Saturday, August 30, 2008

courtney love

we include courtney love because - despite being quite intelligent and talented - in matters involving real life, she is a total space cadet.

(that is, any idea of what constitutes inappropriate behavior goes right over her head. and we pity her kid.)

charlize theron

and then there's charlize theron, a south african import that drops trou in virtually every film in which she appears, despite top-line acting chops.

not that we're complaining, mind you.

(in case you're looking for the sci-fi through-line, try the astronaut's wife, with johnny depp at his creepiest. it's kind of village of the damned meets rosemary's baby. or... well, no, we can't actually recommend aeon flux, because it sucked monkey butt. and nobody needs that.)

marina sirtis

as long as we're on a sci-fi kick, how about uk-born marina sirtis? in case you've forgotten, she played counselor troi on star trek, who wandered around the set saying things like, 'captain, i sense that my character is underdeveloped, and nothing but a prototype for cold, missile-titted disciplinarians that will go on to have careers that aren't limited to fan conventions in boise'.

(not bad for 53, but she don't look too happy, do she? we sense she's feeling like whatever she's getting paid for this shoot, it's not enough. and she's right.)

billie piper

speaking of doctor who, billie piper, who played rose tyler during the first 2 series of the current reincarnation, is a fabulous actress. plus she's english, which we admit we've always had a thing for.

downside: she's got that typical female brit build, as if she'd come in a box. don't women in the uk have waists anymore, for gods' sake?

(ok, so the last time we saw our own toes was sometime in '01. no need to get all cruel intentions on us.)

hayden panettiere

we don't do heroes* but we're fascinated by the endless tide of young, dumb actresses that allow themselves to be photographed doing things that their publicists will later quit over.

* we admit it - we've been closet doctor who fanatics for more than 20 years. we live on the hope that they'll do a feature-length film with the 2 most recent doctors, plus maybe sting, and use wire's song map ref 47n 93w for the closing credits... but we digress.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

shameless hucksterism - the sequel

it is our considered opinion that there can never be enough suggestive underwear in the world. or clever, snotty t-shirts that allow you to express what you think but would probably never say. if you agree, have we got a site for you...

cafe express now produces else-wear, the complete elsewhen returns line of apparel and home furnishings.

prove that you understand what sardonic means! feel superior to your less cleverly attired friends! order some merch and send us all of your damned money (plus your parents' money, your sister's money, and any money that you find in the pockets of strangers on your way to work)!

shameless hucksterism - part 1

i painted this mermaid almost 20 years ago. a friend suggested that i open a gallery. why not?

if you would like to order a print of this image, or see some of my other work - including commerical designs - visit foundmyself.com. you can order prints of almost any size, and they will be shipped to you within 5 business days.

Friday, August 22, 2008

quit yer bitchin' #11

now this is attractive. reminds us of wedding crashers. it would also probably make a helluva country song:

the bride did a keg-stand,
left her ring on the nightstand,
and ran off with the best man
the fellow on the right...


ladies, be glad this is not you. (if it ever has been you, pay any amount for the negatives - trust us on this one.) gentlemen, you're probably sorry that you're not the fellow feeding her the hose, or one of the brutes with the garter's-eye view.

quit yer bitchin' #10

the choice of fixtures at the archdiocese are probably your first clue regarding whether or not your children will be safe there.

(o, we're gonna get emails about this one. but be fair - we didn't make this creepy thing, we've never been priests, and we've never advised anyone to take up pederasty. don't shoot the messenger - we're just sayin'.)

quit yer bitchin' #9

we're pretty sure that they have some kind of medication for that now.

(this one is a tie for the lamest caption ever. sorry, loyal elsewhen'rs - our only excuse is that it's friday. plus those responsible have been sacked & replaced by bruce, the wonder llama.)

quit yer bitchin' #8

our friends in the pr business will find this especially poignant.

