I'll be in Vermont - Buffalo you later!

Well, looks like I'm headed back up north and won't be posting for a few days.  Settle down, they're not throwing me in the slammer again - I'm going to Vermont for the weekend for a cousin's wedding.  What is this "Vermont" you speak of, you may ask?  Well let me pull out my best Craig David impersonation and fill you in.

Vermont is more than just a cold, hippie-filled state shrouded in a permanent cloud of weed smoke.  If you look on the map, it's the one that looks like an upside-down New Hampshire, right next to the rightside-up New Hampshire.  Vermont is an extremely diverse state whose largest ethnic groups, in order, are French-Americans (23%), English-Americans (18%), Irish-Americans (16%), German-Americans (9%), American-Americans (8%), Italian-Americans (6%), and Scottish-Americans (5%).  The state's largest city, Burlington, is also home to small refugee communities from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, who moved there after being informed by Tom Petty that they don't have to live like refugees.  Vermont is most famous as the birthplace of great Mormon leaders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the setting for the classic film "Super Troopers."

Here are some notable facts about the "great" state of Vermont (notice the quotation marks around "great"):

State beverage: Schlitz, 6 of 'em at a time (source: "Super Troopers")

State pastime: 1) syrup-chugging, 2) "cat game" (source: "Super Troopers")

State bestiality fetishes: tie between bears and chickens (source: "Super Troopers")

State movie: "Super Troopers"

State food: Ben & Jerry's ice cream (source: common knowledge)

State mineral: talc (source: Wikipedia)

State plant: marijuana (source: common knowledge)

State bird: hermit thrush (source: Wikipedia)

State musical artist: The Grateful Dead (come on, they're hippies)

Favorite blogs: 1) "Stuff White People Like" (see ethnic breakdown above), 2) "The Marijuana News Blog" (see state plant) 3) "Buffalo This" (this one always seems to make the list)

I'll see you on Monday, or if I don't, I was probably sucked into the dreaded black hole of hippiedom..........or a black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider.

The LHC: Famous last words

All right.  We've established that there's a decent chance that the Large Hadron Collider is going to destroy our planet in these four posts:

• Bummed about the LHC? Try some THC.


• The LHC might not kill us after all!


• Sucker bet


• Particle colliders give me a "large hadron"

So, in the not too unlikely possibility that the human race is about to be permanently obliterated from the universe, are there any last words that we want to say before we go?  There damn well should be.  Before we begin the collisions, I suggest we send a message to the cosmos saying something like:

We're about to conduct a physics experiment that (brief description of what the LHC does).  It might kill us, so if you don't hear from us again, then that's probably what happened.  Peace out, homies - catch you on the flipside!

This message will serve as a warning to alien civilizations that are debating and blogging about whether they should run their own LHCs.  Why should we care whether aliens live or die?  Because we should care about the welfare of all living things, you selfish prick.  We're not so different, us and them.  Sure, they might want to kill us - I mean in pretty much every movie involving aliens, that's what they're trying to do.  We may want revenge for what they tried to do to Will Smith and company in "Independence Day."  But we really can't blame them, because the truth is that we also want to kill us (why else would we build the LHC?).  On top of this, we and the aliens do have common enemies, such as entropy, black holes, and France.  Entropy in particular is a real bitch that is strongly abhorred by all lifeforms.  F@%# YOU, ENTROPY!

Now you may be thinking, "Wait a minute, hotshot.  Sending such a message to aliens might reveal not only that we exist, but also where we are in space and the fact that our technology is pretty unsophisticated.  Aren't we basically inviting them to bring their ships over and blast us to kingdom come?"  Well yes and no.  By that I mean yes, but they might choose not to come and kill us because a) it would be a waste of their time, and b) they appreciate the thoughtful gesture.  Besides, we've already been sending "come and kill us" messages to outer space for a long time.  For example, the Arecibo Message of 1974 (see left) was basically a bunch of dots that translated to something like, "Hey guys.  This is the human race from planet Earth speaking.  Feel free to come over and cornhole us whenever you get a chance.  Here's some other information that will make killing us easier for you, like our size, our chemical makeup, and our location.  See ya!"

Now let's say we smash some stuff in the LHC, and lo and behold, we notice that a black hole has begun eating away at the center of the planet en route to killing every living human being, dog, cat, octopus, praying mantis, bonsai tree, Venus flytrap, mushroom, ale yeast, dinoflagellate, amoeba, virus, you name it.  At this point it is absolutely crucial that we alert anyone who might be listening of our impending fate.  At this point we need to send something that can really catch someone's attention, like a catchy tune.  My recommendation is Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel's "White lines (Don't don't do it)."  This incredibly persuasive little jingle describes in detail the great high you can get from cocaine and then tells you "d-d-d-d-don't d-d-don't do it!"  The moral of this song is fairly tough to figure out, but what I took away from it was that snorting coke will give you a terrible stuttering problem.

So in case you were wondering why I'm not a coke addict, there's your answer.

If that doesn't stop ET from building its own black hole machine, I don't know what will.  Of course, when we send this message out to the cosmos, we must make sure to remember to substitute "Large Hadron Collider" for all cocaine references.  Otherwise, the aliens are seriously going to wonder what kind of weird civilization thought it was that important to broadcast anti-drug messages to everyone in a 500 light year radius.

