Saturday, February 28, 2004

dir: Mel Gibson
reviewed by: Giblets

Here are the notes I took on "The Passion":

- Wait, this is a foreign film? If Giblets wanted to read he'd buy a book. Jesus.
- Guards beat on Jesus when they arrest him. Serves him right for being a criminal - Giblets is "tough on crime."
- But before the trial, even more beating.
- And the beating continues.
- Y'know what our court procedures need here in America? More beatings.
- Oh, and now they're talking! Booooring. Get back to the beating!
- King of Jews this, messiah that. This is like the part in the porno where the girl is surprised by the pizza delivery guy.
- Pilate is soft spoken, sensitive and thoughtful. I like that in a tyrant.
- Now they're flogging him
- A lot of flogging here
- The flogging is still going strong. Man, Mel Gibson must be really pissed at this Jesus person.
- Wow, Mel Gibson sure does like his flogging, doesn't he?
- About ten minutes into the flogging the Horrors burst free through my little desensitized skull and rampage throughout my brain. Dear god the Horrors!
- Whoops, now I'm used to the Horrors again. Whew, that was close!
- Jesus is now being spat at while he carries the cross up the road. Pretty seriously desensitizing at this point. In fact I'm kind of getting a heady impressionable desire to crucify someone myself.
- The Horrors are now singing to me, "Let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby, and get ourselves a snack." Great idea, Horrors. Giblets is feeling like some Raisinettes right now.
- And now a raven eats another cross-guy's eyeball. Shows you for screwing with the Romans, cross-guy!
- Jesus is now dead. I have to say I kind of saw that one coming.
- And wait - now he's back! Back with a vengeance.

The ending's pretty weak - just a setup for the revenge-pic sequel, which should've just been Act 2 of this one - and you never really get introduced to these characters. Who is this Jesus guy? It is implied he is some kind of politician because in one of the flashbacks he's giving a speech. But throw us a real bone here Gibson! Give us an origin story! Bitten by a radioactive God? Strange visitor from another planet born of Mary? Giblets needs context!

I also want to know what happens next to Jesus. After two hours of torture and death he isn't coming back to life just to play nice and absolve sins. No, he is coming back to give the mother of all ass-stompings. But we never get to see it. It's like seeing Dirty Harry's partners get killed off over and over again, and then having the movie end right there. Giblets demands satisfaction! Giblets demands vengeance!

The supporting cast was very underdeveloped. There was some old lady who kept running around pestering Jesus from torture site to torture site, it was kind of weird. Is she the janitor because they show her cleaning up blood, or is she just some sicko who's "into" this stuff? Then there was Mary Magdalene, who was hot, but didn't get nearly as much screen time. Put the hot chick up front, Gibson! Of all the supporting characters, I would have to say the one who comes off the best by far is Pilate. Now of all the Roman tyrants who send thousand of Jews to their agonizing deaths without trial I have to say Pilate has to be the nicest.

A lot of people are asking, "Is this movie anti-semitic"? Well, Giblets doesn't know about that. On the one hand there are mobs of angry crazed Jews hungry for Jesus-blood. On the other hand Mel Gibson has said that the movie is not anti-Semitic, and that he is only portraying events as they occurred. And how can you argue with that.

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posted by Giblets at 9:35 PM

Giblets has heard enough of this "The Passion of the Christ" mumbo jumbo. Giblets is departing hereforthwith to see this film himself and comment upon it. You WILL be apprised of Giblets's opinion of the film, which will be officially known as The Official Universal Opinion Regarding Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."

I have big hopes for this movie because of the following:

  • It is supposed to be exceedingly violent. Giblets does not watch "chick flicks." Giblets watches real men's movies such as Die Hard and The Terminator and The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Giblets can only hope that The Passion will live up to expectations. Yes it may be gory, but is it scene-from-Robocop-where-the-dissolving-man-is-hit-by-a-car gory, or is it just scene-from-Total-Recall-where-Arnold-uses-corpse-as-human-shield gory? Giblets has spent many years becoming increasingly desensitized to media violence, I can only hope The Passion will shock my little brain to new levels of emotional withdrawal.


  • It is spiritual, and arty.
  • There is nothing like dead languages and religion to take the edge off two hours of gore. See, Giblets is't seeing it because it is a rabidly violent piece of fetishistic splatterhouse violence. Giblets is seeing it because it was a true and artistic expression of faith.

  • It is about "passion," and Giblets knows passion. Giblets is very passionate indeed. Come on, ladies. Give Giblets a try. He will not disappoint.
  • posted by Giblets at 11:36 AM
    Friday, February 27, 2004

    Fafblog's journey to wondrous and foreign countries continues! You can see all our previous trips to Canada the Holy Land Iraq Europe the Moon and the office building. Fafblog boldly blogs where no one has blogged before. Or where others have blogged before but with arguably less panache. Fafblog has so! much! panache!

    The mall is a bright and welcoming land. As I enter the country I am greeted not by guards or by terrorist searches but by a giant person in a pink bear suit bearing coupons for candy. This is a wonderful idea! Why don't we have pink bear suits at US customs! I would get stopped less by them I bet.

    Paris has been called the City of Lights but y'know it has nothing on the mall, which is full of wonderful twinkling shiny things and music that floats serenely through the air in a comforting loop. I know that the mall will always be here to welcome me and love me just like I know that the electrosynth version of Pachelbel's canon plays every 56 minutes.

    And the food! The mall has a luxurious Court of Food where a veritable panopoly of cuisine internationale is ready and available from Chinese to Italian to Other Chinese to Tacos to Chicken In A Box to Arby's! I have been all over the world but no other land embraces the cosmopolitan spirit like the mall.

    The center of the mall is Holiday Village which is presided over by the Holiday Man. Sometimes he is a giant rabbit! Sometimes he is a terrifying Santa Claus. Sometimes he is an information booth! I go up to the Holiday Man and ask him where I can purchase a purple umbrella, he is quite helpful.

    Mallians are very spiritual people. They are not interested in the acquisition of physical things. They are interested in the acquisition of spiritual things shaped like physical things. But the best thing about mall people is that they are open to a variety of spiritual enlightenment, not limiting themselves to yknow just cds or clothes or pizzas but cds and clothes and pizzas from different stores, too. They are sort of like Unitarians that way, or maybe Quakers or the B'hai, only with extra greed.

    "Is this right?" one of them asks in a shop holdin up a book or a Magic 8-ball or a sandwich. I do not know mall person - only you in your own inner journey can decide if that is right for you. And that journey may take a lifetime.
    posted by fafnir at 3:57 PM

    So Giblets woke up today from a 24-hour-long pizza-pretzel, monkey beer, and fishing show marathon to find out that Haiti has gone nuts. "Haiti!" Giblets said. "Giblets said nothing about Haiti going nuts! Back with you, Haiti!" And then it suited Giblets in his supreme Gibletsian nature to run to the bathroom and throw up for a few hours. A decree issues forth from Giblets, my subjects: monkey beer and pizza-pretzels do not mix.

    Apparently this Haitian thing has happened before, a few times. What is wrong with you, Haiti! Are you not in the imperium of Giblets? Are you not the 53rd state or something? Get a grip or we will have to toast you good.

    Giblets has a headache but he will return.
    posted by Giblets at 2:19 PM
    Thursday, February 26, 2004

    This is part of an ongoing series of whatsis through strange and foreign lands which you are reading, hooray! You can read the others here here here here and here.

    The office building is a strange and corridory place. I am greeted at customs by a native who extends a greeting of "hey wait you cant go into the office building" and in return I extend to him a Hawaiian lei. Aloha, office building!

