The Official Cracked Blog

Some of you may recall that a few months ago, for reasons known only to myself, I wrote multiple posts on the then-upcoming Olympics in Beijing in which I made reference to assorted political issues in China, and may have repeatedly suggested that all Asians look the same and are crafty. The combination of topical political commentary and hate-speech proved particularly unpopular with Cracked readers, and I sort of backed away from that for awhile, turning my attention towards loftier journalistic pursuits. Well, those days are over, because fuck you guys, I’m writing about the Olympics.

The biggest event of every Olympics that isn’t Men’s Floor Gymnastics, is of course the Opening Ceremonies. The Opening Ceremonies are sort of like a longer Super Bowl half time show, only featuring a few more children of the world wearing bright primary colors. Also there’s usually no aging rock artist performing a medley of their biggest hits. Every opening ceremony also has a theme, usually something wishy-washy, like “Achieve” or “Bloating.” The theme this year was: “China is Awesome, Bitches.” First, every single segment of the ceremony featured thousands upon thousands of dancers moving in perfect lockstep. The sheer quantity of performers underlined the fact that no-one’s as good at throwing thousands of Chinese people at a problem like the Chinese are. On top of that, several of the dances and segments boasted of great inventions the Chinese are evidently laying claim too, like fireworks, bamboo, and children.

Along with their prodigious own-horn-blowing, the Chinese have also set out to ensure that these Olympics will have the best atmosphere ever, and have been providing locals with cheering lessons. Evidently officials were worried that the traditionally reserved Chinese fans would dampen the mood of the games. I found this surprising, as everything I’ve heard about Chinese audiences suggests they can’t watch sports without screaming and clenching betting slips in their fists.

In terms of the actual sports, the biggest story to date is probably the American swim team beating the French in one of the thousands of swimming events that have taken place. This was more than just a typical heartwarming, fuck-the-French story that always gets a lot of airplay every Olympics - prior to the race, the star French swimmer, who I’m imagining had an unlit Gitane dangling loosely from the side of his mouth at the time, taunted the American swimmers, and promised that the French would smash them. This incident naturally got most Americans pretty riled up, and is believed to be what precipitated the only known instance of Bob Costas screaming “Eat my ass France!” on network television.

Also, what the fuck is up with the ridiculous number of swimming events? Do we really need all these strokes? Just to recap, there’s the fast way to swim, and three slow ways. Why do they all get a dozen medaled events each? There aren’t separate medals for throwing javelins with your off-hand or bobsledding while half in the bag, so why the swimmers get hundreds of extra medals for swimming slowly is beyond me. Imagine the 100 meter sprint, only every competitor had to use a different funny walk from that old Monty Python sketch, and the whole thing is set to banjo music. That’s basically what the 100m butterfly looks like to me.

The main concern from before the games, the possibility of protesters bringing both their terrible odors and great shame to China, hasn’t been much of an issue yet. I gather there’s been a few smallish protests, but no major brou-ha-has. The biggest worry for the Chinese was the possibility of an athlete with a protest sign or waving a Tibetan flag during the Opening Ceremonies. It didn’t happen, so we’ll never know how the Chinese would have reacted to it, but I’d like to imagine 30 guys dressed like this falling upon a Norwegian cyclist and just kicking his guts in.

The feeling of these games are quite different from any others I can recall. With the boastful opening ceremonies, the micromanaged cheering, the 40 or 50 gold medals China had already won as I write this, and the nervous energy underlying everything else, one gets the impression that as far as the Chinese are concerned, these Olympics are the most important thing to ever happen to them. It’s their sweet sixteen, their first kiss, and their senior prom all rolled into one. They’re wearing a dress they sewed themselves, and Freddie Prinze Jr. is crossing the room towards them. China, you’ll be a woman soon…

To those to of you who haven’t read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott card, warning: two spoilers follow.

Spoiler 1: Your childhood was incomplete.
Spoiler 2: You know that part where Ender fights that kid Bonzo in the showers and kicks him so hard in the nuts that he kills him?

Well, Card basically did the same thing to logic and decency last week when he tried to convince the American Citizens in his thrall (myself once among them) to invoke their right of revolution and overthrow the government to stop gay marriage from being legalized.

That’s right, people. The Mormon guy who wrote all those books about the innocence of a child winning out over war and hatred wants us to raise arms against any queers who feel like expressing their love legally. I mean, I understand a devout Mormon having some issues with gayness, but when your brain tells you that it’s an important enough issue to divide the country in a bloody coup, it’s time to get a new brain.

I’m sure there’ll be a whole cavalcade of comments following this post pointing out the merits of homosexuality, its moral deficiency in the eyes of God, and stuff about boobies touching and wieners in butts. So I figured, rather than try to pre-emptively defuse the situation like I usually do, I’ll just say to hell with it and let you know how I really feel. If you totally disagree, feel free to comment, we can agree to disagree, and you can come back in a few days and read something funny I wrote about a celebrity pooping themselves.

HOW I REALLY FEEL:

Orson Scott Card, you are—and I say this with the reservation of someone who read Speaker for the Dead and wept on a city bus—the worst. I will never buy or read your books again, and I am withdrawing my membership from the Card Superfriends Fan Team and Party Brigade (Sorry, Chet and Dale).

The Mormon’s I’ve known (all lovely people) have always been particularly impervious to logic, but it’s all I’ve got so here I go. Mr. Card, you are as evil, and will one day be as reviled by any sane individual, as an 18th-century slave owner.

Let me explain. Throughout the history of America, and indeed in the course of any developing culture, the universal historical trend (with some notable, but temporary deviances) has been towards expanding rights for an expanding number of people. Women couldn’t vote, now they can. Blacks were treated like pack animals, now they get to live in the inner city and some of them own nice cars. The point is, PROGRESS.

