Suggested Norse Oaths
Why should the Christian Trinity get all the work in the curse department? Let’s put the Norse gods to work with some of these exclamations.
By Freyja’s cat-drawn chariot!
Holy Odin on a pogo stick! (Hat tip: Djere)
Oh, Frigg!
Sweet goats of Thor!
Mighty Mother Nerpus!
Hang a shaman!
Kvasir, gods’ spit!
Naughty Nanna’s consort!
Aw, Hel!
Sniveling Snotra!
Valknut petroglyphs!
Today’s Economic Forecast
More bad news out of the financial sector today, as Goldman Sachs reported that although orders of durable goods were up 3% over the last quarter, those orders, due to a filing error, were placed in a back room under a bag containing Pork Belly Futures — ruining the orders and causing a downturn in the short-term manufacturing market.
This news was especially troubling on the heels of an announcement that Sweet Light Crude Oil had risen $8.75 per barrel to close at $182.50 for spring delivery. Medium, Dark and Extra-Roast Sweet Crude have fallen in late trading today while Mocha Latte No-Foam Skinny-Boy Crude remained steady at $167 per barrel.
In other Wall Street news, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke found himself in an uncomfortable position today, when he announced another ¼ point drop in the Fed’s major interest rate today, only to have reporters point out that the rate was at 3.25% in February and has been cut a total of 8.75 points since. An embarrassed Bernanke admitted that since the rate is used to determine the interest banks charge each other, and no bank is currently “stupid enough” to loan money to another bank, the rate is “at best, a theoretical exercise.”
When pressed to identify the actual status of the rate, Bernanke said, in effect, that since the average person in America has no idea what the heck happens on Wall Street, he simply makes sporadic announcements in the hope that they will somehow stimulate the economy.
Finally, Alan Greenspan appeared before Congress today and admitted that his policies over the past two decades were fatally flawed in ways that he is just now realizing.
“We thought that banks would police themselves when it came to subprime lending practices,” Greenspan said. “We never dreamed they would bow to federal regulations that required them to make bad loans, in bad neighborhoods, to people with no visible means to repay the debts.”
When asked about the wisdom of assuming that people could buy a house with no money down and no regular paycheck, then somehow pay the money back in a timely fashion, he quoted a line from the classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati: “As God is my witness — I thought turkeys could fly!”
Obama Cancels Winter
–CHICAGO, Ill.
“Winter,” a cold and lonely season of death that has plagued America for over 230 years, was outlawed yesterday, in the first official act of president-elect Barack Obama’s reign.
“And to those who still doubt that we have the power to turn back the icy hand of Jack Frost, to free this nation from the shackles of snow and ice and all manner of winter weather, to frolic together on the beaches of Lake Michigan at 10 pm on a balmy Christmas Eve — I say to you: yes! We! Can!” Obama told a crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park, formerly a scenic Christmas landmark.
As a result, all over the nation today, Americans awoke to discover bright sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures, enlivening what was once simply another Wednesday in early November. Even the fierce and wintry town of Detroit, Mich. was not immune to the order; surprisingly comfortable breezes there were credited for a nearly 400% increase in the overnight murder rate.
“I knew we could do this,” said Toni Rogers, a bikini-clad administrative assistant from Springfield, Massachusetts. “Nonstop summer is change I can believe in! Next step: finding a way to make rainbows without all that rain.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s Barack Obama.”
“Old Man Winter,” the anthropomorphized mascot of the season, has reportedly been sent to a secure facility in Guantanamo Bay, where he is being treated as an enemy combatant and hot-waterboarded.
Obama noted that the ban on winter would not apply in Alaska.
“Crap” Reaches Christian Expletive Hall of Acceptance
–ATLANTA, Ga.
Angry and frustrated Christians can curse easier today as “crap,” long considered vulgar and sinful, was elected to the religion’s Expletive Hall of Acceptance.
“This is a big day for ‘crap’ and the Christians who can now feel free to use it to express even their most righteous anger,” said Rev. Jerry Johnson, expletive voter from the Southern Baptist Convention and longtime supporter of the punchy euphemism for defecation. “I for one look forward to hearing what the Bishop T.D. Jakes can do with this now-fully sanctified word.”
