Whirled News Tonight

Two stories recently caught my eye in my local fishwrap.

The first was about a couple of Englishmen who had flown to the US for a vacation, and ended up being jailed for several weeks. Seems they had packed a couple of silencers with them, which – as weapon accessories are want to do – attracted the notice of the authorities. These two first claimed the silencers were a gift for a hunting buddy they were visiting, then after being a guest of our penal system, refined their statement to say the silencers were for air rifles, like those used in paintball. Needless to say, the two UK natives were finally deported. One of them was quoted as saying he would never ever visit the US again. Ever.

Now, all of this tends to evoke a “Well that sucks” reaction, but the very last line of the story changes everything. “The two men admitted they had not declared the silencers to Customs.” Ohhhhhh. Now I see. Because you were the dumbasses that didn’t declare a weapon accessory, we’re the ones at fault. I’m kind of glad you won’t visit again, because personal responsibility is in short enough supply here as it is. We don’t have enough to spare for you.


The other story went something like this (I’m paraphrasing):

Local high school student Crystal Woods took offense at a comment made by her Art teacher shortly after the Presidential election, when he said that African Americans couldn’t complain about slavery anymore.

“I couldn’t believe he said that in front of the class,” said Crystal, who is African American. “It’s like he was trying to minimize our struggles in this country. “

Crystal complained to her mother, Sharon, who called Principal Jonathan Stevenson to find out what the school intended to do about the offensive speech.

This is not the first time the Woods family has run into insensitivity from the school. Crystal’s older brother, James, found a confederate flag sticker beside his locker one day, and often overheard comments from other students about how he didn’t have to perform well academically because he was on the basketball team. James, the Valedictorian of his class five years ago, attended a state school on a basketball scholarship.

Principal Stevenson has assured the Woods family that the teacher will be required to attend sensitivity training.

“I’m just glad that he’ll know he can’t say things like that without repercussions,” Sharon said.


If this were in any way a sane world, the story should have read like this:

Local high school student Crystal Woods took offense at a comment made by her Art teacher shortly after the Presidential election, when he said that African Americans couldn’t complain about slavery anymore.

“I couldn’t believe he said that in front of the class,” said Crystal, who is African American. “It’s like he was trying to minimize our struggles in this country. “

Crystal complained to her mother, Sharon, who called Principal Jonathan Stevenson to find out what the school intended to do about the offensive speech.

The Principal immediately scheduled an Over-sensitivity class for Crystal and Sharon, citing the fact that the Constitution doesn’t guarantee freedom from offense at others’ Free Speech.

“He probably shouldn’t have said that to his class,” Stevenson noted, “but to demand punishment over a thoughtless comment is overreacting just a tad.”

Stevenson says the priority for the Over-sensitivity class will be to teach the Woods women how to be more like Crystal’s brother James, who didn’t let every little thing bother him. “He maintained a perfect GPA and won a full sports scholarship to our local college,” Stevenson said. “They’d do better trying to be more like James rather than being whiny bitches.”

The Ruling Class

Did you hear that Tribune Media is filing for Chapter 11? I saw it on the Chicago Tribune’s web site.

If this is an example of their usual journalistic standards, I’m surprised it took this long for them to go under.

Other random things on my mind include this story from the UK:


Extinguishers banned as a fire safety hazard

Fire extinguishers could be removed from communal areas in flats throughout the country because they are a safety hazard, it has emerged.

The life-saving devices encourage untrained people to fight a fire rather than leave the building, risk assessors in Bournemouth decided.


Ordinarily, I’d post some snarky comment about either irony or the Nanny State tendencies of the English, but I think in this case, a healthy “What the fuck?” will suffice.

And speaking of Lawmakers Gone Wild!, there was this gem a couple of weeks ago:


Florida: A Port St. Lucie boy has been busted after police caught him with a bag of parsley. The 15-year-old was with another 13-year-old boy on their way to a friend's house on Friday morning when they were questioned.

The older boy told police that he planned to trick his friend into thinking his baggie of parsley was really marijuana. He also admitted to smoking the real deal the prior day.

He was arrested and charged with possession of a counterfeit controlled substance with the intent to deliver.


Man, oh man…I hope the cops don’t ever raid my kitchen; I’ve got counterfeit cocaine, counterfeit pot, counterfeit heroin…

I looked up the specific statute that covers this case, and it’s not a crime unless you admit that you were going to try and make someone think it was a real drug. So what was this 15-year-old supposed to say when the police asked “What are you going to do with that baggie of parsley?” Who does this law protect? Legitimate drug dealers? And Florida’s not the only stupid state, Ohio’s got a version of it, too. There was this bit from Akron’s court blotter:


(December 5, 2007, Akron) … Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh announced today that Dexter L. Harrison, 21, of Cliffside Drive in Akron, Ohio, was found guilty by a jury of Aggravated Robbery with a Firearm Specification, a felony of the first degree, Possession of a Counterfeit Controlled Substance, a misdemeanor of the first degree, and Possession of Marijuana, a minor misdemeanor.


Did you see that? The possession of a counterfeit controlled substance is a more serious crime than possession of the real substance. Is this opposite day or something? (And if you tell me “no,” how can I believe you?)

See, lawmakers pass these bizarre statutes, and then expect us to listen to them when they advise us on how to protect ourselves, when we have direct evidence they’re absolutely bug-fuck insane. There was a story recently about a woman from Harlem that had gotten mugged on a subway, then ran down her muggers and grabbed onto one, not letting go until they gave her purse back. The cops "lauded” her “spunk,” but were quick to add that tired old platitude about how “you shouldn't take matters in your own hands like that.” Why not, Officer? Obviously none of the boys in blue were on the subway with her. What else was she supposed to do? I tend to agree with those that cling to their guns when they opine “I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy,” or “When there are only seconds between life or death, a cop is just minutes away.”

I think that’s why movies about vigilantes always do well, because people want to think that in the same situation, they’d have the balls to put things to rights themselves. Boondock Saints taps into that feeling with the newscasts presented throughout the film (especially in the credits). Batman is a vigilante with “wonderful toys”, the new Bond goes off the reservation any time it’s convenient, Jason Bourne is a rogue agent, Dirty Harry had his own catchphrase, Charles Bronson had the Death Wish series. People would like to say “Fuck the rules, I’m fixing this.” Especially when the rules state that having fake pot is more of a crime than having real pot.

Express Yourself

I wasn’t going to note this, but since ol’ Erskine is yapping about it…

Bowles suggests blocking hate talk

CHAPEL HILL - UNC-system President Erskine Bowles wants a commission to determine whether every state university campus in North Carolina should establish a university code that blocks hate speech.

(I’ll save you the money, Erskine: No.)

Bowles' decision came less than a month after four N.C. State University students spray-painted political statements, which many deemed racially inflammatory and threatening, on the Free Expression Tunnel on campus.

(On which tunnel?)

Bowles met Tuesday afternoon with leaders of the state chapter of the NAACP. After the meeting, he declared the graffiti hate speech.

"I find this whole incident to be deplorable," Bowles told reporters. "It hurts, and it hurts deeply."

(Says the white guy. Fucking groveler.)

Bowles saw a photograph of one section of the graffiti for the first time Tuesday.

(How out of touch is this guy, to have only seen it now, three weeks after it went boomeranging around the web?)

The graffiti suggested shooting President-elect Barack Obama in the head. It also used a racial slur.

(SAVE US! Someone used a slur! I bet it was some shit-kicking redneck cracker.)

The Rev. William J. Barber II, president of the state NAACP chapter, said the words frightened students and should have been considered a crime. He insisted such language ought not be protected under the United States Constitution's right to free speech.

(If your students are frightened by words, perhaps they’re not ready to be living on their own. The good reverend wants the use of certain words to be labeled a crime, and I’ll bet that “shit-kicking redneck cracker” doesn’t appear on the list. Damn those meddling Founding Fathers and their pesky Constitution!)

The four NCSU students responsible for the graffiti have apologized. The student who instigated the paintings will attend diversity training and do community service. No criminal charges were brought against the unnamed students.

