A schediastic hootenanny

For the first time since announcing the exciting Send Leonard to CPAC initiative, we have hit what is known as a fund-raising snag. Yesterday, we raised the Fresh Princely sum of zero dollars and zero cents, moving us zero precious inches towards our goal.

Am I ready to give up? Am I read to pack it in? Am I ready to stop flogging you relentlessly about this Quixotic mission? YES! But I'm not going to. This is more than just an opportunity for me to take a vacation that I don't have to pay for; this is an opportunity for me to take a vacation that I don't have to pay for with the cream of America's crazy-person elite! I will be rubbing elbows and intellects with some of the people who make your lives miserable each and every day, and in a small way, I will be giving them some fucking payback! I will irritate them the way sand irritates an oyster, eventually causing it to barf up a pearl consisting of some amusing internet journal entries about the entire process! I refuse to believe that the 75% of you who have yet to donate to this amazing endeavor can't be shifted. What do I have to do? Wear a funny hat? I WILL DO THAT. I will do whatever it takes to get you to pony up some dough, within the confines of possibility, good taste and my own immeasurable laziness.

So cough it up! If I know you, this is something you will tell your grandkids about. And remember, there are incentives:

- crazy-mad premiums, and MORE TO COME
- I will call you from CPAC and let you listen to the calming drone of Ben Stein's voice
- for only twice the money, I will bring along a sketch artist or a photographer and it will be just like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas only fatter

Donate today! IT COULD NOT BE SIMPLER!

Send me to CPAC!

1. A whopping 60% of you would elect a dead man President before you would elect Fred Dalton Thompson.

2. More than half of you expressed some level of dissatisfaction that the mitre won the "World's Funniest Hat" competition, which is curious seeing as it won by a popular vote and leads me to believe that you people are fickle mush-heads.

3. A greater number of you like The Wire than hate Journey. I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

4. Monday is far and away your least favorite day. Saturday is no one's least favorite day.

5. Some of you believe that Hudson Hawk is a great movie and are insane.

Via James Wolcott comes this forbidding snapshot of a divided America, courtesy the Flower of Christian Womanhood that is the Anchoress. It's a great story -- easily the equal of those ones your youth pastor used to tell you about how he was once a crazy stoner biker guy who, like, used to beat people up and worship Satan and listen to the crazy punk rock once, until he found the Lord -- and it doesn't suffer one bit from being so completely and transparently bogus that people would chortle out loud if it was actually presented to them as fiction. Not since the halcyon days of Penthouse Forum have so many bold words been placed in so many imaginary mouths. Note especially, as does Wolcott, how the commenters on her site are kind enough to play along and pretend that this isn't just some deranged fantasy that took place only inside the rattling, dusty confines of the Anchoress' head. Some of them even contribute hilariously 'actual' anecdotes of their own! It's a fiesta of fun.

If you're like me, you love, love, love the internet. Especially when it is stupid and embarrassing. If that's the case, you'll just crazy-go-nuts for the fun new internet game, Wikigroaning. The premise of this game is simple:

1. Find a Wikipedia entry on some important real-world subject that a normal human being seeking useful knowledge from an encyclopedia might look up.

2. Then, try to find a similar or related entry about something completely useless to 99% of the population that describes in great detail something that no one could possibly need to know. The key to making a good matching pair is that the second, completely useless entry should be much, much longer.

A few examples from the article:

Shapes
vs.
Shapeshifting

Civil War
vs.
Civil War (comic)

Women's suffrage
vs.
List of fictional gynoids and female cyborgs

One from calamityjon:

English literature
vs.
Monty Python

Some from the boys on the High Hat forums:

'Body and Soul'
vs.
'Hollaback Girl'

Doctor
vs.
Dr. Girlfriend

And a few of my own:

Fiction
vs.
Star Trek novelizations

Nils Bohr
vs.
Lex Luthor

Sgt. Alvin York
vs.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

Civil rights
vs.
Three Rules of Robotics

Hamlet
vs.
Atlas Shrugged

And you know what this means, don't you? It's your turn! Hit me with some of your favorite Wikigroans. BONUS: if you misunderstand the whole concept, I will make fun of you! Now GO!