Battle of the VP candidates (a.k.a. a new low)

The truth about America is that the President doesn't really do anything. It's the Vice President that really matters. Look at the current administration. George W. Bush just hangs out at his ranch in Crawford, Texas and tries to make up words by switching letters around and adding suffixes, saying things like, "'mer'ca needs to stop the nucularification of Iran." Dick Cheney, on the other hand, takes care of all the important executive business, such as crafting evil schemes and shooting people in the face.

So Obama and McCain are duking it out for President. Whoop dee doo! Let's talk about what really matters: who we should pick for VP. To make the choice easier, I'm going to break down the pros and cons of the two candidates for you. Best of 10 wins!

Just to warn you, I intentionally tried to make the jokes in this post as stupid as possible, and since my jokes are already pretty stupid when I don't even intend them to be, what you're about to read will make Pauly Shore's "In the Army Now" look like a genius comedic masterpiece. Here we go...

Palin really came out of nowhere. Who is she? I have a feeling we might be "Sarah" (sorry) if we pick someone who has no clue how things go down in DC. Biden 1, Palin 0.

Biden is 65 years old. He's borderline senile! Old people are scientifically proven to be extremely boring. All they ever do is play bingo and tell long-winded war stories to anyone who will pretend to listen. Just looking at the guy makes me need a cup of "Joe." Biden 1, Palin 1.

Sarah Palin has so little experience relative to Joe Biden. In that respect, she's really "Palin" in comparison. Biden 2, Palin 1.

On the other hand, Sarah will bring youth to the vice presidency, unlike Joe, who's been "Biden" his time for 65 years. Biden 2, Palin 2.

Track and Trig are activities Biden did in high school, not ridiculous names he gave his sons. Biden 3, Palin 2.

Palin is straight out of Juneau. Her daughter is straight out of "Juno." Biden 4, Palin 2.

Biden is straight out of Dover. That hits a little too close to home. What, you don't get it? You're not a Washington insider? I am. No big deal. What I'm referring to is Operation Dover, the Democrats' strategy in 2000 and 2004. "Dover" is short for "BenDOVER and take it up the tailpipe from the Republicans." I don't think the 'crats want to repeat that one in 2008. Biden 4, Palin 3.

Delaware? More like Dela-where the hell is that? Is that even a state? Her state is about 300 times as big - Alaskans eat pieces of shit like that for breakfast. Biden 4, Palin 4.

Alaskans eat pieces of shit for breakfast? Do we really want someone like that in the White House? Biden 5, Palin 4.

Last but not least, the "would you hit it?" test. No contest, right Regis? I think we're going to have to go with the former Miss Wasilla and potential future VPILF on this one. Biden 5, Palin 5.


Well look at that...it's a tie. I'll bet you never saw that coming. I guess that means it's up to you to decide who your next Vice President will be. This country is unfortunately not a Buffalocracy - all 300 million of you get a vote, not just the wise, all-knowing sage who writes "Buffalo This." Make sure to pick someone though instead of just writing in "Mickey Mouse" again. Seriously, that's getting old. Stop it.

And there you have it - the most moronic commentary you're going to read this entire election season, narrowly beating Ann Coulter's previous record and setting new highs for stupidity, triteness, and corniness.  I sincerely apologize for shaving 10 points off your IQ.

Naming your young'uns

So you just popped out a young'un, did you (or if you're male, caused a young'un to pop out)? First, make sure the child is yours - yes, even if you're a woman and just gave birth to it. Trust me, people can do some crazy things with stem cells and test tubes and such nowadays, and there is a substantial possibility that you may be the victim of some kind of sinister prank. If the child is not yours, give it to the poor sucker you think it belongs to. Just guess if you have to. There is a one in 3 billion chance you will pick one of the right two people. Hey, those are better odds than you have of winning that stupid Subway Scrabble game you keep collecting game pieces for!

In the unfortunate event that the screaming devil-spawned poop machine in front of you is in fact yours, you're probably wondering, "Now what the hell am I going to call this thing?" Now, I do not have any young'uns of my own. You're probably thinking, "Good! I hope you never do, for society's sake." Yes, I can read minds. Nevertheless, I am now going to give you 6 cardinal rules that you must always follow when naming your offspring.

Here we go...


1) Watch out for bad combinations of names or initials
If your last name is Evans, for example, you might think David Owen Umberto Carlos Henry Evans sounds like a good name for your son. Not so fast - those initials spell out D-O-U-C-H-E! This is a trap that many people fall into. Everyone knows that it's the initials that really matter. For this reason, being named Donald Ian Charles Kirkpatrick is worse than being named Dick, or even Dick Butkus.


2) Don't name it after a celebrity

It may sound like a good idea to name your child Hannah Montana or Jared Fogle now, but remember that many of today's "hot" celebrities are eventually going to be seen as corny or behind the times, or even worse, will turn out to be pedophiles. Be thankful your parents didn't name you Michael Jackson or Gary Glitter.


