Getting Off On the Wrong Foot

Quick, someone bring these whores some water!

The new military governement of Thailand quickly demonstrated its refusal to joke about anything. But then again, we didn't think they were kidding during any of this. Get this: The generals in charge yesterday ruled that "sexy dancers were forbidden near tanks, and tourists were no longer permitted to handle weapons when posing for photographs with troops still deployed in Bangkok."

What?!

Ok, we agree with the whole not-allowing-tourists-to-handle-weapons-while-taking-pictures thing, but why should the soldiers be robbed of a little good-humored entertainment? Since this military takeover began on September 19th, not one single shot has been fired, and the soldiers have been standing around doing a whole lot of nothing.

Your luck just ran out, boys.

Apparently, the top generals are worried that having go-go dancers around the soldiers makes their whole armed coup look less serious, and that the dancers should keep their distance from now on. And, you have to admit, letting drunken Australian tourists hold your M-16 while getting their picture taken doesn't make your army look very professional.

Mission accomplished.

In other news, a bunch of Dutch people are trying to make the world's biggest cheese. They tried to break the record last year, but failed when the cheese tragically broke in half before the official weigh-in. This year, they are being far more careful, using a forklift to move the 1,200 lb monster. For some reason, we wish them luck with their completely pointless mission.

100 Angriest Cities in America

Once again, it has been proven that Florida sucks.

Men's Health magazine recently released a list of the "100 angriest cities in America." We here at HPO now present the top ten angriest cities. What this has to do with men's health, we have no idea.

Condolences go out to Gary, Indiana. They must be heartbroken to have not made the top 100.

• 10. St. Louis, MO: We don't understand this one. People in St. Louis are always courteous to us whenever we visit, never showing their anger or animosity outright. Even the St. Louis Metro Police were polite when they threw us out of that parking lot.

• 9. Jacksonville, FL: The first of four Florida representatives in the top ten. While not quite as trashy as other Floridian cities, Jacksonville is still a shithole. As if being in Florida wasn't bad enough, Jacksonville also has to put up with being the hometown of tatoo-laden douchebag Fred Durst. We'd be upset, too.

• 8. Memphis, TN: Credited with the invention of the ducktail haircut. Enough said.

• 7. Miami, FL: No shortage of reasons here. Who wouldn't be angry living in a city where ankle socks, popped collars, tight pants, and pastel colors were not only acceptable, but considered cool?! Combine this with the fact that Miami is an elephant's graveyard where senior citizens flock by the thousands to play shuffleboard and die, and you've got a winner. Florida has that certain hideous quality that only exists when white trash and vacationing lunatics are mixed properly.

• 6. Wilmington, DE: What's there to do in Delaware besides visit a screen door factory? Nothing. The video says it all. Delaware's at the very end, but it's there:
  

• 5. Nashville, TN: Tennessee's second entrant in the top ten, Nashville is a moonshinin', ten-gallon-hat-wearin', hog-callin', cotton-pickin', fried-chicken eatin', bible-readin', hee-hawin' hick of a city. The only way you could get angry living in this town is if you were originally from somewhere else. Git 'er dun!

• 4. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore is an "independent city", meaning it considers itself too good to be part of any county. It's citizens take a similar approach to life, and whenever things don't go their way, they respond with a lot of negative jibba-jabba. Someone needs to explain to Baltimore that poop on the boots can always be washed off.

• 3. Detroit, MI: Everybody's favorite cesspool of drugs and filth, accompanied by a cloud of toxic fumes: Detroit is the city you can smell. Built on a solid foundation of domestic violence, unemployment, random assault, and abuse of inexpensive alcohol, Detroit is a winner all-around. With an estimated 94% of the population bound straight for hell, it's easy to see why Detroit is near the top of this list.

• 2. St. Petersburg, FL: Located just across the bay from Tampa, St. Pete's makes up for its modest size by boasting the most prostitutes-per-square-mile in Florida. Complete with a wide array of trashy, second-rate strip clubs (most of which are open for lunch), Pinellas County is the toothless stripper's version of Broadway: If you can't make it here, you can't make it.

• 1. Orlando, FL: This one is best explained by the help of our favorite douchebag, Oliver. He may be from Michigan, but he embodies the essence of Orlando.

The entire list is available for those of you who are interested.

Other notable entries:

• 19. Indianapolis: Very underrated, should be in the top-ten.
• 32. Cleveland, OH: "The Mistake by the Lake"
• 50. Fort Wayne, IN: Even the homeless people stay away from Fort Wayne.
• 70. Jersey City, NJ: No comment.
• 97. Corpus Christi, TX: Just give it back to Mexico.

