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It's a so-so Friday in Chicago. It's not nice enough to sneak out of work or call in sick, and it's too nice to be busy at the office. However it is just right to be at the office and dicking around on the internet. I assume this will be the same next week as well. Let us help you in this quest:

1) The New Yorker is currently doing a three part series on global warming, the first part of which is now available online. They sent a reporter up to parts in or near the North Pole to interview various scientists and what their research is yielding. They make their case by bringing in as many different types of evidence as possible. An excellent article.

2) South Park Character Generator. This is too much fun. Creating sketches of yourself and your friends will easily eat up too much of your time. Feel free to create little images of yourself and post image links in our comments section (I'm curious what you all look like out there). Here is what I look like:

The left image is what I look like right now; the right one is what I hope to look like this weekend.

You have to love this man for not only drawing each image himself, but also for including a Beers Jersey among the available shirts to wear. I mean this with no irony and complete sincerity – if you do not know where the Beers Jersey is from you are almost certainly a terrorist who hates freedom. Or at the very least, you shouldn't be at this webpage; you should probably be off exploring high-end avant-garde erotica instead.

2.5) Have you all heard about this South Park Conservative movement thing? Evidently the National Review crowd is pushing it (there's even a Jonah Goldberg quote on the cover). This isn't new – the episodes defending Starbucks and shrugging at the rain forests are from several years ago. I wonder if the book points out how hard they've hit up Mel Gibson and The Passion.

3) Speaking of ganging up on "the ruling liberal elite", the new chapter for the softcover edition of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank is available online. I wanted to do a "Best of 2004: Books of the Rural Midwest" column, as Frank's book and Gilead were the two books I finished and immediately flipped back to the first page and reread last year. Excellent stuff.

Entitled "What's the Matter with Liberals?", the extra chapter mostly goes over the 2004 election, and how the choice of Kerry and the disastrious campaign he ran played right into the Right's hands. To put it another way, as Hitchens said months before the election: "John Kerry [was a bad choice] because the Republican Party is a machine designed to beat prosperous liberals from Massachusetts."

Frank delights in beating up the Clinton era campaigning, with all the playing to the center, trying to sneak the affluent class out from under the Republicans, and useless advisors out-of-touch with anyone not writing them a check. I think this chapter, and the book itself, is mandatory reading for those on the left. It's consoling to think that Americans were too dumb, or racist, or that (my favorite I hear) Kerry's campaign "was too smart" (!), but consolation will only get you so far, and tough love is often better.

And he's funny as hell, in that perfect chicagoan way (I think he wrote most of the book while living here). And an addictive writer. The highest recommendations. Read away!

Did anyone else notice that the New York Times now has a Thursday Style section in addition to their Sunday Style page? I still think that Sunday section is one of the weakest things they do, but somewhat entertaining because they are always at least a year late reporting "up and coming trends" to the professional class.

For instance? January of this year brought us an article on mommy blogs, something that may have been news back in 2001; the first Thursday Style Section brought us an article on Corporate Suit attire coming back (read the first paragraph here for an excellent thought on that). But an article today really takes the cake: Men are growing beards again.

But you, faithful readers, already knew that, because you followed our very own Competetive Mustache Growth Series from last year. I'll let you in on a little in-joke at ginandtacos: people are always finding us from google searches on such things as "how to grow a beard"and other facial hair inquiries – we've even gotten some emails from teenagers and foreigners along the lines of "I want to grow a beard, can you give me any advice?" (our advice is usually "don't shave").

Though the article is exactly what you expect it to be, one part of it is worth the blockquoting and discussing:

The beard is also a blatant and almost primal expression of masculinity. For a study published in the journal Psychology in 1973, eight young men were photographed in four progressive states of beardedness. The photographs were shown to a panel, who were asked to rate the men on a variety of attributes.
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The responses linked longer beards with masculinity, dominance, self-confidence, nonconformity and liberalism.

That was 1973; it's probably time to repeat the survey.

