shazam!

It's times like this that I really start believing in God. Apparently, some new hamburger place called Z Burger is giving out free burgers just for saying "Shazam!" It's the new "Amen!" Can I get a witness?!

On the other hand, mutes and those who've lost their voices today might as well be in hell, because it seems they're out of luck without their larynx capabilities. Unless, of course, Z Burger is respectful of disabilities and accepts a "Shazam!" scrawled out on a napkin just as readily as its verbal version. Hmm. This sounds like a Pulitzer prize winning investigative piece to me!

And luckily, I'm on it, as my boss just told the office he wants us all to pile into his Volvo, clown-car style, and jump on this deal this afternoon. If this actually happens, you can bet your Shazzasses! that I will photodocument this trip and blog the hell out of it. Actually, more apropos, I'll blog the delicious hamburger heaven out of it. So please stay tuned!

In the meantime, I invite you to kill some time in e-places other than this one with some or all of these tight Interweb links. And since I like what I did last week with popping in a bit of Russian for the numbering, let's relive that...but auf Deutch! Achtuny, fertig, los!

Eine! While I was choosing to call everyone a racist yesterday (zing!), some actual blog-worthy sh*t went down. Bloggers who didn't call everyone a racist yesterday offered some logical reactions here and here to the announcment that Metro would soon start conducting random, pointless and illogical bag checks on trains. Once again, I am ever-so-thankful to modern-day bicycle pioneers Pierre and Ernest Michaux, whose invention allows me to continue to see the Metro in hell (opposed to delicious hamburger heaven).

Zwei! Hat tip to my friend Peter for finding the Australian Mystery. His name is Alex Coulson and he can neither write nor form a thought that doesn't deserve inconspicuous ridicule! LOL! Excerpt: "Find a cool clothing store in a trendy (not too expensive) part of town and buy some interesting and captivating items. A suave velvet jacket, bracelets, necklaces, badges (which you can literally attach to any item of clothing)." Literally?! Superb! But what Mr. Coulson forgets to add is that when you literally pin a "badge" on yourself, you will metaphorically broadcast to the world how damn douchey you are. Good luck with the ladies, killer! But I'd let that "suave velvet jacket" speak for itself.

Drei! Speaking of ladykilling, meet Joro da Silva, international man of awesome. Willst de mit mir schlafen? he asks. He's also wondering, "Vai tu gribeetu ar mani parguleet?" and, of course, "Veux tu coucher avec moi?" Thanks to...damn! Alex Coulson needs to click on that to get schooled!

Vier! From (failed) pick-up artists to "The Term Paper Artist." Excerpt: "The secret to the gig is to amuse yourself. ... In business papers, I'd often cite Marxist sources. When given an open topic assignment on ethics, I'd write on the ethics of buying term papers, and even include the broker's Web site as a source. My own novels and short stories were the topic of many papers -- several [clients] rate me as their favorite author and they've never even read me, or anyone else. Whenever papers needed to refer to a client's own life experiences, I'd give the student various sexual hang-ups." Some say that business sounds shady, I think it sounds like party time!

Fünf! I dig animation/live action melds, which is why I believe Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the greatest damn movie of all time. But the below video kind of disturbed me. Can bike messengers, even animated ones, really see up to 15 seconds in the future?



Fünf continued! Thank God (who I will either come to terms with or not depending on whether I get a free delicious hamburger later), for Bike Snob NYC, whose daily commentary on life and bikes continues to amuse me. An excerpt from his take on the video and the stated clairvoyance of bike messengers:

"If you've worked either as a messenger or in an office in New York City, you know that messengers do not walk right into people's offices to deliver envelopes. Rather, they leave them in messenger centers or with receptionists. As such, when the messenger in this video walked right into someone's office I feared the door was going to shut and the white-collar worker's "dependence upon the blood and sweat of the bicycle messenger" was going to take a shockingly homoerotic turn. I was also puzzled by the narrator's assertion that messengers "can see up to 15 seconds into the future." This is a bizarre claim. I can only assume he means that they can anticipate traffic and pedestrian patterns, but if so then 15 seconds is an eternity. You'd also think that this clairvoyance would have prevented the male prostitute from getting doored."

Aww Shazam! He called that hooker out!