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.

Laws, yes.

New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Tax On Fast Food
http://wcbstv.com/local/fast.food.tax.2.712510.html

Because it was only a matter of time. Watch out, fat people!

'Sin' Tax Could Help Fund Struggling Hospitals

‘Could,’ but it won’t. It’ll go to prop up the overspending lunatics in the state legislature.

WINDSOR, N.J. (CBS) ― The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even beer.

Who was it that decided to stop new refineries from being built, halt oil drilling, decry nuclear power, and burn food for fuel? Oh yes, the Left. It seems the only law they consistently enforce is the one of unintended consequences.

Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a proverbial "sin" tax on fast food.

The first step in controlling behavior is to categorize it as a sin.

…The thought of taxing a Big Mac or a Wendy's burger came up at a New Jersey Hospital Association meeting where Gov. Jon S. Corzine was asked if it could be an option to help fund struggling hospitals. At the meeting, he reportedly called it a "constructive suggestion."

Meaning: “If y’all are stupid enough to let us get away with it.”

A spokesperson for the governor, however, told CBS 2 on Wednesday: "The governor is open to reasonable solutions to help solve our financing problems, but there are no plans for any fast food tax."

I’m thinking that’s damage control. Soothe the sheep, then go ahead and do it anyway. Here’s a reasonable solution: STOP OVERSPENDING, FUCKERS!

State Sen. Richard Codey has been quoted as saying a tax on fast food "is a tax on the poor." And plenty of residents agree.

The problem in cultivating a victim mentality in your populace is that anyone can play that card.

Still, some say taxing fast food isn't such a bad idea."I think this country has gone too much in the direction of fast and unhealthy food, and if people are taxed they may terminate that and turn toward more healthy foods," said West Orange resident Maureen Felix.

Except that organic food can be more dangerous to eat, because of the lack of pesticides (who is it that decries irradiation?), and is a hell of a lot more expensive. Maureen Felix lives in an area where the median home value is $420,000, and the cost of living is 41% more expensive than the national average. You think she cares about a tax on a Whopper? Something tells me Miss Felix isn’t a frequent Burger King diner.

For now, the fast food tax is just an idea. Detroit lawmakers once toyed with it, but it never passed into law.

‘Toyed’ with the idea of taking more money from us. This isn’t Monopoly money, assholes.


Speaking of unintended consequences…

Smoking ban 'has closed 100 pubs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7376279.stm

More than 100 bars in Northern Ireland have closed since the introduction of the smoking ban, it has been claimed.

I love this kind of reporting. The papers are willing to print dire predictions of global catastrophe without a shred of evidence, yet won’t make the effort to compare two lists to determine how many pubs have closed. Instead, they drop in a snide ‘it has been claimed’ to cast doubt on the whole thing.

The Federation of Retail Licensed Trade said that 7% of Northern Ireland's pubs and bars had gone out of business since the ban's introduction a year ago.

I’m sure that not all of these closings can be laid at the feet of the ban, but it would be nice to get a comparison with how many pubs closed in an average year prior to the ban.

Its chief executive Stephen Kelly said: "The much-promoted view that non-smokers would be rushing to premises has not materialised.

No shit? Some of us knew that before the bans even went into effect. Don’t expect any sort of apologies from the anti-smoking crowd, or a repeal of these asinine laws.

"We expect another 100 to close next year."

How many are opening each year to offset this? A 14% loss in any sector is bound to have serious repercussions. They might have to tax fast food to make up the difference.

...Mr Kelly also acknowledged some landlords had fared well since the ban's introduction.

Oh really? Some have made out? Are these the few pubs the non-smokers are flocking to support?

"Some of our members who set up an outdoor smoking area and put on good quality food have done really well," he said.

Wait a minute…the pubs that continued to make allowances for smokers stayed in business? Well…who’da thunk it?

Of idle cats and ironic writers

So, avid readers, your favorite feline got laid off this week. This is the first time in my professional career that I’ve gone under the axe, and so far…I’ve kind of enjoyed it. I’ve been sleeping late, getting housework done, and playing with the kids. It’s felt like a vacation up to this point. Of course, the part of me that likes having insurance and living indoors is a nervous pile of twitching goo, but it’s the smaller part right now.