    The office building is bizarre and frightens most visitors which it why its natives are so unused to tourists. But that is only because it is so misunderstood. The office building natives are a quiet simple people, content to graze in their cube shaped huts and perform their simple native rituals. Entering an office building village I am greeted by the rhythmic clicking and ringing of indigenous office instruments and by ancient office chants:

    thenkyoo for calling customerservice
    thissis vincentspeaking
    howmayihelpyou
    thenkyoo for calling customerservice
    thissis vincentspeaking
    howmayihelpyou

    The huts of the office people are decorated with their primitive yet abstract art. Some are pictures of babies which is odd because there are no babies in the building vllage, office people are born fully grown from large metal pods in the parking lot outside. Some are signs with villager's names on them which are believed to protect ones identity and status from evil spirits. One shows a picture of a rock with the word TEAMWORK on it. Silly office people! Teamwork doesn't look like a rock. It looks like a butterfly.

    Some huts are empty. These are where old villagers used to live before they were taken from their homes and released from the office building into the cold cruel world outside to be devoured, like Eskimos, by predators and the public transit system. It is sad and terrible to watch but to interfere with this process would be to disturb the development of another culture.

    While I am walkin along the village streets eatin chips and sayin hi, I am suddenly surprised to see Chris here. Chris! What are you doing in the office building! Chris looks sad and desperate. Oh no Chris is a prisoner of the office people! Have they been conducting raids to capture slaves?

    I cant leave my friend here in a hostile territory. I grab Chris and yell "go go go!" As we are running towards the office people's "magic basket" - a pulley device used to raise and lower office people from one village to another - the village chieftain emerges from his special taller hut. He is marked in the traditional manner of office people chiefs, bald and fat with the meat of his rivals. He stands in the office road emitting native cries of "yoofied! yoofied!" but we do not listen. At the gate as we are leaving I leave behind a cup of coffee and a box of paper clips in offering to the native gods.

    Our visit to the office building has been a bittersweet one. Have we truly come closer to understandin its savage yet unique culture or will it always remain a riddle wrapped in another riddle wrapped in a cafeteria donut? We will have to study this further to come to terms with this mysterious culture.
    posted by fafnir at 8:25 PM
    Tuesday, February 24, 2004

    So I am sitting here in my cheetos eating my soup and staring at the television and wondering when oh when will Fafnir come back and there on the television is the President George W Bush talking about a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Well, crap. Who ordered that?

    Oh. That's right. Crazy religious zealots ordered that.

    Giblets hates everything.
    posted by Giblets at 8:16 PM

    This is part 5 of a part-sumpin series in which Faf travels around the World! you can read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 too. This is cutting edge Journalism.

    The first thing you notice on the moon is the junk. But not just any old junk it is moon junk! I mean we have candy wrappers and newspapers and plastic bags and old condoms on earth but they have moon wrappers and moon bags and moon condoms up there! I excitedly pick up a half-eaten McFishwich and put it in my souvenir bag for Giblets.

    On the way to Moon City I was stopped by an old moon man who could see of course that I was a Norwegian-Sri Lankan who lives in America. "Oh you Norwegian-Sri Lankans who live in America," he said shaking his long blue moon beard, "how much damage you have done to us, the moon." There was nothing I could say because I knew it was true. I have tried not to eat the delicious moon juice my people have juiced from your moon, moon men! But it is just so juicy and delicious!

    Indigenous moon culture has suffered ever since the first Moonstronauts landed here. While Earth culture like McDonalds and Coke and breathable air has become very popular here it has pushed out native culture like rocks, and having no air. "I miss the old days," the old moon man says. "Back when you could step out onto a clean moon on a bright afternoon and suffocate in the autumn vaccuum."

    Perhaps those who have suffered the most are the moonbots. Once a proud and vibrant people with metal claws, torso lasers and a set of unique spiritual and artistic traditions, the moonbots now while away their time in moonbot ghettos making fizzy noises with their deactivated death rays. "DESTROY INTRUDER," one says sadly to me sittin on a corner sadly holding out a hat for change. "EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE. DESTROY INTRUDER." A small robotic tear is rolling down from its robotic eye. I know how it feels.

    At Moon Square in Moon City they have the biggest McDonalds on the Moon. The McDonalds arches there are visible from earth and are sometimes mistaken for God by small children, which is understnadable, because God also circles the world dispensing hot crispy fries. But at what cost? At what cost?

    "Would you like a McMoon?" says the McDonalds person. No I would not like a McMoon! I would like a real moon! But I order one anyway because it is so fried and tasty. But I will not supersize it! Oh but I do supersize it, after some prodding.

    I sit on the edge of the Moon Sea and look up at the sad sad stars. Exterminate exterminate destroy all intruders indeed, gentle moon. Exterminate exterminate destroy all intruders indeed.
    posted by fafnir at 11:31 AM
    Saturday, February 21, 2004

    Well so far I have been to Canada, Israel, and Iraq. All of these were fascinating places but really none of them can compare with exotic Europe.

    I am riding in the blimp of the King of Europe. By European law the King has the second biggest blimp in the whole country - only the EuroPope's is bigger because it must hold God. "Ho ho, eat more things, Fafnir," says the King of Europe. The King has so many things to eat: fish, olives, spinach, cheese, bicycles, trees, figs, telephones. Telephones are considered a delicacy in Europe.

    There are over five hundred million balloons in Europe which have been tied together with string and gum to form Europe City, the capital of Europe. To live in Europe City you must weigh less than one hundred pounds or you may cause the balloon buildings to pop and other Europeans will fall down into the ocean with you. Fat Europeans live in large boats below, like Boat City, which is one of the largest cities in Europe for fat people.

    Europe is big and Europey. They have made vast strides in science and technology such as the invention of atomic ham. They have been a bastion of international diplomacy as well having established a lasting peace with the eggplant. However and despite all of this the King is troubled.

    "If the cloud pirates return, there will be no hope for us," he says.

    And he stares off ominously into the clouds.
    posted by fafnir at 9:23 PM
    Friday, February 20, 2004

    I am interrupting my exciting round the world travels for the sake of our traditional Friday pie-blogging. Pies are beautiful and we cannot forget them.

    Today I want to touch upon a subject which has always interested me which is pie community. Here is a proud and majestic slice of pie:

    It is filled with delicious chocolate pudding of some kind and wears a proud crown of whipped cream. But it is a lone slice of pie. Where are its brother and sister slices? Where is its mother pie? It is all alone and adrift in a world that is often sadly hostile to pies.

    Here is a delicious warm apple pie, hot and resting peacefully on one of those little grill things. You know it is tasty because it has a maple leaf on it! And yet something is missing from this pie. It is missing a slice of itself. A little piece of its pieness has disappeared from it and gone away. "Where is the little slice I knew and loved so much?" this pie is thinking. It is not alone like the slice but it is not a whole pie. But inevitably all pies must have their missing pieces because that is what pies are for. They must yield to us their hot and delectable innards slice by slice or they will waste away, sad and uneaten.

    Now here we see a whole host of delicious pies together in a vast communion of pies. These pies are whole and together and in the company of their fellow pies. Plus they are scrumptuous just look at them! Some day they will be cut into little slices and be separated from their pie brethren but for now they are pies living in splendid harmony, cherry with pumpkin, lemon cream with strawberry rhubarb, all different pies living together in peace and security.

    There is so much we can learn from pies. Until we can fully comprehend them, I am going out to eat.

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    posted by fafnir at 1:49 PM
    Thursday, February 19, 2004

    So after writing that last post about foreign policy Giblets feels like he is on a roll. You are astonished and impressed at Giblets's mad foreign policy skillz, but you wonder, because you are still stupid, would he be a good domestic leader? First: what choice do you have, Giblets IS your leader, BOW TO GIBLETS! Second: yes, Giblets would be brilliant and Gibletsian beyond your wildest dreams. Behold, Giblets on the economy!

    The deficit. Everyone is stupid about the deficit. A lot of people say "Waah, waah, the deficit, let us borrow money, or tax money, or cut spending, or pretend it isn't there." Why are there so many stupid people in the world? I have such headaches! Such terrible little headaches. Borrowing money means you have to pay it back later! Taxing money means you take money away from Giblets! Cutting spending means less stuff for Giblets that I like! Why can't the government try to handle these problems the way ordinary people do? When ordinary people with thousands of guns and tanks and missiles have trillon-dollar debts, they STEAL it.

