Stray Hawkeye

So, once again my home computer is acting up.  I need to spend a bit of time backing things up and transferring them to new drives, so there will be a bit of a brief pause here while I take care of that.  Hopefully I’ll be back to making some new posts in about a week or so.

This also your friendly reminder to back up the files you would miss if your computer stopped working tomorrow.  These things happen.  For example bad hard drive sounds (absolutely cringe inducing if you’ve heard them before) here’s a wide variety of them.  They vary widely in sound quality and volume.

On a happier note:

Bars & Tones from André Chocron on Vimeo via Make.

• Made me laugh, but sadly true.
• For advertisers who can’t quite decide on a font, may I suggest this one.
• Really, really NSFW, but funny, the AIG Exec catcher, via BoingBoing.
• Cute inspirational posters at An Amber-Colored Life.
• What ever happened to Lincoln Logs?  Kid’s toys these days.  And as they note, the customer reviews are awesome.
• 
  Via Pundit Kitchen

• Funny comic at xkcd.
• The internet makes me happy, that I can just put a play button here and have the song Wipe Out play, see: .  Via Cute Overload.
• Cute panda treats, I love all the different faces.
• The little one may be the coolest cat ever:
  
  via I can has cheezburger

One Sentence is a site consisting purely of user submitted stories, each of which is one sentence long.  It’s amazing how one sentence can sometimes convey more than pages and pages of writing.  Favorites:

• Sleepwalking
• Change of plans
• Have it your way
• True love
• A day at work
• I can relate
• Mental health day
• Drinking problem
• Politickles

So, Bush left office today.  I’m happy about this.  However, I must say I was a little disappointed to hear that he left in a helicopter.  I had always envisioned him leaving office on the the ground.  Pursued by a crowd bearing pitchforks and torches.  And I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’ll allow you on a helicopter with a pitchfork or a torch these days.

Though I didn’t watch any of the coverage, I do like this bit:

After the inauguration ceremony, some in the crowd waved at the aircraft in the sky. Others, however, cheered when they heard a television broadcaster announce, “George Bush is no longer president of the United States.” Still others in the crowd, broke into chants of “Na-na-na-nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

I can’t help but mentally associate that with the other chant that is regularly uttered at the end of a football game, when one team is very decisively beaten: Overrated (clap, clap, clapclapclap).  I try to be optimistic here and there, but it doesn’t fit well with my dry sense of humor.

In other news, after months of preparation and countless meetings with the top scientific and religious leaders in the country, Obama found that, in fact, he still can not walk on water.

Fuck. It didn't look that hard.

This is unfortunate as the original Inauguration plans called for him to deliver a stirring speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and then walk across the reflecting pond to be sworn in.  While a choir of angels sang.  In tune, with overtones.  And all of the porta-potties on the mall instantly turned into arboretums.  Instead the events had to split into two days.

For those who thought it would be a cold day in Hell before a black man was President of the United States, it was.  There’s actually a small town in Michigan called Hell.  It’s not far from Detroit and Ann Arbor (don’t act surprised).  It was about 5 degrees there today.  Though really, being in Michigan, it’s cold there a lot, so I don’t think that was the limiting factor keeping a black man out of office as much as it was all the racist bastards in this country.

Also, satellite images of the Inauguration, click through for the higher res, they’re cool.

So, between redesigning the site, subscribing to a whole lot of new rss feeds, celebrating Christmas 4 times, New Years, a bowl game, a wedding, running, and work, I seem to have managed to get even further behind on posting things than usual.  In light of this, I’ll probably be sprinkling in a few more link heavy, commentary light posts here and there, such as this one.

Christmas:

• Good comic at Indexed.
• The Christmas spirit (sort of), from a worker at a tree lot over at Secrets of the City.
• I was previously unaware, but apparently The Salvation Army is a cult.  No, seriously, like a real cult.  I didn’t know.  No more change for them.  Okay, so I haven’t given them change in years, since I stopped generally carrying cash at all.  But anyway, scary cult.
• Christmas memories in the making at One Sentence.
• Cute holiday pictures at Simple Sparrow.  I especially like the one with the little deer figurine.
• There are some messed up, and pretty, Christmas tradition around the world, at Big Picture.  #12 struck me as particularly interesting.  Had anyone else ever heard of Krampus before?
• Santa’s family tree, via BoingBoing

New Years

• Pretty New Years candle video, via Drawn, with a slight bit of explanation.
• JibJab Year in Review, via Drawn
• Dave Berry has a great year in review as well, via Reason.  Really good.  I started putting block quotes of greatness in here from it, but there’s way to much awesome.  Go read it.  It’s long, it’s worth it.  Have you read it yet?  No really, go read it, best part of this post.

