann, the father of homeopathy, bases everything on what he calls the law of similars (basically that like treats like). So, something that causes a problem becomes a solution when introduced in super dilluted quantities, since the medium (water usually, sometimes pure alcohol) remembers the “vibration” of the ingredient.

Being that sperm is the leading cause of pregnancy, homeopathic says that a super dillution will cure AND prevent it! That’s right, if I bolt in a cup and mix it with enough water, it’ll double as birth control AND a morning-after solution!

Most homeopathic remidies on the shelf at Wholefoods are available in dillutions of 30C, since Hahnemann says this as a good general dillution for most ailments, that’s what I’m going with. What’s that mean? Glad you asked.

Homeopathic ingredients, in this case, my freshly squozen sack chowder, all get dilluted on the X scale or the C scale with either distilled water or pure alcohol. A dillution of 1X means one part per 10, and a dillution of 1C means 1 part per 100. So, our dillution ratio of 30C means the dillution will be 1:100^30 or 1:1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Every few dillutions, you have to “actuate” or shake the mixture. Videos of professional homeopaths show actuating as banging a bottle on a leather book, or just shaking it (not unlike a polaroid picture) the way you’d shake a ketchup (NOT catsup) bottle. I’ll be using the “book” method to make sure my gentleman’s leavings are properly actuated.

So come one, come all (I know I will) and get your bottle of Snyder’s Homeopathic Birth Control tonic!

*ahem*

Sound stupid to you too? Well, that’s homeopathy in a nutshell. One other thing worth mentioning–at dillutions over 12C, you’re guaranteed that you won’t get a single molecule of the original ingredient (the math behind this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant).

And the chance you’d get one of my 2 million (ish) swimmy little buddies out of my liquid boy sauce? 1 in 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Logo design is an art form, having to come up with a brand-leading image, while managing not to kill anyone demanding you make the company name “just a bit bigger.” Note: if you can read it, it’s big enough.

Sometimes this art form is embraced and great things happen, like Apple, Nike, IBM, and countless others who have created memorable, eye catching, brand perpetuating logos. You could see a rat trying to gnaw through drywall, and if there was a swoosh, you’d know it was Nike.

But I digress. I’m writing to call attention to some of the worst logos ever created. Here’s a hint: have a teenaged-minded 30-year-old who drinks too much scotch look at your ideas before you put them on a banner.

The first entry is the logo for the Arlington Pediatric Center, which has since changed, but eluded to the possibility of employing Priests as doctors:

Next is the logo that spawned this post when a friend sent it: the logo for the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC). They’ve actually come up with a good looking logo–until you look at it rotated 90 degrees clockwise:

Good stuff. Lets keep rolling on to the logo for the Instituto de Estudos Orientais (Institute for Oriental Studies). This little guy, well, took me a second to see it as anything other than a backdoor entry (it’s a Japanese-looking building with a sun behind it (they claim)):

And finally, my favorite cultural faux pas, assuming that everyone speaks your language in signage:

Note to self: don’t swap a heart for the letter “O” without running it past some international pals first.

I’m so glad that I have a PS3 for all of my Blu-ray playing needs, because in addition to both of the great PS3 games that have been released, you can download shopping bags full of kickass like Pain, the most amusing game ever made by anyone ever.

Until now. And by now I mean sometime this spring.

Coming out soon for download on XBOX Live and the Playstation 3 Network is “Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball.” But oh no, it doesn’t stop there. There’s a robot team and a zombie team too. JOY!

Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball trailer, care of kotaku.com:

We’re all gonna die. Again.

A minister, Ronald Weinland, proclaims that God made him a prophet in 1997, when I was unavailable for the position because I was too drunk in college. He wrote his new book, “2008 - God’s Final Witness,” which talks about how this is it, we’re all screwed, and billions are going to die.

At least this guy, unlike Nostradamus, is giving his predictions away on the internet. What a sweetheart.

*coughbullshitcough*

Personally, I’m hoping the end comes in the form of a zombie apocalypse, rather than a nuclear winter, but you don’t always get what you want.

I’m not a man who’s easily impressed. Well, I am a man who is easily impressed, but not “Wow! A blue car!” easily impressed. But today, the secondteenth day of the fourth month of the 1,208th year since the Europeans decided to start a calendar 800 years in the past (makes sense; think about it), the British have impressed me.

Flip on any video on YouTube. Turn up the volume. Note that YouTube’s volume slider isn’t numeric.

The BBC’s is. And their amps go to eleven. Check out Robin Williams taking over a BBC America chat show when they were having technical difficulties, and turn the volume up. To eleven. Sweet sweet eleven.

So many of us that look at the goddamned fucking stupid megalodons of the suburban throughway and think of the frustration we’ve learned was the price of admissions at the Best Buy, the Circuit City and the so on.

Well, they’ve gone ahead and done something that’s shockingly good for the consumer. Remember way back a few weeks ago when HD-DVD had a chance? Once Blu-ray became the clear winner and Toshiba backed off HD-DVD development once and for all, Best Buy and Circuit City made their move:

• Best Buy is giving $50 gift cards to people who bought HD-DVD players before 2/28
• Circuit City is accepting returns of HD-DVD players 90 days after the date of purchase

Granted Blu-ray players are still in the $400-500 range, so just go buy a PS3 that has one and play me online get more for your money. Or wait 6 months and buy ‘em cheaper. If I were Sony (and surprisingly, I’m not) I’d keep the prices up just a little bit longer, partially to gloat, but mostly because of the bath they took on PS3 sales.