There is no question, absolutely none at all, that you are fighting a battle you can’t win. In a hundred years, flamboyant gay guys will be getting married in fabulous dresses on your grave, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

But worse, when that day finally comes, you will be classed with all those others who stood in the way of expanding rights and humanity: the Ku Klux Klan, Apartheid, the anonymous boardroom of fat men arguing about which secretary has the best ass. And if there’s any justice, even though I’ve no doubt you could fire off a response to this post that would be perfectly eloquent and arresting (in fact, you totally should…my hits would go through the roof), your work will be read only as a curiosity, a way to peek into the mind of a caveman. Or else by lovers of great fiction, who will have to read them, set them down, shrug, and say “well, that was super good, even if the guy was a Neanderthal Nazi.”

And really, what the hell does it matter to you if two hot lesbians want to settle down and be respectable (which isn’t the way I like my hot lesbians either, believe me)? Until such a time as they bring down your property values with raging lesbian drug orgies, you’ve got nothing legitimate to complain about, and even then, I’ll trade houses with you.

Nothing to complain about, that is, besides the so called “degradation” of the Biblical standard of marriage. Upon what are you basing that? A passage or two saying that God hates gays? You know, there’s also a lot of passages about stoning your children to death for disobedience, but I don’t see you cleaning your guns on that account.

Clearly you have taken it upon yourself to prioritize certain portions of the Bible. I am forced to ask then, why in the world would you choose to prioritize the relatively tiny portion about hating and oppressing your fellow men and women, instead of giving precedence to the mountain of passages espousing the virtues of love and compassion for all of God’s children? Or at least the hilarious parts about people having sex with gold statues (Ezekiel 16:17 NIV)?

What would Jesus do? If you can answer that question with anything other than “shower the world with endless love and understanding, then flip a wicked ollie on a flaming skateboard,” then you and I have a very different understanding of the man.

So get with fucking program and stop masking your own personal homophobia as a religious issue. It’s not. It’s a nothing issue that shouldn’t even be a question, and yet has been allowed to dominate the political landscape at a time when thousands of deaths around the world are crying out to be addressed.

You’ve spent your life imagining diverse races and cultures, and doing a hell of a good job. Yet your inability to imagine true love manifesting between two members of the same sex almost classifies you as retarded in my mind. It’s not even a moral issue. You’re just an idiot to me.

And not just an idiot. I’ve seen you in person, Orson. You’re fat. And rich. How about working on some of those deadly sins before throwing the first stone?

I know it’s pointless to ask you to change your mind; bigots armed with the intransigence of religion are rarely swayed. But hopefully some of those reading this post will be forewarned that Orson Scott Card has become a poison-spouting lunatic.

And in the interest of providing yet another argument for gay marriage being a non-issue, as well as some modicum of comedy, here’s a list of the gayest things about heterosexual marriage:

When not blogging for Cracked, Michael’s being fired from his position as a Cracked blogger for being “too real” and devoting the rest of his time to Those Aren’t Muskets!

Hi, blogging to you from my Mac again because apparently Back To School season is a bad time to buy a laptop online and expect to receive it in a prompt fashion. To recap, my HBN supercomputer fell to pieces.  My blogging software is not compatible with my other computer - a Mac.  Accordingly, there is no HBN this week.  ”But G-Stone,” you ask. “Can’t Cracked just FedEX you one from it’s large empire?”  To you I reply, “Have you been listening? We’re talking about a company that STILL hasn’t supplied me with my requested scantily-clad HBN assistants.” Seriously. I have no idea how they expect me to work without them.

So I’m sorry. No HBN today.  And possibly no HBN next week unless that new computer comes in the mail.

I know it’s disappointing. Unless you’re one of those that think I suck. Then today can be viewed as kind of a national holiday. In the meantime, if you don’t think I suck then why not become my Facebook friend and tell me just how much i’ve disappointed you?  And by that I mean send me dirty pictures.

There is also something of an ahem “fan club” that I did not start, but which is presently filled with 25 of the smartes, sexiest, most beautiful people you’ve ever seen. And you can join that too. And by join that I mean send me dirty pictures.

I sat in my new office and smiled when Cracked.com’s Head editor, Jack O’Brien, walked in.
“Well,” I said. “If it isn’t ‘Don’t Step on the Jack Or You’ll Break Your Mamma’s Jack.’”

“Wow.”

“I know. Long one, right?”

“Yeah. Hardly seems worth it to me. Also, don’t call me that.”

“Whatever you say, Boss.”

Today, it was important for me to be polite, to call him ‘boss’ and to generally not do the kinds of things I usually did to Jack, (the name-calling, the spitting, the robbing. I threatened him with a fork once.). Today, I needed to get on Jack’s good side. Today, I needed a favor. A big favor. But how would I subtly and slyly let him know?

“I need a big favor,” I yelled slyly. Classic.

“I’m gonna go right ahead and say ‘no’ before you even ask me for whatever it is you need.” I reached for my fork.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hasty, Jack?” He reconsidered. The one’s who fear forks often do.

“We have a problem, Boss. Cracked has a problem. I think we’ve made some enemies. Some enemies who want us gone. Out of the way.” To get more comfortable, I started loosening my tie. “Now, I’m not totally surprised at the recent enemy surge; we’re a super huge website and I guess a few enemies come with the cost of fame. Hey, no one said this would be easy, right?” To get more comfortable, I started unbuckling my belt. “‘Easy,’ now there’s a tricky word for you. Let’s think about what that word means for a second. Let’s break it down, shall we? See, the Romans believed that ‘Easy’ was a-”

“Dan, what the hell are you talking about,” he said, interrupting me like a big, stupid jackass. He was getting impatient, (more jackass-like behavior), so I decided to cut right to the point.