I knew it was coming – the signs were there – so I was prepared. I’d spent the previous day cleaning out my desk, copying personal files onto a disc, and writing notes so my outstanding responsibilities could be taken care of.

Part of me is relieved. The company I worked for never seemed interested in meeting its full potential. Consequently, we employees couldn’t, either. At least now I have the time to work on getting my own business off the ground.

I joined an online group that brings freelancers and clients together. It’s sort of an eBay-esque arrangement, where businesses post the jobs that they need done, and the members bid on doing them. It’s a good arrangement.

I was looking through the bids on an editing job, and stumbled across one that seemed kind of low. Out of curiosity (you know how we cats are with curiosity), I went to the bidder’s home page.

This is what I found:

Eunikimagination
A writing camileon
Minimum Hourly Rate: $25/hr
Summary
The effective use of words and grammer are my criteria in captivating the mind and complete interest of the targeted readers. As an avid reader, am very critical and strive for perfection. i posses a wealth of knowledge, vocabulary, wild and creative imagination that allows me to customize my writing to your specifications.

I started to send this fellow a note listing all of the mistakes in his profile, but then I thought: “This is my competition. Fuck ‘im.” In the interest of getting a chuckle at his expense, though, I’ll list all of the problems here.

First off – don’t be clever with your name. This isn’t MySpace or some Yahoo chat room, this is a business. If you absolutely cannot resist being cutesy, don’t pick a name where the first bit can be pronounced to infer that you have no genitalia.

You misspelled ‘chameleon’, Mr. Writer.

You misspelled ‘grammar’, Mr. Writer.

You have a subject/verb disagreement right off the bat. “The effective use” is, not “are”. And when you change that, make sure to change "criteria" to 'criterion'. Moron.

You use ‘reader’ twice very close together; it’s awkward.

You dropped the ‘I’ before “am very critical and strive for perfection.” Love irony, don’t you?

You failed to capitalize the first word in the final sentence which, given that it’s the pronoun “I”, is a double party-foul.

You shouldn’t rely on Word’s spell-check to catch your mistakes. ‘Possess’ means to own something. “Posses” is the plural of ‘posse’.

The last sentence is incomplete.

I think $25 an hour is a little too much to be asking, Slick. I wouldn’t hire you to write a fucking grocery list. But by all means, please continue to market yourself amongst the rest of us. You make us look even better.

Seven Windows of my Soul

Found this post over at Oh, The Joys, one of the blogs I try to read daily. That should have been a link, but I can't remember the HTML and I'm feeling lazy. It's already linked over there to the right, so forgive the lack of redundancy.

I liked the idea, so I jumped on board. I intentionally refused to read any other participants' posts until I had done this one, because I didn't want to be influenced by their interpretation. That's the way cool thing with the blogging shenanigans - these little ideas take off and grow a thousand different ways. It's like kudzu, but it doesn't swallow telephone poles.

Any of my four readers are welcome to participate. You just have to add the links below to the bottom of your post and let us know to add yours to the list.


As they occurred to me:


Seven Windows of My Soul



1. Gothic - the dark things in my psyche. Rather than letting them plague my nights, I've made friends with them.



2. Porthole - the murky glimpses I get of future potential. (Yes, that is the Nautilus; the coolest submarine ever.)



3. Bay - watching my children grow and learn, and enjoying finding out who they are.



4. Stained Glass - appreciating created beauty, be it architecture, music, or art.


5. Ticket - travel, and the renewal of the spirit it brings.



6. Clerestory – the trust that Life’s not random, even though I can’t see through to the other side.




7. Bricked - the parts of my personality I don't like.

Other windows participants:

jen with seven windows of my soul

Jessica with Eleven Windows

Tracy from Tiny Mantras

Defiant Muse from Musings...

LSM with Windows

Mrs. Prufrock

Sugarplum's Mom

jakelliesmom

Oh, boy.

So Kentucky rep Geoff Davis said about Obama, "That boy's finger does not need to be on the button." And of course, the congregation of Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended got their panties in a twist over this supposed insult.

