Today, all the Christmas decorations, including the tree and the outside lights were taken down and packed away. I kinda hate that.

Anyway, I’m beat, and I am need of seeing the Usual Suspects at the Post for a few laughs, so that’s where I’m headed.

Later, maybe.

UPDATE: I thought I had posted this earlier in the day (check the timestamp). I have since returned from the Post (the entire crew was there) and put the finishing touches on my letter that will go out to the plagiarist’s blogging host tomorrow morning. I think I’ll stick to reading other people’s stuff tonight.

After doing the Google search that resulted in this post (the one about the increasingly widespread use of the term “farookin’), I was looking over the search results in more detail for shits and giggles. Not surprisingly, I found many of my own entries. However, I came across one of my entries, but the problem was it was not posted on my blog.

WTF?

I clicked on over to the site in question, and, sure enough, my December 9, 2005 post about Caviar appeared on the site in question in a December 18, 2005 post. As you can see from the screenshot, it was lifted word for word. I frankly was surprised at how angry it made me. I don’t claim to be Hemmingway, but if I write it, it’s mine.

I immediately fired off a comment in which I pointed out the blogger’s plagiarism and demanded that the post be removed.*** I also left a similar note on one of those message type boards that the site had in the left sidebar.

I looked at numerous other entries, and some of them seemed familiar to me. It turns out that the blogger in question has also lifted a considerable amount of content from my Helen Blogmeet buddy, Evil White Guy. I shot him an e-mail to alert him to the problem.

He responded today indicating that he had checked the site, verified that a good deal of his content had been lifted and that the blogger in question was also hotlinking his images. He noted that he anticipated taking action with the blogger’s hosting service.

As of this writing, the offending posts are still up (The blogger also lifted my “Happy New Year” post, which esstially consisted of one sentence), but the “Message Board” has been removed, comments have been disabled, and there appears to be no way to send the blogger an e-mail.

For the present, I would like to assume that the blogger in question (from Singapore) is simply not aware of the etiquette and the law that deal with plagiarism – not to mention the tackiness of it all. However, my comment, my note in the now-removed “Message Board” (both of which specifically identified the plagiarism), the disabling of her comments, and her failure to remove the offending material suggest otherwise.

Developing.

*** I was so angry when I wrote the comment that I misspelled the word “plagiarism,” which proves the rule that one should never write things one cannot change when one is very angry.

Jersey Blogger, Mr. Snitch, laid this one on me. I have been asked to identify five “quirks” or “eccentricities” that I have. I have previously revealed five of my “habits,” but I suppose that this calls for something a bit different from things like teeth clicking and pen flicking. While I like to think that I do not harbor any eccentricities, I suspect if this question were asked of people who know me, it would elicit a rather comprehensive (and possibly unsettling) list.

Let’s see:

I have absolutely no sense of direction. It’s true. I have gone through life not knowing whether I am traveling north, south, east or west. If the sign says “West,” I figure I’m going west. The only time I can ever get a handle on the whole north, south, east and west thing is when I am literally close enough to the ocean to see it. I look at the ocean and know, “that’s East” and the other directions sort of follow from that. Unfortunately on a West Coast Beach, the “that’s East” thing becomes “that’s West.” I cannot process that, and my mind goes into completion Direction Lock.

Here’s the other thing. I know how to get: from my house to Point A and from my house to Point B. However, if you ask me to get from Point A to Point B, instant Direction Lock. On more occasions than I care to admit, I’ve gotten from Point A to Point B by going home first.

Obviously, I get lost a lot.

As a general rule, I will not wait on line for anything for more than five minutes. Perhaps this is a long-lived reaction to having been in the Army, where it seems one has to wait in line to do any damned thing. Wait on a long line to get into a restaurant? Nope. I figure that no food in the world is worth standing on a line for more than five minutes. Of course, waiting in the bar is perfectly fine with me.

I like to show up at airports way, way before my flight is scheduled to leave.. There is nothing more nerve wracking than scrambling through airports and waiting on (yes) lines, all the while having your stomach tie itself in knots as a result of worrying that you’ll miss the damned plane. I prefer to mosey along at a leisurely pace and bring a book to read at the gate.

Here are a few of what some rat finks might call “eccentricities” that I’ve bloviated about previously, some of which may be new to some of you.