Inauguration

• Giant map used to plan the whole spectacle.  Makes me think of a bunch of WWII generals gathered around something like this with toy soldiers and model airplanes planning out an invasion as they hear things over the telegraph.
• Keith Olbermann covers a pretty good chunk of Bush’s bungling in about 8 minutes.  Not an exhaustive list by any means, and pretty obviously biased, but still a good round up/history.  He barely even touches on the Anthrax attacks, carried out with Anthrax from a government lab, with one of the most totally botched investigations ever only concluding when the primary suspect (the second time they had one) killed himself, and the case against him basically fell apart.  Remember that?  No one else does either.
• A short list, which links to a long list, that cover some, um, high points? of the Bush Administration.  Somewhere between funny and absolutely horrifying.
• Given the previous points, anyone care to place bets on how long until Obama pardons Bush and his whole administration for “any possible wrong doing”?  A couple weeks?  A month maybe?  Change we can believe in.

Have you read the Dave Berry post yet?  Seriously, I was almost in tears laughing by the end.

So it’s official.  The Game Which Must Not Be Named* will be played between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals.  I’m quite happy about this.  What’s that you say?

“But Kearn, you don’t care about pro football, only college football.  And aside from Mike Humpal (Steelers) and Kenny Iwebema (Cardinals), there’s not even a strong tie to Iowa football here.”

And that’s where you’re wrong.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Steelers’ uniforms bear a striking resemblance to those worn by Iowa.  Though both teams have always worn black and gold, when Hayden Fry started at Iowa, he had the Iowa uniforms redone to more closely mimic those of the Steelers.  At the time, the Steelers were winning The Game Which Must Not Be Named left and right, and the Hawkeyes were, well, not.  Hayden thought it would help psychologically to look like a great team, and it did.  This is also when the Pink Locker Room came into existence.  Hayden was big on psychology.

Fast forward to the present day, Iowa has been in January bowl games 5 of the last 7 seasons, most recently winning the Outback Bowl (against a red bird themed team no less).  And the Steelers are in The Game Which Must Not Be Named against the Cardinals.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Iowa is just returning the favor to the Steelers after all these years.

Better yet is the opponent, the Cardinals.  Who wear red and white.  And have a cardinal for a mascot.  Can we think of any teams Iowa plays that look like this?  Perhaps an intrastate rival?  Perhaps a team that has a Cardinal for a mascot?

That’s right, it’s Iowa vs Iowa State in The Game Which Must Not Be Named.

What more can a Hawkeye fan ask for?  Except perhaps Iowa beating USC mercilessly in the National Championship game, at the Rose Bowl, ending with all USC fans collectively hanging themselves upon realizing what total assholes they are.  Have I mentioned I don’t much care for USC or their fans?  In case I haven’t, I don’t much care for USC or their fans.

*Because the NFL is super-douchebagy when it comes to references made to the superlative soup container.

A short film about an old man who receives a package from the city.  A little long, but I like it.

Via Ovablastic

Not really sure how to describe this one, but I like it.  My best shot: An American with an accordion in Afghanistan discovering cultural ties between America and Afghanistan and some of Afghanistan’s cultural past and present.

Via Boing Boing

As Metblogs and WCCO have mentioned, there are several laws that apply to driving in the winter in Minnesota, especially in regard to snow.  Specifically, they both point to Minnesota Statute, Chapter 169.42, Subdivision 1:

No person shall throw, deposit, place, or dump, or cause to be thrown, deposited, placed, or dumped upon any street or highway or upon any public or privately owned land adjacent thereto without the owner’s consent any snow, ice, glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, garbage, swill, papers, ashes, cigarette filters, debris from fireworks, refuse, carcass of any dead animal, offal, trash or rubbish or any other form of offensive matter, or any other substance likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle upon any such street or highway.

Metblogs and WCCO both point out that this means that you have to clean off your vehicle before driving so you don’t have snow/ice fly off of your car and on to the street.  However, I’d note something else if we’re to follow the letter of the law.  This means that if you park your car on the street, you can’t brush snow off of it there, and you can’t move the car in any way that would cause snow to come off of it, because cleaning off your parked car would deposit snow and ice on the street, which is illegal.  The side of the street, yes, but the street none the less.