Guess who's not getting laid tonight...

Way to go, Gibbons.

When playing a sport where balls are flying around all over the place at speeds of over 100 mph, injuries are not uncommon. But last Saturday night, Jay Gibbons of the Baltimore Orioles defied all odds by hitting a foul ball into the crowd that nailed his wife in the rib.

There were 21,980 people in attendance for that game, and Gibbons somehow hits his wife. Figure that out. And, even better, it turns out that Gibbons had been complaining that the wire screen behind home plate was too small for a couple years now.

"It's either come to the game and play Russian Roulette with your 3-year-old or stay home," Gibbons said. "That's what we're dealing with. Or move the family section, but then you've got other fans that are endangered... I had an usher take one for my wife the other day."

Knowing the irrational senselessness that dictates the thoughts of an upset lady, Mrs. Gibbons probably gave Jay an earful of womanly jibba-jabba when he got home.

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you gotta do is stop digging.

The Crying Game

Cambodia: All class, all the time.

Apparently, Cambodia ain't the richest country out there. According to the newspapers, they can't afford a real Formula-1 race, so they have water buffalo races there. Now, we're not saying water buffalo races are a bad idea, but strapping yourself to the back of an animal with horns the size of elephant tusks while it's tearing-ass down a dirt path in your local village may lead to some painful moments.

It's all fun and games until someone gets a water buffalo horn in their tucus.

Yee-haw.

Now, we're not sure if that's actually Cambodia in that video, but those water buffalo don't look very personable. In fact, they look plain mean. So, in our opinion, riding around on one of those things without a suit of armor on is about as stupid as this next video:

Hoobabakanda

Something's cookin' in Heaven's Kitchen.

If you were to look up "Washed-up two-bit hustler" in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of Robert Tilton. To sum up his career properly, one would have to use words such as "played-out player", "degenerate", "full of shit", and possibly "camelfucker."

"Reverend" Tilton has made a fortune by using religious infomercials as marketing vehicles for scamming monetary "donations" from his mainly African-American audience. He quickly dropped off the radar after a scandal involving an investigation revealed that his religious organization was a front for an extortion operation.

On his official website, Tilton asks "for your financial support of this ministry," and says "God bless you for being obedient!" The webpage claims to be available in eight languages, but there's so many grammatical errors in the English version that we here at HPO wonder if the other versions are legible at all.

Anyways, the "financial support of this ministry", according to Tilton, means spending it on such lavish luxuries as 38-foot fishing boats, Jaguar automobiles, a "satellite dish the size of a sharecropper's shack", 50-ft yachts, and waterfront vacation homes. At one point, his scam was pulling in $800,00 a month.

This, however, takes the cake: He spent two months fishing and watching TV in Hawaii, and called it "his own self-described version of Jesus' forty days in the wilderness", according to the Dallas Observer.

But, surprisingly enough, that's not even the point. The point is that some guys created the following videos of Tilton:

Look out. There's four more videos.

Korky Buchek

Kazakhstani MTV.

Panda-monium

Gu Gu won't tolerate any of your shit.

Ok, this just came in from the AP wire and it was too good not to post. There were many titles used by the various newspapers who ran this story world-wide, but our favorite lead comes from the Washington Post:

Next time you're drunk at the zoo, remember this story.

Here's your summary: Drunk hugs bear, bear bites drunk, drunk bites bear, bear bites drunk again, bear sprayed by hose, drunk taken to hospital.

Really.

Zhang Xinyan, a farmer from central China, came to Beijing with "the sole puprose of seeing a panda." He got off the train, and went straight from the station to the zoo. On the way, he found a saloon and drank four "jugs of beer" before "stumbling to the zoo" to see Gu Gu, a 6-year old male panda who weighs about 253 pounds.

But, when the Chinaman arrived, Gu Gu was asleep in his pen, so Zhang "jumped into the enclosure" so that he could "hug the panda."

Seriously. Hug the fucking bear.

This enormous fucking bear is not a good thing to hug.

Imagine the surprize of this bear when this idiot woke him up. When he awoke, Gu Gu took a bite out of Zhang's leg. Zhang "lost his temper and kicked the bear," who bit the Chinaman again. A scuffle broke out, and Zhang managed to get on top and bite Gu Gu in the back.

"His skin was really thick," said Zhang at the hospital later.

The zoo staff managed to spray the bear with a hose to scare him off, and Gu Gu was described as "healthy and uninjured."