With the vote, “crap” joins “dang,” “heck,” “good grief,” and the still-controversial “gosh-darn” as first-ballot selections to the Hall. Not only does the decision pave the way for “crap” to be used with impunity in bulletin inserts, at church potlucks, and on the covers of countless shallow, doctrinally unsound books, but it also retroactively negates an estimated 350,000 threats of the use of soap in the mouths of impudent youngsters.
“The voters clearly realized that ‘crap’ is a true triple threat,” said George Ito, linguistics professor at Wheaton College. “The word combines the powerful release of a plosive consonant with the naughty tinge that comes from its mild vulgar meaning, and — most importantly to evangelicals — it has the benefit of not actually being, uh, the ’s-word.’ You can’t get away with using that one unless you’re that darn Tony Campolo!”
“Golly, he’s a loose cannon,” Ito added.
The Hall was created in 1954 for two purposes: to recognize and honor those offensive words which had become so common that Christians gave up trying to avoid them, and to provide a convenient way to judge one another based on their words. “Before the Hall, it was anybody’s guess which words were okay; I didn’t know who should get a sneer and who should get a hug,” said Johnson’s wife, Mabel Lou. “The Hall just makes this judgment crap so damn convenient.”
“What? That one’s not okay yet? Oh dear me.”
“The difference between ’shucks’ and ’sucks’ may be just one letter, but it might just mean everything eternally,” added Rev. Jerry. “At least until next year, when we look at ’sucks’ again. I think it’s got a pretty good shot actually.”
The Johnsons also noted that the vote on “crap” does not extend to the phrase “holy crap,” which is still “very, very wrong.”
In related news, “freaking” was denied acceptance yet again in this, its 20th and final year of eligibility.
Best of Job: For Mr. Slevenzinkin…
Originally published here on March 27, 2007.
She and I had this game we’d play, you see. We called it “Tumult,” where we’d talk for lengthy periods of time about two different topics. It was a give-and-take conversation with pauses and eye contact as normal; you just weren’t allowed to engage the other person’s line of conversation at all. This included laughter, eye rolling, and — if I was “on” — even blushing. If you did engage the other person, you lost the game, and the $2.85 for the banana split. 
“So Ernie, from Sesame Street, died of AIDS,” she’d begin, turning her coffee mug in a slow circle. “Bert’s sad and all, but he likes the extra closet space.”
“It was like no other town I’ve been to,” I’d respond, flashing my eyes for emphasis and picking at imaginary lint on my sleeve. “The ‘57 Chevys looked, for once, like they actually were from 1957. Rusted through, door hinges re-welded countless times, but still dutifully making their daily trips to the Circle K for cigarettes. The 15-year-old girls ever plotting their escape while unwittingly taking the steps that would inexorably keep them there forever. 40 ounces. 40 ounces can change a life, they say in Banning, California. Or, rather, can keep it exactly the same.”
“Gum?,” she offered, sliding the silver-wrapped piece out at me in a fluid motion. I was no fool.
“The President has his own movie theater in the basement of the White House, ya know? I bet he’s watching something right now, too; I know I would be. Newsies — the director’s cut.”
She paused, but not enough for me to claim. She always defended Newsies.
“Radiohead’s new album? I hear it’s just going to be 12 tracks of straight static. But angry, artistic static.”
I was the one that paused this time, but only because I contemplated claiming victory. I always defended Radiohead, and she was returning my volley, a plausible bungle. Not now, I cautioned myself. You can get a sure victory.
“See this?,” I asked, pointing to my forearm. “That’s where it bit me. Latched right on and started to roll, carrying me down into the dark depths of the swamp. I screamed and screamed, but still we sank, leaving my world for his — wanna know how I got out?”
“If something ever happens to me,” she responded, thoroughly unimpressed, “I want you to take this to a Mr. Slevenzinkin in Prague. Hotel of the Revolution, room 214.” She slid me a butter knife. “He’ll know what to do. Then head to Haiti and never look back.”
“Job? Never look back.”
She peeled the bananas by saying my name like that, looking me in the eyes. I knew I had to strike before she regrouped.
“That’s a nice shirt you’re wearing . . . does it come in your size?”
—–
Laughing, eye-rolling, blushing and kicking me suddenly in the shins — all ice cream where I come from…
Girl Dumps Boyfriend To ‘Get Closer To God’; ‘God’ Apparently Another Guy
–GROVE CITY, Penn.
B.J. Dillon’s romantic and theological worlds were rocked this week when his girlfriend of 8 months, Sara Ryan, ended their relationship after telling Dillon she needed to “focus on her relationship with God.”
