Know Your Days of the Week: Moon’s Day

A lot of times, we take certain things for granted. Monday is Monday and we don’t really know what that means other than it is the first day of the work week. Mostly because nobody cares; it’s not important to know why Monday is called Monday; it has nothing to do with how we live our lives; why would you ever want to waste your time learning something so useless?

I’ll tell you why: because today is Monday and I’m lacking inspiration for proper blog postage so this is what you’re stuck with. So humor me. Or go find another blog.

Previous Days of the Week:

Tiw’s Day

Woden’s Day

Thor’s Day

Monday: The Day of the Moon

After doing a couple of these ‘Know Your Days” posts, I have to say it’s kind of interesting that all these different languages tend to share the same meaning for the same day. Monday is an English language contraction of “Moon day” which in Latin based countries is “lunae dies.” French for Monday? Lundi. Spanish? Lunes. Italian? Lunedi. In Hindi it’s Som-vaar, which means “day of Soma.” What does Soma mean? Moon. Even in Japan, where absolutely nothing makes sense (have you seen this Domo thing at 7-Eleven?), even there getsuyobi means “day of the moon.”

Okay, okay. The first day of the work week is named after a gigantic rock hovering over head. So what?

I’ll tell you what: do you know where the word lunatic comes from? Why, Lunae of course which, as we already know, is Latin word for Moon. What causes Werewolves to go all crazy and start killing people? The moon. What causes the tides? The moon. And gigantic catastrophic tidal waves? Also the moon.

What is it called when you drop trow and display your back side to others as a sign of your displeasure? Mooning.

There’s a reason today is named after the gigantic barren gray rock visible to us in the middle of the night, reminding us of the cold, inhospitality of the universe that envelops our beautiful little blue planet like a big suffocating blanket of emptiness.

It’s because cultures around the world realize that Monday sucks. There is no getting around this indisputable truth.

Black Mondays:

Would you believe that, like Thursday and Tuesday, there’s also a Black Monday? Would you also believe that there have been many Black Mondays throughout history? A selection of Black Monday’s for your enjoyment courtesy of that font of knowledge Wikipedia:

• Black Monday, Dublin, 1209 – when a group of 500 recently arrived settlers from Bristol were massacred by warriors of the Gaelic O'Byrne clan. The group had left the safety of the walled city of Dublin to celebrate Easter Monday near a wood at Ranelagh, when they were attacked without warning. For centuries afterwards, this event was commemorated by a mustering of soldiers on the day as a challenge to the native tribes.[citation needed]
• Black Monday, 14 April 1360 – the army of Edward III during the Hundred Years' War was struck by hailstorms, lightning and panic, causing considerable loss of life on Easter Monday.
• Black Monday, 28 October 1929 – a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
• Black Monday, 27 November 1978 - when former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.
• Black Monday, Malta, 15 October 1979 – the offices of the The Times of Malta were set on fire during a political rally. It was also on this day that supporters of the Malta Labour Party broke into the house of Dr. Edward Fenech Adami.
• Black Monday, 19 October 1987 – the largest one-day percentage decline in recorded stock market history.
  

Again, more proof of what we already know.

Tangential Excuse to Post a Cartoon Strip:

Garfield is a popular comic strip. Garfield hates Mondays. There’s a website called Garfield Minus Garfield that removes Garfield from Garfield comic strips as a means of revealing “The existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle.” The resulting angst is reminiscent of that which I feel on Mondays, which is the day that Garfield hates. Therefore, enjoy:

Sad and funny.

Friday: It's Fall

Oh yes, babies, it's Friday and the trend of sporadic posting has continued 'round these parts. Tell you what, though. Here are some links for your general consumption.

Are you going to behave today, bold font?

Yessir.

Okay, good. What do we have.

Space Tourism: It used to be that if you wanted to flaunt your insane wealth in the face of the poverty-stricken masses you had to hold gigantic orgies at your gigantic "hunting lodge" in the French countryside.