Zhang had some other pretty good quotes about this whole scuffle.

EXTERNALS:

• Drunk man mauled by panda (The Australian)
• Drunk bites bear (The Calgary Sun)
• Tipsy Chinese man bites giant panda at Beijing Zoo (Newindpress)

I Kiss You

Moge zrobic domofon.

With the release of the Borat documentary only weeks away, it is getting harder and harder to sleep at night. However, while performing some extensive internet research on the subject, HPO has learned that a man named Mahir Cagri exists. There are suspicious similarities between Mahir Cagri's homepage and the style of Borat. In the words of Borat himself, "There is a smell... it smell like a shit."

Something stinks here, but how can you not respect this guy's website? Here, in abridged format, are the highlights of his page:

• Every one of his pictures features him in the company of men. Only men. And, every single man in the pictures has some sort of facial hair.
• He explicitly expresses an affection for "nice nude models".
• Somehow, his site has received 850,000 hits.
• "I like sex"
• He enjoys playing "musical enstrumens"
• The grammar and spelling of his page rival the Jeppson's Malort bottle.
  
  
  

Wawaweewa.

The similarities to Borat are notable, leading us to believe that the two may have been separated at birth. But apparently, this Mahir guy's life ain't all that bad.

Borat's website is pretty good too. Prepare for hand relief.

Whatever.

Devil Horse

Every man, woman, and child should have one.

Monkey butlers. The solution to the annoying tasks that fill our days. But why should the disabled be the only ones that benefit from having one of our ape cousins at their side? Wouldn't it make all of our lives easier? The monkey would bring you your TV guide, walk your dog, do your shopping, and microwave your burritos.

Monkey butlers are not a new invention. They have been around for ages. Monkey butlers are almost always schooled by private institutions, and they take about seven years to train, depending on the breed of monkey, and the specific monkey's temperament. The career of your average monkey butler lasts about 30 years.

Mr. Teeny had an Elvis-like addiction to nicotine.

There have been many famous monkeys, but no "helper monkey" was ever more famous than Krusty the Klown's Mr. Teeny. Granted, Mr. Teeny was no saint, but his jam-packed schedule kept him busier than a bishop's hat, even though he often found himself "between the dog and the hydrant."

HPO has learned that Debby Rose of Springfield, MO, has a helper monkey of her own, a bonnet macaque monkey named Richard. Debby, who suffers from anxiety, is not physically disabled, but she uses Richard as a source of "emotional support" to allow her to be comfortable in public places.

Like restaurants, for example, where Richard often accompanies her. The monkey sits there, drinking grapefruit juice and eating peanuts, while Debby dines. Only problem is, other customers often take offense to the fact that Richard is a monkey, often citing the fact that monkeys are known for shitting into their own hands and throwing the crap all over the place.

So, Debby went to the Health Department to ask them for permission to let Richard enter area restaurants with her. However, after a fittingly brief investigation, the authorities ruled that "the monkey performs no service for her" at all, and thusly cannot be considered a helper monkey.

Shame on you, Health Department.

Speaking of monkeys:

Hook, Line, and Sinker

Circle the wagons.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

Sometimes, we don't know what we want, we don't know what we get, and we don't even care what it is, as long as we get it.

Two months ago, enter LonelyGirl15. She was the most famous act of the youtube.com circus that has taken the internet by storm. For those of you who don't know, youtube was started by two guys who wanted a place on the internet to keep home videos for free. Today, it is a site that gets a million hits a day.

Lonelygirl15, aka "Bree", was a small-town American girl who kept a journal of her adolescent life on youtube: Complaining about her parents, joking around, behaving like a high-school girl. It appeared to be a very normal teenager documenting her very normal teenage life.

This is her first video-blog entry.

After posting about 30 videos, LonelyGirl15 became absurdly popular. And people got suspicious. Why were her entries so immaculately edited? Why was the lighting and video quality so perfect? Why was her accent so strange?

Things didn't add up, and the conspiracy theorists began to spin their webs. They began to speculate that "Bree" was some sort of new marketing tool, another soulless muse of the never-ending Hollywood corporatocracy. Some claimed it was a movie trailer; others claimed she was a music industry puppet. Many skeptics, including Brian Flemming, found that the evidence was pretty solid.

The rumors swirled.

In late August, the center could not hold any longer, and the levee broke. A couple of "computer geeks" tricked "Bree" into replying to one of their messages, and they traced her IP signal to a computer in California belonging to "Creative Artist Agency."

