Recently, Pat Robertson claimed that if gay marriage is legalized, it won’t be long until we legalize sex with ducks. We all rolled our eyes, maybe got a couple laughs out of it, and then went on with our lives.

Then this happened:

This video’s been making the rounds for the last week, so there’s not much I can add in the way of commentary. Nonetheless, I have two thoughts on the matter.

One: I’m incredibly happy that all the funny people are in favor of gay marriage. To be fair, it’s entirely possible that someone’s trying to make an anti-gay marriage comedy video right now, but I’m having a hard time caring. I can’t even muster the energy to Google it.

Two: I am conflicted. I agree with this song’s message. I support legalizing gay marriage, and I definitely support using satire against idiots like Pat Robertson. And yet, I could easily throw away all my progressive credibility by writing a single sentence.

Specifically, “This video makes me wish I was a duck.”

Last weekend may have been Wolverine’s big solo blockbuster debut, but today he’s getting hassled by last year’s biggest Marvel moneymaker, Iron Man. It seems that while good old Logan was in the middle of doing his dayjob as a pitchman for some ringtone company, Iron Man saw it necessary to butt in and blow his cover, dancing “the Iron Man Dance,” forcing Wolvie’s mask onto his head and shouting, “be the Wolverine!”

Alright, I’m obviously fucking with you. While neither Varius nor myself have anything to do with the following video, “Iron Man” is played by my good friend and former roommate Greg, and he’s quite amusing. So, to all of our long-time readers who only follow this site because you went to college with us, well, you know the dude in the Iron Man mask, and that’s what that guy’s been up to. And to all the rest of you, well, the first 55 seconds of this video are pretty hilarious.

“Iron Man Dance… Iron Man Dance…”

A couple of days ago, Valentine’s Day happened, and The Beak ignored it. The closest we came was when Varius wrote the following on Twitter:

“Well, Valentine’s day is over, and we didn’t write about it. We win!”

And all was well. But now I suspect this is only because we didn’t have the right sort of news item to go with the topic. The sort of news item that takes a harmless occasion and turns it into something uncomfortable, like when an old man with whom you’re discussing the weather suddenly digresses into reminiscing about his lost ability to “get it up.” Or perhaps something like, say, a dating site created exclusively for people diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Freshly launched on February 14, 2009, get ready for Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com.

On February 9, 2009, the following press release was sent to media outlets:

“Death connects us all. The quality of our lives is profoundly affected by how we choose to face it. How much time do you have left? How would you prefer to spend that time –and what kind of person would you like to spend it with? Let us help you find a singing partner for your swan song. Straight, gay or bi, find your perfect match — or matches. No guilt, no lies, no shame. Just a shared desire to go out with a ‘bang.’ Be a romantic or a horny dog till the end. Join us as we launch… if you are truly dying to connect.”

This has a lot of bizarre cultural implications, but we’ll get to that in a moment, because first I want to point out something that may be of interest to some of our more esoterically-minded readers. The T.D.D.U.P. website features an inspirational and/or humorous quote near the top of the splash, which changes upon refreshing the page. Keen-eyed Discordians who cycle through these quotes will notice that one comes from Robert Anton Wilson’s 2007 deathbed blog: “Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.” David Pescovitz of boingboing.net noted the same thing over the weekend. Whether this is a clue that the whole thing is some ghastly prank, a hint at the identities of the site’s creators, or just an indication that RAW’s influence is spreading, is not immediately clear.

Either way, the whole thing reminds me of a recent episode of House, M.D., in which Thirteen (who is diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease) briefly bonds with a patient when the team believes that she, too, is suffering from a terminal illness. (You may also remember this as the “hot lesbian sex scene” episode.) When House eventually solves the case and the patient is no longer on the verge of death, Thirteen loses all interest in her, explaining that she “feels alone,” surrounded by people who can’t relate to her condition as one who suffers from certain doom. I have no way of knowing if this new site for dying singles was inspired by the House episode, but it certainly does appear to take the idea to its logical conclusion.

So. Obviously, I’m not going to sign up for the site as an experiment to give you a more detailed insight into how it works, because even I’m not that much of a bastard. But we can take another look at that press release:

“Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com is profoundly different from other dating sites. We’re dealing with people who know they are facing imminent death. They are aware that their days are numbered and they know, more or less, how long they have to live.”

Alright, whoa. I mean, fuck, think about how groundbreaking this is. On most dating websites, the best information you get regarding somebody’s likely fidelity is knowing whether someone is looking for short-term dating, long-term dating, marriage, or meaningless sex. But on T.D.D.U.P., if I’m interpreting it correctly, you literally get profiles like, “Hi, I’m Bill, I’m 49, and I’ll be dead in six months.” Holy fucking shit. But hell, if you’ve got to die, why die single? Everybody deserves to get laid now and then. Kudos.

