The year is 2035. Joe Smith stands in front of the United States Senate, subject of a confirmation hearing for the post he has sought all his life:

Camera cuts to Senator Archibald Huffenpuff [R], looking self-important and slightly bored.

Huffenpuff: Mr. Smith are you now or have you ever been a member of the web site called [checks notes] MySpace.com?

Cut to Joe Smith, in a sharp suit.

Smith: Yes sir.

Huffenpuff: In what capacity?

Smith: Well, while running for office several years ago, we used myspace.com/joe-smith-in-30 as part of our grassroots campaign to…

Huffenpuff: Have you ever used any other usernames on this site?

Smith looks moderately confused by the question.

Smith: I don’t particularly recall, Senator.

Huffenpuff: Have you ever used the name el-guapo-suave?

Smith smiles.

Smith: Ah, yes. I used that name during school.

Huffenpuff: Do you recall comments made then about circuit judge Mary Jones?

Smith blanches, clearly confused

Smith: Back then? I didn’t even know who she was then, Senator.

Huffenpuff: Let me refresh your memory. In 2008, she was fifteen years old and went by the user name meow1kittens15.

Smith: Uh…

Huffenpuff: You left comments on her page when she posted a picture of herself in her cheerleader uniform.

Sensing Smith’s discomfort, the camera slowly zooms in.

Smith: Uh…

Huffenpuff: Specifically, you said of the then underage Mary Jones, and I quote “I’d tap that” and “omfg u r so h0ttt!!!11!1″. Are these your words, sir?

Smith: Uh…

Camera cuts to a closeup of a white cat with blue eyes and a diamond necklace, being pet by Rupert Murdoch (indirect owner of MySpace) in his orbiting space station.

Murdoch: Bwah-ha-ha-ha! You should have paid up, Mr. Smith.

Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are already being used for blackmail, but I can’t help but suspect that blackmail is actually their entire reason for existence. This is the only reason I can find to explain why Faceberg still gets investment capital in spite of having no visible business plan or prospects. It may also explain why Facebook removed a third-party application that let its users stab each other: it was cutting in on Facebook’s action.

Expect to see this type of thing show up in government more often, along with services that will eliminate incriminating web evidence. One interesting aspect of this will be the collateral damage created. For example, in my fictional example above, a plot intended to take down Smith would probably also take down Mary Jones by also exposing her teenage escapades.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Only seven people in the world will actually understand this, much less think it is as funny as I do. And only half of them are probably reading this. But hey, my blog, my rules.

In doing some spring cleaning, I came across this scrap of paper in one of the many piles in my office:

Good times.

UPDATE: not long after posting this, I got a “mysterious” text page from one of the seven people saying “There is no rash.” Trust me, that was hilarious.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Back in the days of Macintosh System 6.0, Lamprey Systems (”software that sucks”) brought us “Your Own Personal Savior on a Floppy Disk”, but then He languished as technology outpaced Him. Now, He’s back, redubbed MacJesusX, promising Mac OS X goodness, “the Insinerator Sin-Removal Tool® and state-of-the-art 80’s programming techniques”.

The latest version, unfortunately, isn’t as fun as the System 7 version. I think one reason might be that it doesn’t use the hypnotic theme song from the earlier one. To restore it to its former glory, I’ve managed (not easily) to extract said theme and translated it into a short MP3. You pretty much have to listen to it on a loop to get the full effect. If you have QuickTime installed, hit play on the control below to see what I mean.

Popularity: 8% [?]

A co-worker told me about something he saw last weekend that has to be the most concise illustration of how to properly use incentives to change people’s behavior I’ve ever seen. It was a sign in in a retail store saying:

Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Most traditional holidays are syncretised perversions of even older traditions, which then get secularized into excuses to eat a whole bunch. Christmas falls, not coincidentally, close to the winter solstice, and borrows heavily from earlier winter festivals, featuring lots of gingerbread, candy canes, traditional hams and large family feasts. Thanksgiving, being largely a continuation of post-harvest feasts in Europe, has always been about eating. We have, of course, taken this to ridiculous extremes with turducken, a Thanksgiving dish prepared by…

…cramming a boneless chicken into a boneless duck, which is stuffed into a boneless turkey. Three kinds of stuffing are layered between the three kinds of meat and the monstrosity is cooked for a very long time. The end result, when cut, is a fantastic food rainbow that must be eaten to be believed.

