Happy Bday Elisha

Happy Bday "Bud" John D

"Fat, Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life."

Gold Christmas Tree Not For Sale

One Tokyo Christmas tree has a special glow even amid the global economic gloom -- it's made of pure gold, and valued at $2 million.

A jewellery store in Tokyo's posh Ginza district teamed up with flower arrangement artist Shogo Kariyazaki to create the lavish Golden Christmas Tree.

Twelve kg (26 lb) of gold were used to make the 2.4 metre (8 foot) tree, which is adorned with ribbons, hearts and orchids, also made of gold.

The value of the gold is about $700,000 but the total value of the tree is much higher because of labour costs, said Naoto Mizuki, marketing general manager at the store.

"Considering the time it took to make, the designer and hard work put into it, we can assume that the cost of this tree would be approximately 150 million yen ($2 million)," he said.

The gleaming display caught the eyes of passersby.

"When you're looking at the tree, it really jumps out at you," said window-shopping housewife Kisoko Sakabe.

The tree is not for sale.

It will be on display at the store through to Christmas Day.

Frustrated wife puts gamer husband up for sale on Craigslist

Guys, be careful how involved you get with this season's awesome crop of video games. Your wife may try to sell you off.

The happy couple (Photo credit: ABC News)

Kyle Baddley learned this the hard way earlier this month, when his wife Alyse got frustrated by his constant Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 playing and offered him up to the highest bidder on Craigslist. "I am selling my 22 year old husband," the ad read. "He enjoys eating and playing video games all day. Easy to maintain, just feed and water every 3-5 hours. You must have Internet and space for gaming. Got tired of waiting so free to good home. If acceptable replacement is offered will trade."
The ad, of course, was a joke. But that didn't stop people from replying.
One woman offered to retrain him. Another guy said he was willing to trade spots with Kyle, noting that he was both house-trained and preferred books to games.
"We didn't think we would get any responses at all, but we've gotten so many," Alyse said. "Someone even offered a blue bag of Skittles."
Some people, though, took it a bit too seriously. One person suggested she use the free time to go out on her own, while others wrote that they were concerned about Alyse's relationship with her husband.
Among the unconcerned was Kyle's mother. She not only encouraged Alyse to run the ad, she helped her write it.
Kyle, it seems, has learned his lesson and has pulled back a bit from his Modern Warfare 3 playtime. His father notes that the couple is headed to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with Kyle's sister.
Kyle's taking it in good humor -- but he points out for the record that his wife was in line with him when the game went on sale.
"I love my wife," he says. "She supported me when I got the game. We stayed until midnight to get the game when it first came out. It's just funny."

Thanksgiving Food Porn

Must be over 18 or hungry to view

Christmas Billboard Yanked

A billboard for Wodka vodka in NYC has been taken down and destroyed after complaints that the advertisement's message is anti-Semitic. The New York Times reported that the billboard featured a long-haired dog wearing a yarmulke and another dog wearing a Santa hat with the words, "Christmas quality, Hanukkah pricing," alongside the photo.

The backlash against the billboard was nearly instantaneous. Ron Meier, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, called it "crude and offensive."
"To use the Jewish holiday in dealing with issues of money is clearly insensitive and inappropriate," Meier told the paper.
Brian Gordon, head of MMG, the advertising company behind the billboard, said the billboard's message was not intended to be offensive. "We thought people would perceive it as 'ha ha quirky.' But people perceived it as offensive, and because of that, we pulled it." Mr. Gordon, according to the Times, was "quick to point out" that he also is Jewish.

Wodka was quick to formally apologize as well, offering this explanation via its Twitter account:
"Although rarely serious, we apologize to anyone we may have offended through our holiday campaign and are removing our billboard immediately."

Happy Bday Jamie Lee

2 Scientific Advances That Should Have Changed Everything

#2. Robert Galbraith Heath Invented Brain-Fixing Electrodes 60 Years Ago

We've talked about the dickishness of some of Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath's experiments in the past. However, that's not all the man did. A large chunk of his work with Tulane University went a long way to revolutionize depression treatments. For instance, in the '70s, his team successfully treated several people previously labeled untreatable.
With electrodes.

