Fetuses Can Be Such Pussies These Days

By now, the general public has begun cottoning on to the idea of protecting their unborn children by wearing hip, trendy radiation wave-repellent maternity wear.

But not me, sir. Just look at the women on this website – not a single one of them actually appears pregnant, which of course begs the question: is today's hip, trendy, radiation wave-repellent maternity wear all part of a wider scheme to force pregnant women to maintain unrealistic body shapes at all times in their life, even when they are heavy with the seeds of the next generation? Is that the way it is? The collective will of the men of the world forces women into believing they lack beauty unless they fit into a set of media-defined measurements, and then when they briefly attain that elusive state, the men jump all over them, scrambling to be the first to impregnate them. Then when that's over, it's not enough to simply bring the offspring to term -- now she has to do it while looking like Jessica Alba. It's wrong, and the proliferation of radiation wave-repellent maternity wear websites only furthers this cycle of abuse. Every maiesiophiliaic in my pregnancy fetish webring frankly thinks it's appalling that you can't visit a maternity wear website these days for self-stimulation purposes without being confronted with these unrealistic body images. We call this a society??

And then there's the radiation wave-repellent part, which is a whole other ball of wax. I fondly remember my mother telling me stories about how she would like to eat microwave burritos while she was pregnant with me. She was so eager for the burritos, she said, that she would stand rapt in front of the microwave while they cooked, no doubt bombarding me with innumerable waves of radiation. But here I am today, an intact, functioning member of society with absolutely no unusual paraphilias.

In fact, radiation waves in general have been unfairly getting way too much flak these days. All anyone talks about are the syndromes they cause, so of course they seem bad. But it's a plain fact that for every ten mothers that gives birth to a little, green incredible hulk, there's one that gives birth to a GRAY hulk. The gray hulk is super-intelligent. Vindicated.

You Can't Relive the Pasta

By now, we're all about to splooge over the upcoming Sex and the City movie. Where else can we vicariously live out our fantasies of being fortysomething New York working women living out their fantasies as twentysomething NYU trust fund girls? Everywhere, thanks to all the Sex and the City ripoffs peppering network TV. But now they're making a movie about it. So this got me thinking that perhaps I should indulge my post-feminist self-indulgent side and admit that I am my mother. Yes, it's true.

I'll explain. Just this night at work I noticed a call on my cell phone from a number I vaguely recognize. I was pretty sure it was my roommate. No, I don't have my roommate's number saved in my phone. Why? Because he only calls me to complain. I could either save his number in my phone and endure the mild aggravation of seeing his name pop up on the caller ID whenever he's just called. Or I could never input his name and number into my phone and retain the hope that maybe it's not him. So I saw this number I vaguely recognized on my phone tonight, and I thought, "At least there's some hope that's it's not who I think it is." But he's called so often. The number is beginning to get memorized, no matter how quickly I look away when I see it there, shining from the small screen of my phone.

He didn't leave a message this time. I came home to my apartment after work. Flipped on the light in the kitchen. There, taped to the lip of the fan above the stove is a white piece of paper with the following written in black marker: "Whoever ate my pasta don't take my food without asking! If you do then Replace It." And "Replace It" was underlined.

My mind suddenly flashed to the moment he must have written about. It was a lonely Sunday afternoon. I needed spaghetti, and I didn't care who I had to hurt to get it. I looked in the cabinets and couldn't find where I thought I had put mine. Then I saw a half-empty box. "Oh, well good, I found it," I thought. "Now nobody gets hurt." But I was wrong. That half-empty box was not mine for the taking. I had taken the wrong box, which was identical to mine. And now this poor boy had to walk half a block to the 24-hour deli and throw down a whole $1.50 for a new box. I had hurt the man I lived with.

Keep in mind, this is an isolated incident. It's not like I've been hoarding my own food and seeking out his to steal. Normally, I buy my food, stash it away, then cook it when I get hungry. That's been the protocol. Nothing easier. If I were to ever look in the cabinet and not see the half-box of spaghetti I thought should be there, I would assume that I had eaten it and forgotten about it or that one of my roommates had accidentally eaten it, and then I would move on to more important things in my day. I tried to trace the thought pattern of someone who would see a half-box of spaghetti missing and then feel the need to write a note about it. And then to see the note he had just written and think, "No, a note isn't good enough, a call is in order as well." For me, personally, to write a note to someone we would first need to have an "issue" to talk about. We would need to come to a crossroads in our day-to-day relations. "Issues" include: clogging the toilet on a regular basis, leaving tracks of mud all over the carpet, stomping around with your friends late at night routinely, gunplay, raping my girlfriend, having sex with my girlfriend on a regular basis, acting like a fool, and writing needlessly irritating notes about insignificant accidents.