    This is where Giblets's economic policy dovetails nicely with my foreign policy. If say Canada has a bunch of money and we are short, we just knock over Canada and steal some money. Who will stop us? We have guns! Really big guns! And a lot of them! More complaining means more wars means more money for us. Running out of guns? Steal some more! Sometimes the best solution is also the most obvious.

    Trade. The objection of whiny squishy-headed people to Giblets's deficit reduction plan is that it will weaken foreign economies and therefore trade. "Waah waah waah what about trade," they will say. Stupid people, why trade with Non-Giblets countries? They are (1) stupid, (2) not Giblets, and (3) about to be creamed by Giblets because of (1) and (2). Giblets does not support trade. He supports looting, and lots of it. Giblets also opposes NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO.

    Job creation. A lot of people are worried about unemployment. Giblets understands your worries and feels heartfelt pain for you. I feel your pain America! Why are you unemployed when you should be serving Giblets?

    Under Giblets there will be 100% employment thanks to the rapidly-growing Giblets Sector. People will be needed to bow to Giblets, to dance for Giblets, to bring Giblets ripe and juicy fruit, to fluff pillows for Giblets, to ask Giblets "Is there anything more we can Giblets?", to design new and better television programming for Giblets to replace the crappy and non-Giblets-targeting programming we have now (Golf Channel! Who asked for the Golf Channel! Not I! And not any decent Giblets-loving citizen of Gibletsia, either!). Given Giblets's new deficit-reduction and trade policies there will be more than enough money in the Gibletsian economy to pay for all of these jobs.

    Taxation. With all the wealth and money and Giblets that will be flowing freely in the new Giblets Economy, only complete wusses will still be whining about taxation. Nevertheless Giblets has a fair and equitable policy on taxation that should "level the playing field" in our increasingly unequal society. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing. This is a problem. Giblets sympathizes with the poor, even if they are smelly and stupid. It is time for a change. From each according to his ability to each according to his something something.

    In this new system, all property and wealth is hereby declared the property of me, Giblets. There is no more "rich" and "poor." Now everyone is just "serf of Giblets." There are no more bitter fights over symbols of status and power because there ARE no symbols of status and power except those firmly possessed by Giblets. There are no longer class divisions, because there is one class: "willing slaves of Giblets." The long class struggle is ended and the nation is finally unified.

    Some will see Giblets's plan as too radical, but they are stupid people who will probably be assigned to bathroom duty or to toil in the marshmallow mines. Giblets offers prosperity for all.
    posted by Giblets at 5:39 PM

    People are always asking Giblets, "Giblets, how would you run a major world superpower's foreign policy?" Or rather, people never ask Giblets this, because they are stupid, but if they did, Giblets would respond, "With brilliance and Gibletsianity!"

    But with what specific degree of Gibletsianity? What precisely is Giblets's approach to foreign policy? How would Giblets's country treat smaller, dumber, weaker countries? Here is what I refer to as my Giblets Doctrine.

    1. The division of the world: Giblets and Non-Giblets The whole of the world can be divided into the Giblets World and the Non-Giblets World. Lefty namby-pamby squishy people made of squish think the Giblets world and the Non-Giblets world can get along just fine. They are wrong, these worlds are at WAR! Why is the Non-Giblets world not Giblets? Because they hate the Gibletsness of Giblets. Because they are evil - and stupid. If you are not with Giblets you are against Giblets and if you are against Giblets you are going to be pantsed on an international scale.

    2. The pantsing of nations: How it is best done The Non-Giblets world is evil and stupid but fortunately they are also small and weak and not a mighty superpower blessed with and by Giblets. Thus Giblets has the advantage going into any military conflict. Should there by military conflict between Giblets's nations and enemy nations? Yes, always! Other solutions have been prove to be ineffective against the enemy as (1) we have not bothered to try them much and (2) they sound boring.

    But how should military conflicts be conducted? Some favor "light attacks with precision weapons" and some favor "overwhelming force." Both of these are what Giblets strategists refer to as "pussying-out strategies." The enemies of Giblets should be confronted with inexcusably annihilating, or Gibletsian, force. Nuclear weapons should be used in every phase of every battle of every war! Attacking a bunker? Drop a nuke! Fighting in small quarters? Throw a little hand-grenade-sized nuke - these exist, I saw them in Starship Troopers! Shooting people? Shoot them with some kind of nuke! Inject nuclear material into our soldiers so they will turn into giant nuclear things, like the Hulk! There is no excuse not to use nukes if you have nukes. In the end you will have a lot of whiny people saying "Oh but Giblets blah blah blah that will hurt people." Well good. That's what you get for not being Giblets.

    3. Nation-building Giblets is opposed to what some call "nation-building." It sounds very boring and keeps armies standing around doing something they are bad at, building things up, instead of something they are very good at, which is knocking things down. Giblets believes in nation-squashing. When one invades a nation, one should not want to rebuild that nation. You should squash it! "But Giblets," say the name squishy whiny people from the last couple points, "what if a new government springs up on its own that is more hostile to Giblets, blah blah blah." To which I say: shut up, you're so stupid! The whole point of nation-squashing is to keep the nation squashed. So you would send in a team of "Peacesquashers" periodically who would blow things up again every time a new government was about to form. See? Nation stays squashed, everyone is happy. Except of course for everyone in the nation being squashed. Who doesn't count because after all they're bad people.

    So, there you go. Giblets's guide to perfect foreign policy. Just a taste of what oyu get when Giblets is in charge.
    posted by Giblets at 3:59 PM
    Wednesday, February 18, 2004

    This is Paul Bremer. Fafblog is continuin its hard-hittin coverage of various hot spots and international points around the world, such as Canada and Israel. We at Fafblog believe the best way to learn about a place is to go there. They say that you do not know a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Well you cannot know shoes until a man has walked in you for a mile. And we at this blog are those shoes.

    Take Iraq! Before I went there I thought it was a big ol mess filled with Kurds and Sunni Triangles and Sistanis and splodin' stuff. But boy! Iraq is so much different in person. First when I stepped off the plane I was warmly greeted by Iraqi civil administrator L Paul Bremer and his native manservant: "Whelcome, Mister Fahfner... to Eeeeraahq!" I must say that Paul Bremer bears a remarkable resemblence to Ricardo Montalban television does not do him justice.

    Mr. Bremer showed me around Baghdad where much of the reconstruction is takin place. "We are often told by the media of the fighting between the Sunnis and the Shiites," the dapper Mr Bremer said pouring a glass of wine "but we are rarely told of the delight and welcome we received from Iraq's large and industrious gnome population!" It is sadly true. But there in Iraq gnomes and leprechauns and even the gelfling populace have put aside their generations-old differences and embraced freedom! Why you cannot walk through a Baghdad marketplace without a round dozen pixies offering you to eat their delicious chocolate-coated brains as thanks for liberation.

    The first question you of course ask is "Are we making all that much progress in Iraq Fafnir." And I have to say yes we are. The rebuilding of schools, the police force made of candy, the increase in the magical Wish Fish population. But the more important question is "What is the appeal of Iraq! Why are so many thousands of tourists flocking here in such great numbers?" To start with the country is made of ice cream! Tasty, strategically vital ice cream. Second: cheap magic carpets. Third: the world's biggest walrus! Fourth -

    "Oh no!" says my Wish Fish before I have the chance to use it to wish for what I really want, which is a giant balloon shaped like a moose which can fly me around the world at the speed of sound. "Sandworms!"