Oh my. I couldn't agree more about the need for a new survey.
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We'll take care of it here – list off the attributes you associate with each of the following pictures in the comments section:

If there is demand, i can dig out a picture of Ed with a goatee from a long time ago, or the unfortunate beard I grew during a drunken winter in Spain two years ago (the less said the better).

In case anyone was curious, or perhaps in doubt, it would seem that a new study confirms that a vast majority of university faculty claim to be "liberal."

Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study apparently find most shocking the fact that there is not a single discipline at the Univeristy level which can boast a majority of conservatives.

Apparently, now hold your breath because this is really going to come as a shock to you, Literature and Philosophy faculty were…..

the most liberal.

Oh, and another point, the better the university, the more liberal its faculty is.
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This is um…well…not actually all that interesting.

Initially, I was saddened to see that one Mr. Burmila would decide to part with such a valued historically significant pair of silver vinyl (possibly from Hot Topic but if my memory serves purchased at Gadzooks) pants. I figured there must be some logical explanation. Perhaps it is some kind of benefit auction? Since the bidding has now stopped, we might never know.

What we do know is as follows:

The year was 2000, or possibly 2001. Actually I am pretty sure it was 2001. The date is insignificant. The location was CO Daniels. You see, at the time Mike and I both lived in Champaign. Ed Burmila lived in Madison Wisconsin (in a house with an amazing little bitch named Toby….at an address that to the best of my knowledge is still listed as the ginandtacos.com corporate headquarters). Fairly regularly Ed would flee from Toby and come and visit Mike and myself. About once a year we would decide that it would be funny to go out to Kams or CO Daniels for the evening- as a point of reference, this was never fun and or funny.

One particular time that this occurred we decided that we needed to either attempt to fit in or look ridiculous. I honestly can't remember the motivation. However, the result is firmly affixed in my brain.

mike purchased an exceptionally expensive pair of green pants (which he later returned) and a comic book t-shirt. I bought a pair of black vinyl pants and a Black Flag t-shirt. And Ed, Ed bought a System of a Down t-shirt and a pair of….that’s right, silver vinyl pants.

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you Ed, we have a picture of you in the pants thanks to Sylvia Rios

We wore these outfits to CO Daniels. We did not fit in, we did not have fun. We however decided that we did need to fit in. We proceeded to go to the campustown dance "club" Orchid- what is now Tonic, where, and I am not kidding I believe we all received compliments on our pants.

So now, in 2005…four or five years after this fateful night took place, Ed was the last remaining owner of his pants. Mike of course returned his- which was his plan all along- and I…well I must admit to frequently getting drunk and wearing my vinyl pants. They were cheap, they basically self destructed in a couple months.

Now some guy from Ebay is the proud owner of the silver pants. The frightening thing is that this man is one of the most disreputable Ebay patrons I have ever seen. He goes by the name r.not and has only three current feedback entries all of which are negative. Although I can't look at any of these auctions directly, I can only assume that they were all for "gothic" pants or shirts.

At one point or another in all of our lives we have been posed the question: What one item would you want to take with you to a desert island?

The motivation for asking such a thing typically ranges from innocent curiosity to some kind of perverse personality profiling.

Regardless, all of us would no doubt put some thought into it, and decide on something like music or the like. However, I fear that far too few of us would have the foresight of one Mr.

Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas.

Mr. Goodman would bring…..

As much as you would like to think that we are, Ginandtacos.com is not making this up. Mr. Goodman is so adamant about his love for gin that he actually proclaimed to a classroom of schoolchildren (yes, this really happened) that

Mayor of Las Vegas kicking back at home with a glass of gin

Mr. Goodman responded to criticism by proclaiming that he did nothing more than tell the truth- beleiving that it would have been ridiculous for him to insinuate that he would bring anything other than gin. (a Teddy Bear or Bible were mentioned as non-viable dersert island gin alternatives.)

despite not wanting to take a teddy bear to a desert island one has been crafted to his likeness-complete with martini glass

The Mayor of Las Vegas's love of gin is no secret. He hosts regular "Martinis with the Mayor events" and is a sponsor of Bombay gin.

(He was originally approached by Beefeater but Bombay out bid them). When asked by reporters after the incident if he has a drinking problem, Mayor Goodman responded:

"Oh, absolutely not. I love to drink"….then left the interview.