“There’s this doofy, little website that’s trying to intimidate us, Boss. They want us gone. They want to muscle us off the internet. They think they’re better than us, Boss.”

“What’s the site?”

“Some Mom-and-Pop piece of shit called ‘Google.’ I’d never even heard of them before, I had to Lycos the name just to find out. It seems they’re a search module of some kind.” Jack just kept staring at me, probably shocked at the audacity of this lameass, dipshit website for jerks. I continued. “Now, Boss, it’s important to let these dicks know that Cracked will not be bullied. We need to send a message that sends these dicks right back home to Dicksburg, Dickslyvania, crying to their dick-Mommies with their dicks hangin’ outta their dicks.” I don’t really know anything about human anatomy.

“Google, Dan? What exactly is Google doing to bully us?”

“I’m glad you asked. I have here with me a series of pictures that prove Google thinks they’re better than us. You see, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, the Cracked offices are located in this big building, right? This building happens to be the exact same building that these Google fools, (”foogles”) decided to move into. Here, take a look at these pictures.” I handed him a stack of photographs.

“Well, already I hate this. The first picture is a naked one of you.”

“Oh, yeah, you can go ahead and keep that; I’ve got, like, a million. I’m using them as business cards.”

“There’s no contact number or email,” Jack said.

“More like cocktact number, am I right?” And email-genitalia, right gang? “But seriously, Boss, keep checking out the pictures.”

“See, now here’s what the Cracked headquarters looks like:”

This is seriously my office.

“And here’s what the fucking Google headquarters looks like:”

What’s a matter, Dicks? You couldn’t just write ‘Google’ once? Dicks!?!

Google has two floors.So did the Nazi’s.

“I’m not sure I see what the problem is,” Jack said. Poor, simple Jack.

“I think it’s pretty clear. They think they’re better than us. They’ve got all their flash and flair, and they think that it makes them a superior website. Let me ask you something, when was the last time Google hit the front page of Digg? Fucking never. So what gives them the right? They think they can come into our building with their fancy logos and their stupid displays with stupid multi-colored balls? They think they can get away with that?”

Google: Balls on the outside, Dicks on the inside.

“Well, I’m gonna let them know that they’re not the only ones with giant, multi-colored balls.” I showed Jack my business card again. He cringed.

“Dan… It seems to me like they’re not really doing anything. It kind of sounds like you’re just mad that they’ve got nicer stuff than we do.”

“It’s the flaunting, Secret World of Alex Jack. That’s my problem. Sure, they’ve got money, but they don’t have to be such dicks about it. We get it. You’re Google. Fuck off.”

“Dan, as if this whole situation wasn’t ridiculous enough already, what are you asking for?”

“Good question. $160,000. My original budget was a billion, but I managed to whittle it down to 160K, which, I think you’ll agree, is fair. And while I’m still willing to go as high as a billion, $160K is really all I’ll need to launch a full-scale attack on Google.whatever to let them know that we won’t be bullied.” He paused. Presumably, because $160,000 was such a fair and reasonable number.

“What are you planning on doing with this money?”

“Another good question. No clue. I haven’t really figured out the nature of this attack just yet, but I’m pretty sure it’ll cost around $160,000. I’m thinking about challenging them to a Death Race, like in that documentary I saw. Or maybe a debate, like in debate clubs. Or maybe just a caged debate, like in Bloodsport. It all makes perfect sense if you see my charts. I have charts at home that explain everything.”
I hope he won’t ask to see them, because I really don’t have any charts.

“So, let me get this straight, Dan. You’re asking me for $160,000 to launch a mysterious campaign against Google? Google?”

“Yes! I’m glad you understand. I only take cash. Come on, I’ll follow you to the bank.” Jack put his head down.

“I can’t believe I thought this wasn’t going to be something retarded.” He was massaging his temples at this point.

“Is that a vague way of saying you’ll give me the money? Come on, I’ll follow you to the bank.”

“I’m not going to give you this money, Dan.” I’m still gonna follow him to the bank.

“I don’t understand, Boss. I’m slapping you right in the face with the idea of the century, and all you can say is ’stop slapping me?’” I slapped him a couple of times to drive the metaphor home.
“You’re a real piece of work, Burt Jackarach. You come all the way out to my office and waste my time just to tell me you won’t be supporting me on this? On this, the most important battle in Cracked history? Horseshit.”

“First of all, this isn’t your office, it’s a strip club.” I was wondering why my secretary took such terrible dictation. And kept charging me for lapdances. “And second of all, I only met with you in the first place because you promised you’d return my cat, the one you stole two weeks ago. Do you have my cat with you, Dan?”

“Don’t be selfish, Apple Jacks. There are bigger things at work here than you and me.”

“Where is my cat?” I shook my head.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” I think I sold his cat and used the money to buy Cheez-its.

When it became clear that he wasn’t going to get his stupid, nerdy cat back, Jack politely thanked the strippers and left, walking out not just on me, not just on the strippers, not just on the bill, (that I was totally banking on him paying), but on Cracked and, hell, on America.

And so it’s down to me. The burden of honor falls on my shoulders. It is up to me to take down the apparent internet juggernaut that is Google.net, (or is it .com? I don’t have time to check.). I may not have the necessary funds or the support of my suit-wearing Cracked superiors, or even a formal plan, but mark my words, Internet: Google is going down. This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. A fucking long shot.