(note to agencies: social media is not about selling something. you may now officially lose interest.)

quit yer bitchin' #7

'i wonder if i'm getting too old for comic book conventions. ha! what was i thinkin'? as if that could ever happen!'

(this could also be captioned 'how to tell when it's too late to move out of your mom's basement'. or how about 'things not to wear when asking out a real live girl'. we're also taking bets that the items in the man-purse are either sealed in plastic bags with backing boards or require large caliber ammunition. possibly both. and is it just us, or does it look like he's wearing a big red pair of depends?)

quit yer bitchin' #6

'um, hi boss. hey, you remember when you told me that the cars weren't balanced right on the barge, and i said that they were? yeah? well, turns out you were right.'

quit yer bitchin' #5

picture the backstory to this little photo gem, and be glad it's not you. yet.

where all the money went

if you've been wondering how the credit crisis happened, how it ties in with the failure of major corporations, housing, and the savings & loan shenanigans of the 80's, this video is a good place to start.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

wells fargo: bank banditos

so we got this email from wells fargo thanking us for signing up for their bill pay service, which is funny, because we didn't. so we read the terms & conditions, and the service is free provided that we keep a us$5,000 minimum balance - otherwise, it's $6.95 a month. if we want to drop out of their bill pay plan, they provide an 800 number for us to call.

hmmm, we thought, interesting concept. so how about this as a reply:

thank you for signing up for elsewhen returns, which you can enjoy absolutely free... provided that you read it while chanting the lyrics to chrome bones' song, money, and post a video of a wells fargo vp - preferably the one that came up with your bill pay campaign - getting cornholed by iceberg, his future cell-mate. otherwise, all you have to pay is $695 per diem to enjoy yummy elsewhen goodness.

here's wells fargo's verbatim message:

Welcome to Wells Fargo Bill Pay*. Now you can pay virtually anyone, anytime, anywhere you have Internet access.

Getting started is easy:
* Go to wellsfargo.com and enter your username and password and click "Go"
* If you do not have a username or password, or if you have forgotten them, click the "Username/Password Help" link and follow the quick, step-by-step instructions

After you have signed on, click the Bill Pay tab and use the Popular Payee list, browse our online directory of companies, or simply enter the name of the company or person you want to pay.

With Online Bill Pay you can:
* Pay any person or company in the U.S. -- your credit card company, mortgage lender, or even your Aunt Joan.
* Schedule one-time or recurring payments days, weeks, or months in advance.
* Select eBills to receive and view bills online from a growing list of companies.

To see how Online Banking with Bill Pay can help you manage your finances, pay bills and even how to bank with your mobile device, check out our online tour at https://www.wellsfargo.com/onlinetour.

If you have any questions, please call us at 1-800-956-4442. We're here 24 hours, 7 days a week. You may also send us an email by clicking "Contact Us" during your secure Online Banking session.

Thank you for choosing Wells Fargo Bill Pay. We look forward to meeting all your online banking needs.

Randy Thomas
Senior Vice President
Online Customer Service

* Bill Pay is free of monthly service fees if you have an eligible checking account. For customers who do not have an eligible account, Bill Pay is free for the first two months for new customers only, and remains free of monthly service fees if you maintain at least $5,000 in your qualifying personal accounts at all times. Otherwise, Bill Pay is $6.95 per month (includes up to 25 payments per month; each additional payment costs $0.40). For more information about eligible and qualifying accounts, go to www.wellsfargo.com/wfonline/schedule.

To review your Online Access Agreement and any fees that may be applicable to Wells Fargo Online or Wells Fargo Business Online, please visit www.wellsfargo.com/agreement.

skin cream causes cancer

this one's from rutgers, so it's gotta be true. and all you have to do to trigger it is:

  • go out in the sun

  • drink tap water

  • have blue eyes

  • or green eyes

  • or blonde or red hair

  • or be old

  • or get an x-ray


  • (dude, we are so hosed. we didn't think you had enough to worry about this week.)

    teachers packin' heat: worst. idea. ever.

    if you were a tiny little school district in texas, without gangs or much in the way of violent crime, and you read about shootings at huge schools like virginia tech, we're betting that your response wouldn't be to arm your teachers.

    but then, you're probably not from texas.

