If you've been paying attention, you've already read my award-winning essay on Radiohead's Kid A, submitted to David Barker's 33 1/3 "Under 21" essay contest back in June, and just recently posted here on the good ol' BBW. Please, take a seat, enjoy a fine glass of whatever swill you've got nearby, and listen closely to the dulcet sounds of John Mayer actually doing something good for once. His cover of Radiohead's "Kid A" is, embarassingly enough, what persuaded me to not hate Kid A's easily hate-able electronic ass. Which you would know if you had read the feature I assume you already read.

John Mayer - Kid A
Radiohead - Kid A

Hiatus

BBW will be on hiatus while I move to Chicago in the next two weeks. When it will return is anyone's guess.

I Did It! Almost! (New Feature)

In case you haven't been watching the ever-buzzing BBW board, back in June I entered David Barker's 33 1/3 book series' 'Under 21' essay contest, in which any writer under the age of 21 could submit an essay on any album. The winner would have received two-hundred-fifty smackaroos and would be a for-real published writer, not this silly imagariny interwebs craziness.

Anywho, I wrote about Radiohead's Kid A, robots, and John Mayer, and received an Honourable Mention on Barker's 33 1/3 blog when the winner was announced in July. So now you, loyal Bornbackwards.com reader, can experience my Mention-worthy essay here on this very site! Please read it, love it, and feel free to post a message on the board to let me know how you liked it!

Thaaaaaaaaanks!

You Just Got Punk'd, America!

During this week's episode of the popular Candid Camera-style MTV show Punk'd it was revealed that the most elaborate and devestating practical joke to ever be exist had been pulled on the American public. In front of an audience of international news agencies gathered by the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., host Ashton Kutcher divulged the details of the collossal prank.

"Ladies and gentlemen, in September 2001, nearly 2 years before airing our first episode, we began work on the most spectacular stunt in history. Along with our accomplices in the news media, we began our meticulous recreation of the George Orwell classic 1984, complete with phony wars, staged terror and a full-scale assault on the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was our initial goal to create a scenario in which the conditions present in the United States directly mirrored those in the novel. As you all know, our show's producers usually use a ridiculous, staged situation to bring about an extreme (and hilarious) reaction from the joke's victims. Unfortunately, after 5 full years of pushing this joke to ever further extremes, we never got the footage we were after. Much to our surprise, no one seemed to mind much that the U.S. now tortures captives, spies on its citizens, and bombs civilians with banned weapons. So, we've decided to pull the plug on this uber-punking of Americans. You can all go back to how things were before 9/11. Sorry for any inconvenience."

Popular reaction to this grand revelation has been equally lukewarm. In a CNN/Gallop poll, 86% of respondants state they really don't see much reason to regress to a pre-9/11 mindset, for it would involve all kinds of updates to their Blackberry (such as removing the "Report-your-neighbor-as-a-terrorist" hotline number). Meanwhile, 14% were somewhat pleased by the news, saying it will be nice to finally pull the duct-tape off of the windows.

Spinach and E. Coli, Together At Last

Truly, a match made in bacterial heaven.

But seriously, don't eat spinach. As of last week, that shit'll kill you. Seven-year-olds across the country finally have a reason to reject the smooth leafy vegetable besides the tried and true, "NO! NO! I DON'T WANT IT! STOP! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME, MOM?! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU SO MUCH I FUCKING HATE YOU!" Ahhhh, to be young again.

The E. coli outbreak -- which has left one person dead and about 100 sick -- has been traced back to Natural Selection Foods, an organic foods company in San Juan Bautista, California. The spinach experts have been saying that the bacteria probably isn't isolated to just Natural Selection products, but we all know that's just code for how fucked Natural Selection is. Sure, they provide some excellent organic greens, but I know my ass ain't touchin' no E. coli-havin' motherfuckers.