I farookin’ HATE clowns.

I don’t like basketball.

I hate seafood.

I’m scared shitless of alligators.

I’m also afraid of crabs.

I’m a hopeless peanut butter junkie.

OK, so I listed more than five, but I sort of cheated by referring to prior posts in which I discussed my eccentricities perfectly normal likes, dislikes and perfectly rational fears..

Because some people get cranky when “tagged,” I’ll just invite anyone who feels like quirk-sharing to play along.

Hey, it’s not exactly up there with phrases such “Axis of Weasels” or words like “blogosphere,” but THIS is pretty farookin’ cool.

About two years ago, a good friend (one of the Usual Suspects) told me that, as a result of an “online shopping accident” (She was new to online shopping then), she ended up ordering two of those high-powered, infomercial juicers. She asked whether I might be interested in buying one of them, thereby saving her the hassle of returning the extra juicer. (Take it on faith that, given the nature of the “online shopping accident,” returning one of the juicers would have been a hassle.)

Being the gott-damned Prince that I am, I agreed to pony up and take one of the juicers off her hands. At first, I wasn’t terribly interested in owning a juicer, but I was happy about the opportunity to have performed a mitzvah (Did I use the term correctly, Elisson?)

However, in anticipation of its delivery, I began to think that owning one of those infomercial juicers might be a good thing. After all, that bushy-eyebrowed guy on the infomercial for his juicer is probably 105 years old, and he looks damned good from drinking all that freshly extracted juice. Hell, then there’s Jack La Lanne, the other infomercial Juice Guy, who is probably in his nineties. The last I saw him, he was dragging a freight train or some such thing with his bare hands (Maybe he was dragging it with his sharona; I can’t recall).

Dammit World, Jimbo’s ready to JUICE!

Anyway, when Da Juicer finally arrived, I went out and bought a nice, ripe pineapple. I was eager to make some fresh, wholesome, full-of-nutrients pineapple juice. Indeed, I figured that I was only scant moments away from a Taste of the Islands (Cue the ukulele). I was ready to toss that pineapple into the juicer and watch juice rush like a raging river out the bottom thingy.

Then I took a look at the instructions.

Turns out that, before Da Juicer would spew Aloha Juice I would have to peel, core, and slice the pineapple into fairly small pieces before it could be dropped into the machine and turned into juice. OK, so I spent ten minutes peeling, coring, and slicing the pineapple, but, more than ever, I was ready to create the delicious life-extendingr elixir. I was poised with my large glass for drinking and a container for storing some juice for later.

Let’s rock!

After about four or five minutes of the sound and fury that results from feeding pineapple chunks into the machine, I ended up with about 2/3 of a glass of juice. Hell, I was ready to really do some serious juice drinking – like a couple 16-ouncers. (Flashback to the infomercial — They always catch the juice in a little piss-ass glass! What was I thinking?)

Turns out that in order to make all the juice I wanted, I would need a crate of pineapples, plus I would have to be prepared for 45 minutes of peeling, coring, and slicing and anther ten minutes of sound and fury “juicing” time.

After washing down the juice with one gulp, it was time to begin the “easy cleanup” that was promised in the infomercial. Let me just say that I would have preferred to clean all the rifles in an infantry squad.

Let’s summarize, so far, shall we?

1. Did I mention that the instructions recommend that Da Juicer not be used with oranges or tomatoes. What?? You gotta be nuts! No oranges or tomatoes? Does anyone really buy these things to make lima bean juice?

2. If you would like to make a sufficient amount of juice for a family of – I don’t know — more than one, consider buying a pickup truck to haul the necessary-produce.

3. The “Easy-to-Clean” stuff is 100% prime, certified bullshit.

Anyway, as a result of my experience with the maiden voyage of Da Juicer, it has been languishing in its original box in my basement for more than two years, while I buy Tropicana orange juice with lots of pulp (Up yours, Bushy-Eyebrow Guy!) and Dole pineapple juice.

I’ve decided that, rather than let Da Juicer sit in my basement collecting dust, I would think of Ten Things I could do with the damned thing, other than making juice, and here’s the List:

Ten Things One Can Do with a Juicer, Other than Making Juice.