Photos.com
"'Dead' -- 'not depressed'... it's a matter of perspective."

Yes, his more than slightly supervillainy solution to treating one of the most difficult mental problems around was to hook up to 125 electrodes to a patient's brain. And while the mere mention of the words "electricity" and "brain" in the same sentence conjures images of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Heath's method was actually specifically designed to ease the patient's mind by stimulating the pleasure center of the brain.
And it worked.

But the Problem Was ...
That's right; he found a way to just freaking inject electric pleasure into a human brain. It kind of sounds like the kind of discovery that should have changed civilization.
But Heath kept the experiments at a very low profile instead of going public for the "HOLY SHIT YOU CAN TOTALLY ELECTRIFY YOUR BRAIN INTO PLEASURE YOU GUYS" headlines. A quite possible reason for this was an incident in 1962: Heath was contacted by the CIA to see if his electrode trick could be used for interrogation by exploring the pain center instead.

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"Oh, and is there a way to make another person shit their pants? Just out of ... um ... curiosity."

Heath sanely dismissed the idea as plain disgusting, and proceeded to play his cards close to chest.
Another problem that stood between Heath and the embracing public was the fact that his electrodes needed to stimulate the brain at regular intervals, it wasn't like a one-time thing. This basically amounted to "brain pacemakers" that would have to stay in the brain for years. So the technology remained in the shadows, and even today, we are still treating it like it's barely out of the experimental stage. Though it could still make a comeback -- Columbia University has been toying with the technology in recent years.

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"You know, I think I'm OK with just being depressed."

How It Could Have Changed the World:
Let's talk figures.
Depression is one of the biggest health problems of the modern world, estimated to affect 19 million people in the U.S. alone. Its cumulative costs amount to a whopping $44 billion. And while it can be treated, it's far from an easy task -- medication is unpredictable and comes with side effects, and pretty much everyone needs a different treatment. It's hard to imagine what could have been accomplished with 50 years of evolution of Heath's electrode technology (which was proven to cure other mental illnesses, too).

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Such as the ironic compulsion to randomly shock your own head.

Then again, we guess that's also imagining a world where somebody wouldn't immediately think of some horrifying use for it. It ... kind of seems like the sort of thing a person could get addicted to.

#1. Henry Cavendish Revolutionized Science, but Didn't Tell Anyone

Henry Cavendish is probably the most prolific scientist you've never heard of. He was a talented chemist whose list of accomplishments includes, but is not limited to: the discovery of hydrogen, calculating the density of Earth and establishing his own versions of Richter's Law, Ohm's Law, Coulomb's Law, Charles's Law of Gases and Dalton's Law ... and he did it in the 1700s, many years before any of those guys for whom the laws would be named.
He was also a bit of a hardass. For instance, while Georg Ohm figured out his law about electrical conduction by messing around with wires, Cavendish just flat out subjected himself to electric shocks, using his own damn nervous system as a galvanometer.
So, a fearless badass with a scientific mind that put all his peers to shame? Hell, he's just a vast fortune away from being the Georgian era equivalent to Batman. Wait, he was the richest man in England? Never mind.

But the Problem Was ...
He didn't share his earth-shattering discoveries with anyone. Because he was nuts.
Cavendish more than compensated his talents by having some serious issues. He spent the majority of his time barricaded in his study, communicating with his housekeeper via notes. Female servants were ordered to keep away from his line of sight on pain of getting instantly fired. On the rare occasion he ventured to scientific society meetings, he lurked around wearing strange, out-of-date clothing; if someone addressed or even looked at him, he would scream and run away.

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He couldn't even look at the guy who did his damn portrait.

Knowing this, it's not surprising Cavendish didn't want to draw attention to himself and his little hobbies, lest he have to deal with people. In fact, we wouldn't even know about most of his discoveries had it not been for his private papers being looked through in 1879 by a James Clerk Maxwell ... nearly a century later.
How It Could Have Changed the World:
Cavendish made the majority of his discoveries decades before they were officially invented -- in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the era of the steam engine. And when you look at said discoveries, you'll realize that many of his findings concerned pretty crucial stuff about thermodynamics and electricity.

