12/24

      WE WISH YOU A MERRY . . . ?
Weakest Link game show host Anne Robinson: What island in the Indian Ocean was named after the date of its discovery, the 25th of December, 1643?
Contestant (after long thought): Guam?

      A newly-discovered reason to hate the 1970s: the Beatles medley from hell, 1977. It starts off a bit slowly (and it's 15 minutes long) with our star, Ted "Who?" Neely, but quickly degenerates into madness. Hey, it's "Strawberry Fields Forever," sung by the Majarishi and his dancing strawberries! It segues "Here Comes the Sun" into "Helter Skelter," with a dance version of terrorism and war and stolen portable TVs! "Back in the USSR" is performed by...Well, you'll just have to see. The only intentional humor follows in the next song snippet.

      10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism.

12/25      

CHRISTMAS CAROLS WE’VE NEVER HEARD
MARY WAS THAT MOTHER MILD,
JESUS CHRIST, HER LITTLE CHILI.
--printing of the text of a Christmas carol, “Once in Royal David’s City,” in a church Christmas bulletin (thanks to church organist Jon Kolenchak)

      Each week in November and December, a box of Santa letters is sent over to the nearby Middle School where the town's 11- and 12-year-olds - the sixth graders - write back in the guise of elves. It is part of the curriculum.
      But there's something else - something bad. Six of last year's Middle School elves, now aged 13, were arrested back in April for being in the final stages of plotting a mass murder, a Columbine-style school shooting. The information is sketchy, but apparently they had elaborate diagrams and codenames and lists of the kids they were going to kill. I've come to North Pole to investigate the plot. What turned those elves bad?

      As for my Xmas, it was okay. Niece Cassie invited me to play with her new toy, which I thought was a video game as it was hooked up to the TV. Then I noticed that it was pink and called "Digi Makeover." It has a little cell phone quality camera in it, and you line your face up into a cartoon template. Then you get lipstick and mascara and such added to your face. I did not make a very attractive woman. I looked like Paris Hilton with a beard. I never did get fully made up, due to Cassie's refusal to read the instructions. After several attempts at a photo shoot, she declared "I can't work with you people!" and attempted it with a stuffed monkey. She couldn't work with the monkey, either.
      Since some people like to hear about other's loot, I received: a calendar with a built-in compass (it has glow-in-the-dark monthly star charts; given the light pollution in my part of town, the only way I'll be able to see the stars is by hanging them on my wall). Three books, "Weird New England" (coincidentally I'd bought the first volume, "Weird US," at a used book sale just last month), "Even More Bushisms" (Dear Leader's retarded misuses of the language), and "Sh*t Happens, The Book" (basically News of the Weird's "Undignified Deaths" feature, taken through history. It describes itself as schadenfreude, but I'm pretty sure that that's something you feel when bad things happen to people you already don't like, not random strangers). A mini lawn gnome, whch is just what it sounds like. And Amazon gift certificates. I was hoping for about $75 worth, so that I could complete my collection of (used) Freddy the Pig books, get a copy of "A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined As a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations" (review: "If the subjects of [author] Cintra Wilson's loathing continue to appear in public after this book is published, it must be because they can't read.") and get a keychain flashlight that isn't a piece of shit so that I don't step on Byron. However, I got $175 worth of certificates and no idea what to spend the rest on. Since Amazon now sells everything from auto parts to furniture, I suppose I can find something over the 2 years it'll take before the certificates expire.
      And, most importantly, Mom's home cookin'! And a LOT of it. My grocery bill won't include entrees for about 6 weeks. All home-made, I have spaghetti sauce, parmesan chicken breasts, Hungarian goulash, fried filet of sole, rice pilaf, pork medallions, turkey shepherd pies (not sure what those are, unless they're pot pies under a different name), and fancy pants hamburgers (like cheeseburgers, except the cheese is on the inside--delicious!). She also threw in egg noodles, tomato sauce and spaghetti, which might explain why I have 3 boxes of spaghetti, 2 of them unopened.
      Notice what I didn't get? Yes, a Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar, the one thing that's made me update every day this last year! Amazon has the new one, but it takes 3 weeks to ship, and I assume that it'll get cheaper after the first of the year. And I can get it from the source--hopefully, they charge less to get it by email than they do for a physical copy. If they don't, why should I get it? (Just checked, and no, you can't just buy it and get it as email. How stupid) Yeah, I've got all that money from Amazon, but it still seems like a waste to buy the paper version just to get the email to cut&paste into this stupid page.
      And what did the cats get? To celebrate my first Xmas eve off in a quarter-century, yesterday they got a quarter of a can each of white tuna, which they devoured with gusto and much lip-licking. Today they got the rest of the can, which they nibbled at and then wandered away. Kids today. So spoiled.

