Internet Rundown: February 18, 2011

Do you notice anything odd about this "Chance" card from an early edition of Monopoly? [Adena]

You've heard of a jack in the box. You've even heard of a dick in the box. But have you heard of this? [Huffington Post]

There's nothing angelic about this new Dodgers shirt. [OC Register]

Autocorrect errors should be the least of your worries. [Wrong Number Texts]

There's no other way to explain this: an elephant devoured in "seconds." [Huffington Post]

If your vagina is a flower, my penis is Mount Etna

The potential for sexual maturity among men and women can be understood by how each gender perceives their own genitalia. Famously, The Vagina Monologues relates each monologue to the vagina in some fashion. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality. Most pull in social and political issues working as a platform for female expression.

On the other hand, the most notable expression men are able to muster is the performance show known as the Puppetry of the Penis which can be summarized as a theatrical contortion of the male penis, scrotum and testicles into various positions.

Where the The Vagina Monologues tie in social concerns and female norms personified through the vagina, Puppetry of the Penis involves making your schvantz look like a giraffe.

Each demonstrates a clear difference between what men and women want sexually. Women are concerned with meaning, significance and an expression of their hopes and dreams. Men want to be pleased on a purely superficial level, quick with low time and emotional investment. You relate your vagina to breaking the glass ceiling in corporate America; I make my penis looks like a bat.

Problems With Having Abnormally Large Pupils

Those of you who were unaware that there are problems with having large pupils, it's probably because your pupils are average-sized. You were born normal. Please, don't pity us; don't judge us; don't laugh at us. Put yourself in our shoes, for we only want to be understood:

1. You are always the only one with red eye in pictures. Every picture brings back memories of your grammar school nickname, Baddy Maddy, given to you after Suzy brought pictures to school from her birthday party in fourth grade.

2. When you are inside, filtered sunlight is always more than enough, but someone will soon notice you "sitting in the dark" and proceed to turn on every light in the room while exclaiming, "I can't see a thing in here. You poor thing, sitting in the dark!" Yeah, they couldn't see a thing, and now you can't. You squint until they leave and then turn the lights off again.

3. Your eyes are blue, but people think they are black which, in many ways, is worse than red.

4. You are forever dependent on sunglasses. When you lose your only pair, you seriously consider not leaving the house until after sunset.

5. People, especially police officers, never believe you when you tell them you're not high. Even when you aren't.

6. Noon is your arch-enemy. When the sun is directly overhead, you have to walk with your eyes closed, even with your sunglasses on. White walls, sidewalks, and reflective surfaces threaten you like carnival clowns and you decide it's fun to pretend you are legally blind.

7. Cloudy days are the most deceitful. They seem dim; you are hopeful. The clouds, however, are mysteriously luminous and they make even the air in front of you extra bright. The brightness is nauseating. You are the only person wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day and people think you are pretentious. They don't understand that you just have large pupils.

8. Lamps are your best friends.

9. Sometimes you feel like an animal in a petting zoo. When people hear about your large pupils, they lean into your face and say, "Wow...Look at the light...Now back at me...Now at the light...Now at me..." Then they decide they need another subject, "Someone else get over here so I can compare pupils!"

10. You avoid certain restaurants and retail stores solely based on their lighting.

11. Yesterday was cloudy and you were suckered in. While driving to school, you had to watch the road through your eyelashes. Your crow's feet are already beginning to emerge.

Justice Scalia...Through Time!

Substantive

It is not pronounced "sub staaaaantive." It is "sub stin tive." See http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/substantive. There are dogs that know this. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12067099.

Milk Chocolate And Citrus

I hate the mix of milk chocolate and citrus. It is a woeful combination. My first taste of this elixir was when I was aged 7.

My parents were getting ready for work and I was preparing my breakfast. I normally had Rice Krispies with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. So I got a bowl out, poured some Krispies in, got the milk--poured that shit in. Then I was lost in my own thoughts--about Thundercats.

A little background: My parents are both workaholic doctors--without decorum. So one day when I was with my babysitter, I happened to catch an episode of Ricki Lake. So, I grew curious. What is sex and why is that dirty man claiming that he and his rotund girlfriend are going to have sex in the bathroom? So I asked my parents. They were stumped by the latter inquiry, but they gave me a more than thorough description of the former question. Remember, I'm 7.

I began applying this newfound knowledge to everything I knew. Enter Thundercats. So I was wondering whether Lion-O had sex with Cheetara. I assumed for the sake of further inquiry that they were. But when they did, did they prefer cat position?

While I was wondering this, I got the orange juice and poured it into my cereal bowl. So milk, cereal, and oj.

I figured I had to eat this shit. My dad had told me about all the poor Ethiopian children. I was still at the age where I cared about the plight of Ethiopian children. So I started eating it. It was the worst--milk and citrus don't go together. It was the cottage cheese, curdled, sour nonsense.

So some of you might be thinking--that's milk and oj. That ain't milk chocolate and oj. Well morons, I don't think much would change if I dumped cocoa powder all over that shit. It would still be shit. And yeah, I'm right. I had one of those Toblerone chocolate oranges. It was terrible. Terrible. In fact, my ex-girlfriend handed that to me on the train and I puked all over the place. That was the same day I went down on her while she was having her period. The chocorange was the worst thing I had that day.