Photos.com
Things like, "Warning: Do not lick."

Now, imagine if England had figured out electricity decades before they actually did. With findings like Ohm's Law moved from 1827 to 1781, a vast thermodynamic and electrical knowledge suddenly at the scientific community's disposal and the public mind set in the "industrialize everything" mode that was the spirit of the era, the progress of technology would have been rapidly put to use. Gaslights could have become electrical ones within years, and the steam engine would've gone the way of the dodo. Great Britain might've entered the Victorian era fully lit, amped up and more powerful than ever, at no bigger price than the ruined dreams of potential future steampunk enthusiasts.
Which, now that we come to think of it, might not be a bad thing. There's also another side to the Electrified England scenario: We doubt that they would've been too keen to share their newly found power with America, what with one thing and another going on at the time. So it's entirely possible that they'd used their Cavendish tech against America, who'd have been back to eating tea and crumpets before they even realized it.

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"I heard him say 'robot.' What the fuck is a robot?"

So, thanks for being a grouch, Henry!

Turkey Frying Training

Happy Bday Bo

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The Big 50!

Happy Bday Megyn

The Number One Reason to watch Fox News

Sex with animals may be tied to risk of penile cancer

Men who have sex with animals may have an increased risk of penile cancer, a study finds.
A recent case-control study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sexual Medicine focused on men who lived in rural areas of Brazil.

Researchers compared the health and sex habits of 118 penile cancer patients to 374 healthy men who served as the control group. Among all the study participants 34.8% reported having sex with animals. More men in the cancer group reported having sex with animals than the controls, 44.9% versus 31.6%. Penile cancer is cancer of the tissue of the penis.
As for the why sex with animals may increase the risk of penile cancer, researchers theorize that it may cause microtrauma to penile tissue, which could come in contact animal secretions that are potentially harmful to humans. The association between having sex with animals and penile cancer may also be indicative of lifestyle choices, since those who had sex with animals also had more sex with prostitutes, more sexual partners and  more sexually transmitted diseases than those who didn't.
Since the study participants grew up in rural areas, they had access to animals. The average age of first contact with an animal was 13.5, and the average age of last contact was 17.1. Since sex with animals stopped around the same time the men started having sex with humans, researchers said these episodes wouldn't necessarily constitute full-on zoophilia. Zoophilia entails not just having sex with animals, but also being sexually attracted to them and developing fantasies and obsessive urges about them as well.

Most men in the study -- 62% -- had sex with several animals and 38% used the same animal. Frequency and length of time varied: 14% had sex one time, while 39.5% had it weekly or more and 15% had in monthly. For about 80% of the study subjects the episodes lasted anywhere from a year to 26 years, but the average time was about four years.

As for the kinds of animals the men had sex with, mares were the most common, followed by donkeys, mules, goats, chickens, calves, cows, dogs, sheep and pigs.

Your Future Husband

For the single and married women out there

SI Swimsuit 2011

Need We Say More!

21 Reasons You Should Never Take Pictures With An iPad

• 1. Because you're at a wedding

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• 2. Because you're at a music festival

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• 3. Because you're rioting

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• 4. Because you're trying to look sexy

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• 5. Because you're at football practice

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• 6. Because you're also trying to look sexy

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• 7. Because you're on the beach

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• 8. Because you're at a rave

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• 9. Because you're at the Humane Society/you have a sweet Mullet-Hawk

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• 10. Because you're at a metal show

  (via)
  

• 11. Because you're in the African desert

  (via)
  

• 12. Because you're watching a beautiful sunset

  (via)
  

• 13. Because you're at the Disneyland fireworks

  (via)
  

• 14. Because you're watching the last Space Shuttle take off

  (via)
  

• 15. Because everybody else is using them

  (via)
  

• 16. Because you're 13

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• 17. Because you're in the front row

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• 18. Because you're at a parade without a shirt