3) Pick a name that fits in well with your values
Do you enjoy drinking Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout? If so, chances are a person who has half the same genes as you will also be genetically predisposed toward enjoying this fine beverage. In this case, Dark Lord could be an excellent choice for a name for your son. He'll thank you for it later, especially if he ends up being the ruler of an evil empire somewhere.

4) Look at the thing and determine which name describes it best
Here is a handy guide for how you should name a child based on his/her physical or personality traits:

BOYS:
Is he is very earnest and to the point? Go with Frank.
Did he throw up within an hour of being born? Go with Ralph.
Does he look tired, like he could use a cup of coffee? Go with Joe (or Joseph).
Are you a mobster hoping he'll follow you in a life of crime? Go with Conner or Connor. Rob (Robert) may also work if theft is the crime of choice. Jack may be good too if we're talking about petty theft. If you think he's more likely to be the victim of a crime, on the other hand, go with Mark.

Did he excrete solid or liquid waste somewhere other than a toilet shortly after being born?  You must give him a constant reminder that the bathroom is the place for that kind of activity.  Call him John.
Is he short and chubby? Easy. Go with Stumpy.  If none of these really fit, I recommend Bobbert as a safe default choice.

GIRLS:
Does she look like she'd make a good lawyer? Go with Sue.
Was MadTV on the tube while she was being born? If so, go with Madison (Mad is on).
Do you want your daughter to rent out cars for a living? Go with Lisa (lease a), as in "Lisa brand new BMW 3-series for only $399 a month!" If you think she's more suited to "economy" cars than BMWs, however, you may want to call her Kia.
Are you already resigned to the fact that she's going to end up as a stripper just like her mother...and father? Stop living in denial and just go with Candi.
If none of these seem to work, definitely go with LaQuisha.


5) Think about how someone with such a name will be perceived in society
If you pick a name like Dexter or Mervin, let's face it, the kid is going to get beat up a lot in middle school. There is no avoiding it. On the other hand, the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" teaches us that a wimpy or just plain terrible name might help to toughen up a child, which will better prepare him/her to face the dangers of the future such as the Large Hadron Collider.  It's your call.

6) Don't be a racist

Just because you're of a certain nationality doesn't mean you should name all your children names that are popular in your home country. In fact, you shouldn't. In order to avoid being perceived as a racist, you should name your children a variety of names from different ethnicities. Did you name your first-born son Kyle? That's nice, but do not pick another English/American name again - that is, of course, unless you're a despicable, cold-hearted racist. If you have 9 more children, for example, you might call them José (Spanish/Hispanic), Lakshmi (Indian), Vladimir (Russian), Mbufu (African), Ahmed (Middle Eastern), Running Bear (Native American), Xing Li (Chinese), Juergen (German), and Aniqmiuq (Inuit).

Well, that should solve one problem.  Of course you are still stuck with a much bigger problem: the kid.  Don't worry, it will all be over in 18 years...that is unless he decides to stick around in your basement living in a pile of pizza boxes and video game cartridges until he's 40.  That's the breaks!

Word on the street #7: Imperative actions

Sometimes in life, you may want another person to perform a certain activity, such as sitting down or shutting up. In these instances, you may wonder how you can best inform them of this desire. In this case there are three things you need to consider:

1) Do I give a flying f*** about this person?
If not, offend away. Who cares what they think? Besides, being offensive is usually hilarious. That's the only reason people like Carlos Mencia have a job.
2) How quickly do I want this done?
If never would be a good time for you, go with #1 on the list. If right now is preferable, I suggest at least #5.
3) How bad of a mood am I in today?
If you are in a bad mood, it is highly therapeutic to take your anger out on other people. Did you just barely miss the bus home, making you wait 10 minutes for the next one and miss the first few minutes of "Wheel of Fortune?" Annoying occurrences like that usually give you free license to offend anyone you want for at least 24 hours.

Anyway, enough pussyfooting around...

10) _____ the f***___ before I (insert violent action here)!
Highly offensive, but undeniably effective. When you tell someone, "Eat the fucking veggies before I brutally murder your entire family!" you can bet that person will soon be shoveling that broccoli and carrots into his/her mouth like there's no tomorrow.

9) _____ the f*** ___, bitch!
The addition of "bitch" here adds an element of emphasis and condescension to your already powerful imperative. As you can imagine, an order of "Get the fuck out of my office, bitch!" is rather difficult to refuse.

8) _____ the f*** ___!
A bold one, as the dreaded f-word can strike fear into the strongest of men. For example, saying, "I made it to Candy Land first, now pay the f*** up!" is likely to get you allow you to collect your hard-earned board game winnings faster than, say, using #1 or 2 on this list.

7) _____ your ass ___!
A fairly strong command generally used when you would like to emphasize that some kind of movement needs to occur. For example, when playing with your child, you may choose to say something like, "Wah-wah! Stop crying, you little crybaby, and get your ass back on that tricycle!"

6) _____ the hell ___!
For example:
"Get the hell out of the lane so I can bowl!"
Rather bold. Shows your adversary who's the boss (NOTE: a nice, firm Danza slap will also accomplish this).

5) _____ ___.
Direct and to the point. No one can fault you for that...except me. Grow some balls, Nancy! At least throw an expletive in there or something.

