Dear Verizon,

I would if I could.

(Click to enlarge, of course.)

When I download stuff I figure it’s no one’s business but mine, so I use a neat program called PeerGuardian — it essentially tracks certain organizations that like to spy on you and blocks them from doing so.

Today I peeked at the list of what it had blocked in the past few minutes:

(Click to enlarge.)

Why does the office of the president of Lithuania care what I’m downloading? I’m open to suggestions.

(Moviex, by the way, is a company that tries to prevent people from pirating movies. Evidently it’s also interested in more than just that. I happened to be getting a game demo.)

(H/T to Eric!)

Can you imagine the discussion?

"We can’t put it in quotes if someone didn’t say it."

"So what do we do?"

"Find someone to say it. How about Willie?"

"But he’s just the mailboy!"

"Doesn’t matter, as long as someone says these exact words. Otherwise we have to reprint all the boxes."

“Sir, about the title of this kids’ cookbook…”

“I don’t have time for this, Jenkins. I’m sure it’s fine.”

Blogging has been light lately because we decided to take our 1800-someodd square feet of stuff and move it from one perfectly good storage space to another.

In the meantime, thanks to the incomparable Eric Berlin, we have John Scalzi on the creationism museum:

Here’s how to understand the Creation Museum:

First, imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horsehit. An epic load of horseshit.

Read it all.

From a scan of Munro Leaf’s My Book to Help America, and oddly apropos today:

Did you get that? Let’s obey. Cheerfully.

Obey.

Obey.

Obey.

My friend’s father used to sing this on occasion. It inserted itself in my head, so I looked it up. Not a lot of places have the lyrics, so I figured I’d include them here.

The Old Family Toothbrush
(to the tune of "The Old Oaken Bucket")

How dear to my heart is the old family toothbrush
The old family toothbrush that hung by the sink
The old family toothbrush, the moss-covered toothbrush
The old family toothbrush that hung by the sink.

First it was white, then it was yellow,
Now it’s just dirty and covered with slime.
First it was father’s, then it was mother’s,
Then it was brother’s, and soon `twill be mine.

How dear to my heart is the old family toothbrush
The old family toothbrush that hung by the sink
The old family toothbrush, the moss-covered toothbrush
The old family toothbrush that hung by the sink.

And click here to download it as an MP3.

There are some jobs out there that I wouldn’t apply for, but that I’d love to see the résumés of those who did. A perfect example (and what prompted me to post this) comes from About.com:

Cheese Guide

QUALIFICATIONS: Our ideal candidate is someone with professional experience in a cheese-related field.

I could, of course, insert some snarky comment here, but there’s no need. The ad speaks for itself. And I trust my commenters to carry the ball, anyway.