Despite the fact that there is no word as to the mayors opinions on tacos, I would like to stamp the ginandtacos.

com seal of approval onto Mayor Oscar Goodman.

This would normally be Erik's entry, but he is off on vacation this week without access to ginandtacos (evidently it's being blocked by the Kinko's where he's checking his email). He'll recomment next week.

Honestly I'm not the biggest fan of the entire catalog of Hunter S. Thompson but I do appreciate his existence. There was a time around 1969-70 when drug use changed from being part of a sense of peace, love and utopia, and instead became part of a sense of sadness at the death of such a (or any) notion and an excuse for paranoia, and Thompson was there to shoot the signal flare:

"There was no point in fighting…now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

If the rise and fall of the Woodstock generation seems less relevant each day, Thompson survives on as an inspiration to the kids who are pushing acceptible limits of psychotropic consumption everywhere. You can see his ghost everywhere in colleges.

If you can picture a mirrored-sunglasses wearing, no-drug-fearing, cigarette-holder-in-mouth 20 year old in your head…
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wait. you don't have to imagine it:

fall 2000, dear lord.

Hope the next world is as fucked up as this one Hunter.
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random.

1) I understand making fun of bad samples in rap and hip-hop is very 1998, but there are two songs hitting the airwaves that sample such bizarre material it deserves our attention. One is the song "Sugar (on my tongue)" by Trick Daddy, sampling the Talking Heads song of the same name (link to a song clip). The other is "Nasty Girl" by Nitty which samples "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies (video clip here, no audio clip as the album isn't out yet).

My first thought is that the Powers That Be in Music have just gone ahead and started sampling in alphabetical order, and we have finally reached Sg-Sz in the record collection. My second thought is that this Nitty fellow must be quite the character, to have heard the Archies single on the oldies station and thought "this would make a great song about a girl who likes having anal sex!" I think he probably thinks that about any melody he hears.

My last thought is that we have progressed since the early 80s, as it is clear that "Trick Daddy" is just singing about cunnilingus. This is as opposed to David Byrne, who was almost certainly singing about a mix of cunnilingus and cocaine. The fact that doing cocaine nowadays is about as cool as Don Johnson in a day-glo suit or investment bankers and models in a bathroom stalls is a sign our culture is one step closer to an end-stage of perfection.

god bless america!

2) Roger Ebert showed up in the interview portion of the New York Times Magazine last week. I really hate the Great!/Crap! Thumbs Up!/Thumbs Down! aesthetic that passes for movie criticism these days, and though Roger Ebert isn't the cause of the problem, he certainly can take some of the responsibility for it's popularity. That said, I've always enjoyed reading his non-review movie writing (especially the Movie Answer Man), so I was excited to read this. Now this is the one forum where he can do his best to not appear to be from the Midwest. His answer to the question "Last Meal":

Something from the Steak 'n' Shake, a chain of restaurants in the Midwest. I'd get a super steak burger with onion and pickle, ketchup and mustard, an order of chili mac, a side of fries and a Coke. My first restaurant meal was held at the Steak 'n' Shake when I was 3, and I've been going back ever since.

Wow. I like the amount of detail he gives. You can almost imagine him pointing at the writer saying "make sure to get ketchup and mustard in the column." I remember back when I was at UofI during one of Ebert's Movie Festivals and I heard a rumor from a friend of a friend: Some of the directors and producers who were in town decided to head out to a strip club and tried to get Ebert to go; Ebert instead took the crew of volunteers out to Steak and Shake at 2am.

addendum: While trying to find Ebert's comments, I found that Ebert is a vocal advocate of Steak and Shake. As if there was ever any doubt. From his review of "Harold and Kumar Goes to White Castle", I movie I had also loved:

Because this column is read in Turkey, Botswana, Japan and California, I should explain that "sliders" are what fans of the White Castle chain call their hamburgers, which are small and cheap and slide right down. We buy 'em by the bag.

