A little while ago, our beloved Ant Rogenous had a spray at people who claim to have a fear of clowns, and what a spray it was.

Full of rage and anger and loathing for the world at large, Ant spat out:

Any time you’re standing around at a party and the topic of phobias comes up, it’s inevitable that at least one person will profess to have, or have had when they were younger, a fear of clowns.

They’re lying.

Ant believes this fibbing affliction can be blamed on an episode from the brilliant Seinfeld:

Until 1992, when the episode The Opera went to air, coulrophobia was a relatively rare phenomenon most people hadn’t even considered. In their desperation to prove how quirky and Kramer-like they were, unimaginative Seinfeld devotees began claiming this phobia en masse as a ready-made point of individual difference.

Ant backs this theory up by using examples such as people suddenly deciding they hate “anchovies on pizzas in the late 1980s — not because they’d ever eaten anchovies and found them unpalatable, but because Michelangelo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame didn’t like them.”

I’ve always hated anchovies AND I’ve never seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so I don’t know how Ant can explain that. I still don’t know how he can explain watching Australia’s Next Top Model either, as he freely but gruffly admitted in the same post. But I digress.

He was so convinced that people who dislike or have a fear of clowns must be faking their dislike/fear, that they must be lacking in originality or a sense of humour. Something like that.

However, I now have proof that even the toughest of the tough are frightened of clowns, and it’s got bugger all to do with Seinfeld. However, I do not expect Ant Rogenous to be backing down from his theory anytime soon, stubborn ol’ goathole that he is. Still, it must be posted, this marvellous photo:

Around these parts, a weird language known as “leet speak” is spoken, with “pwned” being one of the most common. Certain Grodsters like to yell it a lot at every opportunity. According to one of the entries on Urban Dictionary, it means:

A corruption of the word “Owned.” This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled “owned.” When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so “has been owned.”

Instead, it said, so-and-so “has been pwned.”

It basically means “to own” or to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s have a look at Fred Phelps, the nasty so-called “Christian” pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas. You know the guy, the one whose “church” and its members cause howls of outrage — and rightly so — for his and his idiot family’s anti-gay tirades, as well as picketing of the funerals of dead soldiers and victims of gay hate crimes, and thanking God for the 9-11 terrorist attacks because it was God’s way of telling America they are doomed. Or something. Because of their mephitic, hateful anti-gay message and condemnation of Catholics, Jews and even, bizarrely, Sweden, Phelps and his “church” has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League.

A truely hateful, revolting group led by an equally hateful, revolting bigot and non-Christian.

Thus, it was to my delight this morning when I started my working day by looking at favourite websites instead of working, that I saw the nefarious Fred Phelps get totally PWNED!!!

Just in case you think MK might have something reasonable to say, he gives us this:

“Pedophiles especially, the way i see it, you have to rape around 2000+ children and constantly promise to do it again and again and insist you’ll do it to the sentencing judge’s child before they’ll lock you away for life. Heaven forbid they get sentenced to death, i think the leftwing intelligentsia would revolt and start a civil war to save the pedophile.”

Awesome.

In other news, I’m starting a book on how long it will take KG to shoot up a shopping centre. Leave entries in comments. I reckon it will be before Brendan Nelson gets ousted as opposition leader.

Thanks to the marvellous half-hour long advertisements on late night television, in particular DanozDirect, I am so bloody tempted to whip out my already-maxed-out credit card and buy this thing called ‘9 Minute Marinator’, a kitchen gadget that promises ‘Moist, Plump & Flavorful foods in 9 minutes!’ Even Beth on the site loves it because she has a very small kitchen and - get this - a lot of people running through it. I know marathons can make you hungry but this is ridiculous. As for Chef Stacey, she says that they do a lot of experimenting and it has been wonderful. Well, I am glad to hear that, because I’ve been getting none whatsoever.

I don’t really need it, especially since lately I’ve been taking the easy option of getting takeaway on my way home from work instead of cooking.

But OH! How cool is this gadget?! NINE MINUTES!!! It means that I could marinate stuff and STILL cook my dinner within an hour at most. It means that I might stop getting takeaway. It means that I’ll save money on all the takeaway I don’t buy. It means that my food will be tasty and delicious, thus reducing the need for takeaway. It means that I will have finally grown up and become a responsible, practical adult, instead of a lazy git who wastes money on fast food.

Hold on. Grown up? Responsible? Practical? Adult?

Oh, goody. I’ve just talked myself out of buying it. Phew. That was precariously close. Who would wanna be a grown up? They are such boring fuddy duddies.

Additional thought: Perhaps Craig could use this gadget in his next cooking instalment? God only knows, his culinary possibilities could be endless.

Bobby Kennedy’s favourite quotation was “Some men see things as they are and ask why; I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”. So it must be for Grods regular Bruce, who only posits the biggest challenges resident in our society:

I think that young guys really need to stop focusing on trying to get laid.

Jessie Christie walked on water, Moses parted the Red Sea … and Bruce wants to stop young males thinking with their dicks. The gauntlet has been thrown down to Grods readers to provide more Herculean labours for Bruce to proclaim. The winner receives dinner with MK, an envelope containing Hap’s true identity and a lifetime supply of imported Queensland semi-colons.