Look, folks, I’m from the South, and I can tell you unequivocally that Rep. Davis was not being racist. If you’re going to use “boy” as a racist term, it’s used as a proper noun, as in “What y’all lookin’ at, Boy?” By putting the adjective “that” in front of it, he changed the context from a potentially racist one to a general term Southerners use to refer to anyone with a Y-chromosome, regardless of age. Sometimes, you can drop the adjective, and your listener still knows it’s there, as in “Boy’s as dumb as a stump.”

This reminds me of the incident where one of Obama’s staff told three boys to quit climbing a nearby tree “like a bunch of monkeys.” Seems harmless, right? She was concerned for the boys’ safety. Those boys just happened to be black, so their mother blew it all out of proportion, crying “Racist!” as soon as the cameras showed up. I think the only thing that kept this woman from being lynched on the spot was the fact that she’s of Mexican descent, and the Liberals couldn’t decide which minority would be more oppressed. Even so, she received a $75 fine from her Homeowner’s Association. That’s fucking scary all by itself.

I wonder what the reaction would’ve been if Rep. Davis had said Obama was just “a good ol’ boy.” That’s generally understood to be a compliment, and has the same “offensive” word in it.

Words are neutral, people. It’s the intent behind them that frames their meaning, and intent’s a pretty difficult thing to establish sometimes. If I use the word “faggot,” am I denigrating a homosexual, or am I using an obscure term for a bundle of kindling? If I say “bitch,” is that an insult to women, or a reference to my pregnant dog? If I type “nigger” in my blog, am I being racist, or quoting a randomly-chosen rap star? It’s all about the context, and despite the fact it was a Republican from Kentucky saying it, “that boy” ain’t racist in this context.

Boy, oh boy.

Change the world? Nah. Change the station.

He sits down in the comfortable chair behind the microphone, flips a switch to coax the “ON AIR” sign to life, takes a breath…

Hey there, guys and gals; dudes and dudettes; kids of all ages! It’s time once again for the Electric Tower Power Hour! Playing the tracks from the stack of wax! Spinning the platters that matter! Off of the charts and into your hearts! From seven-thirty ‘til your clothes are dirty! I’m the cat that’ll take you back! So grab a glass of something that’ll make you feel like dancing as we jump into the Wayback Machine and boogie!

~ahem~

Let’s talk about music, shall we? It tames the savage beast, they say. It’s also one of the three aspirations of the “good life” (the other two being wine and women). Seems that we’re hardwired to create and respond to music – from lofty liturgical pieces to dirty dancing and block-rocking bass beats. Full orchestras to one guy pushing a slide guitar. A capella doo-wop quartets to talk box-driven arena rock.

Do you feel like I do?

I have a theory that’s been consistently borne out whenever I remember to pay attention. I believe that everybody has one song that they slip into whenever their brain goes into neutral. It keeps the neurons running hot so you can do a quick boot when you have to rejoin the world. Doesn’t matter if you even like the song, there’s just something about that particular arrangement of notes that fits snugly into the grooves of your mind. This is different from an earworm, though it operates on similar principles. The difference is that you’re usually very much aware of (and annoyed by) earworms. The phenomenon I’m referring to is one where you aren’t even aware that you’re singing, humming, whistling, or tapping out the song that is apparently track #1 on the soundtrack of your life. Mine is usually Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”. Not trying to be pretentious or anything; that’s just the one I catch myself humming. On occasion, my wife will burst out with the chorus to “Margaritaville,” much to her annoyance, because she hates Jimmy Buffet. A coworker of mine whistles that tune you usually hear associated with circuses. If it has a name, I don’t know it, though Three Dog Night used it as the opening to “The Show Must Go On.”

I think it’s fair to say that music in general has made society better. It provides a cultural mirror to observe ourselves in, sets the appropriate tone for certain occasions, or just gives us something to listen to while we fold laundry to help tolerate the drudgery. The reason this has been on my mind lately is that I saw recently where Neil Young has given up on any music changing the world.

“I think that the time when music could change the world is past," he told reporters. ”I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age."