(Diversity training my lily-white ass. If they were serious about being inclusive, the training wouldn’t be used as punishment; they’d appreciate his differing views. Whenever the Left talks about diversity, they mean only the approved classifications they’ve recognized.)



I was curious as to what constituted “hate” speech, so I looked it up:

“Hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability.” -Wikipedia

The NC State authorities admit they regularly patrol the Free Expression Tunnel to censor anything they deem to be hate speech. Obviously, given the above definition, they wouldn’t allow anything intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.):





or intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their gender







or intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their nationality:





or intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their sexual orientation:



or intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their occupation:



Obviously, the graffiti against Obama was outside of the norm, which is what must have caused the uproar, because NC State would never allow anything intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence:



or intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race:





It has to be the office itself that is sacrosanct to the NC State thought police. It was surely their belief that the president deserves respect, and would take the same steps for any administration.





You know, whenever the Left starts preaching about diversity and tolerance, then releases their official list of what comprises those things, it always reminds me of Steve Martin explaining exactly what prizes were available in the “Guess Your Weight” booth in that one movie: Anything on this shelf…from the pencils to the ashtrays, which includes the gum, but not the clock radio.

Bunch of jerks.

Spare Some Change?

I woke up this morning thinking everything would be different, and it wasn’t. Have to say…I’m a little disappointed that our president-elect didn’t live up to his rhetoric. I mean, we still have the housing crisis, the banking crisis, the bailout debacle, trillions of dollars in national debt, a runaway recession, too-high gas prices, a two-front war, and reality television. I expected to be greeted by cartoon birds chirping happily and small forest creatures cavorting on the lawn, where I’d have to dig through a mound of rainbow-colored unicorn poop to get to my paper.

Alas.

Something I do wonder about, though: Everyone kept saying this race wasn’t about race. I heard it from the Right and the Left. Constantly. Everyone kept saying it didn’t matter that Obama was black. It totally wasn’t an issue. Really. Honest.

So why is this election being declared “historic” by everyone? If it wasn’t about race, then we just elected another male politician. No big deal.

But this brings up something I want to bitch about. I don’t know who started it, but the tendency to use the phrase “an historic” election/occasion/etc. annoys the shit out of me. We’re not Cockney, people! We pronounce the ‘H’ at the front of that word. That means you use “a”, not “an”. It’s an hour of a history class. No one is going around saying “an” halibut, so quit saying “an” historical whatever.

The Left has been reveling in the tears of the Republicans all day, and that’s fine. They’ve been choking on their rage for eight years, so they need the catharsis. The Republicans are predicting all sorts of horrific consequences, but honestly, you probably could have made the same predictions if McCain had won. There is no difference between the parties any more. I’m sure we’ll see the Left blaming Bush’s policies for anything that goes wrong in the Obama administration the next four years, just like the Right blamed Clinton’s policies for all of the crap that happened on Bush’s watch. It’s human nature to take credit for all of the good stuff, and find a scapegoat for all of the mistakes.

One particular piece of change I do expect immediately is the cessation of anyone claiming that the white man is holding them back. We’ve have just proven that that is not the case. I also expect Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to have to go out and get real jobs now, which is why, I suspect, Jesse was really crying last night.

Denis Leary Can Keep His Money

Having a child with autism presents a number of challenges, and requires certain compromises and adjustments. You know the worst thing about it, though? Having Jenny McCarthy as your self-appointed spokeslut.

When Denis Leary recently opined:

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a shit what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.",

the former Playmate and serious actress had this to say:

“Whoo! First of all, let me tell you, the autism community has received probably 10,000 emails [saying] ‘Go kill him!’ ‘Go yell at him!’”

Where is this community, Jen? I didn’t get an e-mail. And I certainly didn’t send one in to any central autism depot asking that you be sicced on Leary like some sort of attack stripper. Unwad your panties, put them back on, and go the fuck home. Most of us immediately recognized that the real target of his comments are the parents that lack the energy or foresight to discipline their little horrorshows, so use the autism label like a Get out of social ostracism free! card. Just because some mom at the playground tells me her kid is autistic doesn’t obligate me to treat her words as holy writ. I don’t automatically assume she took him to a specialist for an evaluation. She may know deep down that she’s a crappy parent and just doesn’t want to be called on it.

Leary claimed the standard “out of context” defense, which was probably a safe bet, and has since issued two apologies, which I think was a huge mistake. Other people’s feelings are not his responsibility. According to a recent news blurb, the advocacy group Autism United has graciously accepted his apologies, and has cancelled a planned boycott of his book. But wait…there’s a catch: Leary is expected to either delete the “offending” chapter or donate part of his proceeds to charity. I wonder if there’s any sort of charity for autistics that might want a slice of that. Fucking scavengers. I am so sick of people thinking they’re entitled to someone else’s money because they got their feelings hurt.

The spokesman for Autism United, Mark Anthony Ramirez, said that he was happy to accept Leary’s apology (thank you so fucking much, Ramirez), but figured “his claim that his comments were taken out of context is a veiled attempt to elicit more sales.” Or he may have felt that his comments were actually taken out of context, you idiot.

Ramirez goes on to say "As a parent of a child with autism, I feel he owes the autism community the money he is making for using what has quickly become an epidemic in our country as a cheap ploy to sell his book. He should donate a portion of his sales to assist children with autism."

How about this, Ramirez: As a parent of a child with autism, I feel Leary is entitled to keep every fucking dime he makes off of his book. You think he’s being mean? Write your own damned book. Having an autistic kid doesn’t entitle you to anything. Take care of your kid and ignore what other people say. That is…if your kid really does have autism.

See, I know my cub doesn’t have an agenda. He’s not working the system or taking advantage of the sympathy of strangers. He’s three. And if he starts to throw a fit while we’re out in public, I take him back to the car so no one else has to ride it out with us. I’ve left many a hot dinner behind so Mrs. Cat and Kitten (and the other patrons) could eat in peace. I even keep a book in the car to pass the time after Cub calms down so the rest of the family doesn’t feel obligated to bolt down their dinner to come relieve me. I could explain it to everyone in the restaurant and expect them to put up with it, but why? What does that do except annoy people? I think that’s how you can tell the fakers from the rest: they don’t act to improve the situation.

Look…all kids are different, and most kids are weird, but so-called “Autis” are differently weird. You just have to learn your child’s rhythms and patterns, and work within the framework they give you. One thing you learn real fast with an autistic child is to keep a sense of humor, because they will try your patience. They’re like every other child that way, just more intense about it. I saw a t-shirt that I think nicely sums up the proper parental attitude:

Autism rocks! And flaps, and spins, and hoots, and…

Currying Favor

There was an article in the local paper today about a new seafood restaurant opening. Normally, I enjoy going to new restaurants, but I think I'll skip this one. See, the place was closed by the local Health Department after an outbreak of e. coli last year. While that's not too unusual, the article went on to explain the source of the outbreak. Apparently, the employees took it upon themselves to slaughter a goat in the kitchen about a week before the first customer got sick.



They slaughtered a goat. In the kitchen.

Goats?

I did some digging on Google, and it turns out that the surname of the restaurant owner is Greek in origin. Goat is a popular dish in Greece, so I figure it was a dish being privately prepared for the owner's family, much like the urban legends of Chinese restaurant freezers being stocked with puppies. Dishes with dog meat are somewhat of a delicacy in China, and wouldn't be wasted on Americans. I don't have a problem with a restaurant owner wishing to use his kitchen for preparing private meals, what bothers me is that there was a week between the goat being prepped and the first outbreak. That implies a certain laxity in cleaning procedures, which worries me.

The article stated the owner hoped the incident would be forgotten. Since this was the front-page, above-the-fold story today, that's not too likely.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was recently at a Wendy's that had received a sanitation rating of 102%. How do you do that? Did they give the inspector a sponge bath when he came in?

Fringe, Furries and Phobias

Well, I hit the wall with Fringe. The thing that got me was the fact that no matter what creepy or unusual thing was going on, the scientist – Walter – had worked on something similar in the past. It’s a little too convenient. I don’t mind formulaic shows, but that’s stretching it. Since this is the third J.J. Abrams project I’ve taken a chance on, I can officially write him off as being overrated.