Membership in Second Life, the giant online game/community/virtual world that you’ve heard about but never used, is free. I didn’t know that until recently. When I learned that fact, an idea hit me:

Second Life is a free source of material for at least one post, and probably a series.

It is, after all, the place where all the scariest, most unpleasant motherfuckers on the internet come together to be totally uninhibited. A place where a man can say, “In my real life, I’m an accountant, but here I can by my true self: a panda with huge tits and both sets of genitals,” and be accepted and embraced by a whole huge-titted hermaphro-panda community. A place, in short, where I could find something to write about, whether or not those stereotypes turned out to be true.

My vision for this project was simple: I’d go undercover, knowing absolutely nothing about the game or its world. Once there, I’d investigate all the things you’ve heard about Second Life in the media. Would the other players be at least half-normal? Would they would look down on me for being a noob who didn’t own any in-game property? And (of course) is the game really a depraved 24/7 furry scat party like all the news reports say it is, or is it mostly just people walking around and chatting? This, I told myself, would be some funny shit.

I downloaded the necessary files from the Second Life website, I installed them, I set up my account, and I started playing.

And then I stopped playing, because it is fucking unplayable. My computer is old, and my internet connection isn’t as fast as it could be, but goddammit, it ran World of Warcraft just fine! This game, though, suffered from a fucking ridiculous level of slowness. Remember that first generation of 3D games, on the original Playstation and the Nintendo 64? How objects just appeared when you got close enough? How mountain ranges would just pop up out of nowhere?

Yeah. It’s like that, but with better graphics and about 1/10th of the speed. Oh, and sometimes you’ll see objects that aren’t supposed to be there at all! You’ll be standing around, and a cluster of weird-looking polygons will appear in the middle of the screen, and stay there until you adjust your camera.

I assumed this had to be a problem with my hardware — either the old computer, or the mediocre connection. To an extent, I was right. But then I watched a couple video tutorials put out by Linden Labs (the makers of Second Life, who I probably should’ve mentioned earlier), and the videos’ narrator wasn’t having much more luck. He clearly had a better system than I did, but the framerate was still choppy, and his avatar spent much of its time standing around, waiting for the scenery to load. The game even crashed on him while he was recording one of the tutorials, and he didn’t even bother cutting it out of the video. He knows how to edit — he’s making video tutorials, after all — and he decided to leave this in.

And that was the end of my undercover investigation of Second Life. Everything I learned, I got from articles and tutorials that are already freely available to anyone who wants to read them, whether or not they’ve played the game. I am able to bring absolutely nothing new to the table regarding this topic. I had some interesting points about the in-game economy, but it’s nothing you can’t find on your own. No, all I could come up with is some angry criticism of the game’s slowness.

Seriously, how fucking patient do you have to be to addicted to this game? At least with drugs, you have the instant gratification of getting high.

A few days ago, Horatio introduced you to the Bacon Man. Today, I’d like you to meet his violent, heart-stopping cousin, the Bacon Explosion.

Go read that. I’ll still be here when you get back from the hospital.

Yes, the Bacon Explosion, essentially a giant sausage, filled with and wrapped in bacon. Everything I know tells me I should be disgusted by this. No matter how delicious bacon is, I know this object is terrifying, and quite possibly pure evil. I know that it is not so much a foodstuff but a weapon to be unleashed upon the arteries of your foes.

But damn it, I kinda want to make one. The issue is, I don’t own a smoker, or even know what one is, beyond some vague memories of stuff I’ve seen on the Food Network while stoned. Should I just abandon this insane plan, or should I attempt to improvise something in my apartment’s tiny kitchen? And if I do make one, should I liveblog it?

In other bacon news, Mike Nelson (of MST3K fame) has vowed to eat nothing but bacon for the entire month of February. I admire his spirit, but I can’t help feeling like he wussed out by choosing the shortest month for this bold experiment.

Also, I’m kind of worried he might die.

As everyone who’s ever lived near the water knows, birds love to fish. And when most birds go fishing, they take advantage of their superior speed, agility, keen eyesight, and ability to fly, and swoop down upon the fish in one brief orgasm of predatory bliss. But apparently, one bird found this whole process brutish and crass, and opted instead to employ intellect in the pursuit of lunch. Grasping the ancient art of bait, this bird collected a piece of stale bread from the efforts of its boardwalk-begging brethren and, rather than gulping it down without a moment’s introspection, decided instead to use it as a lure. Capitalizing on the gullibility of guppies, the bird watched intently as they went for his bait, and calmly grabbed them as soon as they were in range. Such a keen use of strategy is rarely seen in the avian world, and worthy of recognition. Suffice it to say, Beaky Buddies, that if birds had their own version of Chess, this bird would be Bobby Fucking Fischer. Get it? Fischer? Oh, just watch the damn video.

I also like how the narrator keeps saying, “shrewdy, shrewdy” with such evident glee.