    (if teachers carried concealed weapons at our school back in the day, we're pretty sure that we wouldn't be here now. the temptation to shut us up was just too strong.)

    should corrupt senators be boiled or fried?

    so senator slimeball stevens got jobs for relatives, work done on his home and thousands of dollars worth of gifts from veco corporation (a company that should never get another government contract for anything, ever). and denied it. but that's just where the fun began.

    he tried to have the case thrown out, arguing that the justice department overstepped their authority (he apparently believes - along with the bush administration - that those in government are above the law). he said that his aides could not be questioned (legislative speech was his argument, which sounds suspiciously like cheney's executive privilege argument). then he tried to get it moved to his home state of alaska. and the beat goes on.

    (it is elsewhen's long standing opinion that, when civil servants at any level violate the public trust - be they police officers, judges, senators, or presidents - that upon conviction they be cooked and served to their constituents, their enemies, or both. this year has been particularly prolific, so we're commissioning a new cookbook: to serve rat. send in your recipes now, sportsfans!)

    groceries put bite on consumers

    first, our apologies for that headline. the staff was probably drunk at the time (they usually are), and those responsible have been sacked.

    now the bad news: as if gas prices weren't eating enough of your wallet, and the fact that you've been paying the same amount for less food in the container, food prices are about to take their biggest jump in nearly 20 years. thank exxon and the other oil companies plus china for a sizable chunk of that.

    (you were planning to lose some weight anyway, right?)

    and not a drop to drink

    most towns don't test their drinking water for anywhere near all of the contaminants that currently appear, but one of the toxins that most do test for - arsenic - appears to be linked with the growing epidemic of type 2 diabetes.

    and - just to make your day complete - it turns out that the fruit drinks that you've been chugging as an alternative to calorie-heavy soda contribute to diabetes, too.

    (our solution: homebrewed beer. or mead. or, heck, even potane. you may end up with a spare tire, but you'll avoid having to shoot up insulin, going blind, or developing abcesses on the bottoms of your feet. you're welcome.)

    Wednesday, August 13, 2008

    cia forged letter linking saddam to al qaeda

    honestly, can't the neocons slow down their acts of treason & constitution evisceration long enough for us to catch up on reporting it? and this one's a pip, too - enough so that, if true, it should lead to impeachment. here's why:

    according to the clip, the white house knew that there was no link between saddam and al qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, and no support or excuse for the iraq war. so what did they do? ordered the cia to forge a letter between al qaeda and saddam.

    do we finally hear the fat lady warming up?

    tricky dickless guts endangered species act

    the clip says that this is dubya's doing, but we all know by now that it's tricky dickless, don't we?

    unable to muster the votes necessary to outright repeal the endangered species program and apparently feeling that replacing the heads of all of the government's scientific agencies with neocon drones didn't go far enough, dick is pushing ahead with a plan to allow federal agencies (run by neocons, too) to decide for themselves if construction plans & whatnot harms animals.

    (if they happen to see the alleged harm happen. and if the animal in question fills out the proper forms and gets notarized by the proper filing date at the office which doesn't exist. we're betting this will work just as well as dickless' voluntary emissions program.)

    career network: a wide web of scuzz

    career network steals job listings from craigslist (on which they also frequently advertize jobs) & other employment sites, pretends that the jobs are listed through them or one of their dozens of link sites, and sends them via email to unsuspecting resume posters as if cn were the ones doing the hiring. if you apply, they sock you with text messaging charges, collect your cell phone info, throw up credit card offers, college pitches, and collect contact information re: your references - whom they also hit up.

    is it legal? whether it is or not, doesn't it sound scummy? and a scam by any other name still stinks. if you read their terms of service, it won't make you feel any better.

    our advice: stay away from them, and tell everyone that you know to do the same.