Speaking of Tuesday night programming, I read that the newest character on House, the private investigator, is supposed to be getting his own show. I don’t know if that would be a good thing. I like his interaction with House, but I’d have to see more to decide if he could sustain his own vehicle. Couldn’t be any worse than Psych, at any rate.


In other TV news, I read an interesting article that gave a way of determining if a TV show will be cancelled. Each network tracks that all-important 18-49 demographic, so if a show regularly pulls in a number of 18-49 year-olds that is at least 92% of the station’s average 18-49 demographic, that show will most likely stay on the air.


Anybody else think that maybe Maurice Sendak is a closet furry? I mean, Max dresses as a wolf in Where the Wild Things Are, and the Little Bear series has Emily (a human girl) “marrying” Little Bear (a bear) the first day they meet, not to mention the episode where Skunk is upset because no one will kiss him.


I saw where the National Federation of the Blind is upset over the new movie Blindness, because it “portrays the blind as monsters.” No, it doesn’t. It portrays formerly-sighted people who are struck blind, and react with fear and anger; that much is clear from the trailer. The NFB is calling for a boycott of the movie. Isn’t encouraging blind people not to see a movie somewhat redundant?


I did a typical “man thing” recently, and cleaned out the garage. It actually turned out to be a lot easier than I’d feared. Like a lot of old houses, we have our share of insect-life that shares residence with us. This varies by region, of course. In our case, we have camel crickets (also known as cave crickets). These critters are like the bastard children of crickets and spiders.


Look at it. LOOK AT IT!

Thing is…I’m a teeny bit arachnophobic. I’ll be rooting through a box in the attic, and one will jump into view. A small part of me notes that yes, it’s another camel cricket. This part is usually being drowned out by the Ohshitohshitohshit! part that sees the front legs and immediately slots it into the SPIDER! category. So it’s been a cardiac adventure ever since we moved in.

Anyway…as long as I know they’re there, no problem, so I was okay in cleaning out the garage, where boxes and bags had been accumulating for thirty years. What I hadn’t counted on was how hyper these things are. I was pushing the broom around, gently nudging them outside as I worked, when one bounced off me and landed behind a bag which apparently concealed a well-established colony of them.

It was like dropping a ping pong ball into a room full of mousetraps.

The crickets exploded from behind the bag, all shades and sizes. It felt like I was in a pinball machine during the fucking Multiball round. My wife found me in the fetal position on top of a bag of pine chips a few hours later.

But the garage looks great!

Je ne sais quoi

You know that instance where someone says something cutting to you, and you can’t think of a good retort until much later? Turns out there’s an expression for it: l’esprit de l’escalier. It means ‘the spirit of the staircase’, which is a perfect image – two people passing on the stairs. The French, though utter shitheads in many ways, do have a gift for encapsulating the human condition(s) with pithy phrasing. I think this is one of the reasons writing can be so satisfying, because as the author, you can give your characters the perfect one-liner, insult, or rationalization with no filler words, stammering, or having to resort to ‘Oh yeah?!’

There are two types of Prius owners: those who just want to save money on gas, and those who want everyone to know they drive a Prius. I was at a drive through today when another car pulled up beside me. The man driving asks “What kind of mileage are you getting out of that Matrix?” “About 27,” I reply. He shakes his head sadly. “Bummer.” Then he smirks and drives off, and I see the model plate. What a prick. Is there any wonder the derogatory name for the car is the Pious? Have any of these assholes considered how the electricity for their hybrid is generated? Chances are pretty good it’s a plant that burns some sort of petroleum product. When your vehicle is powered by a wind-driven flywheel, you can be smug. Until then, fuck off.

Anyone else notice the change in the framing of the Global Warming argument? When it first became an issue, proponents insisted it was all the fault of human activities. They maintained this position adamantly, despite the fact that other planets in our solar system also demonstrated temperature gains. You know…the planets without people on them? Anyway, somewhere along the line, they dropped the anthropogenic codicil, and now just talk about Global Warming. It’s sneaky, because I know they still think Man caused, and can fix, the ‘problem.’ If I agree that the world is heating up, I know they’ll think I agree with them as to the cause. If I dispute the underlying cause, I get filed under ‘denier’ in their tiny mental filing cabinet, and all progress stops. It’s cause and effect, you idiot. Two separate things. You can agree on the effect and disagree on the cause.

I saw Righteous Kill the other day. I hate the fact that this was the script that brought DeNiro and Pacino together for the ‘first’ time. If they hadn’t been the leads, it wouldn’t have made half as much as it has. And it was kind of disturbing to watch DeNiro have sex with Carla Gugino, even if it was almost entirely implied rather than shown. DeNiro may be a great actor, but he’s no great looker. I cringed at his sex scene with Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown. Another awful pairing was Nick Nolte and Jennifer Connelly in Mulholland Falls. If you want to have a sexy woman in your movie, fine. If you want a love scene with her, that’s okay, too. But please, Mr. Director, either make it with a good looking actor or use strategic lighting, because we don’t want to associate Miss Connelly with Nick Nolte’s sweaty red face. Ewww.

I forget which car company it is (so obviously their advertising isn’t working), but their latest campaign includes a bunch of covers of Beatles tunes. I don’t know if you know this, Mister Ad Exec, but no one over the age of 14 likes the Jonas Brothers. Number one, their cover is horrible. Number two, no one who likes them can afford your car, or if they can, are not old enough to drive it. Is the ‘overpaid-child-actor-who-wants-to-buy-his-grandmother-a-new-car’ that large a market segment? When your client goes to the government to be bailed out of bankruptcy, your fee better not be a line item. You should have known better.

Books I finished in the last week: Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt; Little Brother – Cory Doctorow; Men and Cartoons – Jonathan Lethem; The Stupidest Angel – Christopher Moore.

Books I’ll finish this week: The System of the World – Neal Stephenson; Blue Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson; Three Days to Never – Tim Powers.

Books I’ll start next week: A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin; The Big Book of Pulps – Black Lizard; Killer in the Rain – Raymond Chandler.

(Why yes, I am currently unemployed, why do you ask? Actually, how I spend my daytime hours doesn’t affect my reading rate. I am a voracious reader, and keep four or five books going continually. I replace my library cards faster than my debit cards.)

Song I currently have on Repeat: “Something About You” by Level 42.



And you? How have you been?

Video Killed the Radio Star

You a Buggles fan? Oh, well.

I decided to try out this fancy “embed” option from YouTube just to highlight a few of my favorite videos.



“Paralyzer” – Finger Eleven

An impressive video for a groovy tune. I like the atmosphere of the empty street with the neutral color palette. I think the casting is good, especially the girl, who really isn’t "pretty" or "sexy" as those are usually defined by music videos, but has an intriguing face (wholly appropriate to the lyrics). I absolutely love the simple editing tricks that make it look like a whole group of dancers can spontaneously explode from her body. If I could choose a superpower, that one would be high on the list.





“Pipe Dream” – Animusic

You may have already seen this in your e-mail Inbox, as it was passed around quite a bit (and even has its own Snopes entry - http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/musicmachine.asp). I think the popularity of this piece comes from the fact that it seems so darned plausible. That…and the fact that it’s just cool.




“Starship Groove” – Animusic

Another awesome video from the Animusic team. Not only is it a great tune, but I really like the idea of a ship sailing through the galaxies on no other mission than to boogie.




”Resonant Chamber” – Animusic

Last one from Animusic (though there are two DVDs worth, with a third on the way). The articulated parts of this machine remind me of H.R. Giger’s work, which I like as much as the tune. The Animusic team takes as much care with sound effects and atmosphere as they do with the central animations and the music, and that’s what makes these videos really pop.




”Bathroom” – The Umbilical Brothers

I found these guys after they showed up on Noggin as “The Upside Down Show,” which my three-year-old loves. Okay…I do too. They had an off-Broadway show called “Thwack” a few years ago, and have been doing this kind of comedy for about a decade now.




“Tap Dance” – The Umbilical Brothers

Another fun clip. The “brothers’” sketch comedy is well-planned, as they make use of camera perspective and physical effects to augment their physical efforts.