I think Neil’s just being pissy because it wasn’t any of his songs. I hope he’ll remember a Southern Man don’t need him around anyhow. (Since he’s Canadian, that means everyone in the States.)

Personally, I’ve always thought Mr. Young was too damned whiny. I always get the feeling that he’s wagging his finger at his listeners (until he chopped one of them off, anyway). It’s not the genre; I can groove on the folk rock style. I like Jim Croce, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, etc. I don’t even mind the pie-in-the-sky idealism of the 60s groups (that cultural mirror I mentioned earlier). Neil - and by extension, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - just always sounds shrill to me. I’ll admit that Young is a good lyricist. I like Cinnamon Girl, (and just to note, if you haven’t heard Type O Negative’s cover of that, you’re missing out), I’d just rather read his stuff than listen to him bloviate at me.

The problem is that no two people have the exact same taste in music. Even if you both like a song, you’re going to get different things out of it, so how can music change anything towards a common goal when it changes people in different ways?

I think this is why remaking songs is more accepted than remaking movies. Movies are successful because the director gets the audience to buy in to his realization of the material. When that many people agree on something, remaking it is very tricky. There’s an agreed-upon template for how that story should be presented – from the wardrobe and lighting to the mannerisms of the characters. Even the subtle things like the types of lenses used can affect the presentation. Think about it – would 300 have been as successful if it had been rotoscoped, like A Scanner Darkly? Probably not.

Songs, by contrast, are open to interpretation. Artists can play with scales and keys, rhythm and tempo – in effect, creating a song that is at once familiar and brand new. A lot of successful bands got their start doing covers, introducing their own material once the audience agreed that they were worth listening to. I have a lot of covers in my collection: Alanis’ cover of Seal’s Crazy, the requisite versions of Tainted Love, and various Weird Al polka remixes. I have a version of Pour Some Sugar on Me by Emm Gryner that’s presented as a ballad, and a version of Mad World that was rewritten as a dark, emo-type song. The aforementioned Cinnamon Girl is in heavy rotation right now. They also cover Summer Breeze and Hit Me Baby One More Time. It’s worth a listen. Anytime you have a 6’6 ½” guy from Brooklyn with a voice than can blow out your subwoofer covering a Pop Tart hit, fun ensues.

Even though song covers are generally accepted, you still have to be careful. When Limp Bizkit covered Behind Blue Eyes, I enjoyed it right up to the point that he dropped the bridge of the song. Don’t edit, people. There are certain parts we expect to hear. It’s especially annoying when radio stations edit songs for length. I know you have to cover over “You’re such a fucking hypocrite” when you air Seether’s Fake It, but cutting Zakk Wylde’s solo from No More Tears really pisses me off. The whole song builds to that one fretburn, and I’m primed to headbang. When you cut it, I use that built-up adrenaline to punch the Scan button.

Another reason music won’t change the world is that there are too many categories. Rock, Classic Rock, Southern Rock, Oldies, Contemporary, Jazz, Swing, Marimba, Big Band, Zydeco, Classical, Techno, Trance, House, Rave, Trip Hop, Hip Hop, Rap, Gangsta Rap, Old School, Beat Box, Grunge, Alternative, Emo, Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, NuMetal, Death Metal, Goth Metal, Goth, Grave, Pop, Punk, Rockabilly, Psychobilly, Roadhouse, Country, New Country, Latin, Gospel, Disco, Folk, Bluegrass…and that’s just off the top of my head. If I had more than four readers, I’d be getting e-mails listing dozens that I forgot.

I seriously doubt Green Day is going to start a movement when people don’t even agree on which category they belong in.

Again, I just think Neil Young is jealous. If anyone’s music was going to change the world, Cliff Richard had the best chance. He holds the record for most singles sold (21 million), and has been credited on the most Top 40 hits (122). On the other hand, Elvis Presley holds the record for most continuous weeks on the Top 40 (1060), the longest span of hits (51 ½ years), longest continuous run on the Top 40 (135 weeks), most simultaneous Top 40 hits (7), most Top 10 hits (76) [Cliff Richard is second with 66], and the most new Top 40 hits in one year (12). I like Heartbreak Hotel as much as the next person, but it’s hardly a call to action like Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Miserables.