    Tuesday, August 12, 2008

    loyalty

    loyalty to the country always. loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

    samuel clemens, also known as mark twain (1835 - 1910)

    1 in 3 child murders perpetrated by fathers

    according to the u.s justice department's bureau of justice statistics, between 1976 and 2004, fully 31% of all murdered children under the age of 5 were killed by their own fathers.

    (which is why we aren't kidding when we say that parenthood should require a regularly updated license, no different than a driver's license or a license to teach. if republicans truly believed in the sanctity of the family as much as they say they do, they'd back us up on this. but, of course, it's nothign more than a code word for controlling other people's families.)

    Monday, August 11, 2008

    john edwards a dickwad, after all

    don't you find it epically satisfying when a holier-than-thou political whore reveals themselves as the total shit that you always knew they were? like when sen. john edwards said that - not only did he cheat on his cancer-stricken wife - but the affair began when she was in remission.

    listen: washington typically resembles a key party hosted by pacs and 'consultants'. we don't understand it ourselves, but political power is a sexual draw for some people. if it weren't, karl rove would never have gotten laid, for any amount of money. so what? normally, we couldn't care less who is doing who.

    unless, of course, they lie about it. that's like blood in the water to us. edwards took it a step further and actually offended us (which is surprisingly difficult to do) by lying about it, covering it up, and apparently paying his mistress off.

    we wish the sharks bon appetit.

    Friday, August 8, 2008

    obesity caused by hungry space aliens

    in 1960, the average american male weighed 160 pounds. as of lunch today, this has swollen to 240 pounds and a side of bacon. for the past decade, experts have puzzled over what caused this sudden, rampant porkage (other than 70 years of food additives, western affluence, supersizing, and ads promoting frosted flakes as an afternoon snack). now, in an exclusive elsewhen report, the real reason is finally revealed:

    hungry space aliens.

    'yeah, we planned the whole thing,' admitted lactos, the high overlord of meat planet earth. 'see, earth is right off the hyperspace bypass between rigel & vermillion. it made perfect sense to turn it into a feeder farm for extraterrestrial travelers on the go. you'll be eating each other in another 30 years or so, anyway. we just beat you to the punch.'

    when asked why our alien masters failed to prevent this story from breaking, lactos shrugged. 'no one will believe it. no one cares. as long as we fund the neocons and pipe in american idol & nascar, you monkeys'll eat anything that fits into a deep fryer.'

    in more positive news, sales of to serve man: a cookbook are expected to skyrocket.

    michelle, heather, and ginger lynn

    dark knight is on its way to $500 million at the box office, so we thought we'd run this pic of michelle pfeiffer - catwoman in another director's vision of batman (which we like, too, in the same way that we like 9 kinds of pie & consider them all to be our very favorite).

    to goose our traffic & seo, this pic of ms. pfeiffer was taken about the same time as this pic of heather locklear.


    ms. locklear, you may recall, was popular at around the same time as porn star ginger lynn allen, whom we include here in a recent photo simply because we like you.

    (she must be as old as your mom, by now, but she still looks like she could kick our ass. hell, she could probably kick sting's ass. in fact, they should have a nude wrestling match, and you can sell tickets, you sick little monkeys.)

    quit yer bitchin' #4

    another equally apt caption for this might be 'how to know when it's time to get a new job'.

