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I’m not a beer fanatic, but Duck Rabbit Porter is the best fucking beer I have put to my sweet lips. Oh sweet but subtle chocolate. And it’s a lively buzz too. Seriously, why are you reading a website when you can be drinking this beer? Guinness fans this applies especially to you. Be gone now.

It doesn’t really bother me that corporations have further co-opted hip culture with their viral marketing hijinks. But those popcorn cellphone videos? Who knew.

But Cardo’s commercials point to the ugly side of what Rob Walker calls “murketing,” the obscure form of persuasion that has been on the rise in the ad business in the last couple of decades. The cell-phone popcorn ads peddle false consumer-safety information in an attempt to trick people into buying Cardo’s wares.

I’m not so worried about the false information being peddled on those who voluntarily watch videos of cellphones supposedly popping popcorn on youtube. After all, you are on youtube. Buyer beware, be very aware.

Somewhere in the misty lands of corporate america, a building super is getting tough on smoking. Because that’s your job in a bureaucracy, making everyone else’s job more difficult. I’m not really kidding. Management has to justify their existence.

Smoking – Smoking is permitted in the designated area in the lower deck where the benches and ash trays are provided. Please remain in the smoking area and not in the pathway of oncoming traffic. Smoking is prohibited in the front of the buildings, in front of handicap parking, inside the parking decks, at the bottom of the hill and on top of the parking deck landing. We are receiving complaints that people are walking through smoke to get to their cars. Please do not use the old planters, grassy areas, pine straw and rocked areas to extinguish your cigarettes. Please use the designated smoking area only.

Update: this is not related to the cigarette smokers problem.

After your bingeing finale to 2007 you might want to exercise a bit, if you care about regenerating those brain cells that is. Wouldn’t want you to forget how to “deal with ambiguity.” I like that. They make alcohol related brain damage sound like some kind of existential psychosis.

Now on to my predictions for 2008:

1. More Republicans will be caught promoting “family values” in public restrooms, thereby inspiring the long awaited Log Cabin Republicans coup to take the GOP.
2. UBL will be brought to justice by Captain America (with possible assistance from Iron Man) and thereafter Iraq, the little democracy that could, will stabilize and flourish, quickly becoming the number one tourist destination on the planet. CNN’s Morgan Neill will be there to report it all, but will refuse to grow a beard to look “tougher.”
3. American football will be replaced by the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame, Ulama. Losers will be sacrificed. Dick Cheney will play some part in this.
4. Apple will release a product that no one knew they needed but quickly becomes seductively irresistible. Google will release “Google Sex” which allows users to upload their own “sex content” to share with friends and family.
5. All 80s throwback fashion trends will begin to give way to 90s throwback fashion trends. Yesterdays hipsters will begin to feel old.
6. The indoor helicopter craze will reach irrational heights as copters replace traditional pets.
7. Guerrilla open source hackers will replace abandoned pay phones with VOIP kiosks out of retro-nostalgic respect, yo.
8. Unintelligent people will continue to breed at an alarming rate. Intelligent people will continue to occasionally sleep with unintelligent people, for sport.
9. People will suddenly stop wearing sandals; Crocs will be made illegal.
10. Defective Real Doll prototypes will be secretly released into the population, creating an apocalyptic “Westworld” type situation (only much sexier), that only reincarnated Real Doll Yul Brenner can save us from.
11. Georgia will move to number 1 in national housing foreclosures and retain its championship in bank robberies. I predict some spectacular “Point Break” style bank robberies in Atlanta.
12. A new president will be elected. No matter who it is Americans will feel relief for a few weeks.

From a Church on Hill St. Thing is, I saw this same sign near verbatim over ten years ago in Athens, GA on a particularly very hot day riding in my little-to-no AC Subaru down Oglethorpe Ave. It was funny then. But apparently God is running out of original threats.

I’ve brought up my fascination with non-lethal weapons before. And let me tell you, whether it’s military adventurism, fraternity pranks, or good ol’ domestic abuse, non-lethal weapons can play a big part in your life. With no casualties everyone’s a winner, in a non-lethal utopia by way of a sticky foam rave kind of way, where pain is only an illusion, and therefore, not real, right? In no time we’ll all be mad with laughter, at the mere thought of “war.”

My problem with future weapons technologists however, is that they just aren’t thinking outside the box enough. Nuclear missiles? Come on. That’s so 1980s. We need to have fun with this. We need a Willy Wonka of future weapons. Previously I mentioned my idea for the Ibiza Techno-BubbleBox, capable of turning any street corner disturbance into a full-on Ibiza style bubble rave. To build upon this I’m currently developing several alternatives such as the the spaghetti web, slushy riot crowd-control spray, milk non-duds, meatball catapult , and a very simple replacement ammunition for all machine fired projectiles, part of the forthcoming Nerf-War package. There’s one more technology in the early stages of development known as “pizza delivery.” It’s very complicated but the idea is that wherever there are dangerous crowds, enemy lines, etc., precise geographic coordinates are logged through fancy GPS technology, and then the “interwebs” contact food-service giant Halliburton and orders a large number and variety of pizzas to said target location. When the pizzas arrive the crowd loses it’s will to fight and begins to dissipate amidst the confusion of pepperoni and who ordered which pizza. It’s the perfect confusion.

For products already on the market see slip n’ slide, jumpy things, and of course the old standby: opera. Nothing immobilizes like bad music.

Since war doesn’t want to go away, shouldn’t we just make it fun and more safe?

The Yes Men, with some alternative energy sources…

Christ, I wish someone would hurry up and remake Logan’s Run. Damn those Wachowski brothers and their Speed Racer!

It occurred to me that Logan’s Run is perhaps little more than the dystopian imagining of the uber-welfare/warfare state gone slightly awry. After all, we may not have Sleepshop, the public sporting-extermination of those over 21, but we always seem to have a convenient war for them. Thou shalt be wary, very wary, of government intentions.

Christopher Hitchens couldn’t even make it through 5 minutes of the Daily Show without diverting a discussion about the meritlessness of religion into real life religion n’ drinkin’ stories. Although it seems like everyone has a God Bashing book out right now, and I think that is fabulous, as it’s rare that someone dares to challenge all-the-worlds-gods, while so drunk. Don’t forget Hitch will be taking on the Bible Belt right here in the ATL in a couple of weeks. Bring your lil’ nippers of moonshine to make the night real fun…