What Kind of Handy Tool Did You Have in Mind?

Google ad spotted today:

Looking for a Doctor?
Find a Doctor to Perform Your Next Colonoscopy With This Handy Tool.

Erm…an ordinary colonoscope will do nicely, thanks.

I Know! I’ll Share It on Facebook!

Unfortunate icon placement on parade.

Ironic Iconic

(BTW, if the headline entices you, the article is here. I glanced at it but it didn't seem particularly original.)

Most Ridiculous Headline in the History of the Universe

Spotted on CNN:

Guns N' Roses lashes out at Dr Pepper

Bombs & Bombshells: I Soak up Some Actual Culture

The Famous Mr. Biggs

Friday evening I swung by Downtown to see the opening of Bombs & Bombshells, an exhibit by local artist J.D. Biggs at Collector's Art Group.

I have some history with Mr. Biggs, as several years ago he was responsible for a bleak, sarcastic cityscape that appeared in the artwork of my old band's CD. And his experiences with the merciless business practices of us music-industry types chased him out of the art business for years.

Okay, okay, so I made up the last part. But it has been a while since he's done an exhibition, in case you're not familiar with him. His exhibit spiel gives you a snapshot of his background–and his sense of humor.

The exhibition includes several paintings of familiar faces that, taken together, make a particularly wry comment on a culture that insists on female beauty while accepting and even embracing male ugliness. Check out, for example, this painting of the inimitable Keith Richards, which finds the famously ragged icon looking even more disheveled than usual. How many women rockers do you see flaunting a correspondingly weathered mug?

Bombs & Bombshells is up through May 31st, 2008. Collector's Art Group is located at 225 E. Sixth Street, 2nd Floor, in Downtown Cincinnati.

Official Invitation

 

A Quart of Small Block, Please

AP writers must have automated tools to supply equivalent units of measurement in articles destined for foreign readers. At least, that's my guess after reading this:

Rumbold also questioned whether a high performance car such as the LS Lexus 600h–with a powerful 1.3-gallon (5-liter) V-8 engine and a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph)–is actually the best use of promising hybrid technology.

So, what on earth is a "1.3-gallon" engine?

"Yes, I'm house shopping, and I won't settle for anything smaller than 100,000 gallons."

(Time was all us Yanks would have called it a 305-cubic-inch engine. That hasn't altogether disappeared, but these days it's more common just to hear liters.)

The Shoes of Hillary Clinton

On NPR this morning, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes told a reporter, "We think that Hillary has been vetted for the last 15 years, there is not another shoe in her closet to drop…."

This curious statement works for me in no less than four (4) ways.

1. Have we been waiting for the other shoe to drop, or were there skeletons in her closet? When one stock phrase doesn't convey the situation, just mix it with another one, right?
2. "Not another shoe in her closet to drop" makes me think of a gigantic shoe collection crashing abruptly to the floor, with a few stragglers dropping afterward. This is a very entertaining image, particularly when irrelevantly linked to Sen. Clinton.
3. Point number two (2) implies Hillary Clinton has a shoe collection Imelda Marcos would be proud of. I don't know why I think this is funny. I just do. Hell, maybe it's true.
4. Combined, the above three (3) points imply that there were so many skeletons and/or shoes in Hillary Clinton's closet that even one of her advisers has to admit it took fifteen (15) years to address each one and convince the public she could be trusted. What kind of statement is that to make about your candidate?

I'm not anti-Hillary. It just made me laugh.

Uh, I’m Pretty Sure the Political Term Is “Stumping”

The headline of an article at Cincinnati's wcpo.com proclaims "Candidates Fit In Weekend Stomping In Ohio."

Um…stomping whom, exactly?*

Wait. Maybe they left out a hyphen. Maybe it's supposed to be "weekend-stomping." And maybe "fit" is an adjective. That would translate to "Candidates are physically fit during their stomping of a weekend in Ohio."

I'm just so confused.

*Does anyone actually use the word "whom" anymore?

Grilled and Creamed

CNN provides a two-for-one in the poor-choice-of-words department.

Grilled and Creamed

Power Room

Baffling headline from CNN.com:

Power Room

What exactly is a power room? A place where you take power naps? A room where you keep your power suits, or have power lunches? (I’m pretty sure those fluff terms left with the 80s, but hey, maybe they’re coming back.) A room from which you wield your dictatorial power over your household? Any room with a circuit breaker box in it? (I hope your house already has one of those, but if not, adding one would certainly be profitable, unless you’re hoping to sell to an Amish family or something.) Or maybe–my preference by far–a media room dedicated to the works of E. Power Biggs?

Of course, then it just turns out to be an article about powder rooms. I’m so disappointed.

Oh, That’s Nice

Statement of the Day, via CNN. Emphasis mine.

“The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability,” said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said in televised remarks.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn’t hurt the environment, he added.

Oh, that’s nice. I feel much better now.

(I could also point out the extraneous “said” in the first paragraph, but I would never nitpick like that.)