4) Would you mind _____ing ___?
Polite, but in the event that the person does mind, it ain't getting done.
For example:
You: "Would you mind helping lift this 500 pound concrete block off my chest so I can breathe?"
Them: "Actually, yes I would mind. I'm jonesing for a McGriddle and only have 10 minutes to make it to McDonald's before they stop serving breakfast. Sorry. Good luck surviving, buddy."

3) Please _____ ___.
For the 63% of people in the world who don't give a rat's ass what you want them to do, "please" translates roughly as "don't." Thanks for coming, better luck next time.

2) Please _____ ___, if you would be so kind
Most people just aren't that kind.
For example:
You: "Hey, you in the biohazard suit! Please refrain from dumping your spent nuclear reactor fuel in our garbage can, if you would be so kind."
Them: "Sorry, unfortunately I'm a complete asshole, so it's not happening. Eat a dick."

1) Excuse me, is there any way you might be able to _____ ___, please? (Lame reason here). If not, no big deal. Thanks a lot.
A spineless coward's way of asking someone to do something. 99% of the time the person will refuse, and can you really blame them?
For example:
You: "Excuse me, is there any way you might be able to move your car, please? It's on my leg, which I believe is now broken. If not, no big deal. Thanks a lot."
Them: "Sure, no problem!" (backs up, then moves forward again so that car is once again crushing leg)
"There you go, chief! Have a good one!"

A tribute to "The BUFFALOg"

As you all know, I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of Buffalo...and the animal called "buffalo"...and buffalo wing sauce...and the act of buffaloing. As most of you probably also know, there is another well-respected and highly-trafficked blog about Buffalo called "The BUFFALOg," written by Craig Howard, a real unsung everyday hero and true man of the people.

The fact is that blogging is a tough business and you are bound to make some friends and enemies along the way. The Buffalo Master, after repeatedly refusing my brilliant contributions to the science of the buffalo phenomenon, has now earned himself a rightful spot on the "enemies" list. I am rarely hostile, however - when I first contact a fellow blogger, I will generally extend the olive branch, attempt to create a peaceful and mutually beneficial rapport, and of course shamelessly self-promote in their "comments" section.

Now Craig Howard and I are "brothas from anotha motha," which is something we say in the ghetto that means "similar people." Craig is a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo. I am a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo (and buffalo and buffalo and buffalo). Craig lives in Buffalo. I have been to Buffalo once, have watched the Buffalo Bills on TV a few times, and enjoy buffalo wings. We roll with the same crew, more or less.

I attempted to contact Craig a couple months ago about promoting each other's blogs. Craig's lack of response indicated to me that he found this proposal unsuitable. Maybe he didn't think I had it in me to keep posting quality content. Maybe he thought I spazzed out a little too much when I first realized what a gigantic celebrity this blog had made me. Maybe he just doesn't think I'm Buffalo enough.

So, to show my support for "The BUFFALOg" and all that it stands for, I have added it to my highly exclusive blogroll (on right side of page) and will now comment on a few of Craig's highly informative and thought-provoking posts:

Dishonesty For Ideology's Sake: I wholeheartedly agree with Craig on this one. Dickipedia is not to be trusted. Its article on the buffalo phenomenon is an embarrassing disgrace to humanity and is misleading to the point where it is corrupting the fragile minds of our nation's youth. Shame on them.

Meaningless Rankings: Now here's a great one. Craig presents an excellent rebuttal to some douchebag's claim that "Buffalo is the second poorest city in America." He concedes that it is in fact true that Buffalo has roughly the same number of poor people as Boston, a much larger city, making Buffalo about 30% "poor" and Boston only about 13% "poor." Then he says that the reason Buffalo is considered so poor is not because there are too many poor people there, but rather that there are not enough non-poor people there. So all you non-poor people: move to Buffalo now! The city needs you! Think of all the delicious wings you could be eating!

In case the non-poor people are too selfish to move to Buffalo to bring that number down, I have another solution: simply redraw the city limits to remove some of the poorer areas of Buffalo and include some of the richer outlying areas. Take this, for example:

Problem solved.

A Strange Tern Of Events (Sorry, I Couldn't Resist): This is a fascinating post that explores some important controversial topics while also making clever puns such as "tern" (the bird) instead of "turn." Quite the masterpiece. Let me just state on the record that I have no idea what a "petard" is, and I would have no clue what "schadenfreude" was either if a lady friend of mine hadn't dragged me to watch Avenue Q, which surprisingly wasn't not too unbad (I worded it that way because I'm a real man and would never admit that I actually enjoyed a musical theater production). So while the masterful use of vocabulary used in this post probably confuses 99% of Craig's audience, he brings up an important point: we might as well say "F*** it," because there will never be peace between the U.S. and Canada, and hell, none of us even want to go up and visit that country anyway. Freezing cold, rampant moose-humping, fries with gravy, and Celine Dion, all in one place? No thanks. Buffalo doesn't need any "Peace Bridge" - let the war rage on!

