Snowed!

Yay! We have the milk and bread needed to survive the snow! (Bits and Pieces)

It’s almost time for snowy hell to break loose!

According to the most recent weather reports for my area—eastern North Carolina—a snow storm is bearing down on us and should strike sometime this afternoon. And you know what that means, right?

Get your ass to the grocery store for milk and bread quickly! Supplies are likely already running out!

Of course, I never understood why milk and bread were in such high demand when bad weather approached. Personally, I don’t go out of my way to ingest either of them with great frequency, which means I would likely turn to other foods in an emergency. Yet they both disappear from store shelves so fast that it makes me wonder: Are there other uses for milk and bread of which I am largely unaware?

Any insight you can provide in the comments section would be greatly appreciated, dear readers. Until then, however, please know that any lapse in blog posts from Gnostic Bent is likely indicative of my own efforts to survive the great snow storm to come. Wish me luck!

Bent Back

We should all “get bent” once in a while (Brainless Tales)

Sorry Gnostic Bent disappeared for the last few weeks, but like many of you, I took some time off to enjoy this holiday season. One of the perks of working at a private college is that the school shuts down in mid-December and reopens in early January. Students get more time off than staff and faculty, of course, but we still get a luxurious two-week break—and I really enjoyed having some time to recharge.

Granted, I did almost nothing but sit on my ass, watch television and play Far Cry 4 on my PS3—interspersed with Lego Batman 3, my son’s newest game—but it was just what the doctor ordered. And now that my vacation is over, I’m having some trouble adjusting to my daily routine, which includes blogging. I am back, though, and you can be sure that more ridiculous posts will follow.

So Happy New Year, dear readers. And here’s to getting Bent in 2015!

Prayers for the Pope

Please pray for the Pope (Reuters)

Although I am not a religious man—or even much of a spiritual one, at that—I do have a lot of love and respect for Pope Francis, who hails from Argentina, a country I absolutely adore.

Earlier today, it was reported that four of Pope Francis’ relatives were involved in a terrible automobile accident: his nephew, Emanuel Bergoglio, his nephew’s wife and their two children. Their car slammed into the back of a truck along a highway between Argentine cities Cordoba and Rosario. Sadly, all but Bergoglio himself perished in the accident; he lost not only his wife, but his 2-year-old and 8-month-old children.

Given my non-religious nature, the best I can do in this situation is send positive vibes to Pope Francis and his nephew. However, if you happen to be the praying type, please consider including them in your prayers today. I’m sure they both could use them.

LEGO Love Fest

When I was a kid, I absolutely adored LEGO. These famous construction toys not only allowed me to flex my developing imagination, but also provided me with endless hours of fun and entertainment—a fact I relish now that my son is a huge LEGO fan, too.

Unfortunately, my use of LEGO waned as I got older, but I still love it enough to live vicariously through my son. Despite the high prices for themed sets—like Star Wars and Chima, for instance—and the tendency for me to step on all shapes and sizes of LEGOs in the minefield of my son’s bedroom, they still rock. And people are doing more and more creative things with these plastic building blocks, too.

Check out some of these LEGO creations and tell me this isn’t an underrated art form.

Sin City Lego style! (eBaum’s World)

Detroit without the foreclosed properties and vacant lots (Sean Lamb)

World War II atrocities (Yoshix)

The amazing Mona Lego (Eric Harshbarger)

Easily the simplest A/C unit to service, provided you have some gray blocks (Geeknaut)

Al Qaeda Lego (BrickArms)

Sgt. Pepper’s LEGO Heart Club Band (Henry Lim)

JC on the cross (Brendan Powell Smith)

The LEGO mayor in a compromising position (BC Bass)

Nessie does exist… sort of (Dr. Momentum)

I’d hate to see the price tag for this amazing creation! (eBaum’s World)

The Big Apple (Sean Kenney)

Carbon freeze for Han Solo (Nathan Sawaya)

This one is kind of freaky (Tony the Misfit)

LEGO in church (Amy Hughes)

M.C. Escher would be so proud (Geeknaut)

The Dark Knight (MJ Laflaca)

Even the Angry Birds aren’t safe (Tsang Yiu Keung)

Mourning the dead stormtroopers (Shobrick)

Motorized Lego (Barry Bosman)

Dead Presidents (eBaum’s World)

Peel off your face (Nathan Sawaya)

Easily my favorite of the bunch (Totally Top 10)

Inside your head (Nathan Sawaya)

This thing is actual size! Wow! (LEGO Master Model Builders)

Happy 4th!