    (which is why we're here, sitting in a recliner sippin' a dos equis, while you're wishing you were.)

    gawker scoffs at puny traditional media

    you know that the traditional media - new media war is heating up when the l.a. times brags about their record 127 million page views in july and gawker laughs at them.

    why did gawker laugh? because they had twice that number of pageviews. they also accomplished it with 80 people, while the times' newsroom staff alone numbers 700.

    newspapers, that sound you hear is the fat lady singing roxanne. please remember to turn off the lights on your way out.

    does the klan plan to kill obama?

    the white supremacist nutjobs (as opposed to all of the other colorful nutjobs that dot our national landscape) appear to be in favor of barak obama winning the presidency. they seem to think that it will lead to an awakening and revolution by whites against minorities.

    which is, of course, a delusion. all of the white supremacist groups put together - klans, aryans, nationalists, and all of the other flavors - have no more than 200,000 members, tops. as of this writing, there are 305 million people in the u.s. that means that a grand total of .07% of us are white supremacists.

    see the huge-ass hole in their plan?

    wethinks that they are all apt to be a bit frustrated when obama is elected, the revolution completely fails to happen, and they are suddenly faced with the ugly truth: that they are utterly alone in their lunacy, they have nothing, and they have no one but themselves to blame for their situation. and where do you think they'll focus their aggression at that point?

    if we were barak obama, we'd be bathing in teflon about now.

    Monday, August 4, 2008

    do we smell tuna?

    like many of you, we grew up on tuna fish casserole. to this day, we maintain that nothing offered by even the great metropolitan grille comes close to this sublime bit of hot dish. and tuna sushi.... mmmmm, tuna....

    coal-fired power plants in the u.s. and china ruined all that. these days, the mercury level in tuna is high enough that tricky dickless is considering having the epa reclassify them as thermometers. what to do?

    well, if you trust the fda (we know, we know), there is a handy little calculator based on what they say are 'safe' levels of mercury. (even here, there is a caveat: for the calculator to be accurate, they make the assumption that you eat no other seafood of any kind for your entire life.)

    of access and avalanches

    so the national park service wanted to close some sections of yellowstone in the winter due to the risk of avalanche. the businesses in cody, wy decided that this would hurt tourism, so they made some calls to the white house and - voila! - no avalanche closings.

    aside from the risk to tourists and park crews, this decision costs us millions in tax dollars to make 463 turistas and hotels happy. that works out to us$8,000 per tourist.

    do you smell it? tricky dickless is in the air.

    thinking

    when all think alike, no one is thinking very much.

    walter lippmann (1889 - 1974)

    Sunday, August 3, 2008

    bush library scammage (and other desecrations of the public trust this week)

    to the surprise of absolutely no one, some scammage has been alleged re: dubya's presidential library, to the effect of access granted to top white house aides in exchange for donations.

    the white house also ignored the recommendations of its top climate advisers and refused to regulate greenhouse gases.

    congress, meanwhile, bent over for bush and passed the telecom bill that makes it okay for the government to tap your phone calls & keeps you from being able to sue the telecom companies for helping.

    while all of this was going on, the gulf of mexico's dead zone got even bigger, a lunatic shot some kids while they were swimming, another nutjob hacked a kid's head off on a bus, sen. ted 'i'll take it' stevens was nabbed for shilling for an oil company in exchange for us$250k in hooch (bet us the oil company gets in no real trouble at all), republican senators blocked an effort to subpoena white house docs on global warming, the epa ignored the everglades out of existence while the head of the epa refused to explain that his complete turnaround re: climate was due to being scared shitless by cheney.

    and the beat goes on.

    (what the hell, people - we take a week off to go see the police, do a little swimming, and take in a rennaissance festival or two and you let the whole country go to hell? you are so grounded!)

    cry for the mouse

    in case you wondered, big media makes less money selling digital copies of movies and whatnot rather than physical dvd's. all told, about 12% less. yup, a whole 12% adjustment for what amounts to a paradigm shift - the kind of major culture change that typically makes entire industries (hey, remember the telegraph?) disappear. so we can't help snickering a bit at this clip's headline:

    digital threat prompts movie industry downgrade

    so would you call that spin, eye-candy exploitation, or outright media buggery?

    (we love linking buggery with the mouse, even tangentially. it makes us feel all dirty. kinda like how they handled the rights to winnie the pooh.)