    Oh no! Sandworms! We are under attack!
    posted by fafnir at 7:19 PM

    Not only can John Kerry not deliver a crushing blow to voters, he cannot deliver a speech. Giblets is listening to him now and it is so painful! "Blah blah blah and so I say unto you when I am elected I shall here and forthwith blah blah blah" you are killing me John Kerry! You are killing Giblets! You are committing Gibletsicide! Guards, seize him! Guards! Guaaaaaaarrrrds!
    posted by Giblets at 11:32 AM
    Tuesday, February 17, 2004

    Would you look at this on television right now! Edwards is neck and neck with Kerry and it looks like Dean will drop out of the race and the stupid people on the stupid TV are telling me this means the primaries will keep going! Aaaaaaaarrrgggh! What is with you people, does everybody in the country think they have to vote or something?

    It is bad enough that over a quarter of the delegates have already been voted on. Do we really have to have the rest of them be voted on too? It goes against every fiber of my Gibletsdom! More people means more stupid! More stupid people voting means stupidity compounds stupidity. This is bad for America, and hideous to Giblets! Voters are a bad influence on democracy and would be best served if their brains were scooped out and replaced with complex robo-programs which would compel them to serve me. "What do you desire, O Giblets," they would say. And I would have them bring unto me some mac-n-cheese, or perhaps some delectable ham salad, and the TV for watching cartoons.

    But nooooo. You all have to have a "choice." Stupid democracy.
    posted by Giblets at 9:50 PM

    It has been dull with Fafnir gone and traveling around the world. Normally we can get into arguments and play games like Pass the Pistachios and Cheese or Weevil? but with him gone it's just me here and it is boooooooring and dull. Lousy Fafnir - come back soon!

    Giblets decided to amuse himself by addressing his subjects today, and did so by first girding himself in the most royal of velvety greens, and stepped out onto the balcony, or "fire escape," to address the filthy throngs below. "Bow to Giblets!" I cried in my loud, booming, charismatic, projecting voice. "Bow to Giblets, filthy throngs!"

    Giblets was met with nothing but insolence.

    Giblets was further irritated to learn that there is another presidential primary today. Geez, how many of these are there? With a dictatorship it's all pretty simple, I am the dictator and you run from my men with large guns. Unless I run my dictatorship as a "progressive-minded liberal," in which case you vote for one of my corporate proxies once every four years.
    posted by Giblets at 11:37 AM
    Monday, February 16, 2004

    Well after my trip to Canada last time whew! I thought I was ready for anything! But here in Israel and Palestine - or as it is officially known "The Holy Land" nicknamed "plumsuckle country" - I wasn't prepared for all this dirt! Yes there sure is a whole lot of dirt here it is very very brown. But most importantly it is historical dirt. Holy dirt. Some people do not understand the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and they say to me "Fafnir why is there all the killing and what." And I cannot answer them in part because my mouth is full of pie. But if you came over here and saw all this brown brown historical brown holy dirt I think you would get the picture pretty fast.

    One of the most popular sites to see here in Jerusalem is God. God is about three hundred feet wide and four hundred feet tall according to the book I bought at the God gift shop where I got Giblets a neat little "My friend Fafnir went to God and all I got was this holy and blessed t-shirt." On it the name of God is spelled out in mystical Hebrew letters which cause everyone who read it to fall down shrieking in unworthiness. They also had another one that glowed in the dark!

    God is round and fleshy and pretty squishy - you can bounce up and down on him like a trampoline for hours! He also tastes delicious, a lot like cotton candy. I am so sorry for eating you God but you are so light and fluffy! God is used for mining holiness which is Israel's chief export and is quite delicious - you can spread it like jam on bread, and it has been demonstrated to lower blood cholersterol! God himself is a sort of purply blue, except where he is a nifty shade of plaid that was probably a lot more stylin in the 70s. He has a big wobbly head and tiny stubby arms that are too small to reach where he is stuck half-wedged into the dirt. Carbon-dating of God has showed that he crashed here on earth about six thousand years ago. Carbon-dating is cool.

    But God has become the center of controversy because each side of the conflict here says they should own him. "God belongs to me and my people," says an angry angry Israeli named Moosh. "He was promised to us centuries ago, by him, when he appeared to us in the form of a fiery cocktail surrounded by a host of angels, also in the form of a fiery cocktail." But an angry angry Palestinian, also samed Moosh, disagreed. "My family has lived on God for generations. God is all we know. We have lived off God and eaten off God. Without God we have slipped into poverty and squalor because there is nowhere else to go in the world - and nowhere that compares with the glorious deliciousness of God!" Some people say we should build a wall over God and some people say we should cut God in half and distribute him. I tried to ask God about this himself but he could not hear me over his moaning and agony.

    The best place to eat in Israel or Palestine is the Angriest Lil Bar n Grill where all the waitresses dress up like the animal headed cherubim of the book of Ezekiel. It's pretty cool. I recommend the Holy Land Pork Plate.
    posted by fafnir at 1:58 PM
    Saturday, February 14, 2004

    Even being in strange and faraway countries cannot prevent me from our traditional Fafblog tradition of Friday pie-blogging even if the pie-blogging takes place on a Saturday. Today we are going to focus on just one pie but what a pie it is.



    This is an olallieberry pie. Is is tart and juicy and delicious and most important it is called an olallieberry pie. Say it with me:

    o la lee bear ee

    We all believe in the pie. How many differences do we have in the end?

    Labels:

    posted by fafnir at 9:58 PM

    This is the first in my series of international travel journalism bloggings. Fafblog is not content to read about strange and exotic lands like Russia and Iraq and Dakota and China - Fafblog is going there to tell you what they're really like!

    My plane has landed in mysteeeeeerious Canada - the world next door, the land of a dozen lakes, the blueberry state. Did you know that Canada has over a thousand people in it, and its own government? The Canadian parliament meets twelve times a year. Each meeting is called a "Musgrave" and is presided over by an official whose name is legally changed to Musgrave for his political tenure due to a quirk carried over from British parliamentary tradition. Also, circus peanuts in Canada are not orange, they are blue! And there was even more to this mysteeeeeerious world I would discover during my stay.

    At the airport I meet my native guide Jacques. "Bonjour, viva la France," says Jacques. I nod enthusiastically and offer him a blue circus peanut which Jacques quickly declines. He is a French Canadian and to eat it would be considered an endorsement of the Queen. Jacques is taking me to the capital city of Toronto which is cleverly disguised as Ottawa for security reasons.

    Recently there has been trouble in Toronto since the old prime minister Jean Chretien quit an the new prime minister turned out to be a bunch of rabbits taped together in the shape of a prime minister and not in fact former Minister of Finance Paul Martin. I ask Jacques why weren't the bunch of rabbits allowed to serve as prime minister? Were Canadians anti-rabbites? "Sacre bleu, bon voyage," explains Jacques which makes it all a lot clearer. But now Canada has a problem because nobody was in charge and given the recent threat of an uprising from Eskimos, or as they prefer to be called, snow monsters, everybody is afraid of a coup.

    Because of the potential snow monster threat Jacques carries what is called an "Eskimo stick." It is a stick with a lighter attatched to scare them off with the fear of melting. I am told to sit on top of the car and look out for them on the way to the city and also for the hungry hungry wolves which prowl the frozen north. In the event of an attack a government-provided doctor which has been installed in our car will jump out and treat our wounds - it is a miracle of universal health care! "Je ne sais quoi, Le Monde," says Jacques. I understand. We must maintain our vigilance if we are to traverse the harsh Canadian urban battlefield safely.

    While we are stopping to refill for gas calamity strikes! The gas station owner has violated Canadian language laws labelling "Sunoco" only in English and not also in Canadian. Jacques is outraged and a long argument breaks out between Jacques and the gas station owner! I buy a Yoohoo. Did you know that in Canada they make strawberry Yoohoos? They're not as good.

    While I am enjoying my Yoohoo I glance over and see things approachin on the horizon. Oh no things! I try to warn Jacques and the gas station owner but my mouth is full of circus peanuts. Curse you circus peanuts why do you have to be so delicious all over the world! By the time I finish the peanuts Jacques and the station owner have already been devoured by hungry hungry wolves.