So, in order to behave legally, if you park your car on the street in Minnesota, and it snows, you need to collect all snow and ice off of your car, not letting any of it fall on the street or adjacent publicly owned land, and transport it to a privately owned location, with consent of the owner of that privately owned location.  Also, it says “any snow, ice”, which means that if you cause even a single flake to fall on the pavement, you’re a criminal.

While we’re at it, new word for me in that law: offal.  According to Wikipedia, “Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of organs, but includes most internal organs other than muscles or bones.”   Apparently offal dumping must have been a problem at some point to get this into law.

So remember- snowflakes, animal entrails, and cheap booze (swill is mentioned) are equally offensive in the eyes of the law.  Apparently, the dumping of good booze is fine, since it’s not offensive (my general definition of good booze vs swill), and dumping it is out is not “likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle”, and, in fact, may prevent such injury.  Though I am in no way advocating the pouring out of good booze in the streets.  The proper disposal method of unwanted good booze is to give it to the blogger who first introduced you to the word offal.  It the law.  Maybe.

Even more random aside- the Wikipedia article on offal is actually full of random gems, such as:

• “Fries” is a term used in Europe to reference testicles as a food dish.
• “Faggot”, in addition to being a bundle of sticks and derogatory term in the US, is a British meatball commonly made of pork offal.
• Italians like to eat brains, among other disturbing things.
• The liver of the polar bear is unsafe to eat because it is very high in vitamin A.

So, it looks like the legal wrangling associated with the Larry Craig in the airport bathroom case is coming to an end.  Remember, that bit of news gone national making Minnesota look bad in 2008, aside from riots at the RNC, and possibly electing Stuart Smally to the Senate (still not final because we still can’t get enough people to take off their gloves and boots to properly finish the recount apparently, or some toes have frozen off (the forecasted low for tonight is 15 below) causing the numbers to shift, or something).

The one interesting part of the Larry Craig case (at least to me anyway), was the legal defense made by the ACLU was trying to defend him on the basis that his invitation for sex to the undercover police officer was protected as free speech.  That, in and of itself is old news.  But there’s one detail of the case in this article over at MinnPost of which I was unaware:

Finally, the ACLU maintains that Craig allegedly invited Karsnia to engage in conduct which is not, in itself, a crime. The brief states that if Craig’s invitation was to have sex in a restroom stall, then that conduct would be protected under State v. Bryant, a 1970 Minnesota Supreme Court decision which holds that “individuals who engage in sex in closed stalls in public restrooms have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Is it just me, or is that a really unusual Supreme Court case?  Later in the article:

Also, attorneys for the state contend that Craig’s reach under the stall was not covered by the State v. Bryant case, since Craig’s body intruded into another stall, and was not confined to the one that he occupied, where he had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Bryant decision.

Oral arguments in the State of Minnesota v. Larry Edwin Craig case will be heard at 9 a.m. today at the Minnesota Judicial Center.

(Author exercises great restraint in not making an “Oral arguments” crack, even though MinnPost put that in the last line of their article, which could kind of leave a bad taste in…, oh nevermind.)  So, yes, there was actually a case in 1970 that went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court on how much privacy you can expect while having sex in a public restroom.

After a little digging, I found this rather lengthy article on sodomy laws, which gives the case more context:

The first non-unanimous sodomy decision by the Court was the 1970 case of State v. Bryant. A bitterly divided 4-3 decision overturned the conviction of a man arrested in a department store restroom. The store suspected that sexual relations were taking place in the restroom after the security supervisor, David Imire, discovered a glory hole cut between two stalls. Imire and a police officer then stationed themselves in the roof, looking down on the stalls, which led to the arrest of Bryant for making use of the glory hole. After noting other court decisions concerning the same issue, which led to the reversal of convictions for violations of privacy, Chief Justice Oscar Knutson, writing for the majority, stated that

once the store provided facilities of such a nature that the user was assured of privacy, it could not destroy that privacy by giving its consent to secret surveillance by police.

In dissent, Justice Robert Sheran, who resigned shortly after the decision was announced, stated that his disagreement consisted “only” of the fact that

persons who use places of this kind for illegal activities which subvert the object of the owner’s invitation should not be allowed to shield their perversions by appealing to the court’s proper concern for the rights of others not involved in the prosecution.