Even songs that deliberately attempt to change the world usually fall far short. We are the World only raised $63 million. Artists that participated were famously told to “check your egos at the door.” If they, by contrast, had just written a check for $1.5 million each, it would have made the same amount of money, and we wouldn’t have had to sit through ad nauseum airings. Ironically, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young declined to participate. They also failed to participate in any of the three Band Aid efforts.

So much for changing the world, Neil.

Something Doesn't Add Up

Twice today, I had to deal with folks in a retailer position that couldn't do basic math.

Twice.

Now, I already know that writing is an endangered skill (lol!!!1! U gots no skillz, WTF!!?), but it seems that arithmetic isn't too far behind. I called an office supply store to price out business cards.

"How much for 200?"

"Well, it's $0.16 a sheet, and there are ten per sheet. Uhh...let me get a calculator."

"So...$3.20."

(Tapping in background) "That's right. And we charge $6.00 to cut them, so that'll be..." (more tapping)

She offered to design the cards for me. I declined.

On the way home, I stopped at the minimart to pick up some ice cream cones for the family. The cashier scanned them and told me my total was $3.98. I handed her a twenty. Somehow, in between ringing my total and taking my money, she managed to add another $1.05 to the cost. The register told her to give me $14.97 in change, and she started counting it out.

"Uhhh...that's the wrong change."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"My total was $3.98. You're counting out $14.97."

"Right."

"So I gave you a twenty."

"Right."

"Uhhh...no."

"Hold on. Let me find a calculator."

"It's $16.02."

"Huh?"

"$16.02. $3.98 from twenty is $16.02."

"But the register says $14.97."

"But $14.97 and $3.98 are only $18.95."

"Well I don't know. I've only worked here a week."

"..."

At that point, I was willing to take the $14.97, just to be able to leave, but I was rescued by her coworker, who apparently was the designated "math whiz."

In the spirit if not the letter of the post title:

My wife has this odd habit of randomly taking out boxes of mix - like bread, cake, or muffins - and leaving them on the counter. For days at a time, mind you. I leave them there at first, because I always think she's going to be baking the next day, but it never happens, and I eventually end up putting them back into the pantry. I've amused myself by coming up with wacky explanations for this behavior. My current favorite is that it's some sort of yeast-based feng shui.

Cloverfield - or Why JJ Abrams Owes Me 75 Minutes of My Life Back

I originally posted this elsewhere right after Cloverfield came out. It's been getting good reviews, so I thought I'd drag it over here.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Cloverfield tried to build up some buzz with their teaser trailers: first by not revealing the name of the movie, then the one scene of the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into the middle of the street. All well and good.
Unfortunately, that one scene is the best scene in the movie. That one scene has it all: action, explosions, tension, drama, shock – everything you might expect from a big budget “creature feature.”

Just don’t expect it in the rest of the movie.

And to those who think this is a monster movie, think again. This is a relationship movie set against the backdrop of a monster attacking New York. It should have been titled Love in the Time of Camera.

Oh yeah…that fucking handheld video camera. To all you aspiring directors out there…STEADICAMS EXIST FOR A REASON! It worked once, okay? But your budget is a tad larger than The Blair Witch gang’s. Hell…even a lack of a budget is no excuse. Peter Jackson once built his own steadicam for $15, and now he owns New Zealand, so make the investment, huh? But if you absolutely crave the cinéma vérité style, and feel your “artistic vision” would be compromised without it, use it as filler footage in the credits, or only in certain scenes for added impact. If you’re not making a porno, forcing an audience to sit through seventy-five minutes of “amateur” camera work is irresponsible.

Point #1: it’s illogical. If I’m in a survival situation, I’m going to be carrying a Smith & Wesson, not a Sanyo.
Point #2: it’s ridiculous to expect us to believe that this character dodged falling debris, avoided getting shot or run over by the military, fought mutant insects in a subway tunnel, crawled from one roof to another fifty-plus stories above the street, and survived a helicopter crash – all the while keeping the other characters (mostly) in frame – with a camera stuck to his face.
Point #3: the audience would occasionally like some deliberate focus on an event from start to finish. Breaking away in the middle only adds mystery up to a certain point. After that, we wonder what you’re hiding. Incomplete sets? Bad special effects? Lack of a script?

