Under anesthetic, subdivided and synthetic

So only one game out of the four NFL playoff matchups this weekend had a barely-tolerable outcome. I'll leave you to figure out which one. It wasn't the Chefs swapping Gatorade for cyclobenzadrine, that much I can tell you.

Am done ruminating on the Gabby Giffords shooting; it just makes me ill. MightyGodKing hits the high notes in his analysis/reflection with more salient points and a more thorough connect-the-dots to previous, similar incidents in recent American events than you'll find from a mass-media outlet.

No more weekends like that one for a while, kplzthx.

Electric Six's new venue: highway warning signs. With pics. Via Obscure Store.

Edit to include icon.

Wilkinsburg police said they believe no students ingested the contents of 78 bags of heroin that were brought to school by an 8-year old on Tuesday.

However, they could not say for sure how 18 bags, some opened, ended up in the classroom's trash can.

The third-grader at Turner Elementary School was found with 60 folded bags of heroin, stamped with the message "Trust Me," during state standardized testing Tuesday morning.

Obviously standardized testing in Pennsylvania is slightly more rigorous than in most other states.

The eagles have started bombing us with fish.

Via Obscure Store: Three days after a Klamath man was arrested at Wal-Mart for allegedly smashing several televisions with a softball bat, he was back at the scene of the crime — this time with a lamp.

How much more modern-Don-Quixote can you get than smashing TVs at Wal-Mart?

Former NFL MVP Steve McNair shot, killed at age 36. Good God.

Virginity: you're doing it wrong.

Via Kotaku: With "rape games" officially banned in Japan and politicians cracking down, the country's erotic game makers are feeling the heat.

What to do? In order to avoid another outcry or to prevent falling target of international protests, adult game developers are giving new and upcoming titles less sensation names.

So, Slippery Pregnancy Princess (our translation) becomes a shortened form of "Slippery Princess" ("Nuru Puri")....

Six more at the link -- I find the edits highly entertaining, if only because the editor seemed gripped by sloth in de-raping the titles....

Over the years, Western Washington University professor Perry Mills has referred to an overweight student as a "400-pound canary who warbles nothingness"; slapped the nickname "Precious" on a male colleague he believed to be gay; and called a female colleague a "bimbo" and "slut" to her face.

Those remarks were just for starters, according to university records.

Mills, 67, who has taught for more than 20 years in Western's drama department, says he has no recollection of making some of the statements, or never made them. At one point, in an interview with The Seattle Times, he said the university relied on "vacuous lickspittles" to make him look bad.

...Other students describe him as a bully who hurls brutal words simply for his personal enjoyment, at their expense. Faculty and staff have complained of similar behavior. At faculty meetings, Mills purportedly referred to colleagues as "idiots," "maggots" and "the usual."

One of the most serious complaints stemmed from his treatment of a student who returned to school in 2004 after a battle with ovarian cancer. She was still bald from chemotherapy, facing "insecurities every day," according to university records.

When the student balked at presenting a playwriting piece in class, Mills responded with words to the effect that she might as well have died.

Exactly what was said was the subject of disagreement. But before the faculty panel, Mills acknowledged he said something like, "If you don't put up your work, it's just as if you died of cancer and aren't here at all."

...Mills admitted during the hearing to using derogatory terms toward colleagues but couldn't recall some of the specific remarks attributed to him. With students, Mills said, provocation is part of his personality, which he had used to prod students. But he denied berating and demeaning students and colleagues.

Anybody want to invite this guy to a conference?

I'm not one for legal wonkery, but this is pretty wonderful on a variety of levels: it turns out you can't actually sue the makers of Cap'n Crunch because you led to believe that crunchberries were real fruit. Which is awesome enough on its own, but the details are golden:

The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said "berries" were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit.

"Otherwise redeemed by fruit" is quickly worming its way into my heart as one of the best turns of phrase I've read in a long time.

According to the complaint, Sugawara and other consumers were misled not only by the use of the word "berries" in the name, but also by the front of the box, which features the product's namesake, Cap'n Crunch, aggressively "thrusting a spoonful of 'Crunchberries' at the prospective buyer."

Say what you will of the plaintiff's intellectual capacities, but whoever crafted the "thrusting a spoonful" bit has earned my respect. "Thrusting Spoonful" goes atop my list of hypothetical band names.

But to put this entire debacle in context, the final graf from the blog entry:

Judge England also noted another federal court had "previously rejected substantially similar claims directed against the packaging of Fruit Loops [sic] cereal, and brought by these same Plaintiff attorneys." He found that their attack on "Crunchberries" should fare no better than their prior claims that "Froot Loops" did not contain real froot.