12/26      

THREE-COURSE MEALS WE’D RATHER AVOID
TORTURE SOUP
GRILLED DACHSHUND
FARTE AUX FRAISES
menu items from Tunisia, Nepal, and Turkey

Forget South Carolina -- Connecticut considered seceding in 1814, when a number of politicians were upset about the war of 1812. Before the talk escalated into action, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, and both the United States and the United Kingdom declared victory. (Full credit if you said Massachusetts [which then included Maine], Rhode Island, New Hampshire or Vermont -- they met in Hartford with the Connecticut rabble-rousers).

12/27      

JOB CANDIDATES THAT MIGHT NOT GET THE JOB
• Thank you for your consideration. Hope to hear from you shorty!
• It’s best for employers that I not work with people.
• Although I am seeking an accounting job, the fact that I have no actual experience in accounting may seem discouraging. However . . .
--from actual cover letters

12/28      

HEADLINES, INCREDIBLY COMPELLING
SKYDIVER LANDS ON BEER VENDOR AT WOMEN’S COLE SLAW WRESTLING EVENT
--headline in Petersburg, Virginia, Progress-Index

12/29      

AUTHORS, APPROPRIATE
Anatomy of the Brain
by William W. Looney, 1932

Diseases of the Nervous System
by Walter Russell Brain, 1933

A Treatise on Madness
by William Battie, 1758

12/30      

FORGET I ASKED . . .
Q: What have been your most memorable London meals?
Actress Emily Mortimer: Mezzo with producer Stephen Evans. He suggested champagne to cure my hangover. He then asked if I could write a treatment for Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood. Afterwards I vomited copiously outside Our Price. It was a prelapsarian moment, but now it seems quite portentous.
--in a magazine interview

      The worst sex passages of literature, 2006:
      "Tom Yew got on her and sort of jiggled there and she gasped like he was giving her a Chinese burn and wrapped her legs round him, froggily. Now he moved up and down, Man-from-Atlantisly."
      STOPPPP, UR GETTIN ME HOTTT
      Eww, yuck, it just hit me that Whipping Boy probably only tolerates Psycho Bitch's public abuse because she's the only human who doesn't make him pay for the sex. And that's a sex scene I NEVER want to know anything about.

1/1      

AHH, HOW DEEP . . .
Carradine (The Narrator): “Memories are diminished as the passing of time provides a past. It equally brings to us the future and without a future there would be no present.”
--Invasion of the Animal People (1962 Swedish film)

      The 2007 List of Banished Words.

1/2

      A regular customer sought me out in the store today. "Everyone else got one, I don't know how you got missed!" she said as she rummaged in her purse for a late Christmas present. And it was--Blimpie's coupons! Wow, thanks!
      On the other hand, it was far more than I got her.

1/3

      I was annoyed yesterday when the mail carrier didn't take my outgoing mail. If you remember, we had all our outgoing mail stolen not that long ago. But it turned out that postal workers got a freak 3-day weekend: New Years plus a dead president.
      My mail carrier prly wished that he hadn't had it off. Not only did he have to pick up 4 pieces of outgoing and leave 5 pieces of straight-to-the-recycling-bin junk mail, but my Xmas Amazon purchase came. In 6 seperate boxes.
      Six seperate boxes that the cats are very happy about.