    In Toronto I go to the mall which is really big and has a lot of very colorful clowns in it. Clowns are delightful in every country.
    posted by fafnir at 6:56 PM
    Friday, February 13, 2004

    Well, when the end of Western Civilization comes, let it never be said that the Medium Lobster didn't warn you.

    Yesterday, in a moment that will cause toppling skyscrapers, Nazi death camps, and Vietnam-era war atrocities to pale in the history of modern horrors, a pair of octogenarian San Franciscan women were given a marriage certificate. Oh, the Medium Lobster has heard of the valiant attempts to save Marriage from the Gay Onslaught - constitutional amendments attempting to proudly enshrine the Right To Freedom From Gay along with freedom of speech and the abolition of slavery in the constitution - but they've come far, far too late. The floodgates have been opened.

    Now that the Institution of Marriage has been forever tarnished by Gay, the founding principle of civilized society - namely heterosexual missionary-style intercourse - is already doomed to crumble. Abolishing gay marriage was never enough - we had to prevent them from ever violating the sanctity of straight humping. Alas, the door to rampant homosexual violation of our most sacred rites and rituals at a fundamental, cosmological, and ontological level has already begun - and now it is unstoppable... just as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said it would be. With marriage undermined, it is only a matter of time before all of America's marriages become Gay.

    Even as we speak, dark ripples are spreading outward among good, straight American couples. Dick Cheney is sizing Scooter Libby up for a ceramic butt-plug, Laura Bush is peeling herself into a pleather catsuit and cracking a whip over a subservient throng of leather drag kings, and the President himself is about to have every orifice penetrated by throbbing, uncircumcised members!

    Oh, but the Medium Lobster can look no more. Perhaps some day there will be hope... in the wasteland of the coming postgay apocalypse, the last straight man on earth may some day find a means of traveling backwards through time to our more innocent past to stop the Gay Holocaust before it begins... but will our corrupt, gay-leaning forebears, already tainted by the leftist media, listen to his words? Only time will tell... time... and the Medium Lobster...

    posted by the Medium Lobster at 1:20 PM
    Thursday, February 12, 2004

    So there is a new presidential candidate scandal about Vietnam: candidate John Kerry was photographed in 1970 at a protest of the Vietnam War. Speaking as someone who does not care about politics, is not registered to vote in any state, and is often too drunk stuffed or bloated on election night to properly observe the results, Giblets must say: DO NOT LET THIS MAN BE PRESIDENT.

    The Vietnam War was a good war! Giblets knows that because wars are good - if they weren't good why would they be so loud and entertaining and so full of color? Being for war means being for troops, who will soon be dead but nevertheless replaced by more troops which we can support even more by sending to more wars! Summary: wars good! Killing good! Troops good! Living bad! These are fundamental Americo-Gibletsian ideals here, people! We cannot tolerate a president who rejects these high principles upon which this country was founded!

    Now Giblets is going to say goodbye to you people for today because number one, you smell, Giblets can smell you through the internet. Bathe, readers! and number two, Giblets is going to fall asleep watching something explode on the television, which Giblets gets to do more because Fafnir is off flying to foreign lands and cannot oppose his explosion needs.
    posted by Giblets at 10:47 PM

    A morose mood of deep melancholy has descended upon Giblets this afternoon. Giblets had gone to the supermarket to purchase a muffin, but in the parking lot it was run over by a silver 2001 Ford Taurus. Giblets has to say this was a beautiful muffin and more importantly it was Giblets's. After spending forty minutes of chasing the Ford Taurus around the parking lot and into the street and throwing bottles at it and following it home to try to set fire on it in the driveway, Giblets thought for a while. And Giblets thought about the muffin and about its beautiful unassuming form. Did this muffin not deserve a chance at life? Is not all life - or at least all muffins - precious?

    A moment of silence now, my dear, stupid friends, for my muffin. For all our muffins.

    Giblets thinks he is getting weepy.
    posted by Giblets at 8:50 PM

    All of the news today has been stupid and not to my liking!

  • There is going to be voting in Iraq! Who asked for that? Not me! I don't care about voting in this country! There is far too much of it and it takes up far too much time - time that could be lavished upon Giblets. Or upon quilting. Quilts are warm. "People" with their "democracy!"

  • The British have cancelled more flights! This is stupid! The point of flying is to fly! Being exploded midair by terrorists is one of the risks - one of the exhilirating risks - of modern air travel. This is the 21st century, losers! Give us our doomed planes our go back to paddeboats!

  • Science has cloned human embryos! Cloning is vastly stupid! We have too many people in the world as it is, why clone more when we should be thinning out the herd? Wasn't that the whole point of all these new wars and terror campaigns? Because if it wasn't then I'm missing something here people.

  • Colin Powell snapped at a congressional staffer for shaking his head during Powell's testimony. "Are you shaking your head for something, young man, back there?" Powell asked. "Are you part of these proceedings? ...I seldom come to a meeting where I am talking to a congressman and I have people aligned behind you giving editorial comment by head shakes." Nice try, Powell, but if you were a real man you woulda torn that punk's tongue out of his throat and strangled him with it. What a pussy.
  • posted by Giblets at 2:11 PM

  • JOHN KERRY: Ooo, I'm a war hero! Ooo, I'm a senator! Ooo, my face looks like a tarp! Stupid John Kerry.

  • GEORGE BUSH: "I'm a war president, I'm a war president!" That's great George, so either start another war to entertain Giblets or get a real job! Oh that's right - we're out of jobs... stupid!

  • MATT DRUDGE: All day long he tells me that Hillary Clinton is having sex with John Kerry's botox injections in gay nightclubs in a plan to conquer America. And then it is on the news. FUCK OFF MATT DRUDGE.

  • THE STATE OF WISCONSIN: Its state fish is the Muskellunge. What a stupid fish for a state fish! Its state fossil is the trilobite. How original. Stupid Wisconsin.

  • THE POPE: Why aren't you dead yet, you old Pope!

  • GOD: You think you're so big, God? Come on down and have a piece of Giblets! Come on! Y'wanna piece a Giblets, Yahweh? Y'wanna piece a Giblets?
  • Labels:

    posted by Giblets at 11:33 AM

    Haha! Giblets Triumphant!

    The blog is now Mine All MIIIIINE with Fafnir out of town in wherever. Bow to Giblets, Internet! He shall lay you to waste!

    This blog now exists for one thing and one thing only: for Giblets to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And Giblets is all out of bubblegum.

    UPDATE: It has come to our attention this is actually two things.

    FURTHER UPDATE: But Giblets remains out of bubblegum.
    posted by Giblets at 9:05 AM
    Wednesday, February 11, 2004

    Yknow my friends while I was sittin last night givin my weekly lecture for Princeton University's "Cheese, Terror and the Harlem Renaissance" series I got to thinking - there is a lot of stuff going on in the world.

    "No there's not," says Giblets. Giblets has not been blogging lately. He has been spending all his time in his licorice-and-pudding room, which is a room full of mountains of licorice and pudding. "It's Gliblets's Leisure Lounge," he says full of licorice and pudding. It seems there are two kinds of people in the world. Those kinds of people who approach the world around them with wonder and curiosity and those who lock themselves inside of rooms full of licorice and pudding.

    But there is a lot of stuff going on in the world! For example, did you know:

  • that Russia is a pretty sucky democracy? Bad Vladimir Putin, exiling and arresting and disappearing your political rivals to create an autocracy! Bad, bad Vladimir Putin! I will come up with stronger language once you do not control a large nuclear arsenal.

  • that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf has pardoned Abdul Kadeer Khan for selling nuclear technology to countries like Iran, North Korea, and Libya? "He has learned his lesson," Musharraf says. "No more selling nuclear things to strange countries for like at least a month."

  • that in Iran over one hundred reformists have resigned from Parliament in protest of the conservative Guardian Council's edict barring thousands of reformist candidates from running for election? Well they did.