But more importantly, I asked myself how should I respond? My options were: A. Do nothing; B. Deliver a brief, perplexed yet earnest apology over the phone; or C. Write an effusively apologetic note attached to four brand new boxes of spaghetti. I of course, being my mother, did the latter. And I have since engaged in the cautious dance of avoidance, which I hope to continue until the next dreaded call from a vaguely recognizable phone number.

How does all this make me excited for the upcoming Sex and the City movie? It does because I learned something today. I learned that perhaps all the internal squabbling of my daily life does bear some resemblance to the catty dishing between those vile characters on that show. I too sweat the small stuff. And then I react to it in a passive-aggressive childish way. Perhaps their world - the world of Carrie, Samantha, the lawyer one, and the hot one - does have some resonance within my world. At least in some small part. At it definitely resonates within the world of my roommate, Candace Bushnell. Vindicated.

The Return

By now, our legions of Loyal Readers have been lamenting the absence of the Vindicated blog for about two and half months. That's because we shut down to re-tool. First, there was the month off. Then scheduling conflicts for about two weeks. And then when we got back into the Toolshed, we realized it ain't broke. And you know what they say about things that ain't broke... Long story short, we came back, fired Neil, and are once again Vindicated.

Kicking Balls Also Exposes Them


By now, everyone realizes British people handle terrorism much better than American people. Vindicated.

Hm, So This Is What It Feels Like to Break the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

By now, we all know that Digg.com's getting dug - a grave! All for posting this one little number: 09-f9-11-02- 9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5- 63-56-88-c0. The site is best known as the Consumer Reports for blogs, but recently, they find themselves embroiled in a lot of hoopla over not removing an HD DVD protection encryption code from their site. The code had been leaked and posted on various Web sites. But then the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator sicked their lawyers on the sites. and suddenly it became a Digg-worthy story. Some loser even wrote a song about it and posted himself singing it on YouTube. Personally, I couldn't care less about the AACS. I don't even know what they do, but I'll tell you this: I sure do love committing anonymous crimes. That code is now on our blog, you see. It's just sitting there, and there's nothing I can do about it anymore.

The crime has been committed. It's done. Whew. Wow, I feel sort of tingly. Like, my hands are clammy. Gosh, I've never done anything like this before. You know, it's like those murderers you read about in People magazine. They aren't murderers every day of their lives. They spent most of their lives going to school, going to work, eating, going to the bathroom, then bam, they murder somebody, and suddenly, they're a "murderer." It's just like that. There's no going back. It doesn't matter what I've accomplished in my life thus far. It doesn't matter what good I've done, or how much I've loved. I will now and forever be a violator of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. My path is set. Now all I have to do is sit around and wait for the cease-and-desist letters to start rolling in. Please address them to: 555 Vindicated Manor, Vicate City, North Vindikota. In the greeting you may call me: Mr. Pleasedon't Reallyarrestme. And mark that letter: Re: Vindicated.

