Things You Don't Say to Vegans

First off, let me say uncatagorically that I am completely down with Vegans. I know several of them and I'm totally rolling in positive attitude toward Veganism.  I could never convert myself, as anyone who recalls the great attempt at 30 days without sugar of 2013 can attest, but I'm down with it in a supportive 'not really my thing, but I'm cool with you being into it' kind of way.  You know, like Crossfit*.

*Interestingly enough, the other connection between the two is that you will never have to ask anyone if they are involved in either Crossfit or Veganism.  It will come up.  Particularly on Facebook.

That established...

Over the course of the last couple of days, I've found myself repeatedly saying things to Vegans that one should not say to Vegans.  And I'm sharing this knowledge with the world so that you all can avoid my mistakes.  See, I'm just like Mother Freakin' Theresa.

Conversation One:

Them:  I kind of enjoyed going to the shooting range, but I wouldn't ever go hunting.

Me:  Why not?

Them:  Well, the whole Vegan thing  (See, it does come up)

Me: Well, you don't have to eat them.  I mean... you could just leave them to die where you shot them.

Long awkward pause.

OK, let's take a look at where I went wrong with this one.  First error - forgetting that the person I was talking to was a Vegan.  Obviously she wasn't planning on going out to plug Bambi for jerky-related purposes.  Having forgotten that momentarily I was then forced to come up with some sort of rationale that made sense of my assuming she might go hunting while not admitting that I had forgotten the whole veganism thing.

For the record, apparently leaving the carcass to rot where you shot it does not, in actual fact, make the situation ethically acceptable to vegans.  In case you were wondering.

Conversation Two:

Them: I would totally survive in a zombie apocalypse.  

Me: Does the whole zombie thing only affect people?

Them:  What?

Me: I mean, do all the animals also become zombies?  Do slaughterhouses stop making hamburger and instead just start making angry zombie cows?

Dear Reader,

Aside from the questionable decision to bring slaughterhouses into an unrelated conversation, it turns out that the words 'Angry Zombie Cows' are not a great plan.  Which is surprising to me, because I would have thought that the whole 'cows take back the night' angle would appeal to the vegan aesthetic.  Perhaps I would have been better off not having continued on with 'Calf brains... must eat delicious calf brains...' but, you know, you live and you learn.

So, again - Vegans, Crossfit people, Romans - We're still cool, right?

Vizsla Flashback with addendum - Seriously Mother Nature?

Hi.  Welcome to Flashback Sunday, the day of the week when we typically reprint an old column in a crass attempt to do as little as possible with the day.

However, it's also Mothers Day, which led me to think that it would be nice to reprint some Mother-related column from the past, thereby checking both boxes.

Unfortunately, a search of the site has led me to discover that I've never actually written about Mothers, which puts an unfortunate hitch in my giddy-up.

In fact, the following column seems to be the only one that even features the word Mother in the title.  This is obviously a serious oversight and shall be corrected.  On another day.  For now however we're rolling with this one from April 2013, since it does at least mention the word 'Mother' and the weather has been equally ass this year is it was then, so the point still stands.

Plus some fun facts about Hungary!

Happy Mothers Day, world.

...

Seriously, Mother Nature?

Note:  As I type this (which is harder than you might imagine, in that I have no opposable thumbs thank you very much) it is currently snowing.  6-10 inches.  On April 19th: A day in which your average domestic breed might expect sunny weather and possibly bunnies to chase.

Now, as a sporting breed I actually like snow.  Plus I'm Hungarian, which means that I'm totally down with both  A: being cold for most of the year, and B: being  intermittently invaded from either side.

But still... SERIOUSLY?

And while we're talking about Hungary-  Were you aware that ownership of a Vizsla in Hungary was at one time a sign of being nobility?

Which is all very flattering and all that... until the revolution comes and the peasants rise up.  You know what happens then?   Nothing good for the Vizlsas, that's what!

Which is just my roundabout way of saying- haven't we, the Vizslas suffered enough?

Knock it off already!

Vizsla out.

Holy Crap, Brave Little Toaster!

If you're like me, you occasionally find yourself thinking, 'Self, why aren't there quicker ways to emotionally damage children?'*

*Not that I would ever think that...

Well, if you've ever thought that then you've clearly never seen Disney's The Brave Little Toaster.  Also you might be a sociopath.


Why, as recently as this morning I counted myself amongst that happy number.  Sadly, my eyes have been opened now.

I refer specifically to... The Clown Dream Sequence.

I'll wait a moment for your shaking to stop.

Ready?

OK, I'll wait a bit longer.  Maybe you should step outside for a breath of fresh air, or a smoke or something.  You know, if you smoke.  I wouldn't encourage anyone to start smoking as a result of the Clown Dream Sequence, although God knows I'd understand.  I mean, did you SEE that thing??

The obvious comment here is HOLY SHIT!!!!!  And then strenuous attempts to claw your own eyes out.