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• 19. Because you're at graduation

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• 20. Because you're watching a powerpoint

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• 21. Because you're Spike Lee and meeting President Obama

  

Alcohol Dangers

http://www.thesmokingjacket.com/humor/hazards-of-drinking

God Bless Our Vets

Happy Bday Demi

Rick Perry Top 10

Rock and Roll Christmas

Live rock and roll is replacing recorded Christmas carols in the windows of Galeries Lafayette as the Parisian department store seeks to drum up curiosity, and client numbers, for this year's gift-buying season.
True to tradition, the shop is putting on a dazzling show for shoppers and tourists alike in the countdown to Christmas, but this year it is seeking to strike a chord with music-mad teenagers as much as fairytale fans young and old.
With a debt crisis forcing much of Europe into austerity, consumption has dropped in recent weeks, making crowd-pullers all the more important, even for upmarket stores that can count on a large tourist contingent in the heart of the French capital.

Rock legend Iggy Pop, bare-chested as always, has helped Galeries Lafayette get the show on the road, posing for photo fliers in red Santa hat and matching shoes in addition to his signature electric guitar.

The goal of reaching out to teenagers rather than toddlers is clear.

The opening weeks include nightly live shows in the window by a variety of major-label rock and folk bands, one from Mali, another from Australia and most of the others from France itself.

And apart from the live shows, furry creatures and fairytale puppets will give way this year to life-size mannequins in black leather to rag dolls draped in glamour garb -- all hand-made, hand-painted and more hard-edged than the customary annual display of smurfs, snowmen and abundant lovable puppets.

Galeries Lafayette, which first started doing its Christmas window shows after World War Two, says that this year's show was inspired by the increasingly close relationship between rock and fashion.

There are other good reasons.

French household spending dropped 1.3 percent in September versus the same month a year earlier and spending on clothing fell 7.3 percent, according to France's statistics office.

"Shoppers are so stretched at the moment that actually getting them into the stores is the first challenge," said Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Kantar Retail, an industry consultancy.

"Converting that shopper into a purchase is the next challenge."

RIP Smokin Joe

Joe Frazier had to throw his greatest punch to knock down “The Greatest.” A vicious left hook from Frazier put Muhammad Ali on the canvas in the 15th round in March 1971 when he became the first man to beat him in the Fight of the Century at Madison Square Garden.

“That was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life,” Frazier said.

It was his biggest night, one that would never come again.