The Shining trailer remix

There are lots of these type of remixes floating around. Some are good, most are terrible. This is one of the first I saw, and is still one of the best (in my humble-yet-correct opinion).



Cello “Final Countdown”

Pure. Gold.

Just Wondering

Why is it that when people start decrying “gas-guzzlers,” they always pick on the soccer moms in the huge SUVs or the questionably-endowed Hummer drivers? No one ever brings up the Greyhound bus-sized RVs that usually only have a single retired couple in them. Those things get worse gas mileage than a Navigator in Neutral with a brick on the accelerator.

There’s a sign outside my local pharmacy that promises prescriptions “while you wait.” As opposed to what? Your shoving the pills down my throat when I walk in? The whole “while you wait” thing no longer has relevance. Back when you’d order goods and have to wait for the next trans-Atlantic shipment to bring them, being able to tailor a suit (for example) within an hour made it a good marketing hook. Today, however, we expect that you already have the stuff in stock and our waiting will be minimal, so advertising it is redundant.

If I vote for the Republicans this November, I’m being racist, but if I vote for the Democrats, I’m being sexist. This is what happens when your whole deck is nothing but Victim cards. Now what?

If you find an S&M magazine in your child’s room, would a spanking deter or encourage them?

The legal profession is frustrated by the fact that today’s juries expect “Law & Order” type trials. Maybe they should stop with the bullshit torts like tobacco settlements and McDonald’s coffee injuries, or at least send the lawyers to a couple of Drama classes. Would that help?

Will the next reality show go meta, and follow a group of reality show watchers?

I read a quote from a member of the American Association of Advertising Agencies saying the profession needed better exposure than just “Mad Men.” You mean swamping us with more advertising per minute than any other country isn’t enough? Putting ads in elevators, on grocery store conveyor belts, in one-fifth of every television hour, on urinal screens, on taxis and buses, on billboards, on recorded hold messages, in magazines, in movies, on the radio, in the newspaper, in sports stadiums, by third-class direct mail, in comic books, in text messages, in pop-up ads, in e-mail spam, in the doctor’s office, and in point-of-sale displays isn’t getting you noticed? Or do you mean better exposure, meaning that 99% of your efforts are either crap that we forget immediately, or are so disingenuous that you’re placed in the Used Car Salesman category, and you want an improved image? Who is the burden on, here? (Hint: Not us.)

Dumpster Diving Etiquette

To all you modern-day gleaners out there:

There's not a whole lot I can do to stop you from rooting through the boxes I put out for the trash pickup, short of sitting on my porch with a shotgun full of rock salt, which I ain't gonna do. I would request that you fucking clean up after yourself, though. I've already packed those boxes once, okay? I don't want to do it again and again. Don't leave the shit spread all over the yard; you're like a fucking dog going after a bone.

And here's another tip: those electronic items sitting out there? Yeah...those are broken, you dumb fuck. I would think that if you knew how to repair a modem, you wouldn't have to resort to digging through other people's trash. And I noticed you ignored the books. God forbid you might accidentally be exposed to some sort of educational materials and end up with some unwanted self-reflection. You might even become embarrassed! Can't have that.

I sure hope I remember to disconnect the car battery from the next shiny metallic object I put next to the curb. You're lucky I'm not using the boxes as bait, asshole, or you'd be on a hook in my garage while I headed to the store to get the other ingredients for my barbecue.

Keep your fucking paws to yourself.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

You a Go-Gos fan? Oh, well.

So we were on the road this weekend along with all of the other vacationers – or as I like to call it: the parade of assholes, because no one else drives exactly like I do. I do a steady four miles-per-hour over the posted speed limit for several reasons: I get there a little faster; it tends to keep me in between the packs of Sunday drivers and NASCAR wannabes; I’m not going to get pulled over for doing 59 in a posted 55.

The more I travel, the more I realize that speed limits are completely subjective. I’ve been on highways with a posted speed limit of 70 that dropped to 45 for no other reason than it happened to intersect the border of some podunk little settlement out in the middle of nowhere. Just because we happen to tangentially enter your economic prosperity zone should not give you the power to arbitrarily cut the speed limit by almost a full half. Nothing else has changed, you morons! The road surface is the same, the sight lines are the same, and you have nothing so complicated as a cloverleaf intersection to negotiate. You have one exit with two ramps. Just extend the off-ramp a quarter mile towards oncoming traffic so those that are forced to visit your Town That Time Forgot can get over, slow down, and start plotting their getaway without inconveniencing those of us that have real destinations to get to. Similarly, you may want to install a steam catapult on the on-ramp so those lucky enough to find their way back out of your ‘burg don’t have to strain their cylinders in achieving escape velocity.

Similarly, the last time I lost the workplace lottery and had to visit Alabama, their Department of Transportation had just finished a beautiful six-lane highway between Birmingham, which we flew into, and Tuscaloosa, where our home office was. It was quite possibly the most perfect road I’ve ever driven on. Three outbound lanes with abundant lighting, clearly-marked lanes, comprehensive and helpful signage, plenty of merging leeway on exits, and nary a chuckhole in sight. What was the speed limit on this marvel of motoring? Fifty-fucking-five. It only added to the rankling that I had rented a brand-new Dodge Charger and couldn’t open ‘er up (I eschew my usual four-mile-over rule when I have an absurd amount of horsepower).

In other vacation news, we recently made our way over to Wilmington, NC so I could revisit the USS North Carolina. My grandfather served on that battleship in WW2, and was very instrumental in 1) saving her from the scrap-yard and establishing her in Wilmington as a Memorial, and 2) presiding over the group that organized the reunions of her veterans, so it’s very close to my family’s heart.

A few random military facts:

She is a fast battleship of the NORTH CAROLINA class, with nine 16-inch/45-caliber guns, and twenty 5-inch/ 38-caliber guns.

She participated in every major Pacific battle, earning 15 battle stars, and only lost ten men.

She stayed afloat even after a torpedo blew an 18x39 foot hole in her port side.

She was built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and often returned there for adjustments during her shakedown period. During this time, Walter Winchell gave her the nickname “The Showboat” after a ship in a popular Broadway musical. She was in port at the yard on December 7, 1941.

A few personal observations:

The most-heard comment from new visitors has got to be “I couldn’t have served on this ship; I’d always be lost!” No, you idiot…you wouldn’t. First of all, the tour has been laid out so you see as much as possible. That does not necessarily mean it’s the most direct or easiest route between any two areas. Two: you’re only going to be here for a few hours. If you’d lived on board, you’d’ve learned your way around in a hurry.

Battleships are no place to serve if you’re fat. The hatchways are small and mounted in the middle of the bulkhead, the access tubes are about the size of a bendy straw, and many of the work-spaces are the same dimensions as an old telephone booth. Most of the “lost” tourists could not have gotten around the ship at all if new doorways hadn’t been cut here and there.

The North Carolina was a floating city in that she was outfitted to spend months at sea. In addition to the expected magazines, crew spaces, and officer quarters, she had a laundry, tailor, cobbler, barber, dentist, and a full machine shop (among other duties, she acted as Destroyer support, and was expected to be able to make repairs to all but the biggest or most delicate equipment).

The tour has signs posted to let visitors know what they’re looking at, and these signs include official information along with relevant comments from former crew. As happens so frequently in large organizations, they are often at odds. For example, the sign at the Master At Arms’ station informed us that one of the duties of the MAA was to make sure there was no “brewing, selling, buying, or drinking of alcohol,” while the sign at the dentist office had an offhanded comment from a former dental assistant about how they had set up two stills to turn the dentist’s denatured alcohol into booze.

One concern that had been addressed (that hadn’t even occurred to me) was how to prevent these “floating cities” from leaving a trail of garbage wherever they went (not only unsightly, but easily spotted by enemy planes). To address this, the North Carolina had a giant grinder that mulched garbage into tiny bits, then shunted them out under the propellers to be dispersed. That impressed me. I expected the incinerator (though I pity the crew that had to bunk beside it!), but not some huge Dispose-all.

I enjoyed the visit, and was especially excited that they had at last made the CIC (Combat Information Center) a part of the tour. My grandfather was a radarman, so I finally got to see where he worked. The North Carolina was (and still is) an amazing ship.