This gallery contains 8 photos.

There and Back Again

It’s a mad, mad world filled with mad, mad people (Indiereader)

After a relatively relaxing week at the beach—and a brief respite from daily blogging—I returned to find that very little has changed. The news is still chock full of craziness, and I immediately found some gems worth sharing with you fine people. Rather than presenting them all as another edition of the Reality Round-Up, here’s a quick whip-around instead. Enjoy!

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI: Drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, but apparently someone forgot to mention this to an as-yet-unidentified man in Kansas City. Last Thursday evening, a young and very intoxicated guy busted the front window of the Kansas City Costume Company, stole a yellow cape and feathered cap—originally from an Atlantic City show from the 1970s—put them on and proceeded to have drinks at a neighboring bar. Before the police arrived to arrest him, he even took pictures with some of the bar’s patrons, who affectionately labeled him the Big Bird Bandit. Too bad this heinous crime occurred on Grand Boulevard rather than Sesame Street!

Everybody knows that the bird is the word (Kansas City PD)

HUTCHINSON, KANSAS: I have never been a fan of spiders, but I respect them and only kill them when they enter my home. Normally, I use a shoe, large book or a handful of paper towels to slaughter these household pests, but a Kansas woman took spider-killing one step further recently and used a different weapon: her lighter. Ginny Griffith apparently saw an arachnid intruder last Friday in a pile of towels, lit the towels on fire and nearly burned down her apartment and several surrounding apartments. Needless to say, the fire was extinguished by firefighters and police awarded Griffith with aggravated arson charges. And the spider’s remains were never found.

SEEKONK, MASSACHUSETTS: Almost every guy I know has fantasized about being a fly on the wall in the women’s locker room, free to check out beautiful—and often nude—ladies without fear of reprisal. In most cases, however, this fantasy remains just that: a fantasy. Once in a while, though, fantasy becomes reality and men take things way too far, as was the case in a Massachusetts Planet Fitness health club recently. On Wednesday, a member in the women’s locker room discovered a hidden video camera and immediately phoned the police. When officers examined the video—which had been running for roughly 20 minutes—all their questions were put to rest because the perverted guy responsible for the camera also caught himself on tape setting it up! Honestly, guys like these give my gender a bad name—and I promise not all men are this stupid.

The dreams of all men and the crimes of a few (Santa Fe Productions)

MACON, GEORGIA: On Thursday, a Macon man learned a valuable—and painful—lesson about gun safety. He was sitting in the parking lot of a Sunoco gas station, decided to holster his .45 pistol and accidentally shot himself in the penis. Somehow, he managed to drive to a nearby friend’s house, where he discovered that the bullet went in through his junk and out through his ass. No word yet on the state of his bullet-ridden manhood, but he was transferred to a regional medical center, so he’ll probably be fine. And I guarantee he considers wearing a shoulder holster next time!

Nothing like a urine bath on a hot summer day (DooDoo Voodoo)

MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT: Charles Francis Stack is a 22-year-old man who hates his female neighbor so much that he decided to attack her last week… with pee-pee! For whatever reason, Stack always hated his neighbor—often threatening her and using profanity in her presence—and last Thursday, he lashed out in the grossest possible fashion. Stack went into this poor woman’s room with a container of very stinky urine and used it to douse her body, face, clothing and basically the entire room. Fortunately, the cops arrived to arrest him before he could move on to Act Two—and we all know what that would involve!

Thank you, World, for being so crazy… and so bloody newsworthy, too!

Vacation Time!

Tell me this isn’t a good omen for a beach trip!

Sorry if my blogging fades off this week, but I am currently enjoying a family vacation at the beach. Day one produced this rainbow—the first and only rainbow for which I have seen its start and end—and the weather could not be better. Time to recharge my battery and if the mood strikes me, I will blog. Otherwise, look for me on the beach because I plan to spend A LOT of time there. See you all soon!

Inject This!

Philip Seymour Hoffman (GQ)

On February 2, 2014, talented actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead on the bathroom floor of his West Village apartment in New York City—a heroin-soaked needle still stuck in his arm. He was 46 years old.

This past Tuesday, the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma returned attention to the issue of which lethal injection drugs should be used to exact capital punishment on our worst evildoers. In 1999, Lockett watched as his “buddies” shot Stephanie Nieman and then buried her alive.

He certainly qualifies for some Old Testament justice, in other words. And he got what was coming to him, believe me.