So there it is, Craig. Even though I currently set up shop in the Bay Area, rest assured that I BLEED BUFFALO BROWN!!! The history books will remember you and me as heroes from the same mold: tireless crusaders willing to sacrifice everything we have for the glory of Buffalo. The fact is that in this business you're either with someone or against them. Pick the right side here, buddy - if you don't do it for me, do it for Buffalo!

Stuff indie bands like (#4)

For the fourth part in our series of blatant ripoffs, I'm going to talk about a few things that indie music "artists" like. Note that I do not actually consider music to be art - I'm just using the word "artist" because that's the standard convention.

Avoiding publicity

Indie bands hate publicity, because once everyone knows about them, they become "too mainstream," and their original founders call them "sellouts" and no longer listen to them.

Speaking of which, CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME BAND CALLED "THE MONKEY SHOW." EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN TO THE MONKEY SHOW AND CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE. THEIR SONGS TOTALLY BELONG ON THE BILLBOARD TOP 200 SINGLES CHART! MOVE OVER, MILEY CYRUS! HERE COMES THE MONKEY SHOW!!! OH YEAH!!!

NOTE: For the record, I have no clue who The Monkey Show is and have never listened to any of their songs. They were just the victims of an unfortunately high Google Search ranking. Sorry for completely demolishing your street cred, guys. I just wanted to prove a point. Your latest album will probably now go platinum, which will totally ruin your career.

Knowing more about indie music than you do

If you try to talk to an indie artist, chances are it will go something like this:

You: "Heard the new Black Keys album? Pretty awesome stuff."

Indie artist: "Yeah, I guess. I used to like them about 3 years ago before they sold out. Totally mainstream now."

You: "Yeah...who are you into nowadays?"

Indie artist: "The Burgundy Lawn Gnomes and PGW!? have some good stuff out."

You: "Hmm...can't say I know who those bands are."

Indie artist: "Oh, you wouldn't. They've only been around for a couple weeks or so. I was actually the only person who went to the PGW!? show on Friday. It was excellent. Just wait a couple years - they're going to be totally not huge."

A true indie rocker will never end a conversation before he/she has pulled out the name of a band that the other person has never heard of. Also expect the person to call any band you name "too mainstream" or "sellouts" and to brag about how small the crowd was at a recent concert that he/she attended.

Monkey shows

Nobody knows why, but indie music artists eat this stuff up like Al Gore eats up bacon-wrapped chili cheese dogs. Indie artists sometimes even like monkey shows enough to consider naming their bands after them. Maybe it's because when you're hopped up on all kinds of mind-altering drugs, there is nothing as awesome as watching a monkey wearing a cowboy hat ride a dog around a racetrack. I mean nothing.

Bad news for Kim Jong-Il

Some people take out their anger in reasonable ways, such as or kicking and punching their beds in a hysterical fit or yelling a stream of obscenities at the top of their lungs in a public place.  Others take out their anger in less appropriate ways, such as throwing furniture around the room or pimp-slapping llamas at the petting zoo.  My rival, Jon of "Bison That," takes the latter route: he punches Kim Jong-Il in the face.

I don't know if this will happen every time Jon gets out-buffaloed, but I suspect it will.  If so, then Kim, I'm sorry to say this, but you are cruisin' for a bruisin'.

I admit I have been rather dismissive of bison in the past, so I'd like to bring up an important point about them now.  Contrary to popular belief, "bison" is a fairly versatile word.  It doesn't hold a candle to "buffalo," mind you, but it compares favorably to more than 99% of words in the English language.  "Bison" can refer not only to the animal, but also to the town of Bison, South Dakota (see right), the mascot of many athletic teams (including the Bucknell Bison), and a disgusting verb, defined by Wikipedia as the following:

Bison - (verb; slang; vulgar) To insert all male genitalia, including penis and testicles, into another human orifice. Often used in derogatory context. Example: "Go bison yourself."

Furthermore, as with "buffalo," the plural form of "bison" is exactly the same as the singular form.  So the sentence "Bison bison Bison bison Bison bison Bison bison Bison bison Bison bison Bison bison." is perfectly legitimate and could mean "Bison from Bison, SD that bison from Bison, SD bison Bucknell-style in turn bison Bucknell-style other bison from Bison, SD that bison from Bison, SD bison Bucknell-style."  You might call this the "bison phenomenon," although in my opinion it is not all that phenomenal.

So Jon of "Bison That" does have a point, sort of.  He has not yet attempted to express this point on his blog, but if he were to do so, it might make sense.

Jon's return from North Korea and the awakening of his blog deserved some kind of response.  So in a rather bold move to show Jon who is the Buffalo Master in this rivalry, I went ahead and created the bumper sticker below and stuck it on my car as well as every vehicle in the parking lot of the K-Mart in Niagara Falls, NY.

Note that the sticker was originally going to read: "My Buffalo buffalo Bison bisoned your Bison bison."  However in the end I chose to keep it clean and go with the G-rated slogan that doesn't involve a disgusting sexual act.  Even in the highly, HIGHLY unlikely event that I lose the Battle of the Buffalo, I will never relinquish the moral high ground.

So if you're keeping score at home, you can tally up another point for "Buffalo This."  Sorry, Kim, today is not your lucky day.