'pon My Oath

I have recently been reading a series of books written in a very fanciful, idealized manner - somewhat in the style of Dumas - and have come to the conclusion that some new oaths are needed. By way of example, several of the characters in the story use “Blood of the Horse!” as an expression of great surprise or agitation. Now this is a wonderful phrase, but can’t really be used effectively outside the scope of the novels. So I began to speculate about what makes for good oaths.

To begin, then, it must be a common referent. It would be all well and good for me to adopt “Cracks and Shards!” from the same novels, but while others may be able to infer the depth of feeling, they wouldn’t understand the reference, so it loses efficacy as an oath.

A friend of mine once conducted an experiment in which he used “Cows” as his oath – as in “Oh cows! The server crashed again.” The purpose of the experiment was to see how long before he heard someone else use it (it was a few months). Cows are, indeed, a common referent, but as an oath, it lacked a certain something. On reflection, I decided that the something was an element of action.

Upon this realization, my first instinct was to append a suitable adjective to my friend’s oath. While “exploding cows” meets the requirements, it is far too silly to be of any practical use. This led me to modify the second requirement thusly: it cannot be just any action; there must be some momentous event that is encapsulated by the oath. Regarding the examples from the novels, “Cracks and Shards” portends a certain powerful magical sphere being broken, the effect being that the entire society would be cast into chaos. Momentous, indeed.

There is no shortage of significant events to choose from, but “by Katrina!” would quickly become dated, and also would not necessarily bring to mind the hurricane, particularly if you had a friend named Katrina, and used it in her presence.

So not only does it need to be a common referent alluding to something significant, it must also withstand the test of time – a generation at least, I would think. In this, oaths are very similar to catchphrases. “23 skidoo!” was popular in the 20s, while “Where’s the beef?” resonates with those of us of Gen X. Both were quite common in their time, but were hardly earth-shattering.

I think this is why the profane has always been fertile ground for oaths. The utterance of a profanity is, by definition, a momentous event, in that it is invoked outside of societal norms. Using a god’s name in your oath is a good way to let the listener know that you are quite serious. I am sure Plato used “By Hera’s tits!” on occasion, and if he didn’t, he should have. I think it would have spiced up the allegory of The Cave tremendously.

Elizabethan oaths included many references to God, ranging from the polite “So God mend me” to the scandalous “‘zounds”, or “God’s wounds.” Our own use of “God damn it” is in the same vein, where we want in some manner to shock the listener, in order for them to understand the depth of feeling that we are ascribing to the event that precipitated the oath.

The difficulty is that profanity is limited. According to George Carlin, there are only seven words that you can’t say on broadcast television: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits. While true when he formulated the list, it’s being winnowed down as sheer repetition blunts the edges. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity.

Now, I certainly have no problem with cursing. Indeed, I enjoy using words effectively, and will not hesitate to use a curse word if I feel that it is most applicable. One can always aspire to these quotes from A Christmas Story:

- “In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”

- “My father worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium, a master.”

Alas, very few people can curse this effectively. I’ve posted elsewhere how flexible the word “fuck” can be, and I recall some trial movie where a sidebar was called to determine what, if any, word was an appropriate substitute for a defendant being characterized as an “asshole” (none was found), and I have actually parsed out the various ways of saying “shit,” such as a slow “shhhiiiiiiit” to indicate general apathy or disbelief, as opposed to a very clipped “oh shit!” when I spill hot coffee on my leg. My absolute favorite curse word is “chucklefuck,” because it’s fun to say, and an English friend of mine is fond of “fuckwit.”

Considering other cultures brings up another question on what makes good oaths: Should they be trans-national? The word “fanny” in America is considered to be okay for use in mixed company, while to the English, it is the equivalent of the word “cunt.”

I like perusing flame wars online to see what people come up with. Unfortunately, most people quickly revert to such erudite displays of nuance such as “Fuck you!” “Oh yeah? Well fuck you, too!” Cursing at people, however, while related, is different from using oaths to indicate your own level of surprise, fear, or dedication to a particular course of action or ideal. It should reflect on the speaker rather than the audience.

To that end, “Fuck me” satisfies all of the requirements, but again, it’s been worn rather thin. “On my honor” was useful when people still believed in honor to the point where they would duel over it, but now a charge of libel will result in lawsuits being drawn rather than sabers or pistols.

In David Brin’s novel Earth, natural resources are scarce, and people use the term “Dumpit” as an oath, reflecting the throwaway mentality of prior generations. I like that. I would suspect that the next generation of oaths will be most-influenced by the Internet. I have already heard of the term “404” being used to describe someone’s mental state, much as we now say “The lights are on but nobody’s home.” It would be a very small step to turn something like that inward, and swear “By the blue screen of death, I hate HTML!” Yeah…that’s a little goofy, but you see where I’m going with it.

Perhaps I’m wishing for a return to those adventurous times, at least as presented in fiction, but Cracks and Shards!, it’s a fun exercise nonetheless.

Schlock, Stock, and Two Choking Ferrells

Saw some interesting articles over at IMDB recently. One of them reported that MGM is courting Wall Street investors to raise $600 million to finance their upcoming features. Noted films included Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, which should gross at least half of the total investment all by itself. The film is going to be split into two parts, which means that Jackson is taking the time to do it right, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

After dangling that bit of bait, however, MGM listed some other upcoming films, including additional Pink Panther comedies and a remake of the 1980 musical Fame. Now I love Steve Martin, and I love the Pink Panther. Kevin Kline and Jean Reno are always fun to watch, too. But I avoided that movie like Beyoncé Knowles avoids acting lessons. And looking at the box office records, I wasn’t the only one. Why do we need more of these?

And why in the name of all that’s holy does anyone think we need an updated version of Fame? Musicals generally don’t do well at the box office to begin with, and so far, no one has demonstrated any sort of competence in repackaging those films and TV shows we Gen-Xers remember fondly (Miami Vice, anyone?). Who do you think will see this? The way things are now, you could film the auditions and put it up as a reality show – sort of a real-life A Chorus Line - and make more money. Show the finished production as your season finale, then tapdance off to the bank.

MGM spokesman Jeff Pryor is quoted as saying: "In the past, movie studios haven't offered Wall Street the opportunity to participate in their biggest and best films." According to the list you gave us, Jeff, you still aren’t.

In other movie magic news, Advanced Micro Devices recently released their new Ati Radeon graphics card. According to their spokesman, Neil Dessau, “the card will permit directors to control not only the lighting, staging, and dialog of movies digitally but also create virtual actors and easily manipulate their facial expressions.” Jules Urbach, founder of an animation firm says that it is now "possible to bring back actors from the past and realistically put them in new films."

I imagine most people, on hearing news like this, think about seeing their favorite dead actors in new movies without the director relying on spliced in footage, as with Humphrey Bogart in Steve Martin’s comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid), or the flickering “holographic” images of Sir Lawrence Olivier in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (I thought it was nice that he got a credit). I’m sure that somewhere, some director is already planning a movie starring James Dean, River Phoenix, and Heath Ledger.

As cool as all that would be, I’m fairly cynical about the motives of the studios. They will squeeze every last penny out of a movie, and keep squeezing long after everyone involved in the production has been paid off. That’s why we’re still seeing Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind sixty-nine years after they were first released; they’re still profitable for the studios. But what if it’s an actor or franchise you don’t like?

Let’s take some D-grade actor like Pauly Shore. Yes, he’s still alive. Even more disappointing, he keeps getting movie roles. I bet you that if some studio boss went to him and said “Paulie? We’d like to offer you $100,000 for the rights to use your likeness in perpetuity,” he’d jump on that faster than you can say “Fox cancelled me after only five episodes.”

Or think about the execrable teen “comedies” forced on us every year. Hire a bunch of unknowns for a flat fee; make increasingly-awful sequels; profit. (Come to think of it, that’s the American Pie formula.)

I like new tech as much as the next geeky fanboy, but I would also like some assurance that if Will Ferrell gets a chicken bone lodged in his throat, there will never be another Semi-Pro.