Law is such an odd thing. So, from what I can tell from all of that, according to Minnesota law, though it’s probably illegal to have sex in a public restroom (I assume, didn’t look that one up), you can legally expect privacy while doing so, so long as no parts of anyone involved leave the stall.  Also, no one can spy on you to see if you are having sex in a public restroom, though I would assume that if the fact that that is taking place is apparent to anyone outside the stall, the police would probably have probable cause to investigate.  No idea where all that would then fit in with indecent exposure laws if an officer opened the stall door (making a legally private space public), obscenity laws, or (god help us all) health codes.

I’d just like to reiterate, law is such a weird field.

So after an incredibly dull and unrewarding day at work today, I was walking from the office to the bus downtown tonight.  I see two people coming running around the corner on the cross street at the end of the block I’m on.  One runs across the street, the other down the block towards me.  The cross street they came from is a pretty main bus route, so it makes sense for someone to be running for a bus along that street, but the street I’m on has almost no buses, and even if it did, the person running towards me wouldn’t have been able to see one to run towards it.

It strikes me as odd that two people would both round that corner, running hard, at almost the same moment, but go different directions, and at least one of them not running for a bus.  What makes people in the city run (who in what are quite obviously not running clothes) other than running for a bus?  Well, being chased is about it.   This whole thought process takes about 2 seconds.  Sure enough, a cop and a gentleman (whom I can only assume is a witness/victim) come running around the corner after them, and follow the one on my side of the street.   The cop and the gentleman are both running, but the person running towards me (I can see now it’s a woman, maybe mid to late 20’s) looks a little faster than them from my roughly one second of observing their relative paces and evaluating overall pace differentials and agility.

So then it occurs to me.

I have a chance to legally open field tackle someone on the street, and as an added bonus, they know a cop is almost there anyway so I can be reasonably confident I won’t get stabbed or shot-  I get to be a good Samaritan / Spider-Man preventing the Uncle Ben’s death, and tackle someone in the process.  This is already the high point of my day.  Awesome.

For a moment I envision a full speed BCS Championship Game style juke move followed by a leaping swinging high arm tackle / clothesline.  I drop into the standard linebacker pose – a slight squat, shoulders squared, arms out to about a 45 degree angle, eyes on target.  While I’m wearing business casual and a messenger bag.  It occurs to me I watch too much football.

If you don’t know me and I haven’t mentioned it elsewhere, it would probably be helpful to mention at this point that I’m male, about 6′3″ and 225lbs, and reasonably athletic.  Not something I think of daily, but apparently me in a football stance with an obvious intent to tackle you is rather intimidating.  It also doesn’t occur to me daily how much bigger I am than most people so it’s a brief second before I realize what an uneven match up this is.

The girl keeps running and attempts to knock into me and get past.  However, given the size differential, it’s a pretty feeble attempt.  Plus, she doesn’t really try to go around me, but more through.  She runs basically straight in to me, and more or less bounces straight back off.  I guess she thought I was going to leap out of the way at the last second or something.  She tries again, this time trying to go slightly around me.  I wrap one arm around her shoulders, which is more than enough to stop her.  At this point it seems to dawn on her how much bigger I am than her as well, and that she’s not getting past.  I unwrap my arm and just stand in front of her.  She berates me briefly and the cop and the gentleman finally catch up.  They are that much slower.  At this point it was flagrantly obvious the cop would not have caught up with the lady on his own.  She ran into me twice, and told me off, in the amount of distance she got on them in one block.

The cop hands a pair of handcuffs to the gentleman and tells him to arrest the woman.  It occurs to me that he probably saw whatever it was illegal that they did, and therefore can/should make a citizen’s arrest.  As a side note, if an officer isn’t present for a crime, technically, they shouldn’t arrest the person if it’s a minor offense, and will often ask the main witnesses to make a citizen’s arrest, which the witness can do because they witnessed the crime.  (I actually read this article on citizen’s arrests in Minnesota a couple weeks ago, which fit nicely with this evening’s events.)

The cop then set off at a light jog (perhaps a run for him) after the other runner, who had (criminals are dumb) upon splitting up with the woman, chosen to run down the other side of the same street, going the same direction, towards a traffic cop in an intersection.  I’m not sure if the cop caught up with the guy, or if the traffic cop got involved.  The gentleman was a similar build to me, and seemed to have this whole arresting thing well under control, so I shrugged my shoulders and kept walking to my bus.   This all took perhaps 10 or 15 seconds.

