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Have you had your sad cute puppy moment for today?

"This cute little puppy, only 4 weeks old, was left on March 26th in the back parking lot of the [Austin] Humane Society. Left in a carrier with no note, she was cold, scared, hungry, and unwanted."

A MORE URGENT TASK.

* unaware of criminal background
* media blackout
* criminal genius
* immoral
* payoffs
* warnings to keep quiet
* decision-making secret
* ((...this gave him access to all documents))
* laundering
* flamboyant cocaine use
* sexual favors
* virgin cheerleaders
* low interest
* marathon drug
* conflicts of interest committee
* nose cone
* special cargo doors
* tampered w/ evidence
* ((187Rash))
* insider trading n' genocide
* elimination of competition
* keep it bet. us
* case closed

by and c. Chris Weige

Google presents misspellings of "Britney Spears" entered by at least two different unique users within a three month period. This would make a nice poster. (Via Kelegraph)

1/87 scale car dioramas. (Via Sharpeworld)

Craneaccidents.com: Bending twisting toppled metal porn with "amazing WOW unbelievable photos," and that's no lie, my friends. Be sure to read the cautionary tale of Doyle Peeks, crane dummy and also the site's proprietor. (Via Metafilter)

It's official ... Lee Hazlewood is a nut!

Roadhouse Relics in Austin is cool as shit: "The 1930's and 1940's were the peak of metal/neon sign building in America, an art that was all but lost by the 1970's. Roadhouse Relics has painstakingly researched the techniques and craftsmanship used in these early pieces of American culture. Research included locating and studying sign journals and trade literature from the 30's and 40's. We also purchased, disassembled, and studied the actual neon signs themselves from the era. In some cases, we've located and interviewed the old sign masters who are still around. The final result is a stunning piece of art that will last for many decades to come."

If you liked the JC Penney Catalog Fall-Winter 1980, you may also enjoy It Came From the 1971 Sears Catalog!.

A bunch of Driver's Licenses found with Google's image search, brought to you by the well-bred Dog Door of Death. (Via Sharpeworld, as so many things are)

Dear Boutros-Boutros Collie,
I am a writer and have tried to boycott mainstream corporate America and their products so that my well of thinking is not tainted by their poison. However, I must confess I have been broken. My parents send a lot of 3M gift packs, and man, I love the hell out of them damn yellow sticky notes. I like to use them as bookmarks so I can write down ideas or questions or funny observations as I go along. Give it a try.

And I like Frappuccinos.
-- Scribbling in Scranton

Dear Scribbling in Scranton,
Sometimes when I piss on the carpet I laugh to myself, and then I laugh out loud.
-- bbc

Got a question for Boutros-Boutros Collie? Bring it on!

Some major things have happened lately and I've somehow remained completely oblivious. I think it has something to do with living in unemployed land. I didn't know Bob Dylan was playing two blocks from my house until the day of the show. Pato's Good Tacos burned down?!?! Where the hell was I? Also, The Stranger turned 10 a few weeks ago. Hmmm! I bet they paid the person who wrote their timeline.

The Excitement Machine has an easily navigable antidote for the grumpies! TV Guide says:

Livin' in the '80s
"While nostalgia for the 1980s may seem a bit premature, we can't get enough of the 1980 JC Penney Fall-Winter Catalog. Scanned into easily navigated pages at ExcitementMachine.org/JC, paging through images of stiff women modeling the Xanadu look, bathroom fashions in colors that have to be seen to be believed and, of course, Spider-Man Underoos (for the flyest kid on the playground) should add a sheepish grin to the grumpiest face."

Too bad they capitalized the "jc," because that won't get you there. Weirdos.

Fametracker :: Galaxy of Fame :: Special Speculative Edition: What If They Win Their Academy Awards?

This bookmarklet thing is making me big-time lazy.