Particle colliders give me a "large hadron"

So, if you haven't checked your calendar recently, today is September 10, which means that at 7:32 Greenwich Mean Time, they switched on the ol' LHC, which if you haven't religiously followed this blog or read particle physics journals over the last few months (and if you haven't, come on, what's wrong with you?) stands for the Large Hadron Collider. That means this huge atom smasher has now begun firing up for its first attempts to destroy the earth find out what matter is made of.

So, what is it, you may ask?

Well, "it" is a gender-neutral pronoun used in the English language to refer to a previously specified object - but that's not important right now. Let's stay on topic.

The Large Hadron Collider, on the other hand, is a few things:

1) A 17-mile-diameter series of tubes, a lot like the internet, except it's used to smash tiny atoms and subatomic particles together at relativistic (near-light) speeds.

2) The name of a porn video I saw a long time ago, I think.  It "had Ron" Jeremy in it (zing!).  Oh wait...no...that was "Large Hardon Collider."

3) Something that is fairly likely to destroy the world, and even has a small probability of destroying the entire universe. Oh, yeaahh!

Below are a couple of photos of this bad boy.  On the left is an aerial shot of the border between France and Switzerland where the big ring is located.  On the right is the belly of the beast itself: a big ol' tube lined with supercooled superconducting magnets used to accelerate protons, lead ions, and the like to ridiculous speeds.

Eventually, this huge device will be used to cause "large hadrons," which are actually extremely small, to collide at near light speed.  When these collide, the hadrons should break apart, releasing particles, energy, and other things that the LHC will try to detect.  One of the main theories physicists are aiming to prove is string theory: the idea that matter, light, gravity, and everything else is composed of subatomic strings that vibrate in 11 dimensions.  Duh!  Do we really need an experiment to tell us that?  What else could all that stuff be composed of other than 11th dimension vibrating strings, Captain Obvious?

Anyway, when the collisions start happening, the scene at the LHC might look something like this:

What will the LHC find?  Likely candidates include the Higgs boson (which may or may not be the reason matter has mass), supersymmetry (which would give us insight into the validity of many quantum theories), dark matter, micro black holes, new subatomic particles, and other things nobody guessed.  Of course, despite all the theories, nobody really knows exactly what will come out of the LHC.  For all we know, it might even produce some of this crazy stuff.

The ridiculous thing is that a lot of scientists actually believe the LHC could produce micro black holes.  This is no reason to worry however, they say, because these black holes will theoretically evaporate via Hawking radiation before they can grow to any considerable size.  Theoretically.

Otherwise, something like the following might play out...

Scientist 1: "Oh no!  It's a black hole!"
Scientist 2: "Not to worry. It's only a micro black hole. It's not stable and will evaporate in less than a second. Even if it doesn't evaporate, it will escape the earth's gravity. Even if it doesn't escape the earth's gravity, it will take millions of years to accrete enough matter to kill us.  M'kay?"

Scientist 1: "Got it.  Let's keep smashing hadrons."

Scientist 1: "Oh no! The black hole got bigger!  It's going to kill us all!"
Scientist 2: "Whoopsy daisy! Looks like I put a decimal point in the wrong place or something.   I was hopped up on a bunch of Vicodin for my bad back the week I came up with those formulas.  My bad!"
Scientist 1: "I'm going to kill you!"
Scientist 2: "No, the black hole is going to kill me, and it's also going to kill you. Sorry about that, chief!"

Scientist 1: "Stop calling me 'chief,' guy!"

Scientist 2: "Stop calling me 'guy,' chief!"
(black hole consumes the entire planet)

Alien 1: "Awesome! The poor bastards never saw it coming!"
Alien 2: "Come on, dude. That ended exactly the same way as 'Large Hadron Collider 16: Planet Gzyxqiofn of the Crab Nebula.' So unoriginal. This series is really starting to circle the drain."

Alien 1: "Well, so much for Earth.  I say good riddance - that place was a real dump.  I'm going to miss 'Buffalo This' though."

Alien 2: "I'm not. That guy was an idiot. Hey, let's get out of here before that black hole spaghettifies us."

Alien 1: "Oh yeah, good idea."

Now I've already heard people say things today along the lines of, "Phew, we're still here!  Looks like there was no reason to worry about the LHC after all!"  Not so fast, Einstein.  It wasn't simply turning on the machine that was supposed to destroy the earth.  They haven't even started colliding particles yet and won't begin doing so for at least a few weeks.  Even then, they won't be using the full power of the machine; the collisions will get increasingly powerful through the rest of 2008 and into 2009.  Every time the power is ramped up, we enter a new and uncharted realm of particle collisions with uncertain consequences.  In the case of a strangelet disaster or vacuum metastability event, we'll find out that something has gone wrong immediately, and by "find out that something has gone wrong," I really mean "all die."  In the case of a stable micro black hole that gradually eats away at the earth, we may not know about it for months, years, or much longer.  So it could be a long, long time before we conclusively know the answer to the big question: Will the LHC kill us all?  If it's any comfort to you, I've got $500 that says it doesn't.

Welcome to the jungle.