But God, Dillon reports, debunking thousands of years of theory and faith, is apparently fellow Grove City junior business major Seth Nelson. Adding to the bruising emotional effects of rejection and loss, the religion major must now cope with recent revelations that God is younger than him by two months, nearly flunked biology last semester, and works at the gym snack shop.
Dillon is also grappling with the fact that he has hated God since freshman orientation weekend.
“When Sara suggested that we take some time off to grow closer to the Lord, I heartily agreed, hoping it would serve to more firmly establish our relationship,” Dillon reported from his dimly-lit dorm room. “Of course at the time I thought God was, like, the desert-dwelling, Philistine-smiting Dude from the Old Testament — not some jerk whose parents bought him a brand new Jetta freshman year.”
“Allow me to be clear,” he added. “I will not be growing any closer to ‘God’ during our ‘time off.’ ”
Despite Dillon’s reservations and religious confusion, his ex reported excitement with her blooming relationship with the Lord. “I will always care for Beej,” Ryan noted, applying her makeup with more attention to detail than she has shown in over 7 months. “But I felt our relationship was distracting me from my walks, in the woods, with the Lord.”
Ryan did report some anxiety about an upcoming weekend retreat at the Nelson family home in suburban Philadelphia, where she hopes the Lord will grant her the gift of tongue.
Photoflash — Midwest Flooding
This just in… Residents living in a Midwestern flood plain continue to be baffled and disturbed by yearly flooding.
Waxman In Trouble Again
Sen. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is in trouble again. You’ll recall that Waxman spent the last 18 months embroiled in an intellectual property lawsuit with New Line Cinema, who accused him of violating their trademark for the computer-generated King Kong image by wearing an identical mask on the floor of the Senate, terrifying visitors and amusing colleagues.
After months of legal wrangling and threats of financial penalty, it was determined Waxman was not indeed wearing a mask, and that any similarity between him and the mythical ape was purely coincidental. New Line apologized warily, but told Waxman off the record that they would be watching to see if his appearance changed down the road.
Now his colleagues are after him. After the televised baseball hearings, featuring Roger Clemens, put Waxman in the public eye for long periods of time, many senators were deluged with complaints from frightened members of their constituency.
Several have now sponsored a bill with wide bipartisan support, which would establish protocols for which senators would receive prominent coverage during televised hearings, based on standards of personal appearance. Although no one has specifically pointed to Sen. Waxman as the bill’s target, around the Senate, the bill has been unofficially dubbed the “Hideous Henry Act.”
“There should be a minimum level of attractiveness that we adhere to in our dealings with the public through mass communications,” said Fran Crouse (R-Iowa), chairman of the powerful Personal Beautification Standards committee. “We have not singled anyone out — obviously we would never do that — but there are, frankly, some politicians who should be heard and not seen.”
Best of Bweinh! — MySpace Clash
| In this corner, arguing against MySpace, is Steve! | And in this corner, supporting MySpace, is LaKendra! | |
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I was mildly coerced into getting a personal MySpace page and I regret the decision to this day. It’s not that I think I’m too good for personal networking websites; I love the Facebook and I was using sites like the long-since-obsolete Quickdot when most of today’s MySpace users were still stuffing crayons up their noses and putting anything that wasn’t nailed down into their mouths. What’s that? They still . . . Okay, that’s a bad example. But the fact remains I was annoying other people through telnet way back before many of you modern MySpacers were even born. I just hate MySpace. I hate its clunky, horrifying design, strips of blue flanking unreadable text links and unending advertisements for insurance, movies, and ladies’ underwear. I hate Tom. I hate the terrible things people do to their own pages; I hate when someone’s lousy taste in music is automatically inflicted on me; I hate the uniformly awful attempts at changing the default layout. I hate that I can spend an hour ranking my ‘top friends,’ and I hate the way (mostly) girls use their profile pictures to draw attention to all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. And I hate, more than anything, how every time I go on the blasted site, I have to clear out solicitations from seminude women, advertisements for natural male enhancement, and spam comments full of broken images and Trojan horses. As Job says, it’s YourSpace, honey child. Not Mine. And as I toss and turn my way to fitful sleep tonight, haunted by the constant fear that I might have missed the chance at a lower rate on my second mortgage, with every labored breath, I’ll wish I’d held out. I pray you have the strength I did not. |