Google is probably going to push back, to counter my attacks in some way. I’ve gotta tell you, that wouldn’t be wise.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking, Google. You’re thinking ‘Did he get fired from Cracked, or not?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But seeing as Cracked does have the power to blow your site clean off the internet, you gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Am I feeling lucky?’ Well? Are ya?
Bitch?

There are generally two types of science: first, there’s the type that makes computers work, allows us to ride around in metal boxes propelled by continuous explosion, and makes it so that milk doesn’t taste all gross. Then there’s the fringe science, the stuff that shoots up your nose like mathematical horseradish and dances a jig on your brain…or brane, as it were (that’s the nerdiest joke in the article, we promise). So kick off your work boots, put on your thought slippers, and prepare for a science course so mind-blowing, it’s written almost entirely in italics.

The Crazy Part:The part where you jiggle an electron on one side of the universe and an invisible force traverses millions of light years and smacks another electron into wiggling instantaneously, which is about a million years faster than is technically possible without time travel.

What It Says: That if two electrons are created together, they are forever “entangled,” much like you and your high school sweetheart according to some shitty poems you wrote in tenth grade. And, also like you and your ex-love, regardless of the distance between the two electrons, a change in quantum spin in one electron will immediately cause the other electron to change spin as well. So like, when she has sex with Bob Feeney, the team’s QB after the first date, even though you’re home alone playing Tetris, your heart will ache with a sudden and unmistakable pain. That’s the pain of entanglement, my friend.

So What Does This Do For Me? Teleportation, holmes. Only really tiny. In theory, you could separate two electrons by as much space as you wanted (say, the breadth of the universe), and they’d still be linked in such a way that actions taken on one would affect the other instantaneously. Meaning information is being transmitted at speeds faster than light. Meaning, if you want to really go nuts, time travel. And though the party pooping scientists have been busy coming up with limitations on the kind of information that could be transmitted (it seems super-fast computers that allow you to play Gears of War against people in parallel dimensions may be a ways off), no one has yet been able to disprove the theory that there is an invisible force in the universe capable of affecting matter millions of light-years away…instantly.

Wait, It Gets Worse: If you subscribe to the whole “Big Bang” thing, then there was a point in the past in which every atom in the universe was condensed into a singularity. Which means everything, even you and that bastard Bob Feeney, are quantumly entangled. Some scientists have even gone so far as to claim that quantum entanglement shows that there is no such thing as space, and that everything in the universe is still touching. Space is just an illusion created by our flawed perceptions, and we’re all one. The hippies were right after all.

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A fistful of acid tabs followed by the flume ride at Disneyworld.

The Crazy Part: The part where the family tree of every living creature on Earth collides at a single point on a single day in the past, making you related to Hitler as well as every insect you’ve ever killed..

What It Says: We’re all familiar with the basics of evolution: that a munificent monkey-goddess birthed us all from Her banana-scented womb. But there are some lesser-discussed implications of natural selection that are just plain weird. For one, scientists have concluded that around 140,000 years ago in Kenya, there lived a woman called Mitochondrial Eve (cavemen had weird names), so named because today, every living human on Earth has her mitochondrial DNA in their body (cavemen were also prescient). And only 3,000 years ago lived a person known as the Most Recent Common Ancestor, who, through exponential growth of the family tree, is the ancestor of every single person on Earth. And did you know that, based on the same principles (and a lot of rape), Genghis Kahn has over 16 million descendants? Who’s your Daddy now?!

So What Does This Do For Me? Well, for one, you can rest assured than anyone you ever have sex with in your entire life is at least your distant, distant cousin. So that’s nice. And if you’re really a nut for genealogy, why not trace your heritage back to the Last Universal Ancestor, the single-celled organism who, about 4 billion years ago, decided to go ahead and give rise to every living creature that will ever exist on the face of the Earth? Talk about a pimp. In essence, the whole of life on the planet can be considered one long, unbroken chemical reaction that is still resolving itself, like the foam flowing out of a science fair volcano.

Wait, It Gets Worse: The genetic chaos continues. The Endosymbiotic Theory says that the mitochondria in our bodies, without which we couldn’t live, let alone write snide humor articles, was at one point a separate organism that invaded our cells and set up camp. They formed a symbiotic relationship so beneficial that we’ve never booted them out. Furthermore, large chunks of the human genome are thought to be ancient retroviruses that managed to transcribe themselves into our DNA and have spent the remainder of their days happily clambering up and down our nucleotides like the McDuck children on a mansion banister. Basically your cells are millions of individual organisms, all huddled together in a you-shaped beehive. Now see how long you can go before wanting to shower.

And lastly, a thought for the right-wingers out there: At some point half of you was an egg in your Mother’s womb. That egg existed in her body from the day she was born. And a long, long time ago, she too was an egg in her Mother’s womb, who had that egg ready for use from the moment she squirmed out of your Great Grandma’s nethers. The point being, technically speaking, there’s no break in the chain of existence, no time when you are not a life form of at least the most rudimentary sort. Your family, at least on your Mother’s side, could theoretically be considered an immortal, constantly-regenerating organism. Of course that would make men, whose sperm has to be created years after the moment of birth, just disposable donors here to fuel the everlasting fire of womanhood. You go girls!

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: Four Hemmingway suicides.

The Crazy Part: The part where the furniture in your house behaves differently when you’re not around.