Speaking of the script…Look, I know that a certain amount of backstory has to be established if you want the audience to care about your protagonists, but twenty minutes is too much. That’s better than a quarter of your “action” movie where there’s NO ACTION! Guy 1 still has feelings for old girlfriend; guy 2 likes girl 2 who doesn’t like him; supportive friend. Six minutes, tops. We’re hip moviewatchers, okay? We’ve intuited that these five people will be together for most of the movie, so you don’t need to explore all of the social dynamics between them right up front. Let it come out naturally as determined by the events around them. By completely defining them right away, there’s no room for interesting growth or development, and if we don’t like your definition, we won’t care what happens to them.

Ironically, your tendency to indulge in over-explaining stopped after those first twenty minutes. Nothing else was explained in the movie. Nothing! Where did the creatures come from? Was Manhattan completely abandoned in the end? Was girl 2 shot, or did her head explode? What, exactly, does the title have to do with anything in the movie?

You need better writers.

Another question: Since all of these characters died, how is it that we’re seeing this video? Has anyone else noticed the trend lately to kill off the main characters in the movie? We spend between seventy-five and ninety minutes following their exploits, rooting for them, sharing their story…and then they die. I don’t know about you, but I want a little victory in my escapist fantasies, thank you. And if you absolutely cannot deliver a live protagonist at the end of the movie, make their death mean something, dammit. Give us some sort of resolution; don’t just turn the camera off. And DON’T try to be cute by putting the final scene after the credits. You’ve pissed me off by now, and as soon as I get a fade to black, I’m at home blogging about how awful your movie is. I just sat through an hour-plus of your dreck, I’m damn sure not sitting there another ten minutes in the hope that you knew what you were doing all along.

Here’s another tip: show the critter. You’ve made a monster movie. Great! Show it to us. A few shadowy shots and “corner-of-the-eye” scenes are fine. We like to be teased. But at some point, you’re going to have to go all the way and show us what your CG/FX department dreamed up. Not some five second shot from a “terrified” camera holder, but a real, honest-to-god, full-circle pan in technocolorific stereoscope and THX sound. Preferably, this will be before the creature wipes out all of the characters and the movie ends.

I sure hope this wasn’t supposed to be the beginning of a series, J.J., because you just squandered all of my goodwill and suspension of disbelief. I probably won’t even go see that space thing you’re putting together.

Stop Smoking Your Cell Phones!

Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/mobile-phones-more-dangerous-than-smoking-or-asbestos-802602.html?r=RSS

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded.

“Could.” Not “will.” This is the same slippery phrasing that brought you Anthropogenetic Global Warming and Death by Secondhand Smoke. Prepare for your local bar to become “No Cell” zones.

He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

What the hell can a government do other than enact cumbersome, ineffective laws that do nothing but drive up the costs through higher taxes and insurance premiums?

[The study] draws on growing evidence…that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

What about hand cancers? A lot of people text as much or more than they call.

He believes this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade.

Just like that Global Warming film from Al Gore? The one he’s been showing for fifteen years?

Noting that malignant brain tumours represent "a life-ending diagnosis", he adds: "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation."

Guess what? Life is a life-ending diagnosis, and it’s unchecked and dangerous.

He fears that "unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps", the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

Just replace “malignant brain tumours” with “global warming”. It’s the exact same panic-inducing jargon. There’s a “problem” that can’t be quantified, but needs to have lots of money thrown at it right now, because in ten years it will be TOO LATE!!! AIIIEEEEEEEE!!!

"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking," says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke.

I bet more people use cotton balls than drink sulfuric acid. Therefore, cotton balls are evidently more dangerous than ingesting H2SO4. Do they not teach correlation vs. causation anymore?