The relentless, undersized heavyweight ruled the division as champion, then spent a lifetime trying to fight his way out of Ali’s shadow.
Frazier, who died Monday night after a brief battle with liver cancer at the age of 67, will forever be associated with Ali. No one in boxing would ever dream of anointing Ali as The Greatest unless he, too, was linked to Smokin’ Joe.
“I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration,” Ali said in a statement. “My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones.”
They fought three times, twice in the heart of New York City and once in the morning in a steamy arena in the Thrilla in Manila in the Philippines. They went 41 rounds together. Neither gave an inch and both gave it their all.
In their last fight in Manila in 1975, they traded punches with a fervor that seemed unimaginable among heavyweights. Frazier gave almost as good as he got for 14 rounds, then had to be held back by trainer Eddie Futch as he tried to go out for the final round, unable to see.
“Closest thing to dying that I know of,” Ali said afterward.
Ali was as merciless with Frazier out of the ring as he was inside it. He called him a gorilla, and mocked him as an Uncle Tom. But he respected him as a fighter, especially after Frazier won a decision to defend his heavyweight title against the then-unbeaten Ali in a fight that was so big Frank Sinatra was shooting pictures at ringside and both fighters earned an astonishing $2.5 million.
The night at the Garden 40 years ago remained fresh in Frazier’s mind as he talked about his life, career and relationship with Ali a few months before he died.
“I can’t go nowhere where it’s not mentioned,” he told The Associated Press.
Bob Arum, who once promoted Ali, said he was saddened by Frazier’s passing.
“He was such an inspirational guy. A decent guy. A man of his word,” Arum said. “I’m torn up by Joe dying at this relatively young age. I can’t say enough about Joe.”
Frazier’s death was announced in a statement by his family, who asked to be able to grieve privately and said they would announce “our father’s homecoming celebration” as soon as possible.
Manny Pacquiao learned of it shortly after he arrived in Las Vegas for his fight Saturday night with Juan Manuel Marquez. Like Frazier in his prime, Pacquiao has a powerful left hook that he has used in his remarkable run to stardom.
“Boxing lost a great champion, and the sport lost a great ambassador,” Pacquiao said.
Don King, who promoted the Thrilla in Manila, was described by a spokesman as too upset to talk about Frazier’s death.
Though slowed in his later years and his speech slurred by the toll of punches taken in the ring, Frazier was still active on the autograph circuit in the months before he died. In September he went to Las Vegas, where he signed autographs in the lobby of the MGM Grand shortly before Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s fight against Victor Ortiz.
An old friend, Gene Kilroy, visited with him and watched Frazier work the crowd.
“He was so nice to everybody,” Kilroy said. “He would say to each of them, `Joe Frazier, sharp as a razor, what’s your name?”’
Frazier was small for a heavyweight, weighing just 205 pounds when he won the title by stopping Jimmy Ellis in the fifth round of their 1970 fight at Madison Square Garden. But he fought every minute of every round going forward behind a vicious left hook, and there were few fighters who could withstand his constant pressure.
His reign as heavyweight champion lasted only four fights—including the win over Ali—before he ran into an even more fearsome slugger than himself. George Foreman responded to Frazier’s constant attack by dropping him three times in the first round and three more in the second before their 1973 fight in Jamaica was waved to a close and the world had a new heavyweight champion.
Two fights later, he met Ali in a rematch of their first fight, only this time the outcome was different. Ali won a 12-round decision, and later that year stopped George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.
There had to be a third fight, though, and what a fight it was. With Ali’s heavyweight title at stake, the two met in Manila in a fight that will long be seared in boxing history.
Frazier went after Ali round after round, landing his left hook with regularity as he made Ali backpedal around the ring. But Ali responded with left jabs and right hands that found their mark again and again. Even the intense heat inside the arena couldn’t stop the two as they fought every minute of every round with neither willing to concede the other one second of the round.
“They told me Joe Frazier was through,” Ali told Frazier at one point during the fight.
“They lied,” Frazier said, before hitting Ali with a left hook.
Finally, though, Frazier simply couldn’t see and Futch would not let him go out for the 15th round. Ali won the fight while on his stool, exhausted and contemplating himself whether to go on.
“It was unworldly what we had just seen,” Arum said. “Two men fighting one of the great wars of all time. It’s something I will never forget for all the years I have left.”
It was one of the greatest fights ever, but it took a toll. Frazier would fight only two more times, getting knocked out in a rematch with Foreman eight months later before coming back in 1981 for an ill advised fight with Jumbo Cummings.
“They should have both retired after the Manila fight,” former AP boxing writer Ed Schuyler Jr. said. “They left every bit of talent they had in the ring that day.”
Born in Beaufort, S.C., on Jan 12, 1944, Frazier took up boxing early after watching weekly fights on the black and white television on his family’s small farm. He was a top amateur for several years, and became the only American fighter to win a gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo despite fighting in the final bout with an injured left thumb.
“Joe Frazier should be remembered as one of the greatest fighters of all time and a real man,” Arum told the AP in a telephone interview Monday night. “He’s a guy that stood up for himself. He didn’t compromise and always gave 100 percent in the ring. There was never a fight in the ring where Joe didn’t give 100 percent.”
After turning pro in 1965, Frazier quickly became known for his punching power, stopping his first 11 opponents. Within three years he was fighting world-class opposition and, in 1970, beat Ellis to win the heavyweight title that he would hold for more than two years.
A woman who answered Ellis’ phone in Kentucky said the former champion suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease, but she wanted to pass along the family’s condolences.
In Philadelphia, a fellow Philadelphia fighter, longtime middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, said Frazier was so big in the city that he should have his own statue, like the fictional Rocky character.
“I saw him at one of my car washes a few weeks ago. He was in a car, just hollering at us, ‘They’re trying to get me!’ That was his hi,” Hopkins said. “I’m glad I got to see him in the last couple of months. At the end of the day, I respect the man. I believe at the end of his life, he was fighting to get that respect.”
He was a fixture in Philadelphia where he trained fighters in a gym he owned and made a cameo in “Rocky.”
It was his fights with Ali that would define Frazier. Though Ali was gracious in defeat in the first fight, he was as vicious with his words as he was with his punches in promoting all three fights—and he never missed a chance to get a jab in at Frazier.
Frazier, who in his later years would have financial trouble and end up running a gym in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia, took the jabs personally. He felt Ali made fun of him by calling him names and said things that were not true just to get under his skin. Those feelings were only magnified as Ali went from being an icon in the ring to one of the most beloved people in the world.
After a trembling Ali lit the Olympic torch in 1996 in Atlanta, Frazier was asked by a reporter what he thought about it.
“They should have thrown him in,” Frazier responded.