The Lost Art of Hollerin'. I wish people would find it, so when I scream out "ca-CAW!" in the grocery store to locate Bryan when we get separated, it won't look so psychotic. (Via The Ultimate Insult)

Meaningless Mementos Scrap Book: These Traditionally Styled 15" x 10" Scrap Books contain 40 pages filled with collected ephemera of yesteryear. Each book contains a wide variety of mementos that you wish you'd saved from your past: cigarette and bubble gum cards; odd newspaper and magazine cuttings; postcards; labels; stamps; sweet wrappers; peculiar photographs. These seemingly meaningless but totally authentic keepsakes have been thoughtfully selected and carefully pasted onto each page by hand to create your own special collection of magical memories.

This and other affordable limited-edition art products at Niff Actuals.

Austin is launching a One City One Book program next month during National Library Week, April 14-20. They'll be announcing the book of choice on the Austin Public Library site sometime soon.

In other APL news, the History Center recently opened up the 1966 UT Tower Massacre records to the public. The archive includes everything from Charles Whitman's letters confessing to the murders of his mother and wife, press clippings, news reels, oral history interviews, and death certificates of some of the victims.

Yahoo is your only source for pure, unadulterated celebrity couple news. No distracting news about single stars unless they have been recently forced into singlehood.

Flak Magazine introduces their new weblog Why They Hate Us. Oh, Flak.

I went thrift shopping the other day and found exactly what I had set out for: a 1967 set of Childcraft encyclopediae ("the How and Why Library"). And for only $6! Whether or not you're interested in buying back your childhood, the subjects are delightful ("How to Make a Walnut Boat" in the "Make and Do" volume; "Hoses at a Service Station" in the "What People Do" volume) and the art is gorgeous and sometimes creepy-good (see above Goldilocks & the Three Bears diorama photo). So I highly recommend searching out a set of your own at your local Goodwill or on the eBay. I imagine the 1950s and 1940s versions are even cooler.

I remember that the illustration for "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" in the "Fables and Stories" volume freaked me out a little bit when I was little. In the set I just bought, someone had stapled those pages together so you just flip by this illustration without seeing it. I'd scan it, but I don't want to undo the staples.

Sad, sad news today, but for some, the adventure is just beginning:

###
Peenbeets Release Second Album, Self-Destruct in Hail of Indifference!

AUSTIN, Texas - After nine years of valiantly attempting to fill America's void for rocks and yocks, THE PEENBEETS have announced that they are breaking up. The quartet's final live performance/CD release party is scheduled for Saturday, March 30, 2002 at Room 710 in Austin.

The band's decision to quit comes on the heels of the release of their second album, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled (Starco), during the annual South by Southwest Music Festival. Produced by Peenbeet bassist Jimmy Burdine along with former Sixteen Deluxe guitarist Chris "Frenchie" Smith, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled is a journey deep into the sordid misgivings of sensitive artists living on deferred dreams and generic corn chips. In addition to the band's patent-pending bop-happy flair, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled features an explosive cover of the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses" scientifically designed to fill the lucrative disaffected young male demographic with BEET-red rage!

As it turns out, though, ABC-TV announced during SXSW week that the band's perpetually in-hiatus situation comedy was, in fact, cancelled, while Starco (a division of General Structures, Inc.) dropped the Peenbeets from its artist roster. Still reeling from this humiliating double whammy, Peenbeets drummer and well-known motivational guru Mr. Positive announced that he was moving to San Francisco in April to pursue a career in the booming Inertnet field, effectively bringing the band to a halt.

While March 30 is the American public's last chance to witness the Peenbeets as a living, breathing creative farce, the boys are still friends and they remain amenable to reuniting for one-off gigs in the future for worthy causes (like trying to get laid). In addition to Mr. Positive's relocation to the Bay Area, the remaining Peenbeets have announced plans of their own. Chepo Pe–a is developing a Cuban cooking show called "Chepo's Cocina" for the Food Network, Jimmy Burdine is honing his stand-up routine at comedy defensive driving courses nationwide, and Greg Beets is seeking backing for a stage adaptation of the 1979 Bill Murray classic, Meatballs.