Look, cell phones use RF (radio frequency) waves, which are relatively long waves of radiation. Your microwave oven uses shorter waves (that’s why we call them microwaves), the visible spectrum of light is even shorter, and X-rays and Gamma rays still shorter. We know that the shorter the wave, the more likely it is to do Bad Things to your body, hence the lead apron you wear at the dentist (not to mention David Banner’s issues). That black light you used at your last Halloween party did more damage to you than your cell phone.

It’s just more fear-mongering from junk science adherents hoping to get more control over our lives, and making us pay for it, to boot. It’s the same formula used to sue the tobacco industry, and now the fast food industry.

1. Identify a popular, profitable business.
2. Demonize it.
3. Milk it with punitive taxes and lawsuits until it collapses.
4. Identify a popular, profitable business.

I’d call ‘em on it, but I’m afraid to use my phone now.

Come on, Baby...

Maine bans sales of novelty lighters
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view.bg?articleid=1082583

AUGUSTA, Maine - While in a small southern Maine grocery store with his mother last June 12 to buy sandwiches, Shane St. Pierre picked up a miniature baseball bat and flicked the switch to see what would happen.

A flame shot out, singeing the 6-year-old’s eyebrow and burning part of his face. His parents called the state fire marshal’s office and were surprised to learn that Maine had no law banning so-called novelty lighters.

That’s no longer the case.

Thank God! It’s nice to know that the Maine legislature is protecting the children of inattentive parents who call the fire marshal instead of a fucking doctor.

[Gov. John] Baldacci said…more than 5,000 household fires are caused each year by children under 5, and "anything we can do to prevent children from playing with lighters will serve to save lives and homes."

The list I found from the National Fire Prevention Association listed 8,200 annual house fires caused by “Playing with heat source.” That’s #9 on a list of the top ten causes, by the way. Forget lighters, let’s ban cooking (#1) and heating our homes (#2). That’s 180,000 fires we could prevent annually, saving $902,000,000 worth of property.

Novelty lighters without child-resistant devices are banned in European Union countries, and several American states have considered similar bans. They include Arkansas, where two children died in a fire last year blamed on a lighter shaped like a tiny motorcycle.

Really? Blamed on the lighter? Not any “responsible” adults? I did some digging on this story. Here are a couple of relevant quotes:

Though the smoke alarm had been disconnected, the toddlers' mother and four-year-old brother, Preston, were able to escape the fire, which started in a back bedroom.

If we’re going to blame inanimate objects for this, let’s blame the disconnected smoke alarm.

Friend and neighbor Amber Counts says she alerted officials Tuesday night, when four-year-old Preston told her he had been playing with a “toy motorcycle.” "I said, 'Oh, what motorcycle was it?' And he said, the one that had fire come out the end.

So either she didn’t tell the boys’ mother that her kids were playing with the lighter, or she did, and the mother did nothing. How, exactly, is this the lighter’s fault?

The Lighter Association, a national trade group, supports laws to ban novelty lighters. But a California-based distributor of the lighters, John Gibson, said in many cases the novelty lighters are safer than regular ones and that complaints stem from "overzealous fire marshals."

Well, I seriously doubt that’s the case here in Livermore, Maine, John.

When Shane St. Pierre was burned in Livermore, Maine, he mistook the baseball-bat lighter for a flashlight, said his father, Norm St. Pierre, fire chief in West Paris.

Or maybe it is. So this kid’s dad – the fire chief - never explained the dangers of playing with fire to his own son? Thanks a lot, Norm. Thanks for depriving collectors of their hobby, and manufacturers and retailers of the income, all because you, your wife, or your son is an idiot. Thanks for running to the Governor instead of admitting that maybe you shouldn’t be a parent. Is anyone surprised that the Governor is a Democrat? Ironically, he describes himself as “pro-choice”, unless you choose to sell novelty lighters, that is.

Let’s just stop this slow erosion of personal responsibility, huh? Let’s go for broke and just outlaw the whole fucking concept. Let’s not just absolve people of it, let’s criminalize it! That way, the Socialists in our Government will have every self-justification they need to completely control our lives. I imagine that the right Minister of Propaganda could put the perfect spin on it.

“Don’t think for yourself. Follow the crowd.”
“Relax! We’ll handle it. Just give us your money.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Think of the children.”

Any of this sounding familiar?