I mention this not to brag or anything, but for the following reasons:

• It’s really random and kind of entertaining.
• It’s not often that being a fairly big guy or being in reasonably good shape comes in handy in civil society outside of helping people move, so it’s kind of nice when it does.
• The cop made absolutely, positively no show of appreciation for the help in stopping someone who was apparently worth chasing and arresting, and who would have obviously gotten away otherwise.  No “thanks”, not even a half second of eye contact and a slight head nod.  He acted exactly as if the girl had run into a light pole and couldn’t figure out how to get around it.  I suppose from a legal stand point, the tackling of strangers on the street when you didn’t even witness the crime isn’t something they probably want to encourage, and he was a bit distracted with the other runner, but it still struck me as odd that at no point did he in any way even acknowledge my presence.
• In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to tackle someone running from the cops on the street (and you know you have, or that well choreographed fight scene you come up with while waiting in line at the post office where everyone in line who has a package actually has a weapon in it and is well trained in martial arts), even if a bit anti-climactic due to the size differential, yes, it is really fun/exciting.

So, then when I got off the bus tonight after this (again, I mention not to brag, but for the coincidence and how much things go in streaks), I walked about a half block and there was a truck trying to get out of a parking spot on the side of the street, and was really, really stuck on some ice, and spinning their tires trying to get it out.  So, laughing a bit, I went over and help push them out.  (A guy who I had just passed walking went past this, saw that I went to help, then stopped and came back to help too.)   After a couple of good shoves, the truck got some traction and pulled out.   In shear contrast to the cop and the amount of effort / personal risk expended in both situations, the girl driving the truck turned around at the next intersection so she could come back and thank us both enthusiastically, and looked absolutely ecstatic that someone, in fact two someones, stopped to help.

The site got a new theme today.  I like it.  Much more airy and clean than the old one.  I’ll probably be continuing to make some customizations to it to get it just the way I’d like it, so apologies if it looks funky now and then as I mess with it.  I’m still working on teaching myself php, and my css skills are rusty (programming stuff, if you’re not familiar).   I also added some ads (income = more incentive to keep doing this, though by Google’s terms of service, I’m not in any way telling you to click them or directing attention to them in any way other than noting the change.  Ads?  What ads? (looks around nervously for Google to swoop out of the clouds and smite him) ).

As a side note, I don’t really have any control over what ads get displayed, so sorry if they’re weird or something that doesn’t really fit here.  I blame Google.  (Cowers again…, resumes.)   Thus far they seem very interested in politics and thongs.  A little odd given that I’ve never written anything about thongs here, but whatever.  (Insert joke here about politicians/politics and the areas that thongs cover.)

Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?  Ideas for the phrasing of the joke that would fit there?

So there’s a band called Visual Audio Sensory Theater (generally know as VAST) that I really like.  I came across them a long time ago, and I think they’ve been best described as Nine Inch Nails meets that Gregorian Chant.  They’re musically complex, have themes that tie across songs, a bit of word play, beautiful use of dynamics, use of a wide variety of instrumentation, and a wide depth and breath of musical styles that all tie together into a cohesive whole.  I dig it.  Though all of their albums that I’ve heard so far (haven’t heard all of their newest stuff) are good, their first album (self titled) is far and away the best, and worth listening to end to end as an album.

I bring them up specifically because I recently heard a new song on the radio that has a violin part that struck me as being really similar to a part in one of VAST’s songs.  (As a side note, the VAST song here is a little on the slow side by itself, but in the context of the album, it’s much better.) Compare the part from about 1:22 to 1:44 of Flames by VAST:

To 0:56-1:10 of Overture by Patrick Wolf:

Granted, there are only so many note progressions in the world, but that struck me a pretty close.  Even more so when you listen to other VAST songs with a more driving beat, that have a closer style to the second one above.  Doesn’t help that I love the VAST song and I’m not much of a fan of the second one.

Anyway, to give a little more of a flavor of VAST, here’s a few of their other songs that I really like, basically the first few off of their first album.  The videos are really random, but it gives a flavor of the band’s music.

Here:

Touched:

Dirty Hole:

Pretty When You Cry:

And a couple from their second album, Music for People:

Blue:

Free:

There’s a suprisingly large number of their videos on YouTube as well.

Warning: Crude humor ahead.

I’ve heard a fair number of people claim that the best way to relax and be at ease in front of a large audience, or when talking to a boss or CEO or some such thing, is to picture them naked. Somehow this is supposed to make them “just a person”, like everyone else, and then you can relax.