  • What is the deal with Tony Blair? Am I right folks.


  • And this is just what you can learn if you just read the news! I was pretty astonished.

    "News shmews," says Giblets. Giblets if you are not careful you will drown in pudding then where will you be! "In a pudding Valhalla," says Giblets, "where only the honored who die in battle of pudding overdose may reside."

    With all this world out there it seems like someone ought to do something. So I am heading out there as of tomorrow for about a week or so to cover it all. Fafblog will bring you the real hard-hitting stories as usual of course but I will be traveling a lot so I won't be able to blog as much. So instead I turn it all over to Giblets.

    "Wha?" says Giblets.

    That's right Giblets the blog is all yours while I am out! enjoy and do not mess it up too much. I'll be back with fantastical tales, and perhaps a little bit of wisdom and perspective about our larger world. I'm also gonna buy a monkey.
    posted by fafnir at 7:41 PM
    Tuesday, February 10, 2004

    Ohio is considering a plan to electronically monitor the movements of cats. The plan would have electronic microchips implanted under the fur of one thousand cats which could the track the cats movements across the city.

    Cat-tracking proponents say "oh this is a good idea because now we will no longer lose our stray beloved cats." Well isn't that what they always say when they cut down on freedom? Cat freedom? What happens when they say "oh this is a good idea because now we will no longer lose our stray beloved... POLITICAL DISSIDENTS!" Yes that is exactly what I thought!

    We cannot allow my Ohioan brothers and sisters a Cat Big Brother. First they came for the cats and I did not speak out because I was a cat. Then they came for the glofish and I did not speak out because I was not a glofish. Then they came for the communists and the Jews and the everyone else! We must take a stand now.
    posted by fafnir at 10:04 PM

    So there was some technical trouble with the Tim Russert interview that had to do with the unavoidable issue of me sleepin through the first interview and then needing to lock Mr Russert in a kitchen cabinet sos he wouldn't leave while I ran around tryin to find a copy of his interview to watch so I could "bone up" on it so to speak. Then I found this great bagel shop where they sell salsa bagels! Those are bagels made of salsa. The front of the shop shows a rabbi with a sombrero, it's hilarious and delicious! And once you have salsa bagels, you're like "I need salsa ice cream" and there's only one place in town for salsa ice cream, and that's Pequeno Max's so I had to go there, and then by the time I got back Tim Russert had escaped. Sigh.

    So I spent most of Monday runnin around chasing big-headed men in suits hoping they were Tim Russert but no, they weren't. I ended up with Chris Matthews instead. Sigh. Anyway here is the interview with him. Sigh.

    FAFBLOG: Hey Chris Matthews thank you for being here!
    CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah! Let's play some hardball!
    FB: Wow yes! Your show always makes me feel excited Chris Matthews! I feel like I am let in on all the giddy thrills of bein a Washington insider!
    CM: Damn straight!
    FB: A Washington insider watching a couple guys talkin about old news on tv! Who needs stupid ol Tim Russert anyhow!
    CM: Yeah!
    FB: What kind of a name is Russert!
    CM: A real dumb name, that's what!
    FB: No I am serious. What is a russert? Isn't it like a potato or something?
    CM: Yeah I think it's like a Yukon Gold.
    FB: Chris Matthews you have a big head. Tim Russert has a bigger head. You are an interviewer-guy. Tim Russert is a more successful more well-respected interviewer-guy. Do you feel there is any accuracy to the charge that Tim Russert has been riding the coattails of his great big head?
    CM: Well I don't know if he -
    FB: How do you Chris Matthews respond to the critics who say "Chris Matthews is just a poor man's Tim Russert with a smaller big head!"
    CM: Aw c'mon, it's -
    FB: "What a huge, huge enooooooormous head!"
    CM: It's not -
    FB: "Which is less respected than Tim Russert's."
    CM: You done?
    FB: Yes I am. Let's talk politics Chris Matthews! Who do you think would make a good Democratic vice presidential candidate?
    CM: Dick Cheney, or George Bush. Bush would make a great veep for Kerry - give him a shot at the border states!
    FB: I think I'd be a pretty good VP. I think I'd bring in like Indiana and Florida at least.
    CM: You'd take back Alaska easy!
    FB: And I could totally "take" Dick Cheney in a debate! Here, you be Dick Cheney and I'll be me. You go first.
    CM: Okay. I'm Dick Cheney, Saddam had weapons and we'll find them -
    FB: You be quiet Dick Cheney, you are mean and old and ugly! See that was easy. Now, I'll be Dick Cheney and you'll be me.
    CM: Okay.
    FB: "Blah blah blah, I'm Dick Cheney. Blah blah blah oil. Blah blah blah Halliburton. Blah blah blah poison the pope."
    CM: (making jazz hands) "Woooo, I'm Fafnir, look at me."
    FB: That was very good, very effective! I liked the jazz hands.
    CM: Thanks!
    FB: Okay now Chris Matthews now you pretend to be Tim Russert and I'll be me. Tim Russert, why is Chris Matthews such a dissappointing guest? Why is he not you Tim Russert?
    CM: He is me! He's better than me! He's popular no matter what the liberals say and he's a hell of a broadcaster!
    FB: Yeah I know but he lacks your gravitas.
    CM: Huh.
    FB: Your giant head gravitas.
    CM: Oh.
    FB: Oh this is not working out! Chris Matthews cannot help me, no one can fill the hole in my soul left by Tim Russert!
    CM: This is damn stupid!
    FB: The big-headed hole in my soul.
    CM: I want to leave!
    FB: Eat your salsa bagel.

    Labels:

    posted by fafnir at 5:15 PM
    Saturday, February 7, 2004

    The Economist, England's journal of economics and world gardening, has an article on the falling dollar in which they say that the dollar should fall more. I like the Economist because it covers a wide variety of topics and makes them easily approachable. Take this article for instance, it has a picture of a really fat man with an american dollar sign on him. This shows me that Americans are fat, and that their currency is fat, too. Thank you Economist!

    "But Fafnir I want specifics," you say. "How fat is the dollar? And is a weak dollar really good?" Thats a very good question! The short answer is "I dunno." The longer answer is "I really do not know." The really long answer is "Iiiiiiiiii doooooooooooonnnn't knnnnnooooooow." But there are things you should know about a weak dollar and how it will affect your life.

    FAF'S WEAK DOLLAR TIPS:

    You should always try to check to see just how weak your dollars are. To do this try to always keep a euro and a yen on you at all times so you can pull them out and compare them. Take a good look. Do the euro and the yen look bigger than they did before? Are their presidents and buildings appearing to intimidate the presidents and buildings on your dollar? If so your dollar has become weaker and will probably be reluctant to buy large objects such as cars and doctors and fancy hats. Do not pressure your dollar, just let it settle for smaller stuff like bubble gum and domestic whiskey.

    If your dollar becomes stronger it will start standin up for itself and start goin "Hey euro, step off man." Then you can be a spendin fool, purchasing numerous mansions and hos as in a rap video. But sometimes you wanna be careful because if your dollar and your euro are about as powerful as each other they can go into a dangerous psychic standoff like Michael Ironside and Patrick McGoohan in the movie "Scanners."

    "But Faf what if I do not want a weak dollar" you are asking. That is a good question. The best way to protect the value of your dollars is the best way to protect the value of anything else: lamination. I get a great deal down at the lamination place because I am friends with the guy at the counter Joe, and I have started laminating a supply of dollars which will now always be worth at least this much so if the dollar goes any lower my laminated dollars will be worth more than unlaminated ones, and I can go into stores and say "I would like to buy stuff" and they'll say "That'll be three-fifty Fafnir" and I will say "Oh I think it will only be three dollars today Mac because I have laminated dollars!" and everyone will be amazed.

    Now of course you are saying "But Fafnir is that really cost-effective for me? Lamination can be expensive if I am not friends with Joe the guy at the counter at the lamination place." Well you should make friends with him shouldn't you? He's not a bad guy.