Thanks to technology, we now have even more ridiculous ways to display the disparity between wealthy and filthy. For example, why not take a 3-day vacation to FREAKING SPACE?

The cost of your stay? Why, a mere $4.4 million dollars. Chump change!

"It's Fall, Fuck-faces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

Here is an excellent little piece of prose entitled "IT'S DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS" courtesy of McSweeney's. Hat tip to my coworker Casey for pointing it out. For you comedy nerds, it's an excellent and effective use of profanity by way of juxtaposition. Also, you get to read such gems as, "Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers."

Remember When Cookie-Monster Actually Ate Cookies? Of course, this is before the world went insane, arugula became a widely consumed vegetable and everyone decided that fun was bad for children.

You can now take a trip down memory lane with DVDs of the original shows from 1969.

The DVD comes with a warning, "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

Apparently, children's television from 40 years ago is SO DANGEROUS that modern children should avoid it like the plague.

What does that say about you, grown up?

Hey, Speaking of Inappropriate Children's Television and, for that matter, effective uses of profanity, I know of a little comedy show this weekend that you might be interested.

THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHER PLUGGERS!!!

Come see Mrs. Gruber. She'll treat you right.

**ADDED BONUS**

Check out this insane video of sportsmanship gone horribly horribly wrong.

Oh Wow, Great, The Yankees

Oh wow, great, the Yankees.
Another World Series, eh?
That's great.
That's really great.
Good for them.
Gotta love them Yankees.

'Cause when was the last they won?
What? Like 2000?
That's, like, forever ago.
That's really great.
Good for them.
Good for you too, Yankee fan!

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

Gotta love them Yankees.

(Ugh.)

Warning: This Blog Kills Brains

Of course, if you've been here before you probably already know this to be true. But normally this blog kills brains with nonsense and pictures of medieval torture or muscular clowns. This post is more about general blogging.


To the point, here's an interesting article on CNN.com about the effect that digital diaries (like this blog) have on our capacity to reason and process information.


Of course, when I say "interesting article" what I mean to say is "interesting only to nerdy people who have a preoccupation with this subject because they have a blog," so, you know, take that with a grain of salt.


For you lazy people out there, here's a summary that way oversimplifies the article to the point of ridiculousness:


"Hey, do you remember what you ate on your first day of work? No? Well, now with Twitter machines and blogoverse and shit like that, you can write everything down so that one day you can read over it again and remember. Wait, though, is that going to DESTROY OUR MINDS? Some researchers say no. But, other researchers don't say no. Because if you're always worried about how things are going to look on Twitter, then you're not living in the here and now. And is that really living?"


Of course, the reader comments are all along the lines of "Kids these days can't do simple math! They don't even know how to use a regular phone! The end of the world is coming! Why is technology trying to kill the world?!"


I don't know, man. I think there will always be a part of us that distrusts technology. I'll admit to the occasional irrational fear that one day the entire interweb goes down and the entire Earth grinds to a halt and then the stars fall from the sky and monkeys become our superiors. I can't help it. I have an overactive imagination.


But at the same time, I think having access to information constantly will have the net benefit of making us more intelligent. The CNN article quotes a Douglas Hofstadter, who says that human intelligence is "...about finding the essence of things.... It's not about restoring everything. It's about reducing things in complexity until they're manageable and understandable." Here he is arguing that keeping track of every minute detail harms that ability to weave our experiences into a comprehensive narrative. Which, to stray from the point here, these interweb applications do clutter the world with a lot of useless information. I mean, do you really want to know what I ate last Thursday? You do? I went to Hot Doug's. Jealous?


But my beef is more the irritation that comes from being bombarded with nonsense, not with the fear that all of that nonsense will somehow turn our minds into a pile of gelatin. If anything, I think that having this level of detail and that amount of information heightens our ability to sift through nonsense and weave everything together into something comprehensible.


Granted, people need to be able to add and subtract and read and other basic functions. And they need to be taught how to reason. But I don't think you can blame the availability of vast stores of knowledge for "them kids these days" lacking in those capacities.


