A perfect example of why The Onion stands alone atop the vast mountain of satire wannabees...who are... you know, playing...I don't know, satire King of the Mountain or something.

Wait after the end for the outtakes. It's worth it.

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Okay so this company in Singapore is claiming that they own the patent to the "technology" that allows you to link an image from your website to a URL on another website. They feel that everyone who has a website with an image that links to another site should have to pay them a licensing fee.

So they own the patent to a snippet of a commonly used markup language? They own "a href" if you put that in front of an image?

Apparently they have been sending out invoices to people who have images on their websites that link to some other site. Oh, I DO wish they would send me one. They now have a FAQ on their website, explaining why you should pay them to have links on your website.

It is worth noting that the only service Vuestar provides is the questionable "service" of invoicing people for using html.

Thousands of us should gather in their parking lot some morning. Just stand there silently. Then, on signal, we would all point at them and laugh.

I love their tagline: "Good ideas with vision."

rlp

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Imagine my stunned surprise when I checked the mail at our church and found a letter addressed to me from Kipling’s Who’s Who, an organization of “leading business professionals.”

Apparently I’ve not only been nominated, but my “candidacy” has been approved and will become official upon receipt of the enclosed R.S.V.P. card.

I love the little notice at the bottom of the card. “Please do not confuse Kipling’s Who’s Who with other Mimic Publications.” (Italics and capitalization are theirs)

Ha ha, yuk yuk, yeah, I know this is an old joke. The who’s who scam is the precursor to the modern Nigerian bank account email scam. These things bring up so many fascinating questions.

Can it really be true that there are people out there who still think this is some kind of serious honor that is going to beef up their anemic resumes? Apparently so. This is a direct mail campaign. That’s not cheap. The people who run these things aren't stupid. I doubt they would continue to pay the postage and printing if it didn’t bring some return.

And that means some form of the following conversation is taking place right now:

Dude, I got nominated for Kipling’s Who’s Who.

What’s that?

You know, it’s one of those books for leading business professionals. You get in it, you know, because you’re promising or a leading professional.

Dude, you work at Wal-Mart. I mean, that’s cool, but I’m just saying.

Yeah but I have a college degree. That shows promise. You know, potential.

Well, about every fourth person you meet has a degree of one kind or another. Those who’s who things are totally bogus.

Sure some are, but this is Kipling’s. Isn’t that the real one? I mean I know that name. Wasn’t there a guy named Kipling who was that guy who was famous?

Yeah yeah yeah, uh...Runion Kipling or something. I think I heard that in college. [Get’s a mental image of an explorer wearing a pith helmet with a bushy mustache and pipe.] Yeah, that guy was definitely famous. I think he might have been the first to discover some Oriental country or something.

So that’s what I’m saying. This is Kipling’s Who’s Who. I’m sending in the card. What can it hurt? Could help my resume.

Do you even have a resume?

Not technically, but I’m putting one together. I’m going to get my real estate license and see if I can work for Mitch’s dad.

Yeah, there’s good money in real estate.

You know, I can buy the book with my name in it. There’s all those other business people’s names in it. Could be good contacts. I could send out my resume to them. It’s only 50 bucks. I’m just going to put it on my dad’s card. He won’t know.

Go for it man. What can it hurt?

Nothing. I mean NOTHING is funnier than real life.

rlp

The letter begins as follows:

RE: Your letter, received April Fools' Day

Dear Monster Lawyers,

Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better.

It gets better. And, with the power of Google and blogs, perhaps this letter will become well known and used as a resource by any of the small companies that Monster Cable tries to bully in the future.

Background here
Letter here

Enjoy

rlp

We have a good number of snakes in Texas, though I’ve only had run-ins with a few of them. Luckily, I know just enough about snakes to keep myself reasonably safe.

There are four poisonous snakes in Texas: The Copperhead, the Cotton Mouth (Water Moccasin), the Rattlesnake, and the Coral Snake. The first three are easy to spot because they have the classic, triangular head common to many venomous snakes. You don’t really have to know any more than that here in Texas. If you see a snake with a head that in any way resembles a triangle, run like hell, dumbass!