Word on the street #6: Sexual intercourse

Now here's a real controversial topic. The debate rages on regarding whether people should have sexual intercourse. My opinion is that they should not, ever. However if you do choose to take part in this vile, despicable activity, chances are you will find yourself in the following scenario:

You are presented with the person with whom you would like to engage in this activity. You believe he/she may be amenable to said action. You would like to express your desire to place your pee-pee in her hoo-hoo (or the other way around if you are female). However, you don't know exactly how to describe exactly what you would like to do with that person.

Whatever you do, do not sit there stammering and stuttering like an idiot looking for the right word. Simply excuse yourself briefly and go log on to your computer to check "Buffalo This" for some timely advice.


10) Hop up on top and start jiggy-jiggy-jerkin'
Comes from Juvenile's "Slow Motion." Not only is this...um...juvenile, but it also suggests that your in-bed technique is not exactly top-notch. Most women (and men for that matter) will not enjoy it too much if all you do is "jiggy-jiggy-jerk" on top of them.

9) Chuck your junk in her/Beat it up
I understand that most guys and their "crew" or "posse" usually use these manly terms when discussing what they would like to do to a girl. Women, on the other hand, do not appreciate these terms quite as much. Don't say I didn't warn you.

8) Slip her the sausage
Similar to the ones above, but not quite as bad because it suggests a tasty food item.

7) Fuck
Usually I censor this word to make this blog appropriate for people of all ages and Mormons. Here, however, I have a fucking point to make. "Fuck" is concise and to the point, but it's also fucking offensive as fuck. You probably shouldn't fucking use it.

6) Pee in her butt
A couple points for the attempt at humor. Unfortunately though, some people are grossed out by any mention of pee in a sexual context due to the recent R. Kelly scandals involving golden showers. Nice try, but no cigar.

5) Screw
Ah, Jimmy Buffett's old standby: "Why don't we get drunk and screw?" If you want to increase the odds of getting your "jimmy" to the "buffet" though, you can probably do better than this.

4) Do the wild thing
Careful there, tiger. When you say "do the wild thing," many people will misinterpret this as meaning you would like to have intercourse with Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn from "Major League," a.k.a. Charlie Sheen. Since Charlie Sheen is widely perceived as a man-whore, you may be seen as trashy.

3) Get jiggy wit' it
If you honestly think that a line from a Will Smith song is going to get you laid, you probably should not be allowed to procreate.

2) Get it on
Who are you, Marvin Gaye? If not, the cheese factor is off the charts with this one.

1) Make love
Seriously, dude, the only time you should ever use this phrase is when you're singing along with Boyz II Men. Most women will laugh hysterically at any guy who uses this.

The Buffalo Phenomenon, in poorly drawn pictures

Word on the street #5: The guy who takes your trash out

The brave men and women who collect our garbage toil day in and day out for very little respect. Their job is one of the most important in our society, as without them we would be wallowing in filth all day. It is, after all, our cleanliness that separates us human beings from the DAMNED DIRTY APES! So when you interact with one of your waste-aggregating friends, it's important to refer to his or her job in the correct manner. So here are 10 such terms, listed from most offensive to least, or in other words, from the one that will make the G-man want to throw you in the landfill (10) to the one that will make him/her rather happy to sort your recyclables for you (1).

10) Shit shoveler
If you say this around a woman over the age of 60, expect an exclamation of "Well I never!" to follow. "Golden girls" (i.e. old hags) were brought up to respect the brave men and women who shovel their shit into a truck every day and would never refer to them by such a vile (yet undeniably accurate) term.

9) Trash man
"Trash" is a much less sophisticated word than "garbage" and is often used to refer to girls from south Jersey (the place shown in the photo on the right). Not a pretty picture.

8) Garbage man
The same term is used for the guy who cleans up the "trash" at the club just before closing time and goes home with whatever he can get. Nobody wants to be that guy.

7) Dustman
This British import isn't terrible, but it minimizes the hard labor that garbage men do by calling trash "dust." Picking up dust is not very hard, but trash can be a real bitch sometimes.

6) Hector the Collector
Most garbage guys will appreciate this clever attempt at humor. However, recent studies have shown that 14.8% of garbage collectors are not named Hector, so in these rare cases you might cause some confusion.

5) Garbo
Do you want people to think you're Australian? Me neither. Whenever someone uses this term, expect the next sentence out of his/her mouth to be "G'day mate, let's put another shrimp on the barbie!"

4) Refuse collector
Refuse is always a nice word for trash, as in, "I refuse to ingest this year-old maggot-infested beef carcass, therefore I believe I shall place it in the dustbin." Makes you sound high-class.

3) Collection agent
Not bad, but unfortunately the same term is used for the douchebag who hounds you about your overdue credit card bills.

2) Waste management specialist
Sounds like a highly skilled job. You'll earn some brownie points with this one.

1) Sanitation engineer
Garbage collection requires a lot of mental horsepower. These people often find themselves constructing SolidWorks simulations and writing Matlab procedures to calculate the optimal way to dump the trash into the truck. If they're not engineers, nobody is (except people who drive trains of course).

Bloggin' ain't easy

500 hits. Well, almost 600 actually. Wow, seems like just a few weeks ago we were celebrating the big 1-0-0. It's only a matter of time before that number reaches 100,000,000,000. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Blogging is tiring - it's not easy coming up with new stupid stuff to talk about every day or two. Now I know how the screenplay writers for all those Rob Schneider movies must have felt!