How could this have happened, you ask? Well, sit down kiddies, and let your sexy Uncle Phil take you on a wonnnnnderful journey. It begins in the sun-drenched hills of summertime Germany, where bacteriologist Theodor Escherich has just discovered a type of bacteria that lives in the lower intestines of numerous animals! This bacteria is later named Escherichia coli, because who doesn't want to be remembered as the guy who discovered the strain of bacteria that can lead to an infection in humans that can cause bloody stools or kidney failure! Yayyy! The bacterial infection can be spread when contaminated cow manure is used as fertilizer; through unpasteurized milk and juice; and especially through undercooked or raw meat and vegetables that may have been coated in contaminated fertilizer. Spinach is commonly eaten raw. Eureka!! It was probably the fertilizer!

Well, that's another mystery thoroghly bludgeoned by my genius. Time for a nice big salad!

And that's an addict.

9/11

Steve Irwin Dead At The Tragic Age of Incredibly Predictable

Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter--the Australian zoo-god best known for his recent escapades concerning a newborn baby and an crocodile's face--is dead. While filming a new documentary off the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, Irwin swam too close a stingray and was stung in the heart by the poisonous ten-inch serrated barb on the ray's tail. Usually, a sting of this sort is merely excruciatingly painful, not fatal; but in this case, Irwin was pronounced dead-on-arrival at the nearest hospital in Cairns, Australia due to the hole in his heart.

Yeah. Seriously. If this sounds totally fucking baller, that's because it is the most ballinest shit ever!!! After a life of hunting dangerous creatures and gaining worldwide recognition for it, Irwin was finally brought down in such a dramatic fashion that I believe he must have found it incredibly satisfying, if not for the whole untimely death thing.

Oh, and the documentary he was filming? It was called "The Ocean's Deadliest." The ocean's fucking deadliest! What are the odds! He wasn't starting production on "Hey, Here Are Some Totally Pussy Sea Creatures" -- it was the fucking "Ocean's Deadliest"!! FUCK YEAH!

Steve Irwin was fucking nuts, and his fucking nuts animal-studying ways will be missed. Watch out for some awesome Discovery Channel reruns of Irwin's merely near-fatal mishaps.

Steve Irwin: straight baller.

World's oldest person dies

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Maria Esther de Capovilla, believed to be the world's oldest person, has died at 116, according to her granddaughter.

Catherine Capovilla, 46, said Capovilla died Sunday at 3 a.m. local time in a violent shootout with Police in the coastal city of Guayaquil. The shootout followed a brutal nine day standoff in which Capovilla repeatedly threw live mice and corn at police while mocking them via megaphone.

Born on September 14, 1889 -- hilariously the same year as mustachioed brethren Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler -- Capovilla was married in 1917 and widowed in 1978. She took over as leader of the city's gangs after her husband Ernesto died. The coastal gangs are infamous for their use of duck stuffing, a practice in which tourists are attacked, their belongings stolen and a live duck is stapled to their heads as a warning to others.

One hundred and sixteen years of Thug Life.

Robert Young, senior consultant for Gerontology for Guinness World Records, said Elizabeth Bolden of Memphis, Tennessee, now appears to be the oldest person alive.

"Guinness World Records will have to make an official announcement from London," he said to no one in particular. "For all practical purposes, the next oldest person is going to be presumed to be Elizabeth Bolden. She is 116, so i am real sure that she will hold the title for a while... Let the death watch begin."

In her youth, Capovilla liked to embroider cats, paint graphic sex scenes on school property, play piano and dance the schpaltz at parties, her family said. She is unofficially the inventor of the schpaltz, a type of dance that takes 7 hours to perform and requires the use of three chairs, a tub of fresh mayonnaise and a bobtailed ocelot.

She always ate three meals of raw meat a day and never smoked or drank hard liquor. "Only a small cup of meat juice with lunch and nothing more," Irma told AP last December.

A nice cup of meat juice.

For the past 20 years, Capovilla had lived with elder daughter, Hilda, and son-in-law, Martin, when not defending her turf from rival gangbangers.