Personally, I haven’t found this to work well.  For one, it doesn’t relax me that much.  For two, I tend to spend too much time attempting to come up with the private parts, and get a bit hung up here.  It’s a bit disturbing trying to picture the private parts of the person your talking to if they’re the same gender, and distracting if they’re of the opposite gender (obviously reversed if you swing the other way).  Even more so if it’s a whole room you’re going to be addressing.

So, I’ve come up with an alternative that works well for me.  I thought of it while an Account Manager (read: someone way, way up the corporate ladder) was on his cell phone not far from my cube at work.  I think he was talking to his kids, or trying to get a package delivered, or something mundane like that.  And it took the mysterious air of ultra-powerful Account Manager right off of him, and made him just some schmuck that has to spell out his name for UPS like everyone else.  So I tried to think, what is the most mundane thing that everyone does that makes them just like everyone else, no matter what their job or social status?  Aside from being naked under their clothes.

And then it came to me.  To stop being intimidated by someone, anyone, picture them taking a dump.

It’s perfect, and it’s simple.  Anything distracting is covered or out of sight below the rim in your mental image of them squatting down and shooting one out.  It’s not something you’re going to want to dwell on for too long. Just picture their face scrunched up, in a general squatting position, and a grunting noise.  It makes everyone really human.  You can picture someone really powerful/beautiful naked, as the usual advice goes, and it doesn’t really knock them down to your level usually.  They can still be powerful, dignified, and in some cases, even hotter.

But no one, no one, looks powerful, dignified, or more attractive while taking a dump.  You can’t help but giggle a little picturing anyone in this position.  It even works great for crowds.  Next time you have to speak in front a group, try this.  They’ll probably all already be seated, so half the work is already done for you.  Just imagine them all taking one giant collective dump, and attempt to not burst into hysterical laughter causing security to drag you off the stage before you get through the first PowerPoint slide.

And better yet, you know at some point it happens to everyone.  In most cases, daily.  There’s no one I can think of that isn’t taken down to a human level by taking a dump.  Let’s try it now.

Picture someone that would usually intimidate you.  Now picture them taking a dump.

And I don’t mean a regular dump.

I mean a “been constipated for 3 days and then ate some spicy Mexican” dump.

A set the record in an utlra hot inferno-flavored buffalo wings eating contest and went back for seconds dump.

A just ate pork for the first time in a year dump.

Something that might stain the porcelain or, with one extra grunt, crack the bowl style dump.

A salmonella laced Thai food with a side of boiled cabbage dump.

A “Oh my god, my insides are coming out” dump.

A worried you might launch yourself into low earth orbit dump.

Scrunched up face, holding your breath, working on pulling an abdominal muscle dump.

Still having trouble picturing it?  Or seeing how it would take them down a notch?  Let’s try a few examples.

We’ll start with an easy one.  George W. Bush.  He looks like he half way there in most of his speeches already.

Now let’s try US Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson.  He basically controls the world economy and he looks like he’s taking a dump all the time.  Actually, that might not be a coincidence lately.

(There were more pictures, but they just got a little too disturbing.)

Let’s try one that takes a little more imagination.  How about this, Oprah.  A little harder, a little improper, but it does take that whole personal empire thing down a notch.  If you want to, even picture her holding her book club book of the month.  Or a copy of her magazine “O”, with her own face on the cover.  Meta-dump.

How about another.  Jesus.  That’s right, even Jesus pooped at some point in his 30ish years on earth.  And some of them were probably thunderous.  If he didn’t poop, it’d be a miracle, and I think something like “And he never once pooped” would end up somewhere in Bible, or at least an apocryphal text or a crazy preacher’s sermon, yet I’ve never heard the claim once.

It works for anyone.  Even where picturing them naked might not work so well.

Your ex (There is no way to still be attracted to them this way, well, unless you have some crazy fetishes).

Sarah Palin (“Poop, baby poop” – either in the intonation of “Drill, Baby, Drill!” , or “Bond, James Bond.”, it works either way)

Barack Obama (“I hope I can, I hope I can….”)

Your boss (“Um yeah, I’m just gonna need you to.. huuuuuuuhhhhhhh”)

Ghandi (after that first big veggie filled meal after a hunger strike)

Dracula (“I’m never eating Mexican again”)

Hitler (“Zig Hei…pppppppffffffffff”)

Yoda (“Pooping, I am”)

Bin Laden (in a cave or behind a bush, not that Bush)

Darth Vader (sound of heavy breathing, occasionally punctuated with a pause and straining noise)

See, everyone is now not only approachable, you can find a way to laugh at them too, and not take them seriously at all.