Vennsday (Thursday) - GOP Irony

I spend a good portion of my day reading the political section of the New York Times and listening to NPR, which means I spend a good portion of my day saying "Really?  Really?!?!" inside my head.  The outright lies  don't get to me, and the thinly veiled racism is an expected part of the campaign season.

What makes me say "Really??" is this total lack of a sense of irony.  I am hoping that the following will both help the GOP understand irony, and maybe help them understand Venn Diagrams, too.

I keep hoping someone there will blame it on climate change, for the double Irony Whammy.

To avoid irony in the next convention, I recommend that they all drive non-union cars to Dick Cheney's back yard using privately made gravel roads.  When they arrive, they can shower Bonnaroo style with baby wipes and a gallon of water, so as to avoid using any government utilities.

To be fair, he probably couldn't afford to keep a residence in Massachusetts.  I mean, there are only so many mortgages one man can carry.  Also, does anyone else get a great image of Mitt as a slacker pot-head, living in his son's basement, playing Mario Kart for 8 hours a day?  No, just me?  Oh, carry on then.

Haiku Friday - Gay Marriage

At Least He's A Boy! ...'Cause Gay Dog Marriage Is Just Wrong
Legal gay marriage
Makes me wonder: how long 'til
I can wed my dog?

Not Even Your Sweater Vests Can Ruin This Week For Me
What's that, Santorum?
I couldn't hear your hatred
Over all the gay

How I Met Your Father (And Why We Have Separate Bedrooms)
Is it gay marriage
If I decide to marry
Neil Patrick Harris?

They Haven't Had This Much Business Since Hillary Was Campaigning
Makers of pant-suits
Are celebrating the news
And watching Ellen

I Now Pronounce You Mitt And Husbands
Twenty debates are
Equivalent to marriage
In many cultures

Vennsday - Come Together

It's hard to see, sometimes, what liberals and conservatives have in common.  Obviously, we all like the Colbert Report¹ and tacos, but those things only get us so far².

Do we have any other things in common?  Let's examine some issues.

Nerds can be liberals or conservatives: nerdism doesn't discriminate.  They all agree that cotton is comfortable and that school is pretty awesome, but they don't agree on the best source of news.  Let's just stick to what we agree on: being stuffed in a locker gets to be uncomfortable after a while.

Everyone agrees that art goes on walls or sometimes in gardens, but not everyone agrees that Picasso is art (*I seriously had a guy in college art history class argue about whether or not Picasso was art because he didn't recognize the figure as a person).  Let's just all go look at a nice Monet, and make little paint-smushing noises as we think about his method³.

Teenage sex is there, in the middle of our country, just like this yellow Venn circle in the middle of the diagram, where no one likes to talk about it.  Conservatives get around this by basically ignoring it and handing out abstinence only textbooks that I can only assume have a cover, a back cover, and a single sheet that says "NO" in giant letters between the two covers.  Liberals overcompensate by talking about all the feelings involved and all the birth control options and encouraging their children to read some interesting books about teenage sex before they have "the talk" so that it can be an informed discussion and emailing Dan Savage when it turns their kid is gay so that they can start all over again but have the books about teenage gay sex.  Seriously, though, kids: use a condom.⁴

¹The great thing about the Report is that everyone thinks they're in on a big secret that the other side doesn't get.
²Mostly these two things get us to our couch for fourth meal.
³Is that just me?  I like to add sound effects to my art experiences....
⁴You should all know that while I was writing that paragraph, I was still making paint smushing sounds in my head and thinking about Monet.

Vennsday - Tiny Overlaps

If you're going to get all accurate about it, the amount of overlap that a Venn Diagram has visually is unrelated to the actual set size.  I don't care.  I like it when the overlap size is "to scale."

With that in mind, here are some things that have only one thing in common:

Obviously they're going to make a movie about my life.  I think that's just something we all should accept.  It will probably be some kind of indie super hero movie, in which I'll be nerdy but hot (and buff), and I'll do things like hold up a falling bridge with my great strength and MATH and solve climate change.  There will be nary a spreadsheet or overworked city planner in sight.  But, somewhere in the MATH montage, there will be a brief moment of comic relief when I write "BOOBS" on my calculator.¹

There's nothing worse than accidentally making eye contact with the Drunk Guy at a bar in the middle of the afternoon, and then being forced to have a conversation with him.  I can't find it in myself to say "I'm just here for a sandwich, bro, please leave me alone."  Instead, I get to hear about all the things he likes: bus passes, finally passing a class he failed thirty years ago, his salad, no seriously he salad is amazing would I like to try it, and Asian girls because they're good at math.  Oh, Drunk Guy, racist comments are a terrible way to make friends.  We could have just talked about beer!

Oh, wait, he floated that as a serious campaign promise?  Uh, never mind.

¹Instead of saying "turn that frown upside down," everyone should say "turn that 58008 upside down" because then you get boobs AND a smile.

Vennsday - God Loves You And Your Need For Booze

Well, it seems that the Venn Diagram Dinocorn has finally started working again.  That lazy bastard.  And!  With its new enhanced dinosaur powers, it is using more color!

These are exciting times, people.

Let's get to it.

