Have you seen this video?

A visiting head of state insults the laws of a member of our union that borders his, and Federal lawmakers stand to applaud him.

Every one of these applauders should be voted out next election. This is a disgrace.

While doing my taxes, I read something about the "EITC".  I wondered what that was, so I looked it up.  I arrived at the IRS website, on a helpful page that purported to tell me whether I’m eligible for this tax credit.

Ten minutes and several pages of questions later, I finally got to a page containing questions like these:

"Are you or your spouse younger than your relative?"

"Did you file only to claim a refund and neither spouse was required to file a refund?"

"How do you manage the telegramophone whilst wearing gentleman’s sport gloves?"

That’s where I gave up.

Peep this article. I, personally, thought you might enjoy this given your past history and distaste for cliches.

Various tidbits seen over the past week or two:

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From the Times Square Tea Party: "Do I look like a racist redneck teabagger to you?"

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A hilarious Good Samaritan story by Scott Adams:

Luckily I did not have jumper cables, because if I did, I knew we would be late for the movie.  I did my best to make a face that said, "I sure wish I could help," while being secretly gleeful that this was officially not my problem.  I wondered if the young man thought I was lying about not having jumper cables.  My fake sincerity face looks like a mime with an intestinal infection.

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Joe Biden on rural broadband funding:

The bottom line is, you can’t function -- a nation can’t compete in the 21st century -- without an immediate, high-quality access for everything from streaming video to information overline.

I don’t know what I’d do without a high-quality access to information overline.  In fact, I don’t even know what that means.

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This article claims that wheat bread is no better than white bread.  But what’s interesting is some of the detailed information about metabolic functions that it contains.

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From amazon: Classic Live Lobster Combo for Two People.  I don’t suppose it needs to be said that amazon rocks, this rocks, and "Lobsters-Online" rocks.

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Ceiling cat.  The photo of the cat looking down is great.

Quoting Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman:

"This is the CNN’s schedule.  They officially trained the people to come and hack Iran’s government Web sites.  This is the English text, I can give it to you.  This is a cyber war.  This, with, isn’t it a cyber war of the media with an independent government?  They asked people to use the DOS system to hack our Web sites," Qashqavi said.

I hear what you’re saying, but honestly, if they’re trying to use the DOS system to hack your Web sites, you’re probably OK.

I don’t know exactly when all the TV news networks started referring to everything as an "ALERT", but now they do it all the time, and it’s annoying.  When the installation of a statue into a statuary hall is a news alert, then it’s to the point where the word is devoid of any meaning at all.  But sadly this is just another day in the life of the abused English language.

The only thing that made doing my taxes even slightly bearable was the comments from the TurboTax community that pop up on the side of each page.  Here are some of my favorites:

The whole "online" concept just doesn’t work for some people.

AND MY KEYBOARD!!

Ouch.

I’d actually like to know the answer to this one because, frankly, I have no idea how my yax have to be paid back.

Well.

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...or, you know, whenever.

This is on a small humidifier we have:

Right... so how DO you clean it?

This is a sign that one passes on the way from State College to Pittsburgh.  Every time I pass it, I have to fight to resist the urge to drive off the highway and run it over, for using the wrong slash and doing it in such a large typeface.

Somehow I came across this page about AOL "Hometown" being shut down a couple months ago.  Apparently it was a blog provider, and people are now upset that their blogs are gone.

No doubt that sucks for anyone who used the service.  I feel bad for them.  But... the comments on this post are pure comedy gold:

Is there not a way to obtain the blogs anymore.

So proper... reminds me of this.

FORTUNATELY I SAVED MY WEBPAGE & TRANSFERRED IT TO GEOCITIES.

Link Here: http://geocities.yahoo.com/v/gcp_choose/

Real easy to do a simple webpage. With more time I think this could be better than aol.

Better than AOL!  That’ll be the day.

I honestly can’t decide whether AOL or GeoCities is worse...

WHERE IS THE HOME PAGE IT TOOK MONTHS FOR ME TO BILL. I DID NOT RECEIVE ANY NOTICE VIA THE MAIL OR E-MAIL.

PLEASE HELP ME FIND MY WEB PAGE SO I CAN COPY IT AND MOVE IT SOME WHERE ELSE.

I SUGGEST YOU PUT THE HOME PAGE BACK OR YOU WILL LOOSE A LOT OF CUSTOMERS.

I WILL SEE TO THAT.

Gotta love the threats.  I’m sure they don’t want to "loose" any customers.

It like stealing our hearts and souls without our knowledge...I WANT MY WEBPAGE INFO BACK I never gave you permission to destroy it..we should all file one big lawsuit against you for this. ANY LAWYERS OUT THERE THAT CAN HELP..EMAIL US ALL

This is very frustrating and angishly wrong for AOL not to at least had the decency to emailed their hometown members of this closing of "hometown.aol.com.html" so we could have been MORE AWARE of this closing. If anyone starts a liable law suit on AOL for this outrage action, please put my name down as a victim of this hanious action

PLEASE PROVIDE ME ACCESS TO MY HOMETOWN WEB PAGE.

