SUSHI BLUES Much as I am loathe to foist a news-free edition of the Daily Dirt upon you, dear reader, I'm afraid that's exactly what I'm going to have to do if I ever hope to catch up to calendar-time, which, you may recall, is a goal I set for myself a couple months back and towards which I have, until a relatively recent setback, come pretty darn close to achieving. So appy-polly-lodges, up front. Had a bit of an adventure last Thursday. After work, myself and three fellow office-rats -- Longshanks, Young Benji and The Kid -- made our way to a nearby sushi emporium for a pre-long-weekend repast of sticky rice and uncooked fish. It being Young Benji's first experience with Japanese cuisine, we ordered quite a spread. Our table overflowed with raw salmon, yellowtail, eel, spicy tuna, soft-shell crab and the like. It was a bona-fide abyssal menagerie. Sadly, Young Benji's palate is notoriously delicate, and he ate precisely two pieces of sushi before belatedly ordering himself a plate of fried beef, which he picked at while the rest of us wolfed down the briny buffet. When we were done, the only thing left on the table were a few strips of pickled ginger, some straggling beads of sticky rice, and an untouched, blobular extrusion of fiery green wasabi. I plucked the wasabi with my chopsticks and moved it towards my fishy maw. Looking towards The Kid, I asked: "If I eat this whole thing, will you pay for my dinner?" The Kid snorted with unbelieving derision and replied: "Dude, if you eat that whole thing, I'll pay for everybody's dinner." Well, that settled it. After a few tense minutes, and despite Longshanks and Young Benji's kind efforts at dissuasion, I popped it in my mouth, sucked down on it once, and swallowed. Dictionary.com defines wasabi as "a very pungent green Japanese condiment made from the root of the herb Eutrema wasabi." This is deceptive by omission, somewhat akin to calling our Sun "a big yellow circle that lives in the sky." Here is what a human being can expect to go through in the minute immediately following the ingestion of an egg-sized bolus of wasabi: First, the entirety of SpaceTime collapses into an area that, only moments ago, you would have recognized as your face, but which is now a roughly diamond-shaped, quantum singularity of searing agony. Everything except your lips, forehead, eyeballs and the back of your throat is washed away in the colorless all-color of Stark White Nothingness. Like a drowning man going down for the third and final time, your entire life story flashes before your eyes in hyper-fast-forward. From somewhere behind the swirling void into which your foolish act has cast you -- perhaps a vibrational echo from the so-called "junk DNA" that contains your full genetic history from bottom-dwelling Ur-replicator to the present -- the voices of your ancestors call out, mocking you. There is much trembling, and the sound of screaming tea-kettles, and then, as quickly as it snatched your face in its crushing claw, the Emerald Demon lets you go. Wasabi is a foregiving herb, after all. The pain it causes is intense, but it doesn't linger. A minute later, I was shaky, but mostly back to normal. Much congratulatory back-slapping and "attaboys" were proffered, as the bill was quite hefty. The Kid, true to his word, had it covered. We all got in our respective vehicles and went our merry ways. It was about five minutes into the half-hour drive home that I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. A sour heat blossomed somewhere deep behind my left nipple, and then, all of a sudden, my guts began to bubble and boil. Every part of my digestive system -- from my throbbing pyloric sphincter to my trembling, puckered anus -- was racked with painful spasms. There was a very real possibility that I was going to shit my pants and vomit all over myself in rush hour traffic. Calling upon stores of will power I never realized were in my possession, I clenched tight my every orifice, gripped the steering wheel like grim death, and drove the rest of the way home, my buttocks hovering about an inch above the car-seat all the way. When I got home, by the grace of Godzilla, I was able to reach the toilet before birthing the most massive fecal coil I've ever had the pleasure of extruding from my body. Ever seen the movie Anaconda? It was like that, only a rich, hazelnut brown, and in my toilet bowl. I resisted the urge to snap a photo before flushing it away, drank two ice-cold Coca-Colas one after the other, burped a long, satisfying burp, and lay down for a well-deserved rest. I don't believe I need to elaborate on the moral of this story. Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com