Easter, which may or may not have been named after a pagan fertility goddess, falls conveniently close to the spring equinox, allowing the syncresis of rabbits, eggs and the rebirth of nature into a ritual about the slaughter and rebirth of God. Easter also now has been subverted into being about eating, though hasn’t yet been taken to the extremes of Thanksgiving turducken.

Until now.

Making Easter turducken is, fortunately, much easier than a traditional turducken, as it abandons all that pesky protein while fully embracing the empty carbohydrates and fat. While technically Easter turducken is a dessert and traditional turducken a main course, they should never be consumed in the same meal. That would be heresy.

As with traditional turducken, Easter turducken starts from the inside out. The core is formed with miniature Cadbury cream eggs:

Take an ordinary peep and make a large slit in the bottom, as deep as possible without going all the way through:

Stuff an egg into the slit, stretch the sides around it, and fold the peep’s tail down. Repeat with a few more peeps.

The outer layer finally makes good use of one of the more odious culinary travesties, the irritating hollow bunny. As a kid, nothing was more annoying that thinking you’d been given a huge block of chocolate, and it turns out to be empty. To get the egg-stuffed peep goodness into this abomination, first you must open the bottom. Anything worth doing is worth doing with power tools, so take a dremel and cut around the perimeter of the bottom:

Once the hole is made, stuff the now egg-bloated peeps into the bunny. Note that some hollow bunnies suck even more than others, and crack and fall apart really easily, so be careful. Once you’re done, put the bottom back on. The really ambitious might try re-melting the seam in the bottom closed with a crème brûlée torch.

Voilà, the loathsome hollow bunny is transformed into several thousand calories, as God intended. Many children wonder around Easter how it is that bunnies lay eggs. As a side benefit, Easter turducken illustrates clearly that this “theory” is wrong. Obviously bunnies lay chickens, which then lay the eggs. Mystery solved.

Now fully prepared, the Easter turducken can be eaten. There is probably some kind of psychological test about what part of the bunny you eat first. I always go for the neck. Since it is held together only by a cheap-ass hollow bunny, once you start eating your turducken, it will collapse rapidly. Be prepared for a mess.

Yummy. A guess at the nutrition information for a three peep turducken:

Nutrition Facts Serving Size:  1 Easter turducken • 98g Amount Per Serving Calories  456 Calories from Fat  158 % DV* Total Fat  18g 27%     Saturated Fat  11g 44%     Trans Fat  0g   Cholesterol < 15mg 4% Sodium  74mg 4% Total Carbohydrate  70g 24%     Dietary Fiber  0g 0%     Sugars  65g   Protein  6g 11%

Enjoy your Easter turducken. And bring lots of paper towels. And maybe a bib. Let me know how your own turn out.

Popularity: 100% [?]

After the 50th time listening to Paul Maguire tell me that he is going to tell me something right before telling me something, I thought I should come up with a Sunday Night Football drinking game. As with so much on the net, it’s been done.

I’d also add a rule that you must sip anytime Berman uses a “cute” nickname for a player. Also, drink anytime the camera focuses on a cheerleader. Chug if she isn’t a blonde caucasian.

Popularity: 6% [?]

A month ago, I posted a list of song lyrics with a challenge for my readers to identify them. My plan at the time was to post the answers after a month had gone by. In the interim, however, there have been zero responses, which means that some or all of the following are true:

• I have no readers
• The list was overly difficult
• The list was overly long
• My readers are lazy bastards
• My readers are apathetic and grumpy

Whatever the reason, I’ve now resolved to never post a solution to the original list, but will leave it up for the intrepid. C’mon, surely you can at least guess one or two! As for the difficulty and length, I also offer the following, alternate list:

1. I wanna rock and roll all night
2. I am Iron Man
3. It’s a small world, after all
4. Silent night, holy night
5. Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire

Popularity: 6% [?]