1. Lawn ornament.

2. Paper weight.

3. Door stop.

4. Donation to a time capsule project dedicated to stupid shit from the 90’s.

5. Rifle target.

6. Token for use in a really, really big Monopoly Game.

7. A thing that can be dressed up to look like R2D2.

8. Airplane sound effects generator.

9. Consolation prize for the sorry ass who comes in third on Jeopardy.

10. In the spirit of the Stanley Cup, a trophy that is awarded annually to the Douchebag of the Year.

FOR SALE: One Useless Piece of Crap. Cheap.

First, let me say, ewwwwwwww.

As I noted here, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to eat that stuff, but we at PRS are mindful that a few of our readers actually do eat farookin’ fish eggs. And, as a service to those readers, we offer the following advice.

Go NOW — LIKE IMMEDIATELY — to your caviar store and snap up all the sturgeon eggs you can before the already ridiculous price for the stuff goes intergalactic.

The reason is that the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has ordered that the export of sturgeon eggs be immediately stopped at least until the countries who export sturgeon eggs can demonstrate that their fishing practices are not contributing to the extinction of sturgeon. The countries affected by the prohibition are: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Serbia-Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. Interestingly, the ban also prohibits the United States, as a party to the 169-nation convention, from importing sturgeon.

The announcement coincided with official holidays in Russia, and, as such, Russian trade officials have not commented, but it is not difficult to imagine that the shitsky will hit the fansky once the Russian holidays are over.

So, to you folks who like to eat that that fishy glop and who don’t want to go broke satisfying your glop Jones, I suggest that this might a good time for a peanut butter on a Ritz.

This morning, I walked past a local hair salon and slowed down to be sure that I was correctly reading a printed sign in the window. The sign read:
EyebroW
Threading

I spent the better part of the remainder of my walk trying to figure out what the heck “EyebroW Threading” might be.

I found that, before I could focus on the big picture, I had to give a bit of thought to the use of the capital “W” on the sign. Accidental? Purposeful? If purposeful, to what end? Could it be a subtle reference to the President? Was it an attempt at a sort of graphic balance, with the letter “b” serving as the balance point in the word? After a few minutes, I decided that the use of the capital “W” was just plain dumb and that a small “w” would be more appropriate (and not dumb).

Having resolved the Capital “W” issue to my satisfaction, I lumbered along trying to divine what “Eyebrow Threading” might be. Here’s a disturbing peek into what goes on in my cruller on occasions such as this:

Jimbo asks Himself: “Might Eyebrow Threading describe the process of weaving someone’s eyebrows into cornrows or something similar?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Cornrows? Are you nuts? Some people have pretty bushy eyebrows, but no-damned-body has eyebrows long enough to weave them into cornrows. Besides, if that were the case, the sign would say ‘Eyebrow Weaving.’”

Jimbo asks Himself: “Wait a minute, dammit. I’ve seen Andy Rooney’s eyebrows, and I’ve seen where a guy carved the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a farookin’ pin. I’ll bet that a guy like that could weave cornrows in ol’ Andy’s eyebrows?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Yo, first of all, nobody has eyebrows as bushy as Andy Rooney’s, and second, you’re talking about a sign in a local hair salon in this bullshit town, fer Chrissakes. You think they would search the world to find the Head of a Pin Carving Guy and hire him to come here to weave farookin’ eyebrows? Sheesh.”

Jimbo asks Himself: “Well then, maybe Eyebrow Threading involves weaving decorative threads through people’s eyebrows? Maybe they hang decorative stuff from the threads?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Decorative threads? Man, sometimes you slay me. Have you ever seen anyone walking around with threads in his or her eyebrows? I didn’t think so, which means that you damned well never have seen anybody with little ornaments dangling from eyebrow threads. I think you need oxygen.”

Based on the foregoing admittedly unsettling schizoid conversation, I decided that neither one of knew what “EyebroW Threading” is. So, promptly upon my return to the House by the Parkway, I checked it out.

The straight skinny is that Eyebro[w] Threading is a form of cosmetic hair removal torture that originated in Arabia and Africa. The practitioner of this black art uses a special thread as a mini-lasso to ensnare eyebrow hairs (or hairs anywhere on the face or hands) and yank them out by the roots!