    Most important: if the dollar gets real weak, you should trade it in for items with "harder" value which can be traded back for dollars when they become valuable again. May I suggest pigs. Everyone loves pigs, and pigs become bigger and fatter by nature as you go along, which means you get more pig and therefore more dollar when it is time to trade in again.

    I hope you had as much fun learning about the weak dollar as I did talking about fat pigs! For Fafblog Economy Watch, I'm Fafnir.
    posted by fafnir at 11:32 PM

    I was gonna write a number of posts today on items ranging from the new WMD intelligence commision to Ariel Sharon's unilateral removal of settlements from the West Bank but you will not believe this, I found a pith helmet today! I real live genuine pith helmet. And so I had to spend most of today stomping around town wearin the pith helmet and sayin things like "Jolly good weather, what" and "Back in the Boer War" and "Indeed the savages of the Western Indies stand forty foot and have heads made entirely of opiates and Turkish spice yet I came to appreciate their barbaric culture."

    What a terrible thing for my first day with comments! To make up for it I will finally produce my long-awaited essay on the weak dollar.
    posted by fafnir at 10:53 PM

    Now you can sing along! Hooray!

    And with only forty-eight hours or so until our interview with Tim Russert!
    posted by fafnir at 11:06 AM
    Friday, February 6, 2004

    I have decided to make this a new regular feature in Fafblog, as the demand was so great. "Fafnir" people would say "there are so few authoritative places on the internet to go to discuss pies and the socio-political impact of pies. What can you and Fafblog do about this Fafnir?" Well that is what the new Friday pie-blogging feature is for.

    Our first pie-blogging pies:



    I believe this particular set of pies makes a devastating indictment of free-market capitalism and its impact on developing countries. Truly some powerful pies.

    In the future I hope to do a lot with the pie-blogging feature because really when you think about it there's just about nothin you CANT address with pies. There is some seriously rich territory here. I also hope to perhaps engage in some cross-blog participation for instance maybe even with Californian blogger and flavor scientist Calpundit, working with his friday cat-blogging feature for a question on whether cats make good pies. If so which parts of cats? Do you leave the fur in, can it be used as a topping? Theres a lot of potential here I think.

    Labels:

    posted by fafnir at 6:57 PM

    So earlier this week Jonah Goldberg from the National Review Online got mad at Jean-Luc Picard for not wanting to go to mars and the moon. "I'm a bit of a wet blanket when it comes to the whole business of space travel," the dashing bald captain said. "I would like to see us get this place right first before we have the arrogance to put significantly flawed civilizations out onto other planets."

    Jonah called him a "traitorous crapweasel" and said that Star Trek was about the triumph of our capitalist culture, but then Matthew Yglesias then went on to point out that everybody in Star Trek was a really a commie anyway. And Pandagon said "hey he's not actually Captain Picard anyway, he's an actor."

    Sigh. They have all missed the point! Why is it that me, Fafnir, has to point out the obvious to them?

    Patrick Stewart is not telling us that space travel is bad or to be Marxists or capitalists. What he IS telling us is that he is REALLY Captain Jean-Luc Picard sent back in time from the future to tell us that it is too early to try to go into space. I mean really! The eugenics wars were less than a decade ago people! Kahn is still out there frozen in his spaceship! If we go to far too fast when we are still divided by class religion ethnicity and race then we will only sow chaos through the cosmos and be helpless before the onslaught of more developed species such as the Klingons, the Breen and the Borg! Why must so many people on the internet be so hopeless.
    posted by fafnir at 1:56 PM

    Well I am fairly excited with this piece of news. Tim Russert may be feelin all big and important because he is interviewin President Bush this Sunday but Fafblog will be interviewing Tim Russert on his interviewing the President, which makes us by defnition even bigger and MORE important!

    "Ooo... a meta-interview," you say.
    Yes and as always with the hard-hitting journalism you have come to expect from Fafblog we will ask the hard-hitting questions! What was the President wearing? Is it true he does not wear pants? Can we be sure? Do you like monkeys? Why or why not? We like monkeys! We have this clip from the Washington Post which contradicts your monkey claim, suck on that, Russert, suck on that!

    This will be much harder-hitting than even my previous hard-hitting interviews such as that time I interviewed Mohammed el Baradei and spent the hour throwing custard at his dog.

    EL BARADEI: Please stop throwing custard at my dog.
    DOG: (dog sounds)
    FAFNIR: Lookithim! Lookit that custard-covered dog!
    posted by fafnir at 11:18 AM
    Thursday, February 5, 2004

    I am currently bloggin from the hospital where a doctor is tellin me that my good friend Chris will need to have his stomach pumped. Oh no! Poor Chris. Does this mean my arsenic experiment was wrong? It is so hard to tell because without a proper control group for all I know he could have been made sick by bad cocoa.

    There is only one way to tell scientifically and that is to eat arsenic again, only Giblets will not go along with it.

    "You are crazy," says Giblets.
    "C'moooooon," says me.
    "Crazy," says Giblets.
    "For sciiiiieeeeence," says me.
    "I'm goin," says Giblets.
    "Please," says me.

    It looks like we may never know the answers to this troubling riddle. Oh well.
    posted by fafnir at 9:41 PM

    Here at Fafblog we do not want to be just amusing little people runnin around on the internet tellin wacky stories about "Oh wow I got attacked by a cupcake today."* We want to do Hard Journalism, too. We are concerned and informed citizens with a blog! We have the power!

    So recently Bird Dog at Tacitus has been askin "Why is everyone so excited about arsenic in the water?" and yknow I hadn't been excited at all, because I didn't know there was arsenic in the water. So then I got all excited and flipped out, because apparently they tried to lower the arsenic a while ago but then they tried to raise it again before lowering it again. But then Bird Dog said "No, who cares it's just arsenic."

    Which is a good question! Who cares about arsenic? Do we really know it's bad? See we all assume it's bad to drink but then we never drink it because we assume it's bad! What a puzzler.

    Well Fafblog is committed to plumbing journalistic depths. Today I will experiment with this by feeding my friend Chris arsenic in larger and larger doses and see what happens.

    "Here have more cocoa Chris," I says.
    "Thank you Fafnir this is just the thing I need since I feel so sick and cold," says Chris.
    "Also have some root beer and some pie," I says.
    "This cocoa tastes funny," he says.
    "It's Nesquick," I says.
    "Oh," says Chris, and drinks more cocoa.

    We will get to the bottom of this before long!

    *Oh by the way I was attacked by a cupcake today. Sigh. I thought it was just sittin there but somethin mustve gotten its blood up or what cause it bounced off the table and smacked me right in the ear. I was very taken aback and felt I have to say somewhat violated and vulnerable. Cause yknow when you're Fafnir people are always joking and saying "Hey Fafnir you get attacked by a cupcake today?" and you laugh cause yknow it's a joke and then it happens and it's just really sad. Sigh.
    posted by fafnir at 11:06 AM

    It is time for Giblets's Candidate Roundup, the Candidate Roundup you have been waiting for all your life.

  • Kerry: TOO UGLY. He has gotten far with an intriguing "Maybe they will vote for me if they do not realize I am John Kerry" strategy. This will probably work really well until someone goes "Hey wait, I'm voting for John Kerry?"

  • Edwards: TOO PRETTY. Edwards is courting the "poor and disenfranchised" vote. This is cunning because there are a lot of poor and disenfranchised. This is stupid because they have no money. Make with the richies, Edwards!

  • Dean: TOO DEANY. Dean has spent a lot of time polishing his "crazy" strategy, which involves him talking about what he won't do to make Giblets happy. Oh, roll back the tax cuts to "balance the budget." Well what if Giblets wants more money? Oh, health care for the poor and the young. Well what if Giblets happens to be old and rich? Who's looking out for Giblets, Dean? Everyone but you, that's who.