"We want to thank all our friends and fans for supporting us through our many trials and tribulations with the entertainment and leisure industry," said Beets. "Now who needs a drink?"

###

Could this be ... Satan?!

Look upon my gaze, Ashcroft, and despair!

(Via Bat's Brain, whose page I sometimes load up just so the music can accompany something ridiculous that I'm doing.)

Ted Nugent Summer Kamp for Kids. If only I lived in Michigan and had children. Don't miss the Ask the Nuge advice column. (Via Kelegraph)

Sweet Sunday Fun Link: "Handpainted resin statues on a solid wood base are the perfect gift for every young Catholic athlete. These statues portray Jesus actively participating with boys and girls in a variety of sports. A wonderful way to reinforce Jesus 'as friend' in everyday activities."

Note, Jesus don't need no helmet.

"Also available in Ballet, Gymnastics, Skiing, Martial Arts, Golf, & Biking/Rollerblading."

(Via Metafilter)

In other roller coaster news: Defunct Amusement Parks archives photos, postcards, and stories of abandoned pleasure points. (Via Consumptive)

Homemade backyard roller coaster. Woooohooo! The photos are just great. That reminds me of this. (Via Travelers Diagram)

I decided that I would start a cable channel devoted to documentary films, but some other people beat me to it. The Documentary Channel, "Dch," appears to be aiming for a 2002 debut, but its website has the air of neglect, so maybe that funding never came through. Just another way in which the Canadians are more advanced than us.

HANDCUFFED TO A PIPE IN A BASEMENT.

1. Asked to lie under oath by superiors
2. Forced to resign
3. Ransacked
4. Ruled suicide before autopsy or ballistics test

• very little blood on or around body
  
• no gun powder residue on face or in mouth
  
• no broken teeth or damaged lips
  
• no exit wound
  
• no bullet found
  

5. Was beaten

• elbows dislocated
  
• spleen and bladder ruptured
  
• nose crushed
  
• sinus cavity crushed
  

6. They used to train him on how to look straight into the camera and lie.

by and c. Chris Weige

The story "Pig," by the subversive and often adults-only children's author Roald Dahl, is illustrated with some incredible Photoshop collages here. (Via Boing Boing.)

Spellbound is a great documentary that you should see if you get a chance. It's about eight young people and their quest for Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee glory. The SHNSB site has the stuff for you to stage your own spelling bee at home or study the ways of master spellers. There's a list of all the champs and their winning words and round-by-round results of every competition since 1996. In the Audio Paideia section, you can download files of long-time national finals pronouncer Dr. Alex J. Cameron going over words in categories like Colorific!, The Phantom Tollbooth, and Prefixes Rule!.

From the site Interesting Ideas, a big list of The Best Store Names Ever ("We do not make these up"). Some of them:

Beepers and Human Hair
Buy-N-Leave
Come As You Are and Eat in Your Car
Fill Ya Belly Deli
Helpee Selfee Chinese Laundry
Let's Pet Puppies
Murder Burger
Philippino Five - O
Shop & Shop
Spout 'N' Toad
Touristic Nightclub
We Sell Fried Catfish and Fix Flats
Your Snappy Shop

Interesting Ideas also has a gallery of depictions of Gyros. This is my dream.

(via Tom Mangan)

Went through some piles today and was delighted to find stuff that Brutal Gift gifted me a while back. I don't know if the proprietor, Mark Shepherd, is still giving away his treasure books, but you can grab an art brut font without delay.

I was also thrilled that Chip Wass of World of Wassco wrote in with unsolicited praise for the Excitement Machine. (I hope he doesn't mind me outing him.) You may recognize his retro futuristic work from Nickelodeon or any of a number of fancy publications. He carries the Chuck Jones torch onward and I can't wait till his Chipart section opens for bidniss.