What It Says: Besides sounding like the subtitle of The Da Vinci Code II, The Copenhagen Interpretation is probably the most widely accepted explanation for the observations made through quantum mechanics. It came about in part to explain the infamous “Double Slit Experiment,” which is the one your physics professor probably made you do. The Double Slit Experiment shows that an electron, fired at a wall with two slits in it, will sometimes go through sometimes go through one, sometimes through the other, and sometimes it will go through both slits simultaneously (meaning, a single thing will be in two places at once). In short, it goes batshit fucking insane. The twist is, if you try and observe the electron at the moment it passes through the slits—you know, to figure out what the hell is wrong with it—the electron goes back to behaving like a normal electron, and innocently shoots through one of the slits while giving you, and reality, the finger. The details of why this happens are sort of technical, but this simple diagram should explain it:

So What Does This Do For Me? The Copenhagen Interpretation is the result of a lot of smart people trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with these damn electrons. What they came up with is that all particles exist as waves of probability. From the observer’s perspective, there’s only a certain chance that a given electron will go through the left slit or right slit. When you don’t watch, it remains a cloud of probability and sort of does a little of everything. When you watch, the act of observing it somehow causes the cloud to pick a side. So the next time you observe a particle, be warned: they know you’re watching, and as soon as you stop, they’re going to start a party.

Wait, It Gets Worse: If you apply the Copenhagen Interpretation to bigger objects, it gets even weirder. The infamous Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, the one your physics professor probably got fired for doing, said that if you put a cat in a box and press a button that has a fifty percent chance of filling the box with poison gas, then until you go and look in the box, the cat exists as a cat-cloud which is simultaneously both alive and dead. And there’s more: if everything exists as a probability wave, then that means that technically, anything possible could happen at any time. There’s nothing stopping a big floppy dick from sprouting out of your forehead right now; it’s just highly unlikely. You feel lucky, punk?

Level Of Mind-Blowig-ness: Let’s just say it might be time to invest in a tarp.

The Crazy Part: The part where you realize that somewhere in some parallel universe you just died while reading this sentence.

What It Says: The Many Worlds Theory rejects The Copenhagen Interpretation’s crazy idea that particles can change their behavior seemingly at will, and replaces it with the much crazier idea that the only reason we think particles are changing their behavior is that we’re only seeing that particle’s action in one universe, rather than the infinite number of universes that actually exist. So an observed particle with two options—say, to pound beers at a Van Halen tribute show or drop E and storm a techno club—actually does both, even though we may only observe the techno club, in some other universe, parallel to our own, that particle is rocking out to “Eruption” instead of rubbing itself ferociously on anything with a body temperature.

So What Does This Do For Me? If you buy into the Many Worlds Theory, the implications are infinite. And let’s be clear about what “infinite” means here. For every action you’ve ever taken, every movement you’ve ever made, even down to the atomic level, there’s a parallel universe out there where you did something else instead. Anything else. Instead of learning guitar, you burst into flames. Instead of opening the fridge, you freebased black tar heroin. Instead of nude rock climbing, you went nude bungee jumping. Instead of reading this article, you worked productively and got a handsome raise. Think about it: in some parallel universe out there, you and your high school sweetheart are making hot, reconciliatory love atop Bob Feeney’s smoldering corpse after you killed a laser-breathing velociraptor with your bare hands. If that thought doesn’t make you feel better about how mundane your actual life is, we don’t know what will.

Wait, It Gets Worse: If you think The Many Worlds Theory is a tad too far fetched an explanation for some electrons behaving weirdly, you’re not alone. In an effort to simplify things, scientists have come up with The Many Minds Theory, which says your brain splits up at the instant you make an observation, and then your many brains observe every possible outcome. Yes, that’s right, an infinite number of parallel brains, existing without universes (let alone skulls) to house them in. Awesome. Much simpler.

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A TNT-tipped jackhammer to the eye socket.

The Crazy Part: The part where the Universe isn’t just bigger than you can possibly comprehend, but according to recent evidence, billions of times larger than that.

What It Says: That the universe is big. So big, that just that fact, just it’s mere bigness, is enough to blow your tiny ant mind. And it just keeps getting bigger. Let’s examine the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the most massive photo ever taken:

Right now, on your computer screen, are approximately 10,000 galaxies.

Each of those galaxies contains anywhere from ten million to one trillion stars.

The average star is roughly a million times the size of Earth.

And yet, with all that junk, the Universe is more than 90 percent empty space.

All of that, in this tiny photo. A photo that took 400 orbits and 800 exposures to take.

And the kicker? The photo covers one thirteen-millionth of the entire night sky.

So What Does This Do For Me? If you’re like us, it leaves you alternately awash with spiritual wonder and horrified feelings of utter insignificance. Actually imagining just how infinitesimal you are in the scope of the universe is like autoerotic asphyxiation: it’s not as pleasant as you’d think, and if you do it wrong you can end up a vegetable. And without getting too Douglas Adams on you, can you possibly imagine that much space and that many planets and stars and atoms smashing together without intelligent life forming? Now it’s just a matter of getting around that pesky general relativity and we’ll be chilling with aliens in no time. Or, like, a million years.

Wait, It Gets Worse: So all that shit we just said about how big the universe is (at least 90 billion light years)? Forget it. That’s small beans. The Cosmological Horizon is here to make your day a whole lot more complicated. Since we can only observe stellar bodies that have had some effect on us (usually bombarding us with light), there is an outer limit to what we can see of the universe. Hence, the “observable universe.” What about the rest? The parts of the universe beyond our Starcraft-style fog of war? Well, according to some math we have no interest in going into, the size of the “actual” universe is so large that if the universe we just described (the impossibly, mind-bogglingly large one) were the size of a quarter, the actual universe would be the size of the Earth. Daaaaaaaamn.

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: The sound of one hand clapping for a tree falling in the woods while no one’s around except a guy whose skull is wired with C4.

