Escape From Pianosa

This season of Curb has been a little slow but that was a great line.

Chris doesn’t have a blog, but you can still find him on the internets, saying goodbye to his white coat. Last night he asked me to bring back some of my old blog posts from back in the day, you know, the one about the blind lady you worked with. Oh yeah, here it is:

I returned from lunch this afternoon to discover that not one, but two residents of aisle C were sound asleep. I’d like to protect their identities, so let’s just call our first subject “the blind Asian woman.” Apparently she doesn’t have much work to do because she literally sleeps half the day. How does this happen? What kind of manager tolerates this? Seems to me, if you’re blind, you better go out of your way to justify your space on the payroll. Otherwise people might start wondering…

It gets worse though. The other sleeping co-worker is the guy whose job is, get this, to help the blind lady! She’s a programmer and she has trouble seeing the screen. So he goes into her cube–ostensibly–to help her with her program. Usually they just fight:

“Why you touching my screen!”
“I’m looking for an email I deleted!”
“No touch my screen!”
“Listen blind Asian woman, I need to find an email that I deleted, ok?”
“It’s not there!”
“How do you know? You can’t see the screen!”

How long does this take? How much time does he spend ‘helping’ her? Maybe 30 minutes a day. Wanna know what he’s doing now? Let me go check. Big fucking surprise! He’s passed out in his chair with a book in his hands! I love the government. Nap time.

I’ve been perusing RedStateEclectic’s liveblogging of the Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa. I’m mostly interested to see how Ron Paul fares, but I always enjoy watching presidential candidates trying to impress and pander. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t a contest to see who can say the most ridiculous thing without anyone noticing.

“As president, I would build a magical fence on the border, that nobody would be able to cross, and I would build it in only 6 months, and it would be amazingly effective. Then I would build a giant laser to protect us from Martians and then I would win the war in Iraq, and save all the babies!”

But Sam Brownback doesn’t stop there. “As president, I will rebuild the modern family” he says. Great. What could that possibly mean?

Tommy Thompson (seriously?) has an even bolder plan:

“Our oil money is going to a Sheik in Saudi Arabia who is giving it to a terrorist. Tommy is going to “break the umbilical cord” to foreign oil. He favors drilling for oil in Alaska.

Tommy, the umbilical cord is attached to the American navel and it’s pumping in delicious life-giving oil. You’re basically proposing an abortion for America. Bad idea Tommy. And abortion is wrong.

Tommy also thinks that people should learn the English language legally. I have to admit, I’m entirely on board with that. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is above the law when it comes to learning a new language. But it’s not just immigrants. Americans also need to learn languages legally. Let’s put a stop to this now before any more walls have to be built.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Bashing Tommy Thompson is too easy. But I have to get my shots in because he could be done after tonight, and it gets harder when you’re dealing with the more slippery types.

For example, Mitt Romney, who I believe is actually a robot, although I have no evidence. Yet. The RomneyBot is going to…

Strengthen marriage by helping our kids understand that “before they have kids, they get married.”

I totally know where he’s coming from! When I sold real estate in Baltimore I spent a lot of time in some really bad Wire-esque neighborhoods. And one day I thought, hey, it’s not right that I’m here making money off real estate when there’s all these kids around that need my help.

So I used to give them life advice (free of charge!) like “hey buddy, just say no to drugs” and “hey little guy, better get married before you start making babies.” I think I really made an impact but we won’t know until Freakonomics 2 comes out. In the meantime, I’m with the RomneyBot.

I’m selling my rental property in East Baltimore–great time to sell, right?

So I was showing it last night to another investor and as we were walking to our cars we heard pop pop pop pop pop. Hey were those gunshots? Yeah, I think so. Funny because I hear that all the time in Baltimore, just random popping–I always thought they were fireworks. A woman unrolled a window above us and said “get used to it, mmm hmm.” We didn’t see anyone running, or police sirens or anything. Target practice?

Or wait, maybe they are…

MC Hammer Endorses Ron Paul.

OK, he hasn’t officially endorsed Ron Paul, but he is blogging about him. You could pretty much replace “Ron Paul” with any other presidential candidate and that would still be hilarious.

Aspiring satirists take note:

“Interestingly, 19% of Americans state that they rely on satire sites or shows like the Daily Show for their [political] information.”

More here.

Unbelievable:

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Read the rest. Here’s the best line:

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

I just watched the premiere episode of Flight of the Conchords. It’s an offbeat comedy about two Nw Zealanders transplanted in what looks like New York. Subtle but hilarious. You can watch the first episode for free. Link here.

I may have told you this weekend with great excitement about a groundbreaking new sitcom that takes places in a terrorist training camp. The terrorists were all named Abdul, and everyone was portrayed as an hapless idiot–a terrorist parody. Edgy but hilarious.

And unfortunately, not real. Turns out it was an April fool’s day hoax from NPR’s On The Media. I’m disappointed, as I was looking forward to the show…

A bum knocked on my window…I glanced at him and rolled it down.

He flashed his toothless smile and said “your mother’s my woman!”

Things like that make me love Baltimore.