Hey Steve. How’s it goin? I just moved to the NEW YORK,United States area and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :-). I moved here to NEW YORK,United States a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I’m here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile… You’re cute and I liked what you had to say :-). DO you know whats on most girl’s minds but they won’t tell you or will they. I am telling you this because it is the honest truth, look I should know… Anyway you won’t believe this. that day I just filled my zip and my address in a form. A few days later I got a Visa Gift Card worth $500,and was told it can be used at any store!!! It really worked when I trying to buy an iPod!! Cost me nothing! LOL…. **~PERSONAL questions~** Would you let me sleep with you (in the same bed)? Would you let anything happen in that bed? If you could change anything about me — would you? Our lenders are ready to give you a loan! Approval process will take 1 minute! Plus I’m just graduated college and I’m lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you’re 27 and you’re cute so I guess you’re qualified :-)
if u don’t like out of the box thinkers that leave me alone!noo i’m just kidding really…lol.. And If you weren’t there FRIDAY NIGHT i lost that bet with ryan, so i made those SPECIALpictures available for ONE WEEK ONLY!! rember to stop by my webcam anytime!! |
1913 Ad of the Week — If I Were A Young Man…
This is the third in a series of real ads from the 1913 World Almanac…
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 What, Luther? What would you do??What words of wisdom have you — the GREATEST LIVING HORTICULTURIST, inventor of 113 new types of plums alone — to impart to us, the youth of America? Perhaps you were the first to think of making fuel from switch grass! Maybe you wish you’d spent a little less time on plums, and a little more time at the dog track! There’s even a chance you would have knocked off that pesky New Hampshire dentist for whom the California media capital was named, because you’re king of the Burbanks, Luther, and no one should forget it!! A man like Dr. Luther Burbank surely has some wisdom to impart to us — right?  The “Pecan Nut”? Seriously? Wow. You can take a look at the whole ad here. My favorite part is where the pecan-hawking company claims the nut is “ten times more valuable to you than life insurance.” Yeah. That’s a good plan. “Yeah, we had to sell the farm to bury Dad, but on the bright side, that sure was some great pie at the memorial service…” |
The Most Important Thing
I was looking for some guidance recently, but couldn’t find my Bible. Luckily for me and for the rest of you who are lost and seeking answers, there’s Google. Having successfully completed a comprehensive search of what the internet considers “the most important thing to remember,” I am prepared to release my findings to the world.
Here are ten of the things that the Internet thinks are the most important thing to remember, each nugget blossoming with wisdom in its own right, as nuggets are wont to do:
–You simply cannot go wrong with flowers.
–You do not need to learn to throw the Frisbee very far.
–You must be able to carry your own luggage.
–Anyone who has accomplished more than you has no life, and anyone who has accomplished less than you is a noob.
–Swim only when and where guards are on duty.
–Never grab a lizard by its tail!
–Buy a collection of toys that will suit a variety of purposes.
–Wine was made to be enjoyed.
–Empty your bladder completely and regularly.
–You’re here to tell the jurors your story.
I’m thinking of basing a personal philosophy or small startup cult around these teachings, or at least cobbling together an email chain letter. Please forward this to ten people that you care about and also back to the person who sent it to you, for you are loved. If you do that, your crush will ask you out TODAY!
Also, I’ll show you how to throw a Frisbee really far.
1913 Ad of the Week — The Improved Eager . . .
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| I neither need nor want to say much about this frightful little invention, but I do want to point out: “When its simplicity of application is known they would have no other as a gift.” People gave this thing AS A GIFT?! Imagine the possibilities! Bridal shower — “Oh, it’s not for you, dear…it’s just, well, I know Millard, and I’ve tried your quiche…” |
Southern Baptists Identify Seven New Sins of Their Own
–ATLANTA, Ga.
Responding to the recent announcement by the Catholic Church of seven brand new sins, the Southern Baptist Convention today announced their own list of “Sins For A New Millennium.”
“All who share in the fellowship of believers are called to communion together,” said Dr. Frank S. Page, president of the SBC since 2006.
“The Southern Baptist church is willing to consider all divinely inspired ideas, even those originally espoused by unholy, fallen servants of the blood-stained Whore of Babylon.”
The two lists share a few sins in common — namely, abortion, contraception, and “pollution,” which many prominent Southern Baptists have recently decried in attacks on climate change skepticism.