In case you’ve still got some bits of gray matter clinging to the shards of your fractured skull, here are some links to information about further scientific theories conceived to make neural cortex dribble out your nostrils.

And, for those whose brains need a quick escape before they implode…

Not many people know this about Cracked, but long before we were a Webby-acknowledged comedy supersite, we used to be a magazine, and even further before that, a magazine people actually read. Back in those halcyon, paying-customer-having days, Cracked had a bit of a rivalry with a little outfit called MAD Magazine. At the time our two magazines had similar formats and targeted similar audiences (children of average intelligence and the underemployed.) A central crux of the rivalry was the allegations that one of the magazines was a shameless rip-off of the other, more successful brand. Whether those claims were true, or merely incredibly true, has been forgotten as the years passed and one of the magazines went under several times. And so in the modern day, the rivalry is all but non-existent.

Well no longer. Eat a dick MAD magazine. Eat it so hard.

Ho-ho! It looks like the shameless hackery is on the other foot! Now granted, the folks at MAD could claim “Well ok, but we never read your magazine. We couldn’t have, you didn’t actually sell any.” Which is true, but needlessly hurtful. I also want to make it clear that I’m not defending the integrity of that particular Cracked cover. That cover sucked. Do you have any idea how tired the world was of making fun of Tom Cruise in late 2006? I do. (They were real tired of it) But even though it was a crappy joke that no-one saw, it was ours and we need it. Seriously. We made 3 issues that run. Stop stealing what little heritage we have. If you’re looking for idea, go rip off TV Guide. They’ve got like a billion covers.

The interesting thing about this, is by cribbing one of Cracked’s jokes, MAD may have inadvertently acknowledged that they’ve switched historical positions with Cracked. Now Cracked’s the timely and relevant comedy outlet and MAD’s the pale imitator. Here’s five reasons why:

1) They don’t have enough lists. You know why we write lists? Because people are busy. They need reading material broken down for them, like a mother bird does for her ugly baby birds. But look at MAD magazine, with their complicated comics, often spreading over multiple panels. Who has time to digest all that? The mayor?

2) We have a better website Granted, we have a slight advantage, in that we are a website. Consequently, we have IT professionals (I think they’re Asian) whose sole job is to make our site look awesome. MAD has evidently not gone down that road. What media company doesn’t have content on their website? It’s 2008 guys. Remember when everyone was talking about “the information superhighway?” That was 15 fucking years ago. Man up and go find one of those places Asians hang out (they have their own supermarkets, try there) and say you need help building a website. You won’t regret it.

3) We’re more environmentally friendly. With a circulation of around 200,000 issues per month, MAD magazine destroys over 8000 trees a year, devastating countless wildlife habitats. Here at Cracked, by taking advantage of a paperless delivery system, for every article published we destroy no trees, and harm only a handful of animals.

4) We tackle tougher subjects. At Cracked we only write about the thorniest issues faced by today’s comedy-patron. But here’s MAD magazine picking on poor Circuit City. How dare they! That’s like making fun of an athlete at the Special Olympics. You leave Circuit City alone MAD Magazine! They are trying their best with the abilities God gave them.

5) We are in no way associated with MADtv. Technically speaking, MAD Magazine is themselves barely associated with MADtv. They have no shared content or editorial oversight. It’s a licensing deal, sort of like how for the past 20 years National Lampoon has sold their name to any production that featured prominently displayed breasts (re: National Lampoons Titty Daze.) Also, it’s important to note sketch comedy is a lot harder than it looks. The benchmark for sketch comedy, Saturday Night Live, is maybe funny one sketch out of five. And those guys aren’t idiots. I mean they are - but they’re professional idiots - the best money can buy. Even my favorite sketch shows are only funny maybe 50% of the time.

But even taking all that into account, MADtv is funny like colon cancer.

(An aside: what would CrackedTV look like? I’m thinking a fixed camera affair where a stern older gentleman sits in a large comfortable chair smoking a pipe. He looks directly into the camera, and reads Cracked.com articles verbatim. Projected onto a screen in the background are still images of Christian Bale relaxing about his house.)

How about you guys? Does anyone here still read MAD? Are they better or worse than I think?

So this is the first time i’m blogging with a Mac. How do you like it so far? Are you finding my humor more intuitive and virus-free? To tell you the truth I’m sort of morose right now. My PC laptop inexplicably died. It has all the original HBNs on it and my screenplay which hasn’t been backed up with the last two week’s of writing. So yeah. But anyway, I always say that when life gives you syphilis, make sypilis-ade. (It’s basically the same as regular lemonade, but you let Dan O’Brien take a sip from the glass before you serve it. FYI. Ross makes killer Chlamydia Ale). Actually, I never say that. I also don’t let Dan and Ross near my kitchen. So yeah. I’m pissed and sad. Fortunately, I sent this week’s HBN off to Jack, just minutes before everything went so terribly wrong.

Ali Lohan, sister to actress-turned-trainwreck Lindsay, auditioned for a movie where a porn producer just happened to be present, and everyone’s absolutely losing their shit over it. Responsible parents everywhere are directing their collective shit-less anger at Ali’s horse-faced mom/manager Dina. The general consensus, it would seem, is that everyone is outraged by the fact that Dina would allow her precious, jailbait-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen daughter to be in the same room as a porn producer, (”pornducer”), let alone audition for him.

Dina, just as outraged, is practically braying with rage and embarrassment. She assures everyone that neither she nor Ali knew that they happened to be auditioning in the presence of the visionary director behind Breast Wishes 14 and Bun Busters 12, (widely accepted as the Citizen Kane of ass-to-mouth). The argument is that Ali was merely auditioning for a non-porn movie and, as such, assumed there would be no need for the involvement of anyone associated in the porn industry. It is nothing but a total freak coincidence that puts them in the same room together. (While Dina happened to be filming her TV show for the E! Network.)