Bull-tiot

I saw recently where a Dr. Ken Smith, a criminology professor at Bucks New University in the UK, is tired of seeing rampant misspellings in his students’ coursework. Rather than insist the University raise its standards for admission, or generally decry the poor educational methods used to teach these students before they reached University, Dr. Smith (who has a ridiculously easy name to spell) has proposed that his fellow professors just ignore the misspellings, and classify them not as wrong, but as acceptable variants.

I’ve actually seen two separate articles about this idiot, and surprisingly, the second one didn’t relate the tale of the English professors at the same university attempting to give him a semi-colon with a letter opener.

Dr. Smythe provided a list of some of his students most commonly-misspelled words. Among them are February and Wednesday. How the fuck do you make it to college without knowing how to spell these? Smeth suggests that we accept ‘Febuary’ and ‘Wensday’ as perfectly fine alternatives. Never mind that February takes its name from a Roman rite of purification called februum, which was held at that time of year. Similarly, Wednesday is Woden’s day, not the day of the cebaceous cyst.

I think Dr. Smiff is just being lazy. He gives an example of a question he gets from his moronic students: “Why is there no ‘e’ in ‘truly’?” His answer? “Well, I don't know. ... You've just got to drop it because people do.” Thanks, asshole. I’m wondering if you would accept “just because” as a legitimate answer on your quizzes.

Here are the rules for appending endings to words with a final “e”, as a three-second Google search could have found for the good Docter:

When adding an ending to a word that ends with a silent e, drop the final e if the ending begins with a vowel – A E I O U:
• advance/advancing judge/judging distribute/distribution

However, if the ending begins with a consonant, keep the final e:
• advance/advancement involve/involvement

If the silent e is preceded by another vowel, drop the e when adding any ending.
• argue/argument argue/argued true/truly

Speaking to Smittttth’s comments, Jack Bovill, chairman of the British-based Spelling Society said “People who have trouble with spelling are punished when it comes to applying for jobs or even filling out forms.” Oh boo-fuckin’-hoo. Sorry, Jack, I just can’t work up a whole lot of sympathy. Next you’ll be telling us that the whole written form of communication is harsh to the illiterate, so all applications should be given orally, with a stenographer on hand to transcribe the answers onto the appropriate line. Or maybe we should dispense with the written word altogether. I’ll meet you in Alexandria; you bring the gas can, and I’ll bring the matches.

I tend to agree with Barbara Wallraff, who writes the Wordcourt column for the Atlantic and King Features Syndicate. "People who spell a lot of words incorrectly either aren't paying attention or don't care. Why change our language to accommodate them?"

And of course, Doktore Tsmithe trots out the new standard cop-out for the intellectually lazy: "In the 21st century, why learn by heart rote spelling when you can just type it into a computer and spell-check?" To which I offer the standard rejoinder: “Because spell-check will knot catch homophones.” God! Can you imagine the bleating this fucker would give out over the bad grammar he’d encounter when all of his students only used spell-check? (And apparently, they’re too lazy to use it even now, since he’s finding so many mistakes.)

Every time there’s an article like this, spelling reformists crawl out of the bookshelves to propose unnecessary schemes and plans to “make English easier.” English is the international business language, and most ‘furriners’ speak it. If it were so difficult, why isn’t Esperanto the international business language? Why not Chinese? Or Basque?

And what scheme should we use? Phonetic? Whose phonemes should take precedence? Is that famous highway Root 66 or Rout 66? Did the three wise men travel a great distance, or were they fighting a conflagration? Because my family in the mountains pronounce them both the same way – afar.

I know that someone who thinks they’re clever will post that fucking ‘ghoti’ crap again. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s supposedly an alternative spelling of “fish,” using the “gh” from “enough,” the “o” from “women,” and the “ti” from “nation.” Let me address this now.

There is no word in English beginning with “gh” where “gh” is pronounced as an “f;” it is always a hard “g.”

Vowels are pronounced long before an intervocalic consonant – that is, a consonant between two vowels. The fact that the “o” in “women” is pronounced as a short “i” is a leftover from Old English, when the word was actually spelled “wimmen.”

Pronouncing “ti” as “sh” only happens when the “ti” is followed by a vowel, as in “action.”

Therefore, “ghoti” can only be pronounced as “goatee.”

I notice that the same proponents of “ghoti” never mention that, by their logic, we could also have "ghoughpteighbteau," where:

P hiccough
O though
T ptomaine
A neigh
T debt
O bureau

Makes English seem a little more elegant when you follow the damn rules, now, doesn’t it?

Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha - THRUST!

There’s a lot going on in the world today: Russia seems determined to egg us onto yet another battle front; people who failed business math, and don’t understand profits as a percentage of investment, get all worked up over oil companies’ 10% “record” profits, while ignoring …say…Microsoft’s 30%; Americans are preparing to hold their noses and vote for a candidate from either of two increasingly similar political parties; China’s hosting of the Olympics keeps exposing the country as one huge Potemkin Village, despite their laughable efforts to hide anything from the media. With this rich buffet of topics, I’d like to wax indignant on something near and dear to my heart…cartoons.

Now, just so you know where I’m coming from, I think the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons are the apex of animated entertainment. I think The Wall is overrated, and Ralph Bakshi is underappreciated (I liked Cool World, even if Brad Pitt does scrub it off his résumé). I hate the Big Eyes/Small Mouth school of anime, and would pay good money for front row seats to a Heavy Metal vs. Akira showdown, just to watch Den and Taarna rip into the Capsules and Clowns.

So that’s where I stand.

There’s a cable channel called Boomerang that shows classic cartoons. We recently watched a whole lot of this when we visited family, because it kept the kids entertained. To the wee ones, it was simple entertainment; to me, it was a dumping ground for all of the execrable Hanna-Barbera and a.a.p. cartoons ever made. With the single exception of Hong Kong Phooey, I loathe H-B cartoons. They are annoying garbage with idiotic plotlines and vapid characterization. It’s like the creators came up with a list of catch-phrases, then built entire series around them. Or they ripped off popular live-action shows by turning The Honeymooners into The Flintstones, and morphing the Three Stooges’ Curly into Jabberjaw. And does anybody in the world like Popeye? I’ve never met anyone who would cop to liking that cartoon, yet it has its own dedicated block of time on Boomerang.

Don’t even get me started on Scooby-Doo. Yeah yeah…Shaggy’s a stoner and Fred’s useless. Velma is a lesbian and Daphne is a diva. I don’t care. We didn’t even see the ‘classic’ versions; we saw the Scooby-Doo movies with the special guest stars. This tickled me, too: in the opening credits, Scoob and the Gang are shown encountering Batman and Robin, the Harlem Globetrotters, Laurel and Hardy, the Addams Family, and other fairly fun franchises. So who did we get as our special guest star? Jerry Fuckin’ Reed. Don’t get me wrong, I like Smokey & the Bandit as much as the next guy, but come on.

The other kids’ channel we see a lot of is Noggin, because we have a preschooler in the house. So we get treated to soft and fuzzy cartoons like Max and Ruby and Oswald. For the most part, these are okay. They set out to teach values in an easy-to-follow format, with simple characters and uncomplicated plots. That’s fine. I don’t even mind Dora the Explorer (though I’d love to see someone shoot Boots the monkey and mount his head on the wall of their hacienda). The spin-off from Dora, Go, Diego, Go, annoys the shit out of me, though. The only cool thing about the show is Rescue Pack, which can transform into boats, gliders, skateboards, or what have you. That’s a handy gadget with a great geek factor. Supposedly, Diego can talk to the animals, but the creators must not be too sure about this ability, because he never uses it to find out what the hell is going on. The animals he rescues have got to be the stupidest ones on the planet, too. I have seen no less than four episodes where a bird had to be rescued because it got its wing stuck in a rock cleft. One in particular irritated me because a puma or something was creeping up on this poor trapped bird, and Diego drove it away. I was surprised that the next episode wasn’t him having to find the poor starving puma something to eat. What a meddler. The other annoying thing about this series is that the creators keep increasing the drama. They’ve started putting on special episodes on the weekends where Diego has bigger adventures. The first of these was a trip back in time to rescue a dinosaur. How does this make sense? He has to travel back to a time when these creatures weren’t extinct in order to save one of them so he can return to his own time when they’re still extinct? Huh? Didn’t the writers ever read A Sound of Thunder? (And don’t bring up that movie, please.) The “amazing” adventure this weekend involved newly-hatched sea turtles who couldn’t find their way to the ocean because the moon had been struck by a comet and fell out of the sky in pieces.

