This Week in Jesus-Related Advertising

It seems like every other day, some quaint and cuddly, blasphemy-themed chain restaurant from New Zealand is messing with Texas. And by Texas, I mean Jesus. This time it's Hell Pizza, which is running a billboard campaign that, at first glance, only appears mouth-watering. It's only when you look a little closer that you start to see all the offensive, Jesus-related things going on here.

Keep looking if it doesn't jump out at you right away, everybuzzy. It took me a few hours to figure it out, too.

Limited time??!?! Earth to Hell Pizza: Jesus is with us always and everywhere. And his buns, unlike yours, totally rule.

Honestly, I think I'm getting quaint-and-cuddly,-blasphemy-themed-chain-restaurant-from-New-Zealand-messing-with-Texas-and-by-Texas-I-mean-Jesus fatigue. And apparently, I'm not the only one. Church peeple are getting seriously peeved about all this meanness directed at Our Lord and Savior. For realsies!

Anglican Church media officer Lloyd Ashton said the campaign was disrespectful to many religions and the people who followed them.

"They [the billboards] join a long line of advertising that's in questionable taste that slings off [at] things that lots of people hold precious.

"It's disrespectful to what a lot of people hold very dear."

- New Zealand Herald

I've always been an admirer of Anglican Church media officer Lloyd Ashton's work, but I have to say, I really don't get how this campaign would be disrespectful to many religions. Since when is there more than one religion? I thought there was just Christianity and then 6.4 billion people who are totally wrong about everything.

Whatever the case may be, though, it's worth pointing out that for as long as We've been Buddies, Mister Jesus has pretty much always been able to handle His own fights. I mean, no offense to Anglican Church media officer Lloyd Ashton or anything (if that's even his real name), but The Dude can walk on water and turn three fishes into enough food for like six hundred frillion peeple. Plus, He literally IS the only way to get into heaven!

I think if Jesus's Feelings are hurt, He's probably capable of letting Hell Pizza know where they can stick their buns. In fact, I have so much faith* in Him that I'm not even going to mention the Hell Pizza thing in this letter I'm about to write to Him.

Dear Jesus,

What's up, Dude? How's It hanging these days? Things are pretty good down here, I guess. There was a weird smell in the break room the other day, but I don't think it's worth wasting a prayer on. Probably it's just a dead aminal or something. (I hope it's a unicorn!)

Hey, how about those Cincinnati Reds? 5-0 to start the season, huh? I know that was totally You, and not just because Joey Votto and Drew Stubbs keep looking up at you every time they cross home plate, either.

Hope You're having an awesome Thursday!

Piece,

Smokey.

Why you shouldn't make New Year's resolutions that you will blog every day of 2008...

I don't know if it was just me, but the whole dream of having Hillary Clinton as President made me long for the heady days of the James Buchanan administration, when the House of Representatives was like four votes shy of enacting legislation that would have banned any estrogen-bearing beings from White House jobs higher than "cook" and "laundress." You can bet that the Bachelor (read: gay) President most certainly would have signed that bill into law, believe me. And then, poof, no Civil War, because banning women from the Casa Blanca (hey, I just got that!) is an idea that EVERYONE, North or South, slaveholders or do-it-yourselfers, could get behind. Stupid James Buchanan, ruining everything for everyone. I mean, I know it's 2008 and all, but does anyone in America really want the White House at the whim of a woman's delicate hormonal cycle, and I don't care if she IS post-menopausal?

No, said America, according to Iowa, the Greatest State. No, we do not. Emphatically. Even if you are married to the sexiest former President since Matty Van Buren.

Sorry, Hill. I hope your holidays were nice anyway.

Mine were. Except for a bad case of Wii arm which I got from playing 21 consecutive, extremely irate innings of Wii Sports baseball during which I managed roughly 5 hits - including the errors when little exclamation points (which I assume are stand-ins for actual swearing) appeared above the heads of the fielders on the other team, or as I like to call them, "the bad guys." Seriously, the lesson here is not to make New Year's resolutions that you will blog every day because you will only set yourself up for failure a mere one days later - or at least, don't make those kind of resolutions if you have a Nintendo Wii in the basement of your suburban home in the suburbs with a baseball game that is just BEGGING to be made an example of.

I'm tired now, so I need to get back to drinking my scary colored Passion tea from Starbucks which I got as a Secret Satan gift at the Copse's annual holiday bash and pineapple-upside-down cake party. We're not like you. We don't have a plain old holiday party - not since Dole decided to eliminate cash bonuses in favor of CANNED bonuses, anyway. We all bake pineapple-upside-down cake (sometimes with rum) and get totally sick eating it all in one sitting. And we give Secret Satan gifts. I got tea from Starbucks because caffeine is as precious around here as a gold-plated rooster statue.

Seriously, this tea is BLOOD PURPLE.

You may not think of blood as purple, but cut yourself open and you'll see it is exactly the same color as my cup of tea. And also, you just got an infection. You totally should have sterilized that knife before you gouged into your own flesh, dummy.



I'm pretty sure making the tea this color was someone's idea of a funny, funny joke, like having a woman president. I strongly suspect my good buddy Alex "Dashing through the snow in a one-horse-open sleigh-Rod" Rodriguez, though his pranks usually involve wheels of smoked Gouda cheese and his genitalia hanging in the breeze for all of New York to see.

Happy fucking whatever.