  • Clark: TOO BUGGY. Another proponent of Dean's "let's look crazy" strategy, only it works better for Clark - people like crazy generals. But he is not crazy enough. You look like you cannot decide whether to empathize with me or devour me alive, Clark. Devour me! Devour me alive!

  • Bush: TOO SMELLY. And all he says is "Blah blah blah, 9/11. Blah blah blah, recession. Blah blah blah, war." Well all those're swell, George, but what have you done for me lately?
  • posted by Giblets at 9:51 AM
    Wednesday, February 4, 2004

    A prompt response to my email to the president:

    Thank you for e-mailing President Bush. Your ideas and comments are very
    important to him.

    Because of the large volume of e-mail received, the President cannot personally
    respond to each message. However, the White House staff considers and reports
    citizen ideas and concerns.

    In addition to President@WhiteHouse.gov, we have developed White House Web
    Mail, an automated e-mail response system. Please access
    http://www.whitehouse.gov/webmail to submit comments on a specific issue.

    Additionally, we welcome you to visit our website for the most up-to-date
    information on current events and topics of interest to you.


    I am hoping to start evaluating the first of the documents by lunchtime tomorrow.
    posted by fafnir at 9:02 PM

    So recently a lotta people have been gettin excited about President Bush's military record and him bein AWOL in Vietnam. California blogger and pretzel czar Kevin Drum says the President should release his military records.

    Now I should say right now that I trust that the President is tellin me the truth. I mean why would he lie about stuff? He probably cannot reveal his military record on account of Vast National Security Reasons, like maybe he was fighting the commies or perhaps a secret space squid - from space! - with terrorist connections. If we let the world know how he defeated the space squid before, then it will grow stronger, and the terrorists will win. I do not want the space squid to kill freedom!

    But there is a solution to this, and it involves me, Fafnir. I am willing to lend a hand and be an objective observer of the President's National Guard records and then report on the outcome which I am sure will settle everyone down and allow the country to heal its wounds of partisan woundship. To this end I sent this email to President Bush this afternoon:

    Hey George how's things! Things are fine.

    Well there's been a lotta hubbub about your National Guard duty lately and I think it's a shame. But yknow it's gonna keep gettin talked about until somebody puts it to rest and lets the country move on. George I am just that somebody. I am fair and objective and well-loved by most everybody. If Fafnir cannot give a fair and objective accounting of your service well then nobody can and we all might as well be doomed to be eaten by terrorists, or very large ducks.

    You won't really have to release your records to the public. You can just send em to me and I'll check em out and tell everyone "it's all cool" and the everyone'll be like "dude." And then the Healing can begin. I won't need to give out any details (they don't need to know about the squid - that can be "our little secret") because I am the very widely respected and trusted bipartisan Fafnir (way more widely respected and trusted than that Walter Cronkite bastard) and cannot tell a lie.

    You can email me all your National Guard documents to fafnir@fluble.com. It is time to unite this country again George and I think we can do it. Or else, yknow, ducks. You would not leave us to those! I believe in you big guy!

    Love,
    Fafnir

    P.S. Do not send them as a .zip or Outlook'll think it is a virus.
    posted by fafnir at 3:31 PM

    Freedom is a beautiful thing. Almost as beautiful as Glofish. I just spent several hypnotizin hours staring at my little glowing fish. They bring a tear to my eye because it is times like this that I remember that not everyone in this great country of ours can partake in the miracle of Glofish. In California they are banned by an oppressive regime. But here in the free world we are free to appreciate the beauty of nature. Glowing, genetically-modified nature.

    But ALL THIS MIGHT COME TO AN END! As the whiney anti-glofish lobby grows, more and more people want to stop all Americans from enjoying the wondrous beauty of Glofish. A lawsuit has been filed to halt all sales of Glofish until the Food and Drug Administration regulates them.

    This is a travesty of everything! I say to lawmakers and regulators everywhere - please, please, PLEASE do not take away my Glofish! They are so beautiful and glowing. And I say to those filing this suit - what is wrong with you! Are you evil or stupid or something? Why are you picking on my poor little fish?

    I am sorry. That outburst was unlike me I know. But I am empassioned when it comes to Glofish. I cannot help it.

    America desperately needs the Glofish! They are FISH THAT GLOW. I cannot stress this strongly enough. Please write your congressman or senator today and demand legal protection for Glofish!

    P.S. I know the lawsuit link is kinda old news. I have been bad about sticking with this story I know. So Fafnir is not the most up to date source for Glofish news. But he is certainly the most empassioned.
    posted by fafnir at 9:13 AM
    Tuesday, February 3, 2004

    So by now many readers have been sayin "So Fafnir why in your astute superbowl commentary did you not mention the explosive and controversial exposure of Janet Jackson's breast." I must confess I missed a great deal of the superbowl thanks to an incident involving Fafnir's Special Firey Salsa, which was on fire. I maintain that this is necessary to give it the proper bite.

    "Put it out with the guacamole," said Giblets.
    "No no," said me. "The cheesedogs, the cheesedogs."

    Sigh. In the end the house burned down. We are homeless now.

    I have been forgetting so many things lately. Just this morning the Medium Lobster told me that instead of sending him that packet of ricin he wanted I sent him a letter demanding more congressional action on jellyfish farming. Huh! What did I send Bill Frist then? Anyway. Time for more chips!
    posted by fafnir at 11:18 AM

    There have been no shortage of voices imploring the Medium Lobster to comment upon the push to make Justice Antonin Scalia recuse himself in a pending Supreme Court case involving Dick Cheney's refusal to disclose information regarding his energy meetings in 2001 because Scalia took a duck hunting trip with the ever-charming veep. When Mr Cheney appears before the highest court in the land, protest the Democrats, should he not stand before an impartial bench of uninterested arbiters, and not a corrupted one riddled with friends and cronies?

    The answer, the Medium Lobster replies with a knowing chuckle, is no. To judge or protect against something, one must seek the counsel of those who have the greatest experience with it. This is a principle readily grasped by the Bush Administration: hence, the logic of putting loggers in charge of the protection of forests, oil barons in charge of directing energy policy reform, and land developers in charge of the EPA. Who would better know the corporate leeches who seek to plunder our environment - and thus would be best equipped to protect against them - than a former governor who lobbied to build a $1.5 billion expressway through federally-protected wetlands?

    In the same sense, Justice Scalia knows that the man best equipped to judge, assess, and guard against Dick Cheney is a man who has talked with, hunted with, and befriended Dick Cheney. In fact, Scalia is the only justice on the court who has the proper perspective and background to assess the Cheney case; indeed, it should be the other eight justices - who have failed in their duty before the law to cozy up to federal-level litigants and criminals - who should recuse themselves in this case. For standing idly by in the face of this blatant compatability of interest, the Democrats - and the ever-biased press - should be ashamed of themselves.

    In the meantime, we can only hope that more bold pioneers such as Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia continue to confront corruption and vice as only the corrupt and the vicious can. The Medium Lobster has it on good authority that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is being groomed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security.

    posted by the Medium Lobster at 8:05 AM
    Monday, February 2, 2004

    Wow! I am not usually a football fan but I can tell you that those sports and news people were right, that sure was an excitin Super Bowl! Giblets said he thought explosives were not allowed in league play but I guess he was wrong. Anyway we were all blown over when Panthers coach John Fox grabbed an extra ten yards for his team by threatening to detonate the bomb implanted in Tom Brady's ribcage. The suspense!

    Personally I felt the high point of the game came when Carolina atomically mutated their defensive line into a mitotically-dividing amoebaman army to turn back New England's space ship - at least until the last five minutes! At the end when the Patriots took the game with the bold move of sacrificing their tight end to the volcano god to spew hot magma on the Panthers well I can tell you everybody in my house was jumping out of their seat. Now that is what I call football.

    Next year will never live up to this one but then again few can. Maybe it will be like a coupla years ago when Bono died on the cross and ascended bodily into Heaven, but yknow I am never too impressed by halftime shows.
    posted by fafnir at 11:05 AM
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