(Image: Ward Sutton)

Sure, there are several reasons to dislike Phish. The goofy, geeky, 20-sided-diciness of some of their lyrics makes early Rush look like Bob Dylan. A sizable percentage of their fan base really is comprised of smelly, annoying morons who throw glowsticks at each other. And their average instrumental solo is more masturbatory than a letter to Penthouse.

Still, even though I may occasionally cringe or roll my eyes, I've gone to see them about a dozen times, and plan on trying to see them next year on their latest "Oh wait, you mean we DON'T get paid billions when we're not touring?" comeback tour. (Hey, what can I say? The smell of patchouli only makes me marginally nauseous, and masturbation is one of my favorite hobbies.) But even if you're not on the same, ahem, Page (Get it, Phish phans?), you may find these five performances interesting. Or not.

Dear Rednecks,

Of course you already know the many reasons you shouldn't vote for Barack Obama -- his last name is one letter off from "Osama," his middle name is Hussein, he's an Ay-Rab Muslim, and he wants to take away your guns, which means you'll be unarmed with an Al Qaeda operative in the White House, which you won't even be able to call the "White" House any more because he's, well, you know. (Don't worry, Rednecks, I know you know what I mean, even if the Liberal Jew-Run Media™ won't let me say it outright.)

But did you know that voting for the opponent of Osamabama (and his Baby Mama) won't be all that great for you, your wife/sister, or your 13 kids, either? Before you head to your polling place on Wednesday, November 5, check out these factoids the LJRM™ doesn't want you to know about Senator John McCain. ("Factoids," by the way, are similar to "facts," but less scientific, and therefore more believable. But these are all obviously true anyway, since they're on the Internet.)

So this is probably old news down in my neck of the woods, but after reading some of the comments on Miss Cellania's post about her thoughtful, articulate neighbors, I feel compelled to present more evidence as to why, if your tooth-count is in the double digits and you don't consider cow-tipping a sport, you really, REALLY ought to register to vote by October 6.

Twitter is a popular "micro-blogging" site that allows users to pore over the stultifying minutiae of other peoples' lives, 24/7, in real time -- much like a meth-addled mall security guard, but without the cool hat or $7 per hour.

The main problem with Twitter has been that, unlike on this site, most users don't talk about penises all that much....until now.

Duh.

Did anybody else catch this last night? Did Stephen Colbert actually do a whippit on the air?

Earlier in his Report, Stephen Colbert did a funny bit in which he started a pan of brownies using the "high altitude" directions, since he's been in Denver for the DNC all week.

At the end of the show, the brownies didn't turn out quite like he planned, but he went ahead and topped them with a mountain of whipped cream anyway...and gave himself a little treat afterwards. Or at least, it really, really looked like he did.

What do you think?

God, I freaking love Google sometimes.

My girlfriend is MySpacing out and says, "How does my cousin get those little hearts around her name like that?"

"Probably some little snippet of HTML code," I say. "Let's Google it."

I enter html heart. Third hit on the list:

Bloody Tampon Heart Earrings.

(Don't barf in your bongs just yet fellas, that's just red food coloring in the photo. ETA: Photo cropped due to popular demand/nausea. Uncropped pic after the jump.)

Much more than just a simple one-off joke, though, TamponCrafts.com actually has well-written, detailed DIY instructions for this and several other tampon craft projects like a Christmas tree topper, a Menorah, a Thanksgiving turkey, a toupee (yes!), and even...a pan flute. Yes, a pan flute. Made of the applicators. And it really plays. A whole octave.

Check out video of Beethoven's Ode to Joy after the jump...

"Messiah Remix" by DJ Holy Ghost, with special guest appearance from MC David Rodigan. (Original video posted here.)

Thanks, Justice!

Above: one of eight not-scary photos of Amy Winehouse known to exist

There's no doubt that Amy Winehouse is a powerhouse of musical talent.

And I'm not here to judge her extracurricular activities -- who among us hasn't had a wee nip of the sauce now and then? Or a tiny bump or two of the booger-sugar? Or the occasional 4-day weekend spent shakily holding a flame under a broken lightbulb?

I'm not even going to stoop to calling her ugly, even though she's been compared to a mesmerized chicken and a monkey pig in the comments of this very blog. In fact, I thought she was pretty damn sexy when I first saw her, in the video for You Know I'm No Good. She certainly wasn't what you'd call classically beautiful -- I'm sure those hair and makeup artists didn't come cheap -- and a large part of her sex appeal was that throaty, soulful voice. Still, apparently she could be made very photographable, to say the least, (see above) without slaughtering a goat in the name of Beelzebub.

Sure, Allure magazine is probably not going to offer Ms. Winehouse the position of Health & Beauty editor any time soon, but hey, plenty of supermodels have their bad days, too, when they're off the runway, picking up cigarettes and Diet Coke in their baby food-stained sweats. It's just that the paparazzi don't seem to publish those images -- or the less-than-perfect images of any other person on the planet, really -- with the frequency or enthusiasm of bad Amy Winehouse pics.

It's kind of a chicken/egg thing really -- were there always these sorts of bedheaded, makeup-smeared mornings (okay, late afternoons, probably) occurring before she was famous, and it's just that they weren't documented by swarms of omnipresent paparazzi trying to one-up each other? Or is Amy Winehouse truly getting more and more scary looking?

But whatever. Let the hand-wringing pseudo-psychologists who fart out celebrity gossip show sound bites figure that shit out. All theories of causation aside, the fact remains, for whatever reason: there are a hell of a lot of scary-as-fuck photos of Amy Winehouse out there. Here are some of the scariest -- brace yourself.

I know how it is. You've seen the trailer for Hamlet 2 and can't wait to see it, but you're worried you won't know what's going on because you haven't seen the first one in ages. Your anti-nausea prescription ran out, so sitting through the 1991 Mel Gibson version is out of the question, and pulling down the dust-coated Complete Works of Shakespeare you keep on your bookshelf to impress the chicks is sure to cause a massive sinus attack. (Sorry you're having so many health problems lately, by the way.)

Well, friend, I've got the solution for you: Sarah Schmelling's brilliant Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition). It can be read in less time than the average dump takes (if your coworkers wonder why you're taking your computer into the bathroom stall with you, by the way, just tell them "routine maintenance") and contains none of those annoying, old-timey words like "wherefore." Or "sugartits."

The gaming world is excitedly bracing for a major paradigm shift with next month's release of Spore, the latest brainchild of SimCity mastermind Will Wright. Perhaps the most highly anticipated video game of all time -- it was first mentioned publicly at the Game Developers Conference in 2005 -- Spore will allow players to control the evolution of an entire simulated species, from single cells swimming in cosmic soup, all the way to interstellar-travelling super-beings.

Featuring painstakingly crafted AI and a beyond-accessible user interface, the game promises to be not just fun for traditional Sim enthusiasts, but also a potentially fascinating angle for examining such varied subjects as biology, cosmology, zoology, evolution, cultural anthropology, space travel, and more.

After several release-date delays, Electronic Arts finally wet the public's whistle somewhat with the June release of the Spore Creature Creator. While lacking most of the evolutionary and interactive features of the full game, the Creature Creator nonetheless gave millions of fans plenty to work with in the mean time. Users could play God and create whatever creatures they wanted, even uploading their demo videos to YouTube with a built-in widget. Players were limited only by their imaginations.

So, of course, the first creature everybody made was a giant dick-and-balls.

Here are 10 of the most entertaining.

From imdb.com: "Jolie/Pitt Twins Worth $7 Million Each"

Note to black market child-trafficking profiteers: recalibrate your pricing guide accordingly. (Damn, and your 2009 edition just went to print, too.)

By the way, that $7M/each price tag is for the pair -- as with all collectibles, be prepared to pay 20-30% more if splitting up the set.

So, what's even more frightening than the prospect of spending an entire weekend with a gaggle of Jimmy Buffett fans?

(Answer after the jump.)

Dear World,

I don't know about you, but I sure am tired of hearing the following 50 words, terms and phrases. Whaddya say we stuff 'em all in that storage locker, between "Who let the dogs out?" and "metrosexual," and maybe break 'em out again, say, 2033-ish?

Thanks!

Love,
Jeem

PS: If you want to bring back "Where's the beef?" I think now would be an OK time, at least until mad cow disease really takes hold and newspapers start using it as a headline.

And now, without further ado...

Just, ya know, because.