Point-counterpoint on the Shins' song New Slang appearing in a McDonald's commercial, from the band's hometown paper. (Via Tim O. Thompson.)

Failure Magazine is an online magazine dedicated to failure. There's a book dedicated to failure too: Banvard's Folly: Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck. Chapters from this book by Paul Collins have run in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. For a sample of what it's all about, here's a Fortean Times piece by Collins about Solresol, a universal language "translatable to colour, melody, writing, touch, hand signals, and endless strings of numbers" that a gent named Jean Francois Sudre tried to create.

Down in Mexico I discovered that the Simpsons Bumblebee Man is based on a real Latin American TV character, El Chapulin Colorado (the Red Cricket/Grasshopper). According to this source:

El Chapulin Colorado is a parody of traditional superheros like Superman and Batman. ... His "super power" was to take a pill and become tiny, allowing him to penetrate criminal hideouts and such. His catch phrase was "No Contaron con Mi Astucia" (They didn't count on my astuteness). [El Chapulin actor] Roberto Gomez Bola–os is also called "Chespirito" which is how some people refer to the Bumble Bee Man. He also played other comedy characters like "El Chavo Del Ocho" (The Kid from The 8th), who was a funny homeless kid who lived in a barrel.

Bryan spotted a Chapulin Colorado cake-topper in a shop, and later I went on a quest to buy it while he was recovering from el diahhrea explosivo. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the shop. Ay, el estomago! Dios no me ama!

Note to all you D-girls and -boys coming to SXSW. Don't wear your badges around unless you are about to enter a SXSW event. I will even give you, for convenience's sake, the wearing of the badge inside the event. If you wear them to breakfast or strolling around city parks, you are lame and nobody likes you, fool.

WEINERMOBILE BUMPER STICKER SLOGANS

My Other Car is a Taco

Ask Me Where I Park My Weiner at Night

No Parking in Rear

Why Yes, I Am Happy to See You

Diary of a Weinermobile Driver, Day 4

The novelty of driving the world's biggest weiner wore off quickly. I mean, what's up with all the stupid weiner jokes.

Highfalutin fancy supersites like Slate, Yahoo Internet Life, Metafilter, and Glock Talk (hiya, gun nuts, what up!?) have been linking to The JCPenney Catalog Fall-Winter 1980 over the last few days, propelling the Excitement Machine to astronomical stardom that few people attain in their entire lifetimes. I know that fame, like that busty Survivor Marquesas chick, is a vapid bitch, and I can expect it to last about as long as she'll be eating the gooey innards of freshly cracked sea snails for dinner.

My layoff in bizarro world. (Via Romenesko's MediaNews.)

Please! Welcome Wisconsin Gregg "Glue" Clampffer to the Excitement Machine. This is a little story by Ggg called ...

Systems Don't Fail, People Do

Last week I answered an ad in the paper to make $350-600 per week. It turned out to be selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners. Well actually they are "cleaning systems," as I would find out on my first day of orientation. I figured I should give it a shot because really advertising is selling and I am a salesman. Right?

The orientation room had wood paneling and plaques of all different kinds on the walls. There were posters to inspire also-sell 30 Kirby cleaning systems in a month and receive a gold super bowl type ring with a emerald in it. Sell 30 in a month again and get the emerald replaced with a half-carat diamond. That was appealing to me. What was less appealing was the free trip that you qualified for if you sold 15 cleaning systems. I mean the picture of the couple walking in swimsuits on the pristine beaches of La Playa Beach Club & Resort in beautiful Naples, Florida seemed all right, but it was the ominous cursive font that said, "Systems don?t fail, People do!" that had me second guessing my new career.