The public, naturally, is finding this “accident” story a little hard to swallow, but I can tell you, from firsthand experience, that accidentally auditioning for pornography is incredibly easy to do. So, I’m here to clear Ali and Dina’s name, (and to, perhaps, coerce Dina into letting me enter her in next year’s Kentucky Derby).

I don’t care how hard you think it is to swallow, America. Open up, because you’re gonna swallow all of it.
The whole thing.

***

I remember it well. I was 16 at the time, hoping to get my first job waiting tables.

“Good luck, Honey. Come home a working man,” I remember Mamma O’Brien saying the day I left. There were tears of joy in her eyes as she wished her youngest son luck in his job-getting adventures. Somehow we both knew that, even though I’d always be her son, now that I was entering the work force, I was becoming a man. Things would never be the same.
I knew there was a Macaroni Grill within walking distance of my house, so the night before, I searched online to see if they were looking for any extra help. Now, you’ve got to remember, this was years ago: The internet wasn’t as finely tuned and organized as it is today. When I was 16, a Google search of Macaroni+Grill+Job could lead you to Macaroni Grill’s website, but it could just as easily lead you to directions and information regarding Macocroni Grill, a completely different affair. Did you notice how there’s a subtle, “coc” (short for “cock”) thrown in the middle of the word “Macaroni?”

Well, Google didn’t notice the trademark porn wordplay, and I didn’t either, so I downloaded the application and made an appointment for Macocroni Grill, sincerely believing that I was on my way to my first table-waiting job.

I really should have noticed something was wrong early on, to be honest. I mean, I was confused when I was instructed to meet in a smelly, poorly-lit basement for my interview instead of, say, a Macaroni Grill, but I didn’t want to question the decisions of the men I hoped would be my new bosses. And, yes, perhaps I should have been suspicious when they didn’t ask for references or prior work experience, but we can chalk that one up to youthful ignorance.
Also the application should’ve been a dead giveaway.

But what did I know? I was just a kid who wanted a job, so I didn’t say anything about the incredibly personal, oddly-obsessed-with-my-genitals application. And I didn’t even ask questions when our topic of conversation veered away from pasta pretty abruptly. Like, almost immediately. I believe our exact conversation went something like this:

DOB: Hey, thanks for seeing me, I won’t let you down. [Sly smile.] I hope I can pasta test. Get it? Pasta? Like “pass the”? Did you catch that? It’s a play on-

Director: Take your pants off.

DOB: Oh, okay, yes sir.

This was another one of those times when a warning flag should’ve shot right up but, time makes fools of us all, right?

The interview got stranger and stranger and several hours later, when I found myself neck-deep in asses and Alfredo sauce, it became clear that this was not Macaroni Grill, but instead Macocroni Grill, an adult film about a well-endowed pasta chef whose restaurant is in danger of being shut down and… Well, the details are sketchy, but the punch line is that he bones his way to economic stability. There’s also a pretty juicy subplot about the chef’s generously proportioned busboy, “Rigatoni ‘Tony’ Meatballs,” involving a health inspector and some durable cleaning supplies.
(I don’t want to give anything away, but Tony porks the health inspector in the supply closet.)

Long and sweaty story short, I don’t blame Dina or Ali Lohan for accidentally auditioning in front of a porn director and you shouldn’t either. You have no idea just how easy it is to stumble into the audition room of an adult film. One minute, you’re trying hard to memorize the ingredients to Carmela’s Chicken Rigatoni, and the next minute you’re wearing a false moustache and assuring your stone cold fox of a health inspector that you’d do anything to convince her not to shut down your boss’s restaurant, and you mean anything.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year (particularly if it’s a rock with no internet connection), chances are you’ve heard about the 140-characters-or-less blogging service Twitter.com. Hailed by prominent nerds as the best thing to hit the internet since the dancing baby, Twitter has quickly risen to become the web’s most popular “micro-blogging” site.

That’s all well & good for tech-savvy bloggers who actually know what “micro-blogging” is, but what about you, the average Joe who still uses Netscape to check your Friendster “Testimonials” on a shared computer at the public library? What about people like me, ordinary folks who still fall for the old “My Nigerian Bank Account Is Overflowing With Money And I Need Your Help” routine time and time again? Does Twitter have anything to offer idiots like us? I decided to find out.

According to some article on Time.com (who else would you to turn to for valuable information about tech trends? Cracked.com?!), Twitter is “blogging for regular people.” I don’t know what in the name of God that’s supposed to mean; I thought blogging was ALREADY for regular people. Isn’t that the whole idea? That anyone can write one? Should we really be making it EVEN EASIER to share your thoughts with the entire internet?

In their own words, Twitter is “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Here’s the thing: Most of the time, my answer to that question is going to be “working,” “dropping a deuce,” or “getting loaded under a highway overpass.” Considering all the awards and accolades it has received from the tech community, there has to be more to Twitter than the ability to tell your friends when you’re dropping a deuce, right?

Right?!

To answer this question I’ll once again turn to Twitter for an answer. According to the “Why?” page on Twitter.com, “basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.” Let’s try to wrap our heads around this baffling statement one part at a time, shall we?

Family

I don’t know about you guys, but I spend a good chunk of my time HIDING what I do from my family. Considering that, why would I want to give them a web-based tracking collar that will alert them to my every move? Do I really want them to know how drunk I am (very), what I’m drinking (Evan Williams), and where I’m drinking it (alone under a highway overpass) at any given moment? Besides, attempting to teach my mom how to use Twitter would be like trying to teach a goat how to surf: hilarious, fun to watch, and yet completely pointless and ultimately kind of depressing.