The gig was up, and a few days later, the "Creators" of Lonelygirl15 came clean on by posting this cryptic message on the web:

Thank you so much for enjoying our show so far. Our intention from the outset has been to tell a story - a story that could only be told using the medium of video blogs and the distribution power of the Internet. Right now, the biggest mystery of lonelygirl15 is "Who is she?" We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show [or hide] when we interact with the people around us.

"We got muthafuckin' snakes."

Their explanation proved that LonelyGirl15 was a fake, but it didn't answer many questions... Until yesterday. The truth was revealed by the LA Times.

"Bree" was an actress, the whole thing was scripted, and it was all fake.

The "new art form" referred to by the creators of "Bree" was very the web-enforced interactive scheme used by the producers of "Snakes On a Plane."

She's actually a 19-year-old Kiwi strumpet.

Think about all the PR that this is gonna create for youtube.

An idea such as this is only possible with the aid of a universal information exchange platform like the internet. It allows the directors to use real-time fan feedback to change the storyline of the "movie." The actors in it can reply directly to user comments. Or, even more intriguingly, fans posting comments about the films on youtube could really be actors also, used by the directors themselves to propagate scripted conspiracy theories.

This new medium can really smear the line between passive observation and genuine input to the outcome of the story.

Remember, people: This was a first-of-its-kind project, and it was bound to fail. Sooner or later, a few "computer geeks" with nothing better to do were gonna get to the bottom of this, and they did. But here's to hoping that LonelyGirl won't be the only one in this new category of online cinematography.

Four-Legged Law Man

Have the jet gassed up and ready to go at a moment's notice.

There are somethings that we will never be able to explain... There are questions that will never be answered. Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why do people break into state parks, cover themselves in olive oil, and have sex with animals?

Unfortunately, that last one really did happen. In a shockingly hilarious police report, the good people down at TSG have once again struck gold. The 7-page report explains, in detail, exactly what 69-year-old Alfred Stevens was doing at La Purisima Mission in California just after midnight, naked, with a loaded gun, a bottle of extra-virgin olilve oil, a rope, and feed grain.

Sheep: We use them for wool, not having sex with.

The police report claims that the animals in the stables had been "noticeably skittish" as of late. Yeah, anytime you're a sheep, and a 64-year-old pervert butt-rapes you in front of all your sheep friends, acting "noticeably skittish" is pretty understood.

We just wish that was within our jurisdiction, so we could shut down every last one of those ass-cock-chuggers.

In other news, a bunch of raccoons fell through some ceiling in Tampa Bay, and some girl couldn't turn her homework in at school because of it. These raccoons are getting more and more ballsy. If something is not done soon, they will be eating out of every dumpster and drinking out of every toilet that we own.

Why We Fight

"Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year... the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature..."

In a recent poll, it was found that 30% of Americans do not remember in which year September 11th took place.

If so many people are not able to remember when the fight began, is it so surprising that so few understand why the fight continues?

The war on terrorism, as most people think of it today, is largely a product of a propaganda machine collectively known as the popular media. The war, especially on the front lines of Kandahar, Afghanistan, or Fallujah, Iraq, has been far from a military success. In fact, you might as well call it a complete and total pooch-screw.

As a result, people question the motives for war, and begin doubting whether we should be there in the first place.

Camp Babylon.

The world is filled with bad people. Usually, these dictators oppress people that are in no shape to help themselves. Someone else must come to their aid.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban murders children and burns down their schools.

In Iran, women, students, and intellectuals are censored, jailed, and tortured.

In Iraq, civil war has divided the country and reduced it to rubble.

These are not very nice people.

Fighting the war comes at a price. A very horrible price. Ironically, the terror caused by the war has caused many people to lose freedoms that they took for granted. In American, the government now monitors phone calls and emails. Hundreds of suspected terrorists have been held without grounds for months. In England, several innocent people have been mistaken for terrorists and killed by law enforcement agencies.

Not one single terrorist has been shot and killed by law enforcement agencies in England.

This is how terrorism works. It makes people afraid. It makes them think illogically. It is made to be a mind-fuck.

Deep in the Hole

Chicken cruelty.

Most Americans spend their Labor Day lazily, happily detached from the regular world and idling in leisurely slow-motion.

Not Stephen and Mary Gray of Cheshire, Oregon. They spent their Labor Day "drinking while they did yard work" for "much of the day." Well, the harmless inebriated gardening soon turned to a drunken argument. Somehow, during all the commotion, Mary's pet chicken managed to get its head blown off by a .44-calibre handgun that Stephen happened to be holding.