He mellowed, though, in recent years, preferring to remember the good from his fights with Ali rather than the bad. Just before the 40th anniversary of his win over Ali earlier this year—a day Frazier celebrated with parties in New York—he said he no longer felt any bitterness toward Ali, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is mostly mute.

“I forgive him,” Frazier. “He’s in a bad way.”

Santa Fired

Faced with the difficult task of balancing a budget in austere times, officials in New York's Suffolk County said on Friday they had no choice: they had to sack Santa Claus.

The county executive said he could not justify carving out $660 (411.37 pounds) from his $2.7 billion budget to pay David McKell, 83, a World War II veteran and former homicide detective, to don his Santa suit for the tenth year running and greet children on Long Island.

"How do you justify that expenditure when a health centre is losing money?" Steve Levy, the Suffolk County Executive, said in an interview.

He said that some 750 county employees were facing layoffs as a result of budget restraints, including what he described as a $20 million cut in state aid to the county's health system.

"Let either the private sector come forward with a donation, or, better yet, let's tap the volunteers in the community," he said.

Levy was quickly called a Grinch by his opponents.

"Do we really have to hold Santa Claus hostage to balance the budget?" said Bill Lindsay, a Democrat and the presiding officer of the county legislature.

"I mean, $600? Give me a break," Joseph Sawicki, a Republican who as county comptroller is charged with overseeing the county government's fiscal prudence, said in an interview. "There comes a point where you go overboard in terms of penny-pinching."

County officials said dozens of people had come forward offering to pay for Santa's services and Levy himself volunteered to don a Santa suit for a shift or two.

In the end, Steve Bellone, the current town supervisor of nearby Babylon, who is running as the Democratic candidate to succeed Levy, said he would pay for Santa.

Levy, who is not running for reelection, dismissed Bellone's gesture as "pure grandstanding", and said his office was investigating whether the check breached rules governing gifts to county agencies.

McKell, the Santa at the centre of the storm, said Bellone's check -- part of which would cover gas and other Santa expenses -- had resolved the matter.

"I wish him (Levy)a very merry Christmas and a happy new year," McKell said.

Happy Birthday Rebecca

Tug Toner

DOUGHNUTS

CHENANGO, N.Y. (AP) - Authorities say one of the southbound lanes of an upstate New York interstate has reopened after a tractor-trailer hauling doughnuts overturned, spilling the baked goods across the highway.

Broome County Sheriff's Sgt. Tom Sienko (see-EN'-koh) says the driver fell asleep, causing the truck to hit a guardrail and roll over around 2:30 a.m. Friday in the town of Chenango (sheh-NAYNE'-goh), just north of Binghamton.

Police say the driver suffered minor injuries.

Sienko says "a lot of doughnuts" spilled when boxes split open, scattering the breakfast treats across the lanes of Interstate 81 and into the median.

He says the southbound lanes were closed for less than an hour. The left lane remains closed as highway crews repair the guardrail and remove the doughnuts and rig from the scene.