Found some fun stuff on Fark today, and thought I would it with all you hale and hearty folks.

First off, let’s start the show with that Shakespearian question of whether or not a rose would smell as sweet if it had another name.

Well, what if it’s name was Anal?

New Zealand’s government has released its list of rejected baby names, and there is, by God and all that is holy and industrial strength hand cleanser, an entry for Anal.

My brain crashes when I try to think of what would make someone want to name their baby Anal. The obvious joke must be said : if it had been anal, they would not have ended up with a baby!

That aside, I can only hope that it means something else in Maori, or some other non-English language. That is the most innocent explanation I can think of for the desire to name one’s child Anal.

Of course, this would mean that somewhere out there, there is a language in which Anal means “beautiful flower” or “mighty warrior” or “wise sage” or something like that. Which must cause lots of confusion at the porn store.

Or maybe someone was innocently being a really big Freud fan? Or maybe this is the child of an overly enthusiastic proctologist? It sure as hell can’t be a descriptive name.

Other names that did not make the grade in New Zealand :

The most common rejected name was Justice, with 49 sets of parents trying for that moniker, followed by Princess (24) and King (21). Bishop hit the list with seven attempts and Lucifer with six. Also on the reject list were Messiah and Christ.

Took me a minute to figure out what the problem with Justice was, besides, of course, kind of setting your kid up for a fall when they do not turn out to be steel-fisted street vigilante. But then I realized that “Justice”, like “Princess” and “King”, can be a title, and one of the no-nos in naming is giving your kid a name that implies they have a title or rank they did not earn.

Take that, Major Major‘s dad!

Moving on : let’s fly in the face of taboo and talk about a naked man cavorting with children.

Because, as we all know, if anyone below the age of consent sees genitals other than their own, it kills them instantly and painfully.

In this case, the situation is this : a French mail-order catalog accidentally included a picture in their children’s section that featured four children with linked arms running joyously along the beach, plus one totally naked adult human male who happened to be sauntering by.

I am a little surprised that this cause a scandal in France. Aren’t half their beaches clothing optional, or somesuch? I honestly thought the French were cooler about nudity than this.

And of course, you have to wonder how this got past the editors. I don’t know about others, but I pretty much notice wangs fist when I look at a picture. Other people have different priorities, granted.

Obviously, in my opinion, the only harm done by this kind of thing is done by the hysterical overreactions of parents. It’s just a penis, after all. It isn’t going to leap off the page and throttle your children.

So much of how we treat children has nothing to do with what is good for them and everything to do with protecting our own wounded inner child from the realities of adult life.

And speaking of inner childishness, let’s talk about where poop goes.

Someone has been dumping dirty adult diapers (and by “dirty”, I am forced to assume they mean “used”, and potentially that means “full”) on a highway in Corona Del Mar, California, and the residents are understandably kind of upset about that.

I have a fascination with “wrong things done with poop” stories because where that stuff goes is one of our deepest taboos, so any violation of it is a highly unusual event and that makes it interesting to me.

In this case, honestly, I imagine the explanation is something quite mundane, like someone who is not well schooled in the intricacies of elder care tasked with transporting someone in their declining years and, clearly not learning, repeatedly having to do a quick “road change” of Grandpa and not wanting “that thing” in their care for one second more than necessary.

People can be awfully cavalier about making (or in this case, leaving) a mess when they are outside of what their primate brains consider “their territory”.

Ask any janitor.

And finally for tonight, one of my favorite kinds of news story ever : mugger pics the WRONG victim.

In this case, the agent of glorious instant justice was an ex-boxer named Peter Sandy, who was approached by some cowardly young man who brandished what is described as a “commando” style knife and demanded cash.

Sandy responded with a left hook that knocked his assailant to the ground.

His assailant then fled the scene.

FLAWLESS VICTORY : Peter Sandy.

I love stories like this. What could be more satisfying than a seemingly weak and vulnerable person suddenly turning the tables on someone who sought to victimize them?

That is pure uncut karmic justice joy, in my books. I mean, picture the look on the punk’s face when he realized he had just been decked by an old, old man who looked ready to do it again. Imagine the look of surprise and terror in hie eyes as he picked himself up on the ground. Imagine the shame he felt when he ran away like a little whiny bitch.

And finally, and this is the juiciest morsel of them all, imagine the consequences to the mugger’s social life if word got around that he got his ass kicked by someone so old, they knew Big Ben when he was just Little Benjamin and lent the Druids his level so they could build Stonehenge?

That is what I call top qualify schadenfreude.

Seeya later, folks!