ON THIS DAY April 13 On this day in the year 1883, a jury convicts Alfred Packer of murdering and eating a bunch of miners he was hired to guide through the Colorado Rockies. The presiding judge sentences Packer to hang, and jokes: "There was seven Democrats in Hinsdale county and you ate five of 'em!" The death sentence was never carried out, and Packer was released in 1910. He died in 1915, and was buried in Littleton, Colorado, where his grave marker still stands. The first ever orthopedic hospital -- known as the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled -- opens its doors in New York on this day in 1863, right next door to the city's first ever psychiatric hospital -- then known as the Hospital for Totally Messed Up Psycho Head-Cases. Speaking of which, it was on this day in 1918 that an electrical fire at the Oklahoma State Hospital results in the death of 38 mental patients. I'm tempted to make a "roasted nuts" joke, but I won't. Today in history was a great day for MASSACRES! On this day in 1204, some misguided Christians sack Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. On this day in 1873, white supremacists in Louisiana, angered over some contested election results, corner hundreds of blacks in a municipal building and murder over a hundred of them in an incident known as the Colfax Massacre. On this day in 1919, British and Gurkha troops massacre at least 379 unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, India. On this day in 1945, German troops massacre more than 1000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen Germany. The atrocity is discovered two days later by American forces. Whotta species! On this day in 1970, an oxygen tank aboard explodes aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft, thus setting into motion a series of events that would lead to a moderately acceptable Hollywood film directed by Opie Cunningham and starring that dude from Bosom Buddies.

THEY SAID IT! "So it turns out that every single right-wing source mentioned in their article owes some portion (if not all) of their livelihood to a very small core group of funders. In my experience, this is not atypical among conservative opinion-makers. It appears that the majority of the conservative experts and scholars writing newspaper op-ed pieces, books and magazine articles, and even the organizations that generate the talking points and position papers used by TV pundits and radio talk show hosts, are directly funded by, or work for organizations supported by this core group of funders. This pattern of concentrated, interlinking financial backing is not found when you look into who is funding people and organizations that would not describe themselves as conservatives." - Dave Johnson asks, then answers, the following question: Who is behind the attack on "liberal" professors? *** **** *** "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" - Vice Preznit Dick Cheney gets showered with audio evidence of baseball fans' disapproval whilst tossing out the first pitch at a Washington Nationals game last week. Hear the happy funtime crowd-noise with your own two ears. We should enjoy these little glimmers of sanity while we still can.

JOKES! Today's jokes were sent in by McTubers! Yo mama's so ugly, her shadow quit. Yo mama's so ugly, she could only be 'Yo' mama. Yo mama's so ugly, they filmed "Gorillas in the Mist" in her shower. Yo mama's so ugly, they push her face into dough to make gorilla cookies. Yo mama's so ugly, when she looks in the mirror, the reflection ducks. Yo mama's so ugly, her birth certificate was an apology letter from the condom factory. Yo mama's so ugly, she looks like she's been in a dryer filled with rocks. Yo mama's so ugly, she looks like her face caught on fire and they put it out with a fork. Yo mama's so ugly, her mom had to be drunk to breastfeed her. Yo mama's so ugly, she couldn't get laid in a prison with a handful of pardons. Yo mama's so ugly, when she moved into the projects, all her neighbors chipped in for curtains. Yo mama's so ugly, they rub tree branches on her face to make ugly sticks. Yo mama's so ugly, her mama had to tie a steak around her neck to get the dog to play with her. Yo mama's so ugly, even the tide won't take her out. Yo mama's so ugly, people go as her for Halloween. Yo mama's so ugly, when she cries, tears run down the back of her neck. Yo mama's so ugly, she has to creep up on her makeup. Yo mama was such an ugly baby, her parents had to feed her with a slingshot. WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Today's groaner was sent in by N8Possibilities... A woman walks into her accountant's office and tells him that she needs to file her taxes. The accountant says: "Before we begin, I'll need to ask you a few questions." He gets her name, address, social security number, etc, and then asks, "What is your occupation?" "I'm a whore," she says. The accountant balks and says, "No, No, No, that won't work; too gross. Let's try to rephrase that." The woman says, "OK, I'm a high-end call girl." "Sorry, that is still too crude. Try again." They both think for a minute, then the woman says, "How about 'elite chicken farmer'?" Stunned, the accountant asks, "What does chicken farming have to do with being a high-end call girl?" "Well, I raised over a thousand little peckers last year."

