The Smarmy Carny

Googlism determines what Google thinks of a person, thing, place, or time. It then returns a list of who/what/when/where something is.

For instance, you can search to see who Google thinks Novac is. Check out the results for Google's answer to "Who is Novac?"

• Novac is all that and much more
• Novac is very proud of the many nationally recognized artists and media projects that have been developed at their center
• Novac is one of the largest clubs in the league
• Novac is the bounty hunter introduced in the second act hired by peagan for the sole purpose of capturing joy and luring cliff
• Novac is no ordinary man of wealth
• Novac is the proud recipient of a 1998 silver georgie award for excellence in a residential renovation under $50
• Novac is 8
• Novac is powered by acting world
• Novac is currently head of the plasma laboratory
• Novac is a testimony to the nightmare
• Novac is going through some dramatic rethinking
• Novac is sworn to secrecy
• Novac is leading the introduction of the rapid tooling process of sprayforming in europe
• Novac is suddenly struck by a ricochet and slumps to the floor

Go ahead and find out what Google thinks about you. Your full name may not work, so try your first name as an alternative. Then find out what Google thinks of your friends, your enemies, your hometown, your favorite bands, your favorite restaurants, your favorite foods, etc.

Casey's grave

As most of us have heard by now, Casey Sheehan, the mechanic from the Army's First Calvary Division, was killed in combat on 4/4/4. The nation is aware of Casey's death due to his mother, Cindy Sheehan, and her continuous anti-Bush, anti-Iraq ranting in the months leading up to and since the 2004 presidential election.

Despite Cindy Sheehan's continual attempts to "memoralize" her son by denouncing the war in Iraq and anything else (war-related or not) that Bush does, Casey Sheehan's gravesite still does not have a tombstone of any sort.

Why would Cindy not put up a tombstone? First, she blamed the mortuary. When the mortuary director came forward and outlined all he had done above and beyond his expected duties (including the standard payment for a tombstone), Cindy seems to have moved on to a different explanation:

For the first year after Casey was killed, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to place a TOMBstone on my son's grave. I didn't want one more marble proof that my son was dead. I couldn't even call where he was buried a "cemetery," I had to call it "Casey's Park."

Make of that what you will.

This story does have a satisfactory conclusion, though: Cindy's soon-to-be ex-husband, Patrick Sheehan, has taken over this matter, and a local monument company is constructing Casey's permanent headstone.

Update: Casey's headstone was finally installed on May 25, 2006, in time for Memorial Day.

Get more information on Casey's tombstone at Snopes.

Crooked House?

DelsJourney.com has a great picture of a "slanted" house. I was searching for a similar structure I had once seen a picture of, but I couldn't find that particular location.

DelsJourney.com has additional humorous and interesting pictures posted taken from New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.

Of course, this is an optical illusion. An expensive optical illusion. Of course, the problem with this house is that a lousy telephone pole stands in front, ruining the effect. Additionally, the fence in the yard was not built with the illusion in mind. If you can't figure it out after staring at the original picture, take a look at an altered picture that might help you out.

Q: What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?
A: Polaroids.

Q: What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
A: The taste.

Q: What's brown and sounds like a bell?
A: Dung!

Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A: A stick.

Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense?

Will Albino, a senior at Wilmington's Catholic all-boy Salesianum School, asked female students at Wilmington's Catholic all-girl Padua Academy to sign a petition to end ::wikipedia("Women's suffrage", "women´s suffrage"):: . . . and all to a They Might Be Giants tune!

This prank was originally performed on The Man Show in 1999 and successfully repeated here in 2006 by Albino and Brian Giarrocco. They claim that they had not seen the sketch from The Man Show, but that a fellow student suggested the idea.

Of course, Albino and Giarrocco got into a small amount of trouble for their efforts — one day of detention. Also, as expected, Padua's principal estimated 95 percent of the school's students knew of suffrage before the video. According to Albino, only 4 out of 24 girls (16.7%) refused to sign the petition . . . and one of those girls signed, but she signed "Your mom."

You can read plenty more about the video on Ryan Cormier's Pulp Culture blog as well as Brothers Gentry.

Today is the Jewish religious holiday Remembrance Day.

According to ::wikipedia("Yom Hazikaron LaShoah Ve'Lagvura", "Wikipedia")::, on Remembrance Day tens of thousands of Israeli high-school students hold a memorial service in Auschwitz called "The March of the Living" in defiance of the Holocaust Death Marches.

There are multiple names used to refer to the holiday today:

• Remembrance Day
• Yom haShoah Ve'Hagvura (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה)
• Holocaust Remembrance Day
• Yom HaShoah (יום השואה)
• The Remembrance day of The Holocaust and the Heroism
• Yom Hazikaron LaShoah Ve'Lagvura

Though I am not Jewish, I think that today is certainly a day to take some time and reflect again on the Holocaust, the events surrounding it, and most importantly the people affected by it.

In the spirit of the Numa Numa Dance, many have new-found desires to create their own lipsynching video for the internet . . . and many have. Many.

Now, there's a site not only for these videos to find a home, but for the videos to battle it out to the bloody death until only one survives. This site is Gidol on googleidol.com.

OK, OK . . . so there's nothing bloody or deathly about these battles, but each week, Gidol pits homemade videos against each other for weekly votes. Winners proceed on to the next round until the Gidol has been found.

Take a look at the Gidol schedule page to see how far the current competition has progressed.

The response seems to have been big enough to allow Gidol to create various categories: Pop, Rock, Original, Kids, and Gay. And no, I have no idea what the requirements are for that last category, so don't ask. Perhaps it's people singing music from the opposite gender.

Nonetheless, Gidol looks to be growing in popularity. One competition has grown to 16 entries, so it looks like Gidol is here to stay. I look forward to seeing your video up there soon!

Novac out.