We Have Ways of Getting Around the U.S. Supreme Court

By now, you must realize the risk I take in going through with your partial-birth abortion. The Supreme Court upheld a ban against it about a week ago. Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut? To be absolutely certain you do, I'll be replacing the dead fetus with a small tracking device inside your womb. From this day forth, I will know your every step within a ten-foot radius. If at any time I need to find you, you will be found. If you do decide to blab this to anyone, I will find you and sew your mouth shut, much like, in a short while, I'll be sewing up your torn vagina. If you're a narc, I will abort your face. Now, let me explain how this will go. I'm going to give you this mask. You're going to put it on and breathe deeply. You'll get sleepy. Then, I'm going to finish you off by squeezing this nerve on your neck. Once you're unconcious, I will not terminate the pregnancy before extracting the dead fetus, which is the only legal method of aborting a fetus at this time, but will instead perform the now illegal procedure of pulling the fetus partially out of the womb before terminating its life. I will do this not because partial-birth is the safest method at this term in your pregnancy, but simply because I enjoy it the most. I enjoy watching a life's full potential get sapped at the end of my syringes and scalpels. It is truly the only thing that gives me joy anymore. Sure, other doctors only used the procedure for about 0.11% of all abortions. It was a last resort in preserving a woman's health and left to the discretion of the doctor. But for me, it was always the abortion method of choice. I wish I had a wife just so I could get her pregnant and partial-birth abort all of our babies. But enough about me. What will you name your abortion? You simply must give it a name. How about "Juliet"? Listen, give me your hand. Let us pray before we go through with this. What shall we pray for? Ah, yes, we shall pray for the only thing I love more than aborting things: saving the lives of death row inmates. Vindicated.

War Veteran Reclaims His Family from Cardboard Replacement

By now, it's been a month since my daddy came back from Iraq with his leg missing, and to be completely honest, I really miss my "Flat Daddy." Mommy bought "Flat Daddy" over the internet. I knew he was only a cardboard picture of my real daddy, but I used to take him everywhere: to school, to soccer practice, to church. People would ask me, "How's your daddy doing?" And I would pretend to think that "Flat Daddy" was real and tell them, "Why don't you ask him yourself?" Then they'd tell me how cute I am and give me candy. Once, when I brought "Flat Daddy" to school, the kids at my lunch table gave me all of their tater tots! But now that Real Daddy is back, no one talks to me as much. Mommy took "Flat Daddy" and folded him up in the trash. Now, no one thinks I'm cute anymore. All they want to do is talk to Real Daddy and tell him how brave he is just because a bunch of stupid shrapnel tore off his leg. I don't think that's very brave. When "Flat Daddy" was here there wasn't as much yelling in the house either. And Mommy never went up to bed early while Daddy played on the computer and drank beer all night before falling alseep on the couch. Also, "Flat Daddy" always smiled and never cried about his friends who died or the searing pain in his leg. If "Flat Daddy" were still around, he would go up to Real Daddy and give him a big 'ole hug, and then he would fly over to Iraq and punch those jerks until they Democratized.

*Bonus Vindication! Guest blogger Jay Leno says: "There's this new service I heard about online for family members of men and women serving in the Iraq War. Have you heard about this? It's called FlatDaddies.com. (pause for Kevin to murmur something) FlatDaddies.com. It's this site where you can go and order a giant cardboard cutout of your absent husband or wife serving in the United States military. Lifesize cutouts to replace the real thing. (pause for Kevin to voice his surprise) Yeah. Yeah, but you know, officials at Walter Reed are upset. They want to know what happened to their latest order of 'Flat Prosthetic Limbs and Sanitary Living Conditions.' (Kevin plays a chord on his guitar, audience claps politely) With the... Cause you got the... (chuckle to self, then to Kevin) They're flat! They're the... can you... oh well... (last few notes of Kevin's guitar) All right, moving on... Vindicated."

Worst Bar in the Entire World

By now, all Brooklynites know that Great Lakes has the best jukebox. Any bizarre song or band you thought that no other bar would play - they have it. It's a joy to go there with your hipster friends on a Friday night and find that all the songs you might play for them at a party you might host if you had a decent apartment with roommates who didn't have weekend internships at galleries in Chelsea. You step up to that jukebox, and you step up to a home away from home. The only problem? They never play your songs. Here's what'll happen. You'll lay down $2 for 7 songs. You'll get really excited to hear what you selected. You'll dance around to other random songs from the 80s. You'll forget that you laid down $2. Then, the bartender yells, "Last call!" You say, "Wait, I haven't heard my songs! It's been almost 3 hours!" And then he will say, "What do you think you're doing?" And then you'll take your hand off his girlfriend's leg and say, "I want my songs!" Then he'll yell at you some more and tell you to get out of the bar. All of your friends will pretend like they don't know you. Oh, and that Puerto Rican girl with the tattoo of a chrysanthemum on her hip? She's actually the bartender's girlfriend. What I'm trying to say is this: please boycott Great Lakes at all costs. They're crooked and they don't care about how many $2 you put into their jukebox. They are evil. Vindicated.