The lady leading the orientation had been selling the Kirby for 16 years. We were to be part of her team, kinda like a pyramid where everyone above you gets a cut. They don't advertise the Kirby but through referrals and telemarketing set up appointments for a free room of carpet shampooing. By the end of the demonstration, the reasoning goes, the person is usually so impressed by the machine they buy one. So the lady set out and did the demonstration to try to sell us on the Kirby. I must admit that it seemed like an impressive machine. Two motors, one to suck and one to blow compared to the one engine of conventional vacuums. And it was made of stainless steel with a power drive system. They had color charts and a video tape too. The lady's selling technique was all right, but she talked down to us like we were children. Maybe that was part of the power that made people insecure and gave them the feeling that they needed to by a machine for her approval. She would always lead us with questions with only one answer, and every time we affirmed that we were duly impressed by the machine she would repeat something someone had told her: "We're looking for people dumb enough to listen and smart enough follow and make money!" It didn't sit quite right with me, but the other people seemed to nod along so I did too.

About this time the guy who ran this branch came in acting like hot shit. He had been selling Kirbys for 30 years! He was a real smooth talker, but he was wearing rumpled cheap pants, a pastel flowery tie and some knockoff Members Only jacket. His boisterous laugh and large meaty hands that held a coffee cup with two fingers were reminiscent of John Candy playing a salesman in the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He was just popping in to show us his Gold Watch and commanding presence. So back to the demonstration and the many attachments (each sold separately.) It all went on for like an hour and a half and at the end she hits us with the hard sale.

"Isn't spending $2 a day for a short time to know that you are really cleaning well and not just walking in circles and blowing dirt around worth it?" Yes, Okay, well, it's $2 a day for like three and a half years. $1800. And for the sale we'd walk away with and average of $125.

I went home and read through the material again and then had serious talk with myself. I was torn. Was I a pretty boy afraid that I couldn't sell? How clean of a house do people really need to live in? Wouldn't La Playa Beach Club & Resort in beautiful Naples, Florida be nice? I was wrestling with it and was afraid that I was an elitist. Thinking me, the college boy, was too good for this job. Who did I think I was? It was making me stressed out. So I popped in the movie Billy Elliott and watched a little boy who had a dream to dance. After a few good crys I decided I would not return to the Kirby sellers. And that I still don't like ballet.

NAMES OF TEAMS ON AN ACTUAL GAY BOWLING LEAGUE, IN ORDER OF LEAGUE STANDINGS DURING THE PENULTIMATE WEEK OF PLAY.

1. Bowl O Nuts
2. Three Ho's in a Ball
3. Howdy Ho's
4. Kiss My Average
5. Bunny's Boys
6. We Don't Know
7. The Excitement Machine
8. The Rainbowlers
9. Four Easy Pickups
10. Alley Pigs
11. Stiff Pins
12. Bitches of Brunswick
13. Tom Boys
14. Easily Amused
15. Pocket Rockets
16. Pin Busters
17. Fish N Chips
18. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
19. We're No Angels
20. The Libras
21. Three Men & a Hairdresser
22. Tails of the City
23. The Trouble Makers
24. Burnt Panties
25. The Growers
26. Paula's Fault
27. Lo Que Sea (Whatever)
28. Gutter Sluts

MEXICO OBSERVATIONS.

A stationer called Sangre de Cristo.

Many fruit juice/milk concoctions sipped out of plastic bags with straws.

Playstation parlors are a popular gathering spot for the kids.

Cigarette ads on TV.

The trash hounds are meek and sad, and they all limp.

Every church has a non-gruesome Christ in a Box and a horror-movie-makeup-special-FX gruesome depicition of the crucifixion.

Lucha Libre doesn't have nearly the presence I was hoping for. But some.

The strolling mariachi band members disperse to look for paying customers. Each have their own call or whistle to summon everyone back together for a song.

All barbershop and beauty parlor interiors seem to be painted a light green or light blue, and seem to glow from within as you pass by.

The least aggressive beggars ever.

Where old-school Volkswagen Beetles live!

If I lived there, I would be a sign painter.