I have three observations concerning this practice:

1. Are you shitting me?

2. I had no idea my town was so … well… chic.

3. I wonder if they charge extra for a unibrow.

I have spent just about all of today alternating between reading Vince Flynn’s latest page-turner and thinking about how much I would like to find the guy who invented vodka and kick his ass.

That is all.

One of our ever-vigilant PRS Operatives, while on another assignment, happened to spot Cindy Sheehan while she and her Road Show stopped at one of the Garden State Parkway Rest Stops.

The encounter went as follows:

PRS: “Excuse me, ma’am, aren’t you Cindy Sheehan?”

Cindy: (singing) “When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…then peace will guide our plannnn-et ….”

PRS: “Pardon me for interrupting, but aren’t you Cindy Sheehan?”

Cindy: “Yeah, that’s right.” (singing) “The Eastern World, it is explodin’ … violence flarin’ bullets loadin’ …You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’…”

PRS: “Ms. Sheehan, may I just have a moment of your time to ask you some questions?”

Cindy: “What?”

PRS: “I’m with PRS and I only need a minute or two of your time, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Cindy: “Have you spoken with my people?”

PRS: “Your people?”

Cindy: “Yeah, Sonny Boy. I’m a big goddamn deal. Besides, I never heard of this PRS thing you speak of. You’re talking to someone who has done interviews with Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS and CNN. You have to talk with my agent. Maybe I can fit you in some time in the Spring.”

PRS: “The Spring? I had the sense that your notoriety was waning, and that’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”

Cindy: (singing) “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man … and how many seas must a white dove sail …”

PRS:

Cindy: “Did you say ‘waning?’ I’ll have you know that I’m bigger than Elvis and John Lennon put together. You got any weed?”

PRS: “Sorry, no weed. How about a Tic Tac?”

Cindy: “Coke? How about some Coke? I could use a little pick-me-up, if ya know what I mean.”

PRS: “Would that be Diet or Classic?”

Cindy: “My God, you are, like, sooooo, L-7”

PRS: “L-7? I’m sorry; I don’t get that.”

Cindy: “Like square, man. Like, really ungroovy.” (singing) “How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they’re forever banned….”

PRS: “Ms. Sheehan, I have to ask you, what was the deal with that picture of you lying on your son’s grave?”

Cindy: “Did you like it? My people told me that the focus group said that I needed to do more horizontal grieving. I thought my hair looked damned good too.”

PRS: “And, what about that photo with you resting your head on Jesse Jackson’s back? Did your people tell you that you also needed to do more bi-racial grieving?”

Cindy: “No. I thought that up myself. Jesse is so, like, … dreamy. He also had some primo weed. He knows all the words to Purple Haze. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”

PRS: “No, Ma’am I didn’t know that. How do you respond to those who are sympathetic to your loss, but who question whether you are being manipulated by various left-wing organizations?”

Cindy: “Acid? You got any acid? I feel like doin’ a tab.”

PRS: “Sorry, no acid.”

Cindy: “Mushrooms? They’d be good too. Got any of those? You like doin’ shrooms?”

PRS: “Thank you for your time, Ms. Sheehan.”

Cindy: (singing) “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine seas and marmalade skies ….”

There is nothing like a walk in the chilly rain to spawn some troubling thoughts. Here are a few of them:

1. These days, all my grammar school teachers are either very old or very dead.

2. Daytime television may even be worse now than it was when my grammar school teachers were in their prime.

3. I can’t imagine how many millions of kids don’t know what coal is. “Coal in my stocking? Is that a video game?”

4. I wonder how many people under 40 know what the term “church key” refers to.

5. People actually watch the Jerry Springer Show.

6. Jon Corzine will soon be sworn in as Governor of the State of New Jersey.

7. Bob Menendez, selected by New Jersey’s political bosses Jon Corzine, will become one of my U.S. Senators.

8. My other U.S. Senator is still the cadaverous Frank Lautenberg, who, as you will recall, parachuted into the race for Senate when Bob “the Torch” Torricelli bailed out amidst charges of him being waist-deep in corruption.

9. Hillary is laying in wait.

10. Some peple have been divulging classified information to the New York Times, which when published, increased the danger to me, my family, my friends and all of us who live in or near “the most dangerous two miles in America.”

h/t to Mr. Snitch for the Post Article