This is also a nice diagram of my entire diet.  Anyways, you could show yourself to be a good, solid guy from Illinois by literally eating meat 'n potatoes.  That sounds pretty tasty, if slightly bland.  Or, you could be a 14-year-old who has decided that meat is evil and is eating only cheese sandwiches.  Without the meat is evil part, that sounds like Thursday to me¹.  But, put all those magical yet common ingredients together, and you have what some² would call nirvana: the cheeseburger.  I just had one two hours ago, and you know what?  I want more.  Thanks for loving me, God!³

Best quote of the week:  "More debates, more vetting of candidates because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted." - Sarah Palin.  Ah, she consistently reminds me why I listen to political podcasts.  It is less funny to think about any kind of could-have-been face off between her and Ahmadinejad.  They would have both agreed that there were no gay people in their jurisdictions, been creepily folksy, and then hunted each other with helicopters.  Final thought: Tea Parties started becoming way less fun when they decided that maybe Newt Gingrich should be president.

I'm bringing it all together here, for a nice clean wrap-up.  It looks like it's about food and drink and then SURPRISE it's about politics.  That, kids, is how you make an old-fashioned, or as we call them at my house, Anna's maybe-three-more-of-these-will-make-thinly-veiled-racism-funny⁴ juice.

¹Wednesday obviously being the day that I spend working on my blog instead of grocery shopping.
²Ok, just me.

³I'm not saying that God doesn't love Jewish people, I'm just saying that he wants them to be miserable and hungry.

⁴They didn't.

Haiku Friday - We'll Miss You, Rick Perry

It Seems Like A Bad Idea To Piss Off Gay Soldiers, Right?
Remember that time
You dressed like a lesbian
For your gay bashing?

Although It Is True That If You're 21 on November 12th, You Can Vote
Before your next run
Brush up on the voting age
And election date

Sarah Palin's Wolves and Helicopters Thing Was Much More Impressive
Hunting coyotes
With a laser-sighted gun -
Are you a bad shot?

Commerce, Education, and Energy
Haikus go five and
Seven syllables, and then...
What's the last? Uh... Oops

That Only Works If You're Governor Of Texas AND Have A Powerful Father
It's not that I think
That you're stupid, it's just that...
Oh, fine, yes I do

Vennsday - Just Phoning It In

There were several times today while I was Venning when I thought to myself, "What am I, some kind of magical Venn unicorn who can just shoot Venn Diagrams, rainbows, and happiness out of my horn?"  Dear readers, those were some dark times.  I have come out of those dark times into this meadow of circles and words to realize that yes, yes I am a magical Venn unicorn.

There's no theme.  There's barely even logic.  Enjoy!

Are you thinking about making a movie or a commercial?  Please consult this diagram first.  Talking babies are creepy (I'm talking to you, eTrade).  I don't want to see any more of them.  Baby animals, on the other hand, are the greatest thing ever.  I would like it if there were more streaming puppies (remember this?  OH MY GOD, I can't believe I missed the second litter last April).

 I struggled with this.  I had a really, really hard time coming up with someone from the GOP who was not crazy but still a philanderer.  If you don't know who John Ensign is, please leave it that way.  And, sadly, Newt passes for articulate in the field of candidates.  Also, according to me, Mitt wins.

If you hang around me long enough, you'll hear me swear in weird ways.  I do it when I'm excited and when I'm angry and when I'm sad.  If you want to swear like me (and I'm sure you do), follow the above diagram.  For example, when I see something awesome, I say "Holy crapmonkeys, there's something awesome!" and when I realize I have just lost 3 hours worth of work because I didn't save, I say "Awww, fuckpants, I can't believe autosave has failed me."  I rarely get angry, but if I did, I would probably tell someone to go screw some poo, you stupid pooscrewer.

My Crappy Sayings

I feel a great emptiness inside.  It's 90% hunger because it's almost lunch time, 4% from where a soul would be if I weren't gay, but a full 6% is empty¹ because I don't have a snappy ending to "Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage.... "  Why am I thinking about this?  Because I was Peter Pan for Halloween, and as we all know, every time you say you don't believe in fairies, a fairy dies.

I'm pretty sure that anyone² who doesn't believe in gay marriage wouldn't have a huge problem with "Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage, a gay (or gay marriage) dies."  But what about these?

Every time you say you don't believe in gay marriage...

• ...a God-fearing, evangelical couple in Alabama gets divorced³.
• ...Dick Cheney has a heart attack.
• ...an embryo's stem cells are harvested, bringing us that much closer to curing various diseases... and killing a baby⁴.
• ...Herman Cain sexually harasses an employee while denying sexually harassing an employee, right in front of someone from Politico.
• ...a child learns about evolution, then falls asleep during the intelligent design lesson.
• ...Obama's approval rating goes up by a point.
• ...a minority and/or illegal immigrant gets that migrant worker job that you were all jazzed about applying for.
• ...a book with four and five-syllable words gets published.
• ...science happens.
• ...two teenagers have unprotected sex on top of their abstinence only homework while wearing their promise rings and then are on "16 and Pregnant."
• ...Sarah Palin gets asked what publications she reads, which is totally a trick question from the elite liberal media, those bastards.   She protects us from Russia, doncha know.
• ...a Kardashian gets divorced³.
• ...Chuck Norris gets punched by a ninja.

Uh, I am running out of things that showcase my prejudice against the south, GOP candidates, bigots, people who can't read good (and don't want to do other things good, too), and reality TV stars.

Any other suggestions?  Any favorites?  Any haters⁵?


¹Numbers not your thing?  I made a pie chart⁶.

²Wow!  Over-generalization!  That whole sentence is totally offensive!
³This is actually true.
⁴If you're in Mississippi.
⁵I think my blog needs some haters.  Then I'll really feel like I've made it.
⁶I am really into pie charts today, probably because this morning I saw a quiche that looks incredible, and quiche is like the meal version of pie.