Now the Coral Snake is a little more difficult to spot. It does not have a triangular head. It has red, black, and yellow stripes. The harmless King Snake also has red, black and yellow stripes, but they are in a different order. Luckily there is another handy little poem to help you keep this straight.

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.
Red touches black, venom lack.

In my case I’m afraid that in the heat of the moment I might get the poem wrong and say something like:

Red touches black, step back Jack.
Red touches yellow, step up and say hello.

To avoid a potential problem, I simplified the poem to a haiku.

If you see a snake
With stripes red, yellow, and black.
Run like hell, dumbass!

Some years ago, when there were only two sisters and they were both in elementary school, I stepped out the front door and found a full-grown, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake right there on my front porch. I didn’t see him at first. I stretched and yawned, then looked to the side and saw him coiled up about two feet from me.

I’m sorry, were you using this porch?

I leapt inside, spooking both girls. “What’s wrong?” they shouted.

“There’s a Rattlesnake on the front porch.”

Let’s agree that these symbols represent the sound of two girls shrieking and running around in a mad panic:

&*%$#@!*$!

It took a few minutes to get them calmed down. “What are you gonna do, daddy?”

“I’m gonna go out there and hack him to pieces with a shovel, I guess.”

&*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$!

With two little girls around, I wasn’t feeling much in a “Peta mood,” if you know what I mean. So I killed the snake with my shovel and went back inside. “It’s okay girls, he’s dead. I’m just going to throw him in the trash can." I put on a pair of work gloves and went back outside.

The girls stared out the window while I picked up the pieces of rattlesnake. Then one of the pieces started jerking in my hand.

&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!

What is it about snakes that spooks us so deeply? I know some of you adore snakes and feel they are misunderstood. You have perhaps a pet snake which you hug and play with and insist has a personality all its own. Hey, I get that. Yes, snakes have been misunderstood. There aren't many reasons to kill them, though I will make the case that a Rattlesnake on your front porch is one of them.

But for many people, snakes are just creepy.

Sucks to be a snake, I guess.

I’ve always been rather interested in animal reputations. Squirrels are cute and lovable, while rats cause people to shiver with disgust. The only difference is the tail, though I will admit, having touched a rat’s tail, that’s a big difference.

Crickets are cute and get shooed out the door, while roaches call for chemical warfare.

Certain animals seem to have charisma. Something about their faces. Dolphins, Koalas, Horses. We love them. Goats with their weird eyes seem diabolical. Sharks look like pure evil. If you want to dream up a face for Satan, don’t make it a red one with little horns. Give him the face of a Great White Shark. Now that will scare anyone into the arms of Jesus.

Animals seem to be the subject of many conversations at Casa Atkinson these days. My oldest two daughters are vegetarians. Passionately so. And they make very good arguments. It’s hard to talk to them because they’re making good sense. They don’t eat things with faces, and we do. So we’re having those discussions.

And if that weren’t enough, our dog is going blind along with all of her other ailments. We adopted this dog from the shelter because that seemed like the responsible thing to do. We’ve all fallen in love with her, which is unfortunate because about everything that could be wrong with a dog is wrong with her. She has bad teeth, degrading eyes, and a collapsing trachea that causes her to honk like a goose. As if that weren’t enough, something is wrong with her hind legs. She walks with them bowed and her bottom almost touching the ground. To me she looks like a bat hobbling around.

So the question is, “How much will you spend on a pet?” So far we could have bought a dog bred in the Queen of England’s bed for the money we’ve spent keeping this limping, hacking, lovable little creature alive. And now my daughter’s parakeet has a liver problem.

A liver problem. It causes her to pluck out her own feathers. The vet says an overnight stay and a round of antibiotics might help.

[Deep, even breaths, Gordon. Deep and even]

Animals. Lord help us. If they’re not coiled on our porches and keeping us glued to the Discovery Channel, they're breaking our hearts and our bank accounts.

I can tell you this. Lucy and the bird are the last two pets we’re going to have for awhile. We just can’t afford it, financially or emotionally.

rlp