"We don't know if it was an accident or if it was on purpose," Sgt. Clint Riley said. "It depends who you ask."

Mary responded to the death of her pet by grabbing a rifle of her own, and putting a slug in her husband's shoulder. Now, we all know what happens when you combine one chicken, a handgun, a rifle, and an afternoon of drunken gardening.

Mayor McCheese.

Our favorite McDonaldland character was without a doubt Mayor McCheese. While it is true that he was a lousy mayor who never really accomplished anything during his long, long time in office, and that he had a high girlie voice, he was always our favorite. Then, they sued him, saying he looked too much like H.R. Pufnstuf.

While the Mayor never caught the Hamburgler, but then again, his head was a giant cheeseburger, which is definitely a good thing. Plus, his bodyguard was Officer Big Mac, who was also pretty cool. Anyways, we found out a lot about Mayor McCheese after reading his biography.

And, to close out the post, a reminder about how fucking crazy Tom Cruise is:

Hit the Road, Pluto

Pluto got his walking papers.

Pluto has been asked by the other 8 planets to leave their little club, and not come back.

"I don't understand," said the smallest ex-planet yesterday. "I never caused any problems, I held my orbit, never got in the way. It ain't easy to fly straight when you have a moon twice as big as your babalones!"

After scientists confirmed that Pluto was not a planet, but a smaller, much more insignificant rock floating through space, everyone wanted a piece. The times have been tough. Pluto, finding little to live for, has turned to self-flagellation and other harmful activities to cope with the emptiness and pain.

However, the other planets seem undisturbed by the occurence. "We never liked Pluto anyways," said Neptune, "with that annoying little moon of his, and his cock-eyed orbit. "

Mercury seemed confused. When asked about Pluto's dismissal, Mercury responded, "Pluto was always my favorite planet. Ever since I was a kid! I mean, he had class... To be his size, and to take all the shit that he took - his balls gotta be at least as big as Saturn's."

Jupiter was more concise: "Fuck pluto. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on," said the gas giant.

Numerous unconfirmed reports show that Pluto is taking the dismissal rather hard. His new friends are not exactly high-class citizens, and none of them have any rings like his old buddies. Reports of drunken belligerence and inter-planetary abuse are starting to surface. If things continue to go downhill, Pluto could become suicidal, and jump in front of a comet, or crash himself into the Sun.

Death of a Prince, Birth of New Hope

Time to pay the fiddler.

Steve Irwin died yesterday morning, and he died doing what he loved most: Harassing wild animals. It wasn't a crocodile or rattlesnake or raccoon that got him. It was a short-tail stringray.

Witnesses say that the bull ray got scared, panicked, and stuck its tail-spike through Steve's chest, piercing his heart and confirming his reservation on the midnight train to Slab City. The entire event was captured on tape, which is probably what Irwin would have wanted anyways.

Australia weeps together as one undivided country, or possibly continent, in various ways: Australians have come by the thousands to Steve's zoo; The Prime Minister has said that "Australia has lost a wonderful and colorful son"; Millions of Australian families pray for Steve as they eat their koala-bear dinners tonight; Australia's youth remember Steve as they ride their kangaroos to school in the morning.

The memory of man as individual as he was do not fade away so easily.

In your wisdom, oh Lord, you took him. Like you took so many bright, flowering young men in years past. Steve Irwin died before his time. But we will always remember him in his element, wrestling gators in mud-holes, provoking sharks in the open sea, chasing cobra snakes up trees, or cradling his infant son in his arms as he entered gator pens and hand-fed them chicken carcasses at Australia's Zoo.

We lost a good man yesterday.

Good night, sweet prince.

George S. Halas would approve.

On Sunday night, the Bears take the field for the start of their 87th NFL season.When faced with the seemingly paradoxical question, "Who would win in a game, Da Bears or Da Bulls?", most Chicagoans could not answer. However, the correct answer, as given by the late, great Chris Farley, is this:

"The senseless waste of pitting these two mighty forces of nature against each other, like matter vs. anti-matter, will be a tragedy, not only for the teams involved, but for our planet. All nations must band together, to ensure that such a conflageration never takes place."

His response earned him a trip to the cheese-fry booth. He later argued about how many points Michael Jordan could score in an NBA game if he played all four quarters while seated in a recliner.

Heart attack.

Now, time for somber youtube in memory of the man they call "The Crocodile Hunter." We now mourn him as passionately as he mourns this gator: