I’m gonna go with “useless.”

For the past few months cnn.com has been offering t-shirts with genuine CNN headlines printed on them.  Due to their complete removal from any kind of context, the results usually range from slightly funny (”Tasing ‘not a pleasurable experience’“) to completely irrelevent (”Mrs. Edwards slams McCain’s health plan“) to potentially creepy enough to get you beat up by mobs of strangers (”Teen too young for ‘come hither’ pose?“).  Essentially, though, they all have one important thing in common:  They allow you to tell the world that you existed when something happened.  (The biggest question I have?  Why didn’t CNN think to trademark these shirts as Chestlines?  Too late now, CNN…it’s mine!)

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be this Blort’s™ namesake CNN shirt:

Obviously, CNN has chosen to limit the stories that become Chestlines™.  After all, the fashion world probably isn’t ready for t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like:

• Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder
• Beheaded Hitler waxwork will be restored
• Army suicides highest in nearly 2 decades, study finds
• Cells, texting give predators secret path to kids
• Child rapists can’t be executed, Supreme Court rules

Edit: I cut 24-hour help for gay youth from my selection of joke Chestlines™ while trimming down my initial list.  However, I thought it was worth mentioning that this story, which is about a “crisis and suicide prevention number for gay and questioning youth,” was found in the “entertainment” section of CNN.

Old, but I just found this for the first time. It’s a poem comprised entirely of Bush quotes.  If you’ve seen this before, I somehow doubt it will fail to make you laugh (or cry) again:

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty,
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked,
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!

Now, I just have one question:

Who the fuck is A-Rod?

I just learned that 2 and a half years ago, William Shatner sold a kidney stone he had passed for $20,000.

Anyone want Autumn’s stone?  I’ll start the bidding at a mere 500 bucks.  Come on, people…we’ve got medical bills to pay!

I hate people who aren’t funny, but not because they tell crappy jokes (although that is annoying).

No…what’s worse is that each time you fail to laugh at one of their insipid attempts at humor, they have the balls to act as if there’s something wrong with you!  “God, it was just a joke!  You need to lighten up,” they say.

Well, fuck you unfunny masses.  We don’t stay silent because we’re heartless bastards who secretly want to kill ourselves.  We do it because you fucking suck at comedy.

I have a revolutionary idea for you!  Since your DVR service is so shitty that it can’t seem to recognize the difference between a new show and a repeat, how about just letting me set a program based on the time and channel I want to record?

Admittedly, this isn’t a new idea.  I technically stole it from the VCR I had in…when was that?  Oh, yeah…fucking 1992!

Some piece of shit named Scott Hoover is suing the Virginia lottery because he bought a scratch ticket and later discovered that the top prize for that game had already been awarded.  What the fuck did he expect?  Of course some people are going to end up playing after the top prize has been awarded!  That’s the obvious nature of a random lottery.  The only other possibilities are absolutely ridiculous:

1. The lottery could instantly go collect all unsold tickets the moment a top prize is collected.  Unscratched tickets could be refunded for full purchase price!  Of course, since the prizes awarded are directly proportional to the amount of tickets created (and therefore sold), this solution would eventually destroy the lottery as we know it.
2. The lottery could magically ensure that only the very last person to purchase a ticket will be the big winner!  Magic!

And where does it end?  What if the winning ticket is in someone’s glovebox for awhile and they don’t know it?  Should the lottery still be responsible for all those poor souls “wasting” their money on 2nd prize or lower?  Perhaps everyone could sue the winner instead for not scratching sooner!

Besides…the lottery never alleges that each ticket will have the real opportunity to win the top prize.  It only alleges that every ticket has the statistical opportunity to win a prize (and that a top prize will at some point be awarded to somebody).  If there’s still a single break-even ticket out there, who has the right to complain?

It’s not like they’re being shady here.  This douchebag, Hoover, used public records to determine (after the fact) that someone had already won the top prize.  Public records!  So, the availability of the top prize is public record?  What’s the fucking problem then?!  If he’s only willing to buy a lottery ticket to which the top prize hasn’t yet been awarded, he can just do the research beforehand next time!

Otherwise, I guess he’ll just have to live with a few gambles when he’s gambling.

My new random goal?  I don’t know when…I don’t know how…but at some point I’m gonna get around to making a scale model of the Solar System.  It’s gonna need to be more than 40 miles from Sun to Pluto, so maybe it can be some kind of tourist trap.

Well, this was fucking stupid.  Maybe I could have done better on a healthy day, but now I’m just completely exhausted and even sicker than before.  I really should have spent the last few hours sleeping in a complete medicine induced stupor.  I think that’s what I’m gonna go do now.

Thanks for joining me for Blorts Day.  There’s still plenty of shit I’ve failed to post since I got sick last Saturday, so I’ll try to get more of it up tomorrow.

For now…good night.