According to eyewitnesses, Lockett began writhing in pain, muttering unintelligibly and even lifting his head as the drugs collapsed one of his veins. Then the doctor ran out of drugs and could not continue with the execution, leaving Lockett to die of a heart attack half an hour later.

Think The Green Mile without Old Sparky. Messy.

The drugs used in Lockett’s state-sanctioned murder were Midazolam (to render him unconscious), Vecuronium Bromide (to stop his respiratory system) and Potassium Chloride (to stop his heart and send his soul to Hell and eternal damnation… or whatever). Unfortunately, not everyone can agree on which combination of which drugs offer the most humane and pain-free “bang for the buck” (execution-style, of course).

It should be fairly obvious where I’m going with this.

Peep this stat: in 2011, nearly 4.3 million Americans admitted to trying heroin at least once. And that number is growing at an alarming rate across our great nation. Granted, we normally don’t hear about it unless famous people—like Hoffman—overdose on the drug or some deadly combination. Things like painkillers and alcohol almost always play a role, as well. Instead of lamenting this fact, though, why not take advantage of it?

Stick them, check them, bag them… Lady H would make it easy (Addiction Intervention Now)

Stay with me.

Cops all over America are busting heroin dealers and users, confiscating their supplies and then disposing of them, most likely in furnaces or huge bonfires. Step One: Keep the drugs. We can use them later.

I do not profess to be a heroin expert, but from what I’ve read, it seems as if a heroin overdose makes you fall asleep. As you’re sleeping—and because heroin basically becomes morphine in your bloodstream and causes extreme relaxation—your body forgets how to breathe and you die.

While you’re sleeping. Sounds painless to me. Step Two: Use the drugs from the criminals to kill the criminals (a.k.a. what goes around comes around).

Instead of bitching about which drugs to use in executions and torturing more prisoners until we get it right, why not use the heroin we collect on the streets to kill our worst criminals? They fall asleep, they never wake up and everybody’s happy. Problem solved… well, almost.

Lockett bought the farm (Oklahoma Dept of Corrections)

According to statistical data, only 14% of heroin overdose deaths are instantaneous—as in Hoffman’s case. He didn’t even have time to pull the needle from his arm, for goodness sake. However, toss in a few painkillers and some Long Island Ice Teas and you can probably improve these odds. Step Three: Implement an open bar prior to every execution and when inmates aren’t looking, slip Mickeys into their drinks. That should make the heroin much more effective.

There you have it: three steps to ending the lethal injection controversy and saving taxpayers money.

And if you’re reading this, U.S. government, you can have that idea for free.

Conferenced Out!

Conferences can be both fun and tedious… believe me (Jeff Hurt)

Sorry for disappearing for several days, but I recently attended a professional conference and was so exhausted each day that blogging kind of fell by the wayside. What’s more, I spent the majority of my time driving to and from the event—which was several states away—and since texting and driving is a no-no, I can only assume the same is true for blogging and driving.

Fortunately, I survived the conference and made it home safely, so Gnostic Bent should be running at maximum capacity again soon. Thanks for sticking around, peeps!

The Glass-Breaking Ghost?

You break it, you buy it, ghost! (WMUR-9)

Is it possible that ghosts really do exist?

This is the question being asked by many after some recent surveillance footage from the Ellacoya Country Store in Gilford, New Hampshire showed a glass object mysteriously slide across a countertop, fall to the ground and shatter… and there was no one around at the time, which increases the “freakiness factor” of this unusual event.

Take a look for yourself by going HERE.

Store employee Heidi Boyd was working in the shop when this unexplained incident happened, but she was in a completely different room and only returned to the front to investigate what she thought was accidental breakage by a customer.

“I heard this big bang and crash,” she recounted later. “I walked around and looked and [the glass object] was on the floor.”

Store owner Steve Buzzola wasn’t all that surprised by the news, though, since paranormal activity has occurred there in the past.

“We’ve had a couple of incidents where people had their shoulders pulled,” he said. Of course, mysterious body sensations are much different from “paranormal property damages,” so I’m sure this event now tops his list of weird happenings at the store.

Fortunately—and according to comments posted to the store’s Facebook page—ghost hunters… I mean, paranormal investigators (pardon my political incorrectness)…will soon investigate the incident. And no, I’m not referring to the Ghostbusters, even though these folks can’t be that far off.

Do I believe this footage proves the existence of ghosts? Certainly not, but I’m pretty skeptical about the so-called “spirit world” and will likely remain that way until I see a ghost for myself. These things always turn out to be some kind of elaborate hoax or prank, so I fully expect the same will be true this time.

It is kind of spooky, though…