So, in summation, if you like milk chocolate and citrus, I suspect that you are a child of incest.

The Unwritten Rule of Ballparking

Listen, the rule is that you don't get to ask for a ballpark estimate. If someone wants to offer one up, that's fine - good for them. But nothing irritates me more than when someone asks me a question, I respond with, "I have no clue," and they then follow up with, "Well, just give me a ballpark." No. No. No. That's not how this works. You might as well ask me to make up a number.


I don't have an answer. That's covered under the statement, "I have no clue." If I had any concept of the answer, I would have provided it up front, ballpark or otherwise. So, don't sit there and insist that I give you an answer. I stated very clearly that I don't know. And if I don't know, then your guess is as good as mine. How about you ballpark it?


Well, I'll tell you why they don't. They don't because they understand the gravity of the situation. This isn't about ballparking the amount of jellybeans in a jar. If it were, then they wouldn't even be consulting you. No, this is about something more important, something for which they are expected to provide a legitimate answer, something on which people are going to rely.


The truth is that this request for a ballpark estimate is not about finding the right answer; it's about creating a scapegoat. What they really mean to say is, "I want a guess from you because I don't have any clue about this subject matter. However, if I present your ballpark estimate, it sounds good, and everyone buys it, then I sound experienced and knowledgeable on something of which I know nothing. And if it turns out your ballpark is wrong, then I can simply point the finger at you. 'Amber gave me the wrong answer. Dang, that Amber is stupid.' "


Yeah, that's right, I'm on to you ballparkers. It's not about pitching, batting averages, and the crowd's roaring shout. No, it's about Casey and making sure I strike out.


Next week, we'll discuss guesstimate.

Ten Things Men Want in a Woman

I saw a post on a women's dating site titled something to the effect of, Ten Things Men Want in a Woman. It was allegedly written by a straight guy, and it listed qualities like "allure," "surprising laughter," and "wants to explore/travel."

To set the record straight, I've compiled my own list of Ten Things Men Want in a Woman:

1. Good looks.

That's it. There aren't nine other things.

Goodbye.

Blog Finds Fans, Estonia Is Still a Country

As Abuse of Discretion builds a fan base, I want to thank all of our readers for giving us a few minutes each week to read our rants and remarks.

Particularly, I'd like to thank our readers in the Republic of Estonia. Our data indicates that a couple of Estonians are really into this site, and we hope they'll propagate our work around the Estonian water cooler.

In truth, I didn't even know Estonia was still a country. I thought it was like the Aztecs or sphinxes or something: a long-forgotten civilization of yestermillennium. But apparently Estonia is still around and has Internet hookups. So that's great.

Thanks also to the handful of readers in Europe and Canada, and both readers in Belize.

Kids Lie...Except When They're Telling the Truth

When I was a little girl, every time my birthday rolled around, there were only three things that I ever wanted: a dog, one of those silver, jingly medical bracelets*, and a Ring Pop. My expectations were tempered in early childhood, so mostly, I just wanted the Ring Pop—you know, that huge, pre-diabetic sugar rock stuck to two prongs of plastic intended to fit on one’s finger (there had to be an opening in the band, since the kids who received Ring Pops presumably had chubby phalanges, i.e., “hot dog fingers”).

In old home videos, whenever I opened a birthday present—no matter the size of the package—I would squeal in delight and declare that it was a Ring Pop. Come on, folks, I knew; I was no dummy. In elementary school, kids used to tell me to speak English because they couldn’t understand my advanced vocabulary. I knew the comparatively oversized boxes did not contain a Ring Pop. It was a manipulative, desperate act to obtain my candy bling. It didn’t work, though, as I never did receive one.

Fortunately, I was more successful when it came to the dog. After ten years of enthusiastically telling my mother that I would eat the dog crap if I did not remember to pick up after it, she finally relented. It was a total lie—the likelihood of my consumption of canine excrement was akin to the chance a man is telling the truth when he denies having ever masturbated (yes, I have met men like this; for your own sake, please, do not date them). In actuality, she bought me the puppy as a last ditch effort to lift me out of an emo, teenage funk partially precipitated by the breakup of my first not-worth-it relationship. But, I knew the influence of my words couldn’t be underestimated, as she still reminds me in nag sessions of my promise when I reluctantly pick up after him.

So, with all this seemingly-innocent deceitfulness going on, how do you know when children are being honest? If they state they broke the ant farm in the kitchen, contradict daddy when you ask, “Do I look fat in this dress?,” or inquire if you’re a boy or a girl, you can rest assured that your little darling is telling the truth.

*I found out years later my mother was adamantly against medical bracelets because “pedophiles could use the personal information and address” and, well, I was adorable.

It's Official: Gingers Are Scary

Abuse of Discretion's first audience poll returned unsurprising results this weekend when readers declared that gingers are scarier than clowns, heights, and Resident Evil 2. The results of the poll are as follows:

Which of these things is the scariest?
Gingers: 47%
Clowns: 26%
Heights: 15%
Resident Evil 2: 10%
(Percentages rounded down.)

These results suggest that a ginger's naturally pale skin and red hair is much scarier than a clown's pale face paint and red wig. Also, not enough people have played Resident Evil 2.

Please take a moment to answer this week's poll, which is a bit more topical.