Really?

Diego has to put the moon back together?

Because of sea turtles, and not the cataclysmic destruction the loss of the moon would cause?

Really?

I just wonder how they’re going to escalate it from here on out. I mean, once you’ve repaired and replaced an orbiting body, helping a tapir stuck in a termite mound isn’t going to be as thrilling, you know? I fully expect to see a preview where Diego takes on the entire Norse pantheon as he attempts to rescue the ravens Hugin and Munin, who have gotten tangled in the ropes binding Odin to the world tree.

Is it too much to ask to get a little classic Warner Brothers every once in a while? I mean, they only have four of their cartoons in the National Film Registry, in addition to having five Academy Award winners (as well as an additional twenty nominated). This compared to none for Hanna Barbera. Most people can’t tell you the name of any one of the Snorks, but everyone can sing ‘Kill the wabbit’.

That’s all, folks.

I’m an asshole

I’ve known this for some time, understand. I vaguely recall my mother being the first to name me a smartass – a similar, yet somewhat elevated, example of the breed. No doubt others had appended the label to me behind my back, but that was the first time I’d been forcibly made aware of it. Her saying it with a smile rather than a scowl took away any sting, and so began my lifetime affair with sarcasm.

Sometimes I take great delight in having been slotted into that particular cubbyhole, wielding it as some sort of writ giving leave to engage in outlandish or crude manners, apathetic toward any perceived social stigma – indeed, raising it from mere gutter commonality to a sort of Art, dependent on quick thinking and some breadth and depth of knowledge. Other times, I cringe when my mouth bypasses my mores and engages in that sort of cutting verbal repartee just as my brain is recognizing its crass inappropriateness. All that’s to do at that point is apologize and hope it will be seen as a wayward witticism - not intended, and obviously not to be repeated.

Knowing my propensity for engaging in asinine behavior, I try to channel it into acceptable means of expression such as my writing, where it can be foisted off on some hapless character, who will then bear the brunt of scorn and enmity rightfully mine. Another valve is listening to obnoxious music at high volume. This tends to happen mostly when I’m alone in the car. Even so, I keep the volume down until I am out of residential areas, unless I know for a fact that no one is home.

As is the case in my neighborhood.

Coming from downtown, you turn right off of a central street to get to my house. The road you’re now on goes from commercial to residential very quickly. To your right is a graveyard; to your left, a bank followed by two empty houses, then the street upon which corner sits my home. The two houses immediately behind us are empty as well, and our closest neighbors all work days. Understandably, I felt fairly comfortable in cranking the volume up to absurd levels as I was returning from a recent outing.

The oppressive humidity had finally broken, and as it was cooler than it had been, all windows were down and the moonroof open as I enjoyed a few choice selections from a Goth Metal band. These were not your dreary, all-is-hopeless Emo-esque Goths, nor the ephemeral all-this-is-but-fleeting-so-celebrate-the-moment-with-these-odd-harmonics Goths. No. These were paganistic power-chord shock Goths, idealizing Death and emotional pain, with a large helping of sex in the backbeat. I topped the slight rise, letting the wails and groans carry me the last few dozen yards to my driveway.

Remember the graveyard across the street? Yep. There was a funeral going on.

There’s no real way to justify that as being anything other than the grossest intrusion, and I’m a champion at rationalization. You can’t even apologize for it without compounding the damage.

So I’m an asshole.






Speaking of the graveyard:

There’s a walking path that winds through the shadier spots. Its upkeep is underwritten by a nearby funeral home, and there are a couple of signs to that effect. These signs give the length of the path, note a couple of rules, thank the funeral home, and have a little motto:

Enjoy the Journey

I love it. The unspoken “Because you’ll end up here no matter what” really makes it a much more introspective stroll.

Of Popcorn and Prescriptions

I saw an article noting that prominent Hindus are all up in arms about The Love Guru. They want Paramount to create a video and booklet about Hinduism, and distribute them along with the DVD when it’s released “to counter the gross misrepresentations in the film.”

As of last week, the movie has made $29,427,850. The average ticket price in the US right now is $7.08, so slightly more than four million people have seen this movie. The random comments on IMDB – “Self-indulgent mess”, “R.I.P. Mike Myers’ Career”, and “It was painful” – suggest that those people are bleaching their brains just to get any residue out of their long-term memory. Rotten Tomatoes ranks it at a 15% “Freshness” (for comparison, Police Academy 6 is ranked at 0%, and Airplane! at 100%).

I think it would be cheaper and easier for Paramount just to issue a blanket apology for the film having been made at all.

I didn’t see The Love Guru because I saw the trailer, and have standards. This also applies to the upcoming Will Ferrell “comedy” Step Brothers. People actually laughed at his lowest-common-denominator shtick when the trailer was shown before Hellboy 2 (which is at least an order of magnitude better than its prequel), reinforcing my belief that people are sheep and society is doomed. This is the same character that Ferrell plays in all his movies: a grown man acting childlike. “Childlike” in this context meaning: moronic. I am horrified that he has been chosen to play Rick Marshall in the upcoming Land of the Lost movie. Actually, I’m horrified that there is an upcoming Land of the Lost movie, but to cast Ferrell, whose only connection to it is that he played Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is ridiculous. It was a brilliant in-joke that gave somebody a moronic idea.

Of course, this is Hollywood, where moronic ideas are the status quo. Usually in the form of remakes. In addition to the aforementioned Land of the Lost next year, we can expect 2010 to bring us Robocop, The Warriors,and Red Dawn. This Christmas, we’ll get treated to Keanu Reeves in The Day the Earth Stood Still. We’re being punished for something, evidently.

One remake that I did enjoy was Get Smart. The writers tipped their hats to the original series, established the break between the two, then went off and did their own thing. I’m also looking forward to Death Race. Ostensibly a remake of the mid-70s Death Race 2000, it makes absolutely no pretense of being anything other than a fluffy popcorn flick with cool explosions, sexy women, and Jason Statham kicking ass. It is so secure in its movie manliness, it gives away central plot points in the trailer, knowing we’ll go see it anyway.

In other media-related ranting, I’ve been watching a smattering of television lately since we have cable again, but I don’t think that’ll last much longer. I’ve become increasingly annoyed at commercials in general, and drug commercials in particular. It really grates on my nerves that the drug companies spend approximately ten seconds giving a general overview of what their product is for (Mnemosynil – when you can’t remember why you’re taking medicine), and the next three minutes reading the “possible side effects” page from the prescription pamphlet. I kind of think of that as being the responsibility of the doctor and/or pharmacist. It’s not like I can go into the store and get this stuff without a prescription, so presumably, some sort of medical professional will weigh whether or not I should be taking it before giving it to me, accessing the exact same information. Why does this need to be in the commercial? This is the reason an “hour-long” show lasts for forty-two minutes anymore.

I also saw a commercial for a headache remedy that used a timer to illustrate how fast their product works. They claim 15 minutes, but I noticed the timer was counting the seconds from 00 to 99. That’s an extra forty seconds per minute, which tacks on an additional ten minutes. If you lack the basic sense to be able to tell time, I’m not so sure I want to use anything that comes from your labs, which generally require finely-calibrated machinery and precise chemical measuring. I’ll just deal with the headache, thanks.

Television has too much of a bread-and-circuses vibe for me to stomach much of it. I was looking at the channel guide recently, and in one two-hour block, there were ten shows listed. Seven of these were reality shows, two were different episodes of the same crime drama series, and one was an investigative news show. Really, people. Seven reality shows? Come on; you’re not even trying anymore. Just roll them all into one show (America’s Got Talent when it’s Dancing with the Next Top Idol Survivor!), put it on its own channel, and leave the rest of us alone. Watching these shows is the modern equivalent of visiting the geek tent at the local fair, or paying sixpence to stare at the inmates at the insane asylum. It’s sad to watch these contestants with their delusions of competence. They’re just average people with average talent. Nothing special. But everybody acts as if they are. They’re like bloggers who think their thoughts and opinions are interesting to anybody other than themselves and a few close friends.

