Stupid Idea of the Day

An imaginary reader writes:

Dear Uncle Steak;
What's the stupidest idea you've come across on the internet all day?
Sincerely, StubbleBoy

Well, StubbleBoy, the stupidest idea I've read about all day would have to be Falindromes which I found through a link on Andrew Sullivan's Blog.

What is a "falindrome"? Well, falindrome.com defines the neologism as "fake palindromes. Although they cannot be read the same forwards and backwards (like their sister palindromes), their peculiar structure make them appear as if they can."

For example: "Ray, eat a ripe pirate tea. YAR!!"

See? You look at it and it has that palindrome "feel," but if you actually examined the sentence, it's clear that it isn't actually a palindrome. Backwards, it reads, "Ray, aet e tarip epira tae. YAR!!"

I know! It's crazy, isn't it!? But that's the wacky world of falindromes for you!

Andrew Sullivan calls falindromes "really fun."

I call falindromes MISSING THE FRAKKING POINT OF PALINDROMES, YOU DUMMY.

Instead of coming up with some falindromes of my own, I thought it would be more fun to come up with ideas that are almost as stupid as falindromes. Here's a couple:

FOSSWORD PUZZLES: Just like a crossword puzzle, except none of the words match the clues. And some of the lines are just filled in with gobbledygook words and random characters.

FUDOKU: Sudoku puzzles filled out to look like you solved them correctly. But if someone looks at it closely, he'll see that you really just used numbers twice in the same lines. Also known as "cheating on a sudoku puzzle."

If you have an idea that is just as stupid as falindromes, add it in the combox.

Hope You Had a Great Low-Flow Toilet Blowup Day

Dave Barry's blog links to photos and video of the joyous celebration.

National Low-Flow Toilet Blowup Day is Sunday, April 27

Congress mandated the low-flow toilets in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. That's why it takes you two or three flushes to get the job done today. It's hard to believe, but there once was a day when you could do your business, flush once and walk away. You didn't have to flush in installments, you didn't have to keep the plunger handy. You just flushed and didn't think twice about it while you washed your hands.

National Low-Flow Toilet Blowup Day is a holiday commemorating the changes wrought by th eEP Act of 1992. Here's the official website.

They will also be honoring noted anti-low-flow toilet advocate Dave Barry by blowing up a low-flow toilet in his name.

Olympics Protester of the Day

From THIS BLOG.

Hoyt Axton Triggers My Repressed Childhood Memories

Sorry I haven't blogged in so long. Times have been difficult for me.

See, back in the 90's, there was this thing called "Repressed Childhood Memory Syndrome." It was all the rage back then. Basically, the idea is that you have this normal adult, and then all of the sudden he remembers something from his childhood that he never remembered before for years. If all goes well, the adult can then sue his parents for whatever it was he just remembered.

What I remembered was this song called "Della and the Dealer," by Hoyt Axton. It was a jaunty little tune about Della and a dealer and a dog named Jake and a cat named Kalamazoo. I haven't heard or thought about this song for literally decades, but when I was but a wee lad, my parents would play this song for me all the time.

Now, since I was just a little guy at the time, and because my second favorite song during that period was Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler," I believed (up to this day) that the "dealer" in my very favorite song, "Della and the Dealer," was a card dealer.

But recently, I'd been getting snatches and phrases of the song running though my head. I couldn't shake it, so finally I did some Google searches for "if+that+cat+could+talk+what+tales+he'd+tell+but+the+cat+was+cool+and+he+never+said+a+mumbling+word."

I finally found the song. YouTube has disabled the "embedding" option for this video, but you can hear the song HERE.

It's unbelievable.

The "dealer" isn't a card dealer at all. He's a cocaine dealer. There's even a line in the song about the dealer snorting "coke though a century note."

The coke dealer is killed by (SPOILER!) Della's new lover, Randy Boone, and she runs off with him in the pickup truck with the dog and the cat named Kalamazoo. who happens to have a predeliction for shooting rye whiskey.

Drug use, unfaithfulness, murder, alchoholism... These are the themes of my very favorite childhood song.

And I didn't even know it until about twenty minutes ago when I Googled the lyrics and found out what I'd been listening to all those years ago.

What kind of parents would play such a song for a little kid?

Hopefully they're loaded parents who have been holding out on me.

Maybe I can sue them for tons of cash. I dunno. Until I find out, do me a favor and don't tell any of my siblings what the real lyrics of "Della and the Dealer" are. They might have heard the song too.

But I heard it first, so I should get first dibs.

(P.S. If you think you recognize Hoyt Axton in the video, but can't place him, he was the guy who played the dad in "Gremlins" and also in "The Black Stallion.")