Friends

If we’re friends, chances are you already have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing. My day-to-day life follows a pretty strict routine (go to work, eat dinner, go get drunk under a highway overpass). If you don’t know where to find me at any given point in the day, give me a call and maybe I’ll tell you. If you don’t know me well enough to call me, well, then you probably don’t need to know where I am.

Colleagues

If your colleagues don’t know where you are, why in the name of God would you want to make it easier for them to find you?!

I had some misgivings about this whole Twitter thing, but I decided to give it a shot:

I wasn’t totally sure where to go from there, to be honest. I’d told my Twitter followers all about my driving, twittering, and public urination - what was left? I thought that would cover it, that my Twitter feed would be inundated with thousands of fans, all curious to know more about the fascinating minutiae of my daily life. But after 24 hours of back-breaking twittering, I could still count my readers on one hand.

“Looks like it’s time for the gloves to come off,” I said, mostly because I was in a liquor store buying a bottle of Evan Williams and the gloves were making it hard to take out my wallet. The guy behind the counter just stared at me silently. Maybe he would’ve said something if he’d known how hard the internet can be. You know - like “Why are you wearing gloves in the middle of summer?” or “Get the hell out of my store.”

Ever since our earliest human ancestors crawled over to a computer, loaded up a Usenet client and posted a message for all to read (probably something along the lines of “Did anyone tape Doctor Who last night?”), man has been drawn to online social networking tools for an obvious reason: to convince himself that he is more popular than he actually is in real life. Picture the guy on MySpace with 500,000 “friends,” most of which are inanimate objects and cartoon characters. Picture Tila Tequila. The point of life is to be as popular as humanly possible, and the online world is no exception to this rule.

That being said, I quickly realized that I didn’t want to just USE Twitter: I wanted to WIN at Twitter.

So who’s currently winning at Twitter? According to the good folks over at Twitterholic.com, the top 5 users are:

Stiff competition, to be sure, but what do these guy have that I don’t (other than fame, fortune, and the respect of their peers)? What makes them so interesting that thousands of people want to know when they go to the bathroom? The question had me stumped, so I grabbed a bottle of Evan Williams and headed down to my favorite highway overpass to do some thinking. A few hours later it hit me:

They are all nerds.

Admittedly, Barack Obama doesn’t quite fit the equation, but if you look at the Top 100 Twitter users there is an unmistakable pattern: they are mostly tech-oriented blogger types. I had figured out the target demographic - now all I had to do was use it to my advantage.

I reclined lazily on the couch and hit refresh a few times, eagerly anticipating the praise and affections of the tech community that I so obviously deserved. Yet somehow even now, almost a whole day later, I’m STILL not a Top 100 Twitter User. Which all leads me to an unfortunate but seemingly unavoidable conclusion:

Twitter is fucking bullshit. Case closed.

A new search engine called Cuil has been getting a lot of buzz recently, and not, as you might expect, because it got punched in the mouth by Christian Bale. No, Cuil has been hailed by more than a few as a potential Google killer, the sort of bold statement that makes copy-hungry bloggers like myself stir slightly in our moist chairs.

The big buzz around Cuil is that some of its designers once worked for Google, and thus have detailed knowledge of the 11 herbs and spices that make Google’s search algorithm so effective and crispy. This is a pretty big deal - algorithms are the reason we all use Google instead of say, that butler thing. So having a couple Google-caliber geniuses build a new search engine has gotten a lot of very dull people get their panties into a very big twist. Will Cuil be as groundbreaking as Google was itself?

When Google showed up on the scene, search engines were terrible. For even the simplest queries you’d have to scroll through page after page of results to find what you were really looking for. But when Google invented itself (as I understand it) in 1998 it was light-years ahead of everything else around. I remember the first time I used Google, and how excited I was that it found exactly what I was looking for.

So what’s Cuil like in comparison? (here I assume you lack the skill-sets to test a search engine yourself) Well it’s exactly the same as every other non-Google search engine you’ve used, except the font’s a little smaller. Also there’s columns. Admittedly columns are a good idea, but not exactly a “Manhattan Project” scale breakthrough, or even a “quilted toilet paper” scale breakthrough.

More importantly, it turns out Cuil isn’t actually that good at searching yet. Try typing “wiki burgess meredith” into both Google and Cuil for example (if you haven’t already). This is pretty routine for Google, but Cuil doesn’t find anything even remotely useful. Hilariously, the first link it does find is for a Chinese wiki page for Rocky V with the following pull quote “Her character was shown to have ended up as Rocky predicted she would: a whore…”

There are reasons to be hopeful for Cuil however. With it’s stranglehold over the search market, Google can get away with some pretty iffy decisions. They’ve admitted to storing our individual search logs basically indefinitely, and only agreed to anonymize them at 18 months after much protest. These logs ostensibly are used to help them improve their software, but the thought of one company knowing so much about me and my interests is a little disquieting. So if Cuil, you know, manages to stop berating whores long enough to find what I’m looking for, I’d happily give it a chance.

On a side note, I think the name “Cuil” is the most calculated piece of horseshit I’ve ever heard of. It’s like they locked a guy in a room with a case of Red Bull and a bag full of Scrabble tiles and told him not to come out until he had a short, catchy sequence of letters that was almost but not quite a word.

Given similiar instructions, I wouldn’t have settled for anything less than Ssthinktar. Also maybe Def Leppard.

__

Edit: Heh. Just noticed this as I was finishing up.