Is a slider worth the trouble leaving home and journeying through two states? If you're stoned and have the munchies, as Harold and Kumar are, and if you're in the grip of a White Castle obsession, the answer is clearly yes. The only hamburger worth that much trouble when you're clean and sober is at Steak 'n Shake. Californians believe the burgers at In 'n Out are better, but that is because they do not appreciate the secret of Steak 'n Shake, expressed in its profound credo, "In Sight, It Must Be Right." (Many people believe the names of In 'n Out and Steak 'n Shake perfectly describe the contrast in bedroom techniques between the coast and the heartland.)

Find a Steak and Shake nearest you.

I know what you are thinking:

—
As a loyal ginandtacos.com reader, I'm always up to date on the links you keep on the right side of your webpage. And while checking gapserblock, I saw a post related to something lame involving Star Trek, that when followed through, cites an email address mike@trekunited.com.

Mike I know your email is usually mike@whateverwebpage.com: is this you? If this is true mike, this is lame, even for you.
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This is lame, even for the internet.
—

Harsh, but true. As it stands I am the Number One officer (that's second in charge for you neophytes) for the Illinois chapter of trekunited.com. Long story short I pointed out the webpage to my roommate as a random site (I'm not a fan of the show, but he is), who immediately got in touch with the people in charge, and became a ranking member of their site.

He asked me "are you in?" It was the tone that close friends use when things are going to get a bit intense (the last time I used it, I believe, was showing up to a hungover friend's apartment saying nothing but "we have a red convertable and we are driving to Kentucky to drink Maker's Mark. Are you in?") – and as such I realized I had no choice in the matter.

My first fundraising idea was to have a bake sale where we would be from the future, having traveled through time bringing fresh cookies from the 23rd century to help Scott Bakula. But I realized that this didn't go far enough.
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We had to do something dramatic.
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So we rented out Logan Square auditorium and decided to throw:

We contacted the internet all this weekend, telling people of the plans through various message boards. You could imagine my surprise when I opened my trekunited.com email address this morning and, instead of seeing hundreds of Star Trek fans rallying at my digital horn of gondor, finding a single email, from France. Babelfish could not determine whether or not the writer loved or hated the Bakula (the first person to comment an accurate translation will get an inappropriate belated internet v-day card from me).

As such, I'm getting a bit worried about this party – and I've gone to Red Alert.
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Have I mislead the female singer-songwriter pianist into thinking she is going to be "playing a normal party we are just throwing for a random group of people" so that she'd think "it would be a great place to invite all your [female] friends"? Have I had to write an email explaining why I'd make a good addition to the Gay Enterprise Fans Yahoo Group, in the hope of getting word to a possible cluster of guys living in Boystown who are a little too much into Quantum Leap? Have I outright bribed close friends into showing? Yes to all of these things, and to more.

And now I appeal to you. If you've always wanted to hang out/meet/get back in contact with me, but (or only) wanted to see me in a humble [read: wearing Starfleet jumpsuit] situation, now is your chance. You would all get a major favor back out of me; if you buy raffle tickets the favor can be of the "it's 2am and I'm covered in blood and I need you to come over and put your fingerprints on this gun/knife/candlestick" variety.

Do it for me. No wait; do it for Scott.

see you there. mike out.

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of your television series "COPS", and it's offspring, "World's Wildest Police Chases." COPS is perfectly situation in the 7pm time slot on Saturday Night so that I can enjoy a light drink or take-out food while preparing for the later evening plans.

And If we are to define "prayer" as the act of observing a highly repetitious event over a length of time in the attempt to find spiritual peace, then the act of watching World's Wildest Police Chases' endless cycle of:

a) Car is pulled over.
b) Car takes off while officer is walking towards it.
c) Car drives for a long time while being chased and "tapped." Car then crosses the median and is headed towards oncoming traffic.
d) Narrator Sheriff John Bunnell observes that the Driver "is showing complete disregard for innoncent bystanders."
e) Spikes are thrown, blowing out the tires. Car drives on the rims, shooting off a hypnotizing fireworks display of sparks.
f) Driver gets to home/abandoned factory/end of the road, gets out of car and makes a run for it. Driver is then beaten senselessly by attending officers.