Nobody blames libraries for making kids dumber, do they? And they are essentially just a less efficient method of collecting information.


Nobody blames land line telephones for decreasing our ability to cope with life, do they? They are essentially a less efficient method of communicating.


Of course not. This would be the same thing as blaming hammers for making it easier for us to build homes. The shoddy workman blames the tools.


...


Wow, that was longer than I thought it would be. Let me make it up to you.


There we go. LOL Internet.

Friday: And I Just Woke Up and, Oh Yeah, It's Like 2:00 PM

Ah days off.

Well, we've been hit by a combination of laziness, business and lack of inspiration around these parts. Which would explain the lack of interesting posting materials around these parts.

What do we do when we're lazy, busy or uninspired?

WHY, PLUG A SHOW OF COURSE!!!

Mrs. Gruber's Ding Ding Dong School, my babies.

The perfect pre-Halloween activity. Come see the show, then go out and drink in costumes.

$15, Gorilla Tango, 8:00 PM. Details here.

YES!!!

Know Your Days of the Week: Tiw’s Day

A lot of times, we take certain things for granted. Monday is Monday and Tuesday is Tuesday, and we don’t really know what Tuesday means other than it is the second day of the work week. Mostly because nobody cares; it’s not important to know why Tuesday is called Tuesday; it has nothing to do with how we live our lives; why would you ever want to waste your time learning something so useless?

I’ll tell you why: because today is Tuesday and I’m lacking inspiration for proper blog postage so this is what you’re stuck with. So humor me. Or go find another blog.


Previous Days of the Week:
Woden’s Day
Thor’s Day


Tuesday: Tiw’s Day


Another name from our pasty white cultural ancestors, this day comes to us courtesy of the Old English “Tiwesdaeg.” That’s a lot of added letters but if you pronounce that drunk (which, if you are Old English, you most certainly did) it sounds just like our modern word. Tuesdays to this day are most tolerable when you have a couple of drinks in you. Not saying you should drink at work or anything.

Okay, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Tiw was the ancient Norse / Germanic / Saxon / Old English god of ‘single combat, victory and heroic glory.’ Here’s a picture of him:

Handsome guy, right? Take a look again and see if you can tell what’s missing. That’s right, he’s missing a hand. The moral of this story? The reward for chasing victory and heroic glory is to lose a hand.The Norse had an extensive collection of runes, kind of like hieroglyphics, that are meant to symbolize various words, concepts and of course gods. Here’s the one for Tiw.

Yeah, it's an up arrow. Does it remind you perverts out there of anything else?

Modern man celebrates Tuesdays by generally getting dicked over, much as Tiw had his hands cut off for doing honorable deeds. While not as bad as Monday, Tuesdays still kind of suck. They are definitely no Saturday.

Well Known Tuesdays:

Shrove Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, is about the only good Tuesday you can look forward to during the year. The only other famous Tuesday I’m aware of is Black Tuesday (October 29,1929), the sequel to Black Thursday, which was when stock markets crashed, starting the Great Depression.

US elections are generally held on Tuesday as well. Our cultural tradition of being dicked over continues!

Tuesday – NOT Your Lucky Day:

The day that Constantinople was captured by the Turks was on a Tuesday, therefore the Greeks consider Tuesday to be somewhat unlucky day. The Turks, of course, probably see it differently.
In case you were unaware, Constantinople is now called Istanbul. So if you’ve got a date in Constantinople, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul.

NERD.

Chicago - For Sale

Following the "successful" sale of the city's parking meters and the persistent rumors of possibly leasing out their water system, Mayor Daley admitted that Chicago is considering leasing out other important city services.

Items considered up for sale include the city's network of streets, the air, and the city government in general.

"With the economy the way it is, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. And if that includes selling our air supply to a company in Bangladesh, well then there you go. Times are tough," claimed Daley at a recent press conference overlooking beautiful Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.

He continued, "Hey, what, you think these big fucking silver bean things pay for themselves?"