Now, I'm not sure at what point Disney decided that they hated children, put clearly it was at some point before they storyboarded the giant smoke-demon hand turning into psychotic fireman clown.*

*Not a sentence you can work into every conversation.

That... Does Not Happen in My Neighborhood

So the noteworthy news of the day-

Apparently in Colorado, the day before yesterday, a small aircraft flying a banner crashed into a house in the suburbs.

The notable part of the story - The pilot of the plane was also a local firefighter who immediately started to put the fire out with a garden hose.*

*Original reports had him parachuting out of the plane and then fighting the fire, which would have been more awesome, but like most awesome things has turned out to not be true.

So, what happened was that a firefighter, who was also a pilot, walked away from crashing his plane (into a house that he used to own, just to up the WTF meter) and immediately turned back into a firefighter and started... you know... fighting the fire.  I'm assuming that he immediately stripped off his fuel soaked clothes and fought the fire nude while whistling 'Fire in Cairo' by The Cure.

You know what this means.

Suck it, Canada.

You can read the entire story here.

To be fair - His mom really liked him

The night before last I had a dream that I was watching a dog's naming ceremony*

*Clearly the ceremony where a dog appears on stage and a very nice MC announces to the world what the dog's name is going to be.  Come on, keep up people.

I don't remember what breed the dog in question was, but the MC announced, 'Because of his friendliness, he shall be named after the very quintessence of friendliness himself.  The man who embodied friendliness. This dog's name shall be 'James Buchanan.'  Because he is so James Buchanany'

Vizsla Flashback - Every Band Has a Birthday Song

When you're a big successful rock band, one of the absolute necessities is that you have your own Birthday themed song.  It's just one of many ways in which big time rock bands are like Applebees*.

*Also, both invest a lot of time in Appeteasers.

Now, we're all familiar with the Beatles 'You Say it's Your Birthday' (or whatever the actual title of that song is) and The Smith's 'Unhappy Birthday' (oh, Morrissey- I see what you did there.)

But were you aware of these other Birthday themed hits?


'It's Your Birthday Purple Washing Machine James Buchanan' 
 - They Might Be Giants

'For Your Birthday I Urinated on a Hobo'
 - The Sex Pistols (R. Kelly does a nice cover of this)

'Don't Make me Cut You (It's Your Birthday')
 - Li'l Kim

'Happy Bir.. Oh Why Even Bother.' 
 - Nirvana

 'Girl, girl girlgirl go'n sex you up t'naight (Birthday Club Re-mix)
 - N Sync

'Ass'
- Anne Murray

'Happy Birthday, My Special Pookie Bear'
 - Marilyn Manson

You've got options, people.  That's all I'm saying.

This is all Peter Capaldi's Fault

And welcome back to the ever faltering Doctor Who Saturday feature.

As you may or may not already know, a while ago I began a side job writing about Doctor Who for Whatculture.com.  As I've also gone on endlessly about, this side job came to an abrupt end a month or two ago when they closed my writer's account on the premise that I hadn't actually contributed anything in quite some time.  And as I mentioned last Saturday, they also re-instated me as a contributing writer after I emailed them and requested another go. 

Side note - My new editor's name is 'Ed'.  Which is endearing.  He introduced himself in a very nice email in which he said he wanted to be my Liam Neeson-esque mentor in improving my work, only with less burning down my house, which made me immediately fond of Ed.

This whole sequence of events is, of course, Peter Capaldi's fault.  Clearly.

My reasoning is thus - Back in February, in the old school system of pitching articles, I put in a pitch for an article entitled '11 Doctor Who stories that the Peter Capaldi era should learn from.'*  My pitch was accepted quite quickly, and then sat untouched for months in my 'to do' pile.  This was more or less the situation that led to my being put out to pasture from the job.

*It's still going to happen, for anyone who might be interested.  Ed seems quite enthusiastic about it.

This is clearly Peter Capaldi's fault, because the promise of a whole new era of Doctor Who about which I know absolutely nothing is so dang mesmerizing that all I can really do in its face is stare blankly and think about pudding, no matter how much I really am looking forward to using the opportunity to talk lovingly about The Aztecs*.

*Spoiler alert.  One of the 11 is going to be the Aztecs.

In fact, I feel like Peter Capaldi is such a good excuse on this front that I'm planning on using him as my go to excuse for everything from now on.  Trouble at work?  Totally Peter Capaldi's fault.  Spent too much on Daiquiri's at Applebees*?  Damn you Peter Capaldi!  Premature ejaculation?  I'm sorry, I was thinking about Peter Capaldi.**

*Gratuitous Jonathan Coulton reference.  It was just the 1st of May.

**Not that that would ever... I mean... Damnit Capaldi!

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to finish signing up for Skype so that I can talk to Ed about future articles.  I'm having trouble getting my account set up.  Thanks, Capaldi.  Thanks.