They shoot horses, don't they?

In case you didn't know, there is a movement afoot to stop legally operating businesses from following their own plans.
See, there are a few places in the country that take horses that are facing the possibility of painful death, neglect, etc, and they process the horsemeat and send it overseas. No one in America eats it, but it's a delicacy in other countries. So, America, land of the free, not only wants to stop a business from helping people and making money, they want to stop other countries from following their own choices.
In today's Fort Worth Star Telegram, Bob Ray Sanders points out the hypocrisy.
It's not like the people against it are Vegans or anything. They just don't want people eating horse meat because they love horses. So, they want the horses kept alive and in pain.
Ridiculous.

Blow it Up

Guess what these are for. No really, take a long look, and guess:



If you said "to block the awful smell of the diseased flatulance eminating from your dirty bottom" you're right! Pat yourself on the back (but not the butt unless you're already wearing these!)

The pants have a built in filter and airtight fit to ensure the elimination of nasty odours.

Makers Under-Tec say the "gas eaters", officially called Under-Ease, are no joke but a "serious product that serves a purpose".

They say the pants "relieve the pain without the shame" and "improve social confidence".

Or more accurately, they relieve you of the "pain" of having to obey social custom by not befouling your immediate surroundings and ruining the appetite/day of anyone with the misfortune of being trapped near your rotting bowels. But I also imagine that a group of guys with a pair of these and too much to drink might, upon taking a trip to Pancho's Mexican Buffet, try to find out exactly how effective "activated carbon" really is compared to the power of a dozen or so "activated" colons.

Weird Al is the Greatest

And I don't mean in some culturally ironic sense like "Mr. T is the greatest", I mean Weird Al really is great. He manages to be culturally relevant, funny, quirky and yet individual all at the same time. And his videos are just dead funny, like this one below "White and Nerdy.":


Weird Al has this incredible talent for sticking his head up above the musical backwater every few years and popping out some hilarious song/video. I think the man has been doing this for close to 30 years now, but he just doesn't quit.

If you want to hear a little more about Weird Al and what he likes to listen to, check out the All Songs Considered show he hosts (just scroll down a little.) I recommend it.

Moran's (Usually) Welcome

This is what counts as fun in St. Pete

At least, in most cases, unless their last name is actually "Moran" in which case we have to consider these things on a case by case basis. And this person-Rachel Moran-is most assuredly disqualified, pretty much solely on the basis of the company she keeps:

We are thinking about proving this nuisance and need for civil action by making a short film called “Eddie Rolls on the Homeless,” whereby [Moran friend] Mark secretly videotapes me [said Moran] and Lil Sis [Moran] in a variety of situations to see how many homeless people approach us and, then, how many of these situations escalate into harrassment. Then, he’s gonna videotape [Moran friend] Eddie in the same scenarios, only Eddie is going to beat up every homeless person who escalates the contact after being told that his panhandling is illegal and annoying.

Later in comments, Moran claims to be emulating Jonathan Swift's gift for humor and satire with her post, by which she means to say "only kidding." But we here at Nifty Stacks know something about that old beast humor (we also know better to compare ourselves to Jon Swift, unless it's this one, and he's still funnier than us) and we know that generally, picking on people who are weaker than us, more mentally ill than us, and harder up for luck than us, is just a no-winner when it comes to the ha-ha department unless they're victims of Japanese pranks of course, and especially if the prank involves a toilet. It's just that dropping rocks on the person 30 rungs down on you on the ladder of life just ain't that funny.

Anyway, sorry Rachel, but you're one Moran who is most assuredly not welcome here. However, I do believe they're are looking for some new help here.

One of the most addictive games ever...

Is here.

50 Most Loathsome People

This list is pretty over the top, and pretty funny. They takes shots mostly at politicos (of the left and the right) but there are some entertainers and other public figures thrown in for good measure also. Anyway, check it out. Here's my favorite though, as a preview (though Ann Coulter and the scaly cock of Satan is a pretty close second):

9. Ken Lay

Charges: Exhibit A: Infuriating karmic immunity. Even when, after many years of foot-dragging, someone finally got around to holding this slimy reverse Robin Hood accountable, he still managed to elude justice and rob his victims yet again, this time of punitive damages by dying with suspiciously perfect timing. Never owned up to any culpability in the myriad legal and ethical violations at Enron, claiming he had no knowledge of them. Even if this were true, Lay would still rank among the worst CEOs in history for sheer obliviousness.

Exhibit A: "We don't break the law."

Sentence: Drinking a martini in his bathrobe and reading the Wall Street Journal at his secret compound in the South Pacific, the "late" Mr. Lay starts choking on an olive when the 400th major daily article to describe his life as "Shakespearean" makes him laugh out loud. Lay falls out of his chair, impaling an eyeball with the stem of his glass and catching his penis in a $900 toaster. The electrical current triggers the long-dormant prefrontal cortex of his now-smoldering brain, suddenly activating Lay’s conscience. As he is slowly and painfully electrocuted over several minutes, Lay experiences a lifetime of guilt and remorse. Then he catches fire.

Sounds about right.

Making the Character

The improbable love of an elf and human ranger


I haven't blogged about gaming in awhile, and the last post I did is probably buried in the archives of this blog somewhere so that you may never find it (thank God) but this guide on how to make a "sweet" D&D character over at Something Awful got me thinking about the whole process of character creation again. I don't have a whole lot of stories about it, but I do remember the extremely tedious process of building a character from the ground up in every game. Now as a gamemaster and player I was never a stickler for a system that required some kind of random character creation. I suppose those who do believe it to be valuable for it's randomness, as if you're "born" into the game and your skills and talents should be random as well. I think that's a load of crap. I'm not sure how much fun gaming can be when you can "come into" the fantasy world a stunted dwarf with no hand-eye coordination but incredible skills at math...just as you might have done in real life. Every now and then one of my friends would "experiment" with random character creation, and I think one time the end result was that I played a one-armed female paladin.

Of course, letting the players have a large amount of their say can end up in some wacky results also. The reason why is because many games give you the option to burden your character with the equivalent of handicaps, so that you can obtain bonus points to use on your character in some other respect (like their intelligence, agility, dexterity, etc., etc.) Although I did not prefer to abuse the system greatly, my friends frequently ended up playing characters that were virtually gibbering lunatics with all sorts of bizarre allergies....at least on paper. The problem is that whoever played GM would rarely enforce the consequences of these negative traits, so that in effect our characters would end up being practically super-human, without having to stop to regularly take their lithium in the middle of combat or whatever as they should have. I do recall one time my friend, GM'ing in a heated session and highly frustrated with uncooperative players, decided to begin enforcing negative character traits. The result was us gaming fairly regular and unpleasant bathroom breaks and stops for highly unusual foods.

Anyway, if you want to read about the absurdities of naming your character, equipping your character, giving your character some sort of back story, check out the link above which is humorous only in how it only slightly exaggerates what most gamers do when creating a character. And if you have any great character creation stories, please feel free to share in comments.

Greatest Comics Blog Ever

That may be a bit of an over-statement, but I have certainly found the greatest blog post about comics ever.


Oh yeah!

Honestly, I've got nothing to say about it. Just read it. It's great. And check out the rest of the blog while you're at it.