IF I CAN GET IT I MIGHT STAY A CUSTOMER. IF NOT ME AND MY FRIENDS ARE AS GOOD AS GONE.

Where is my homey page?

Quoting The Areas of My Expertise:

WHEN WRITING, PLEASE AVOID THESE FAILED PALINDROMES

Slow speed: deep owls
Drat That Tard
Two Owls Hoot Who Owls Hoot Too (Owt)
Desire still lisps: Arise! D.
A man, a plan, a kind of man-made river, planned.
Hobos! So!

This book is one of the funniest things I’ve ever come across.  It’s especially funny if you can imagine John Hodgman actually speaking it, which I fortunately am able to do, since I know his voice well from all those Get a Mac ads and from his several appearances on TWiT, and also because Kim has the audio version of the book on her iPhone.

Someone recently landed here by searching for:

How can i Make Very Easy USB mp3 player Circuit Diagrum

Unfortunately, sometimes the answer is "You can’t."

Who would send their kids to a place like that?

It’s obvious that these anti-prop-8 (pro-homosexual) protesters are not after equal rights, because they already have equal rights:

Quoting CA FAMILY CODE SECTION 297.5:

Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.

And they’re certainly not interested in tolerance.

What they want is to rewrite history; they want to take words that have existed for hundreds of years -- marriage, husband, wife -- and change their definitions.

Of course, they don’t really come right out and say that; instead they try to frame the matter as a civil rights issue.

But a few decades ago, when black Americans were fighting for civil rights, they wanted the same rights as white Americans; they didn’t want the "right" to be called white Americans.

And women’s rights activists didn’t want the "right" to be called men -- they just wanted the same rights as men.

So why do so many homosexuals want the "right" to be called "husband and wife" when that’s simply inaccurate?  Why aren’t they satisfied with having the same rights as husbands and wives?

In other news, white people are now legally allowed to be black.  Also, dogs to be considered cats for legal purposes.  "The dictionary" has renamed itself to "whatevs".

We got this card during our trip to the Bahamas last fall.  I put it in my wallet and forgot about it until recently.  As you can see, it did not work as advertised; nothing I could do would make the card turn into the bus driver.

Some woman on the the Factor last night:

Quoting Tammy Bruce:

Liberals... now do not know how to have a discussion without [race and gender] being an element, and it’s eating them alive, literally.

Literally?  I doubt it.

Quoting Fox News:

"This poor lady we went to had tears in her eyes because her 90-year-old oak tree was just ravaged," said Tom Moffett, who used a chainsaw to cut branches that fell on his neighbors homes and driveways in Norman.

If a big branch ever falls on me like this, I hope I’ll be able to get some help from the fire department, or the police, maybe some EMTs... not my crazy chainsaw-wielding neighbor!

See the video and his account of the event.  The video is mildly interesting, though it’s really jerky, and you can’t actually see the bite take place.  But the best part is this:

Quoting Brady Barr:

I felt the snake attach to my leg right below my left buttock, which sent me literally through the roof with pain.

Watching the video, however, I was disappointed to discover that he did not, in fact, fly up into the air and literally go through the roof of the cave upon being bit.

What is it with people using the word "literally" in cases where what they mean is exactly the opposite of that?

Electronics manuals are goldmines of great warning labels.

This is from an air conditioner I just bought:

Yes, don’t try to cool your precision with it.  I love how concerned the second air conditioner is.  Noooo!!  Don’t drink it, son, it contains containments!

And this is from a hard drive I just bought:

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It’s sad but true.  And the grammatical error in the comic’s title is the icing on the cake.

Last night, Kim took me out to Bravo! for our one-year anniversary.  We had never been there before, and I really loved it.  It’s like a more fancy version of Carrabba’s or the Olive Garden, with more space (higher ceilings, and tables farther apart) and completely non-smoking.

I got the "catch of the day" which was swordfish, and it was delicious.  Swordfish is the only fish that I like (well, and shark) because it doesn’t taste fishy like most fish.

Working backwards: the salad was also fantastic.  It was a "chopped" salad, which meant that there were no huge pieces of lettuce or whole slices of tomatoes or cucumbers; everything was sliced & diced small enough that you could eat it by the forkful without getting it all over the sides of your mouth because the pieces are too big.  (OK, so maybe I’m the only one with that problem.)  Also, the italian dressing was wonderful, maybe even better than the Olive Garden’s, which I also love.

Finally, the initial bread with dipping oil.  This is one of my favorite things to eat ever, and here it was as good if not better than at Carrabba’s.  The only thing Carrabba’s has on Bravo! is that the bread wasn’t warm at Bravo!

The one negative comment I have about Bravo! is that above the sink in the bathroom, there is a sign that says:

EMPLOYEE MUST "WASH HANDS"

Aside from the fact that that’s just grammatically stupid, I’m fairly bothered by the fact that the people preparing my food didn’t actually have to wash their hands, and instead can get away with some kind of finger-quotey mock rendition of hand-washing.