Nope, bloggin' ain't easy. Makes pimping look like a regular walk in the park! (Believe me, I would know. What do you think my day job is?)

Still, despite publicity efforts often bordering on desperate, "Buffalo This" has to my knowledge failed to make it on a single blogroll. Not a single blog in the vast, almighty blogosphere has deemed this blog worthy of a small link on the right side of its main page, despite my efforts to establish a rapport (read: incessantly annoy) the writers of related blogs. A more detailed post about this tragedy may be coming in the next few days.

Still, 500 hits ain't too bad. To see how we got there, let's take a look back at a timeline showing the key events in the long, storied history of this blog:


10,000 B.C.
Modern-day buffalo evolve (or are "intelligently designed," depending on what you believe) in North America.

1801
The city of Buffalo, New York is founded. This name is chosen over "Beau Fleuve," representing the first of many important symbolic victories over the despicable French.

10/3/1964
Teressa Bellisimo invents buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY. All other foods are declared officially obsolete.

4/11/1983
The stork drops me at an unfortunate couple's doorstep. A chain of events is set in motion that eventually causes a ridiculously stupid, sophomoric - well actually more like freshmanic - blog to come into existence roughly 25 years later.

7/8/2008
"Buffalo This" is born. I realize I'm now a celebrity and sort of freak out. Come on - not like you wouldn't do the same.

7/9/2008
First post on the buffalo phenomenon. Critics are astounded by its complexity yet simplicity.

7/21/2008
After a brilliant flash of inspiration, I expand the buffalo phenomenon to an unprecedented 18 buffaloes. The world sits open-mouthed in awe for a few minutes.

7/28/2008
"Buffalo This" gets its 100th hit and we throw a huge bash to celebrate. We play Edward 40-hands and Regis Philbin and I get absolutely plastered.

8/3/2008
As a publicity stunt, I bet Joe Keane $500 that the Large Hadron Collider will not destroy the earth on longbets.org.

8/6/2008
"Bison That" emerges as a rival to "Buffalo This." So far it has turned out to be a real flash in the pan.

8/7/2008
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and I release a single called "Buffalo" to the tune of "Kokomo." It rockets to the top of the charts in 15 different countries.

8/17/2008
"Buffalo This" officially moves to Buffalo, NY, but keeps its real physical location in the San Francisco Bay Area.

9/2/2008
Someone clicks on a link somewhere, becoming the 500th person to visit this site and probably about the 495th to regret doing so within about 10 seconds. In an unrelated event, I get a concussion while playing softball due to a poorly placed sprinkler - as if the posts on this blog needed to get any less intelligent.

Anyway, thanks to all of the billions - ok, hundreds - of people who took the time out of their busy days of wasting time on the internet to check out this blog! In the rare event that you didn't find what you read too offensively idiotic, don't forget to vote for "Buffalo This" on humor-blogs.com!

What's in a name?

Let me first acknowledge that this post is not what you think. By that I mean that I am not going to write about names with "what" in them. If that's "what" you really want (clever pun once again), I'll give you one: Powhatan. Happy now?

Ok, for those of you who are still with us, I am now going to talk about companies with unfortunate names; names that make you ask yourself, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?" Here we go...


The general public is pretty stupid, so what better way to market your tech company to them than by saying, "Hey! We're not that smart either!" As you probably know, Mensa is a society of geniuses, but who wants all those smarty-pantses writing their software code? Maybe Microsoft or Google, but not Nomensa! Their tech solutions are so mediocre, you could probably do better yourself!


An Italian coffee company. Sounds innocent enough at first to most people. But as those of you who speak Italian might know, "sega" is a slang word for masturbation and "freddo" means cold. Cold masturbation. Now it's an indisputable fact that nothing hits the spot after a nice long whack-off session in a walk-in freezer than a hot cup of joe. This is probably what the marketing people were thinking about when they chose this name. But on the other hand, calling it "Segafredo" begs the obvious question: what exactly are they putting in the coffee?


...because the other ideas that came up at the meeting to choose a company name were "InternationalRipoff.com" and "WorldwideScamOperation.org," and nobody would ever trust a company with either of those names!


If you're the owner of a bank, one thing you probably do not enjoy much is being robbed. Still, these rocket scientists came up with the excellent idea of choosing a name that sounds and looks almost exactly the same as "rob a bank." So if you're a criminal in Europe and are wondering which type of crime you should commit today, bingo - there's your answer! Rumor has it that this bank is a leading provider of small business loans, investing in such promising start-ups as Stick-Me-Up Convenience Stores, Adverse Side Effects Pharmaceuticals, and of course, Rent-a-Wreck.


And finally...
Pen island. Web site: http://www.penisland.com/. A retailer of fine writing implements. You can imagine how it would turn out if these guys did a study to determine the demographics of their customers:
Employee A: "Wow, according to this data, it looks like 64% of people who visited our website last month were homosexual men."
Employee B: "Really? Must be that pink feathered singing Liza Minnelli pen I designed. I told you it would be a big hit!"