Wait…

Head of the Class

So I see where the collective intelligence of teenagers was raised slightly yesterday. Seems a budding young genius went head to head with the Batman coaster at Six Flags over Georgia and came out a head shorter.

Naturally, the media is playing up the sensationalist aspect of this story – Teen Decapitated by Thrill Ride – and is generally ignoring the responsibility angle. It wasn’t until today that I saw any account that mentioned the fact that the boy had to climb TWO separate six-foot fences emblazoned with warning signs in order to get under the tracks.

Two.

Once under the tracks, he jumped up to try and touch the feet of the riders passing by, thereby learning that Mr. Darwin often employs Mr. Newton.

I hear the ticking of the countdown until this kid’s parents show up with some bottom-feeder attorney to try and sue the park for negligence. They’ll claim that SFoG didn’t do enough to prevent this, and they had to have a closed-caskets funeral as a result.

Did I mention there were two fences?

It would be nice if the parents released a statement admitting that their son was a moron in general, and this doesn’t really come as a surprise; I won’t wait underwater, though. It’s obviously tough to lose a child, but to lose a child in such a spectacularly tragic manner, where it’s obvious that it was entirely his fault, has got to be even tougher. You can’t really expect a whole lot of sympathy in that case.

I’m annoyed by the constant use of the word “accident” to describe this event. An accident is defined as:

1.
an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap: automobile accidents.

2.
Law. such a happening resulting in injury that is in no way the fault of the injured person for which compensation or indemnity is legally sought.

3.
any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause.

See that? “Unintentionally”; “no way the fault of”; “without a deliberate cause”.

He climbed two six-foot fences and jumped up between the tracks as the cars passed overhead. Case dismissed.

You know who I feel bad for? The folks in line. They paid their forty dollars, stood in line patiently in the hot Georgia sun, and didn’t even get the chance to ride because of this idiot. And what about the folks in the car that removed him from the gene pool? Deep psychological scarring, there. Or at the very least, a dry-cleaning bill.

I wonder if Six Flags is enjoying the media attention. Last year about this time they were in the spotlight because one of their rides cut off the feet of a little girl. At least this one wasn’t their fault. A small consolation, anyway.

A thought just occurred to me: What if this is some Marketing ploy by Warner Brothers to promote The Dark Knight? Would that be really clever, or really repulsive?

Should I be concerned that I have to ask that question?

This has been an important...something or other

You know how to measure the IQ of a mob? Take the lowest IQ of all of the participants, and divide it by the total number of people in the mob.

This goes double for government.

This afternoon, my wife was watching one of the approximately four thousand episodes of 'Law & Order' she missed when we didn't have cable, when that piercing metallic drone they use for alerts comes on. Naturally, being good Pavlovian subjects, we turned our full attention to the message crawling across the screen. Here it is in its entirety:

Civil Authorities have issued a child abduction alert for the following counties: North Carolina. Effective until 6/25/08, 6:48 P.M.

How much more fucking useless can this be?

Which Civil Authorities? Volunteer firemen? Voting station staffers? Boy Scouts? Whoever they are, they apparently want our help in finding this child. It might...just might be useful to...oh, I don't know...describe the child, perhaps? Boy or girl? How old are they? What were they wearing? What's their name, for God's sake? And North Carolina is a state, you morons, not a county. Good old NC has one hundred counties covering almost 50,000 square miles. You wanna narrow it down a little bit more? Or should people in Asheville be calling anyone they know in Wilmington? And you either expect to find this kid within 26 hours, or they're on their own after that. Otherwise, why set an expiration date on the alert?

Is it now a prerequisite to get a lobotomy before you can work in the government? It helps me when it comes time to vote, that's for sure.

Salmonella is for Wimps

I’m writing this furtively, hoping I can get it posted before she comes back in. Ostensibly, I’m cleaning the den, and I’m pushing the vacuum-cleaner back and forth with one foot as I type. I have to tell someone, and I hope the readers who stumble across this online will get it to the proper authorities.

I think my wife is an agricultural terrorist.

Looking back, I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to catch on. The clues were there for anybody to see. The only defense I can offer is that I lacked the context. I mean, it’s practically a stereotype that the first couple of years of marriage produces a few at-the-time-devastating-but-later-on-laughable culinary disasters.

“What’s in this Tupperware container, honey?” I call from the depths of the refrigerator.

“Open it and see,” comes the reply.

“I have. It didn’t help.”

She comes over and looks at the pink, rubbery, translucent mass, which I assumed was some sort of gelatin dessert that failed to gel.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s…uh…tuna, I think.”

I nervously place the container in the sink and back away, because it’s starting to react to the heat of my hands and is twitching slightly. She pats my shoulder and promises to clean it up. Later that night, as I’m snuggled down in the bed, I think I hear her on the phone, complaining to someone about something not being stable at room temperatures, but I assume I’m dreaming and ignore it.

A few years pass.

We’re in a new house, just grooving on being domestic. She’s tinkering in the kitchen, making a breakfast-for-supper meal of pancakes, bacon, and boiled eggs. I’m in the yard, picking up pinecones and playing with the dog. I start to head back inside, but the back door is locked for some reason. I knock, and she comes and opens it. I start to step inside, but she takes my arm and walks me back into the yard.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” she asks. “Crisp and clear; slightly cool. Which reminds me, let’s check the level of oil in the tank while I’m thinking about it. Over here. Away from the windows.”

I shrug and agree. We want to be prepared for the winter, after all. We check. It’s full. She meanders around the yard a bit longer, picking dandelions and commenting on the landscaping we’ll undertake next Spring. She kept checking her watch, but I didn’t think anything about it. Again, no context.

We finally go back inside, only to discover the kitchen is covered in egg fragments. The pot has boiled dry, and they’ve gone off like two little hand grenades. I’m dumbfounded, of course; starkly amazed that such a little food item can cover 150 square feet. My wife is laughing (in hindsight, it seems a little forced). “Let’s measure it!” she cries. “Or no one will believe us.” She sets me to work with the measuring tape, while she notes down distances and idly tries to calculate force, direction, and exothermic equivalents.

“Good thing it wasn’t an eggplant,” I joke, “or we wouldn’t have a house anymore.” She gets this distant look on her face, and my arrogant assumption is that she didn’t get the joke.

God help me. It was only a joke.

There have been a few other indications over the years. Little incidents that meant nothing by themselves, but appear to be part of a disturbing pattern. For instance, she insists on using all of the milk before the date printed on the side – anything remaining gets dumped - but has been known to keep vegetables in the refrigerator until long past usability. She sneers at canned fruit, opining that ‘you get more bang for your buck’ out of the fresh variety. An endearing sentiment that I assumed was based on vitamins being lost during the canning process. She follows any story of contaminated food products carefully.

Then came the incident this morning.

I’m pulled from sleep by a muffled thump. It sounds like a piece of furniture has fallen over in a distant room. Since my son has recently begun to try and climb tables, chairs, and shelves, I jump out of bed to see if he’s hurt. I take the direct route through the kitchen, only to find my wife standing in the middle of the room. She is looking around proudly, but when I come in, the look changes to one of confusion.

Our watermelon has exploded.

As we’re cleaning the walls, ceiling, windows, and floor, we’re theorizing about what could’ve caused this. My speculation is that the morning sun coming through the window heated up the melon, building up pressure inside. She scoffs and mutters something that sounds like ‘amateur’, but I’m too intent on getting pink goop out of the molding to pay much attention.

She made a call to her ‘brother’, laughing about the incident. But it wasn’t an ‘oh my goodness what a crazy world’ kind of laugh. It was more of a ‘we have done it long live the glorious cause’ kind of laugh.

Even so, I may not have been compelled to send out this message. This is all conjecture, hindsight, and possible paranoia. But there’s a newspaper clipping stuck to our refrigerator door now.

There’s a watermelon festival next weekend.