READER'S SOAPBOX! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: THE NEW TEN DOLLAR BILL care of: Dark Solar The new Ten Dollar bill -- to begin, it's peach colored... pastel peach! Not a good start. Hamilton's eyes are on totally different perspective planes, he's got Bill Maher's hair after a night of hard partying, a cheap attempt at a bow-tie and that's just on the front of the bill. Let's go to the back of the bill for a moment. There's the good old image of the U.S. Treasury building; yes, the one we all know and are comfortable with. And that's where the similarities end. Once again the peach color makes it impossible to take this bill seriously. Now let's return to the starting point; I don't know about you, but I find that the repeated pattern of Liberty's Torch in a red reminiscent of blood just pretty much sums up everything. Holy crap, this thing's a symbological nightmare! Next, bills usually have very, very small type incorporated into the cross-hatching of the portrait and while I haven't actually gotten out my jeweler's loop just yet, I fully believe I will find the lines "Does this outfit make me look fat?" or "Meet me at the disco." or possibly even something like "The cow says moo." It does bear a strong resemblance to play money. Let's face it people, the ten dollar bill has gone gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And finally, if the rest of it isn't enough to get your heebies jeebing, let's talk bare-bones creep-factor. I'm talking about the water-mark. Hold it up to the light and look at the little portrait to the right of the bill. That's right... there's Christopher Walken!!! Although cool, and the only redeeming quality of the new ten other than its spendability, the man's creepy enough when seen in mediums that are obviously fictional. Having his face on an official government document is just too much. - Dark Solar [Queer eye for the legal tender. - Jerky] FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE / ASK JERKY! MOPJ, A lot of your readers ask many questions about 9/11 I think could be answered easy enough by taking the hour and a half to watch this video. Don’t believe it? Then watch this. Still don’t think Dubya had a hand in the attacks? Don’t take their word for it or mine. Get on the net, use your brain, and figure it out for yourself. Then you can be as afraid of our own government as I am. The why they would do this is also easy: MONEY. Dubya after starting with a tax surplus has put us over 8.2 trillion dollars in debt with no bid contracts to his good old buddies, and tried his best to sell our infrastructure to anybody (friend or enemy) with the big money. Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans of filling their pockets regardless of how it harms America and its people. All the political infighting is just to see who gets the best seats at the table; nothing more. Our nation of laws not men was sold on K street. The America I was borned into is now gone. Its likes will never be seen on the face of the earth again. YOP Dave [Do the Democrats suck? Yes. Are they "just as guilty" as today's Republicans -- i.e. the conservative movement -- as regards our current national/global nightmare? Not even close. Don't fall prey to the fallacy of equal opposites. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky! Here's a link to a video of Hugo Chavez "complimenting" Dear Leader Dubya. Hope you enjoy it! Leonel [That guy should take his show on the road. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey Jerky; A few Dirts back you asked what a chopper site was. This is a chopper site. Keith [R.I.P. Indian Larry. - Jerky] *** **** *** GOJ, The UK forcibly moved 2000 people from an island to ensure the security of a US base in the Indian Ocean 40 years ago, and are stalling about letting these folks return home, because the US says they will be a security risk. I hope when Bush goes Blair goes too. E.F. [Time will tell. - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky; Dunno if you saw this already, but it's fuckin hilarious... Turn up your speakers and prepare to ROTFL! The Dirt Readers deserve to see this. K Green [Those games are too frickin' tough. - Jerky] *** **** *** Ciao Jerks, One thing I realised in my 20 year sojourn in the USA was that most Americans think the rest of the world thinks like they do. Even the lady I was married to, who came from Texas, was astounded when she moved to the Northwest, and she had travelled to the Mediterranean. When they do travel they go in little chunks of America on tours, and never spend time in among the people. So how are they going to understand the people they are fighting in the Middle East? At least these guys realised that the easy way to get their secret data back was to buy it, and thus not antagonise the merchants. Of course this does nothing to discourage future evaporation of useful stuff! They will just have to be more careful and understand that, in the Middle East, "lifting" stuff is a way of life not a criminal activity. I worked for an American firm in South Africa. One day somebody was offered a complete working calculator at a very good price. That was when they realised that spare parts were disappearing from the stores at a very unusual rate. These things just didn't break down like that. They fired the Indian storekeeper and learnt their lesson. Keep up the good work. Etna Fred [Real people never pay retail. - Jerky] *** **** *** Hey J! Say have you taken a gander at the Census Quick Facts? They have ALL been altered, which would explain the claim that unemployment is at 4.5% and the headlines read JOBS ROLL IN! Just to fling a wrench in the monkey works of those confused Simian Cindysassins, who are but bi-product weenies encased in a Chinese version of "Owed Grory" and likely cut teeth on DuPont Krylon coated window sills while spending the first 2-3 years of life strapped at exhaust pipe level in a rickshaw hot-house dragged behind a damn bicycle by Reagan era me generation parents. yop Druid Atheist [I haven't made a habit out of checking national Census facts and figures, and if what you're saying is true, it's too late to start now. Can we possibly get any verification on this rather intriguing claim of yours? - Jerky]

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com