Is like the Our Father and Hail Mary rolled into one (if a helicopter or Macomb County is involved, then it's like the Act of Contrition).
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nobody shows complete disregard for innocent bystanders on his watch

But back to the matter at hand Fox Network. Last year you aired a Cops special that could never be topped: you ran two hours of domestic abuse calls, entitled the special "Love Hurts", and ran it Valentine's Day Night. This really happened; scroll down to Sat.

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on this site, which gives it the accurate though misdirected description of "Even for 'COPS' this is tasteless."

I was able to watch the first two segments and they became my new favorite COPS moments. One featured cops appearing at a trailer home where a middle-aged guy was beaten up by his wife's secret boyfriend who had fled.

The cops, god bless them, tried to counsel the situation, informing the wife that she would have to choose between the two men. After giving it a fair amount of thought, the wife tells the officer "I have decided." Cop: "Good to hear it." Wife: "I'm going to keep dating both of them."

The other segment involved cops appearing at a scene of reported abuse where the women was yelling out the second story window for them to go away. They informed her that the had to get inside by law, and that a battering ram was going to arrive at the scene and they were going to break her door unless she opened it. She closed her window and disappeared into the house – and sure enough 5 minutes later there's a broken door and everyone is being dragged outside in cuffs.

When the cops asked the women why she didn't let them in, her answer described that perfect american thought: "I figured if I stopped talking to you then you would just go away." This is Homer Simpson's "I'll hide under some coats, and hope that somehow everything will work out" in action.

So as you can see, I was hoping to see this special aired again this Valentine's Day where I could harness the power of Tivo to watch it endlessly for the better part of forever. Imagine my surprise then when I learned that you will be airing the Budweiser Shootout Nascar Race instead of any COPS. Perhaps people who watch COPS overlap with Nascar fans. Perhaps not (I don't). Either way, this special needed to air again, and I'm worried that it is lost forever.

Congratulations – you've broken my heart this Valentine's Day. I hope you are happy. This was your one chance to make even for the Fox News Network in my mind and you wasted it. You suck.

Sincerely,

mike

What with the recent Super Bowl and all, we in the United States are at risk of feeling that we have a monopoly on obsessive, ridiculous sports fandom.

Americans are known to engage in such absurd actions as painting their chests and going shirtless in subzero weather, rushing the field for no apparent reason (landing themselves in jail), engaging in fistacuffs with the opposing team members, and eating dangerously fattening snack foods and sausages.

Yet, through it all, have they ever…..REMOVED THEIR OWN TESTICLES?

You can obviously see the connection

So, this is apparently how it went down. This complete lunatic told his drinking buddies that in the event of a Welsh victory over England in the Six Nations Cup, he would in fact sever his own testicles. This comes as virtually no surprise considering the fact that:

a. I am sure similar amazingly stupid statements have been uttered at a wide variety of sporting events.

b. The man is Welsh…

The shocking part of this story is the simple fact that upon Wales ending up victorious the man apparently took some sharp implement to his balls, removed them, and returned to the bar to boast to his friends. I am sure the conversation went something like this.

Severed-balls man: Hey bitches, bet you think you're a fan of the Welsh national team but are any of you cocksuckers willing to remove your own testicles to prove your love of the sport?!?

severed-balls man extends his hand to reveal two freshly cut bits of manhood

Random Rugby fan: But you are aware that despite your pure love of rugby, you will now never be able to properly love a woman – or most likely a man in your case.

Severed-balls man: Oh fuck, you're right. Someone call an ambulance.

There is no word as of right now whether the hospital attempted to reattach the testicles or not.

According to the Daily Mirror: "He came back later wearing a kilt with his testicles in a bag," a fellow fan who was with Mr Huish at the social club told the Daily Mirror.

"He lifted the kilt up to show everyone what he had done. There was blood everywhere, it was terrible. That's when he collapsed."

Updates: According to The Scotsman Online: "Staff phoned the emergency services and put the testicles in a pint glass filled with ice cubes. "

And finally the mirror.co.uk: "He will need cosmetic surgery and may be given a prosthetic scrotum."