The other items on the Southern Baptist list, however, may prove more divisive, as they include “speaking in tongues,” “being poor,” “liking Mary a little too much,” and “science.”
1913 Ad of the Day — Protone
| We’re trying something new here in our second year: replacing the jokes (at least sometimes) with real live (funny) advertisements from 1913! If it’s jokes you want, we have a year’s worth here and here!
Richard Nixon had just been born. World War I was on the horizon. And unlike today, nerdy guys like you and me were actually getting pushed around at the beach, in the office, and even inside our own homes. Just look at that poor guy. Let’s call him Millard. Lines on his face, shoulders slumped, eyebrows bushy and furrowed — without computers and the Internet to rely on for a social life and a source of badly-needed superiority, the desperation and despair is etched on his soul. He needed help. And so he turned — to pseudoscience. |
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There’s And besides, our friend Millard was desperate. And lo and behold — the stuff, it works! Two months pass, and he’s had to buy a whole new suit, his nose has lost its hook, and he just can’t keep his hands off himself! And who could blame him?! Rrrroowwrrr! Millard is smokin’! And probably literally, because everyone did then! Even children! Perhaps the caption on the comparison picture says it best: “Protone Will Make You Nice and Plump.” There’s a slogan I’d like to see return. Along with their free booklet of “astonishing facts” — “Why You Are Thin.” You can take a look at the entire advertisement here. Millard’s old legs MUST be seen to be believed. Note: In a fascinating history of patent medicine, the Animating Apothecary identifies the source of Pantone as Professor James Kellogg, known for sending an extra month’s supply of the product to those who ordered, along with a bill for $5. He later sought a divorce from his fourth wife, but the judge, finding both parties at fault, actually required them to remain married for two more years. |
Life in 1913 was rough. 
something vaguely Frankenstein-esque about this product. A “remarkable flesh builder,” eager to “prove what it will do”? With a name like PROTONe, I have visions of nano-robots or radioactive mutagen. But then again, this was 1913, when such things were still okay, before the FDA banned everything fun in the name of the Freemasons! Back to the Future
August 15th, 2008. Somewhere outside Hilldale, California, a man frantically dials a number into his cell phone, while sitting in a smoking DeLorean in a mall parking lot.
“Doc!!”
“Marty? Is that you?”
“Doc! Doc! Listen, you gotta help me…”
“Great Scott!! Where are you, Marty?? I can barely hear you!”
“Not ‘Where?,’ Doc — ‘When?’ I’m in 1996! You gotta help me get back to 2008 . . . back to the future!”
“Marty, Marty, calm down! What you’re saying is impossible! I destroyed the time machine and that car you have now has no flux capacitor. What makes you think you’re in 1996?”
“Doc, Clinton’s running for president, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s Hillary, not Bill –”
“Conservatives have tuned out, even though a true conservative had some great early success — Pat Buchanan, right?”
“Yes, but it’s Romney or Huckabee this time…”
“And there’s a weird guy from Texas with big ears and the initials R.P. acting all crazy, and some people are afraid he will run with a third party, right?”
“Well, yes, but it’s not Ross Perot, it’s Ron Paul.”
“And the Republican nominee is a moderate who moved to the right — what Reagan would have called a ‘cross-dressing conservative’…”
“But his name is McCain, not Dole –”
“And he’s a war hero…”
“Yeah…”
“In his seventies…”
“Yeah…”
“And Republicans have decided the way to win is to abandon the Christian right and reach for moderates and independents…”
“Yeah…”
“It’s 1996, Doc!! You gotta help me!!”
“Great Scott!! You’re right!! I’m on my way!”
NEW!! Check out the Bwog: Bweinh's official blog!
What's New
- Three Links (Vol. 13)
- Best of Bweinh! — Married/Single Clash
- Quote of the Day, 11/21/08
- What I Just Read . . .
- The Wisdom of Ecclesiastes
- Joke of the Day, 11/20/08
- Battle of the Bands LXXVIII
- Bible Discussion — Acts 25-26
- Quote of the Day, 11/19/08
- Four Weeks — The Complete Series
- Further Election News
- Four Weeks (Part Ten)
- Joke of the Day, 11/18/08
- Quote of the Day, 11/17/08
- Suggested Norse Oaths
- Music by Bweinh! — Incorruptible
- Quote of the Day, 11/14/08
- The Newest Chick Tract — Answered
- Battle of the Bands LXXVII
- Bible Discussion — Acts 23-24
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