One of the proposed deals meant to balance the city budget would be leasing out the entire city government to a Swedish firm.

"You ever been to Ikea?" asked Daley. "That place runs like clockwork. And I'm not just saying this because they may or may not be buying the city government, but they have some sharp looking stuff there. Of course, I had a table from there once that snapped in half, but hey, nothing's perfect right? You want a quality table, buy a quality table. What are we talking about again?"

The public's response has been less than enthusiastic. Homeowner Eric Fowler could only shake his head.

"Jesus Christ," he said when asked for a response. "Jesus Christ."

"Hey, you know, that's the way the world works these days," replied Daley, when asked if selling off literally everything the city has to offer would negatively impact Chicago residents. "Don't blame me. Blame Rio, or those fucking jagoffs from Denmark."

Friday: Best Use of Your Time

BAD USE OF TIME:

Teaching Russian bears to ice skate in Kyrgyzstan.

What looks like an oncoming hug is actually the death grip of a pissed off and confused wild animal.

Instead...

GOOD USE OF TIME:

MRS. GRUBER'S DING DONG SCHOOL!!

(Holy Plug, Natman!)

(Did you just call me Natman?)

(You don't like it?)

(No.)

(Okay, well, I mean we don't have to...)

(Good)

Follow the link to more info on RvD's latest Sketch Comedy!

A Poem On The Circumstances Surrounding Balloon Boy, Composed Nearly One Week After the Events Herein Described

Holy shit, there's a kid in that balloon! Holy shit!
Holy shit! I hope he's okay!

Do you think he's going to be okay?
I hope so; God his parents must be freaking out!
What are the chances: a kid stuck in a balloon like that?
Holy shit, I hope he's okay!

That kid must be shitting his kid pants right now
Flying through the air like that
I hope he doesn't crash
Holy shit, I hope he's okay!

Holy shit! There's nobody in that balloon! Holy shit!
Holy shit! I hope he didn't fall!

Flying around in the air like that?
I'd probably jump. Wouldn't you? End it all right there?
I hope he didn't get knocked off by the wind.
Holy shit, I hope he's okay!

Shit!

Wait, he was at home the whole time?
Wait, his parents are reality TV stars?
Wait, there's not enough gas in that balloon to carry a child that size?
Wait, his name's what? What kind of a stupid name is Falcon?
(Who names their kid 'Falcon?')
Wait, he said what on Larry King?

Motherfucker.

I hope those parents eat shit and die.
Holy shit. What a waste of time.

~fin~

"I Hate My Job. Also, Vote For Me. Signed, Silvio Berlusconi"

Having made clear my intention to one day be President of this fine nation of ours (in 2040), I often spend hours of my day ruminating. I do this mostly to avoid certain immediate obligations - performing work duties, paying for my rent and utilities, apologizing to innocent bystanders for public 'wardrobe malfunctions' - and as a means of preparing myself for that moment when I take those most glorious reigns of power.

I often think, 'What type of ruler should I be? What famous ruler should I use as my model?'

Should it be Obama? Should it be George Washington, or Theodore Roosevelt?

Well, today I think I found the prototype for future ruler Nat: Silvio Berlusconi.

Who the hell is Silvio Berlusconi? I'm glad you asked.

Berlusconi, a former cruise ship singer turned media mogul, real estate and insurance tycoon and owner of the AC Milan 'football' team, is the current prime minister of Italy. He happens to be quite popular too, despite his scandal-wracked personal life and, of yeah, an OUTRIGHT DISDAIN for his job:

"Berlusconi says there's nothing simple about the prime minister's
job.

"He said: 'I'm doing what I do with a sense of sacrifice. I don't
really like it. Not at all.'

"He added: 'Very often there is a lot of dirty dealing, there is really
the gutter press, worse than that, the shameless and sickly. It's a difficult
life to be responsible for leading the government in a country like
Italy.'"

-From CNN.

This is the exact combination of shame, embarrassment and disdain I look forward to bringing you thirty years down the line.