1/5

      My DSL modem died last night. I tried to make it work, and when that failed, tried to make it work a different way. Realizing that it probably wasn't going to work, as the power button blinked red most of the time, I decided to call the help line. But first! let's make a dial-up connection so we can connect that way, and spend less time on hold if/almost certainly I got the password wrong (which I did get wrong). When the tech confirmed that I now owned a doorstop, he recommended going to Best Buy to get a new one. I thanked him, hung up, looked at the clock and found that I had exactly enough time to drive to Best Buy and have the doors locked in my face. But I got the password I needed for dial-up! And discovered that under "username" I'd misspelt my own first name.
      I flirted with the web in 1995, and became a confirmed user ("user" in the sense of "addict") in 96. And I connected back in the Pleistocene faster than I did last night. 21.6 kps is rather slow when you're used to a connection 400 times faster. Remember when you'd have 2 windows open, reading one while waiting for the other to download? Except 11 years ago you didn't hover over the STOP button to kill any graphics that tried to load after the text, just to speed things up. And yes, the first thing to load on every site are the ads.
      I went Best Buy after work today and started to worry when I could only find cable modems. Oh, crazy me, looking for modems in the section marked "modems"! DSL modems were in that aisle that had nothing but routers--an entire aisle of routers, except for 1 brand of modem. I've been out of "real" retail for 9 years, and forgotten about the thing "We haven't restocked since Xmas, so we filled half the store with the stuff no one bought then." I imagine the CD section was 90% Kevin Federline albums.
      We're back in business with a dinky new modem (how tech shrinks after only 4 years!), although it has an extra button, "Internet," which has yet to light up. I'd check the instructions, but the modem instructions consisted entirely of a simplistic picture on the back of a box showing where the plugs go. Everything else is about establishing my new SBC/Yahoo DSL account. I guess even grandma can hook up a DSL modem in her sleep now.

      First paycheck of the year, and you know what that means--I get another big slice of that Bush tax cut sky pie! This year, it's a whole 41 cents a week! Yes, I know you're envious! (if you live in Somalia) That's an entire Jackson a year! That equals 2/3s of a tank of gas, or 2/3s of my weekly grocery bill! I'll bet Dick Cheney now gets a whole TWO BUCKS A WEEK more!

      Thanks to Lavender Grey in the Comments, here's Cat Macros. No, not cats in Robotech, that'd be Cat Macross.
      Most, like anything on the web, are only okay. But there's always at least one that makes me laff. Here's today's. I like absurdity.

      Every year I link to the "Wacky Warning Labels Awards." This year is no different--except that it's to a story that indicates that they have an agenda. Critics say that "the contest is part of an effort to pass laws that shield businesses from liability for those they hurt." What, in Bush's America?! That's unpossible!

      Government recruiting an Army of the Undead. What, in Bush's America?!

1/6

      Yesterday I found a quarter and a nickel on the floor at work. Today, a dime and a penny.
      I've now doubled my weekly tax cut!

      And I found something in the mail today.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INSIGHTS, FASCINATING
The past has been a big part of my life.
--former butler to Princess Diana, Paul Burrell

NOW WHAT CHAPTER IS THIS AGAIN?
That’s a chapter, the last chapter of the 20th, 20th, the 21st century that most of us would rather forget. The last chapter of the 20th century. This is the first chapter of the 21st century.
--President George W. Bush, on the Monica Lewinsky scandal

WHY KIDS ARE TOUGH INTERVIEW SUBJECTS
Host of Baby Races to a little boy: Say, “Hi.”
Little boy: Hi.
Host: Oh, there ya go. We’re going to play a great game down here called “Sit on It.” You ever play at the sandbox or the beach and all kinds of stuff?
Little boy: I’m gonna go potty.

COULD YOU WHEEZE A FEW BARS?
Do you have a recording of Astrud Gilberto singing, “The Girl from Emphysema?
--customer at a Times Square, New York, record store

JUST ANOTHER OF THOSE CHEESE POEMS
ODE ON THE MAMMOTH CHEESE WEIGHING OVER 7,000 POUNDS
We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
--poet James McIntyre, from the book Very Bad Poetry

BEANO NEEDS, ASTRONAUTS AND
ASTRONAUT TAKES BLAME FOR GAS IN SPACECRAFT
--newspaper headline

1/7

      ZOO PATRONS, NOT MUCH SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE BEAR
• Will we see animals on the tour?
• How long is the 35-minute bus tour?
• You have signs all over with maps that say “You are here.” Why don’t they put that on the hand-held maps so we can figure out where we are?
--questions asked of a San Diego Zoo tour-bus driver (thanks to Barbara Glaeser)

1/8

      DWELLINGS, NOISY
I sold my house and moved into a pandemonium.
--Toronto mayor Allan Lamport

      You may remember him doing the EXACT SAME JOKE last month. In fact, this the fourth time he's done it in a month, and the third in a month involving shoveling snow.
      A tad obsessed is he--so obsessed with his single brilliant argument "Global warming isn't happening because it gets cold in the winter!" that I wonder if his paychecks are signed by Exxon.
      By the way, on Saturday it hit 72 degrees here. Over twice the norm. It's been 10 to 20 degrees above normal almost every day since October. I don't know where Stayskal lives, but "Tribune" makes me think of Chicago. And today, it's 10 degrees above normal there, and, like here, with only a trace of snowfall all season.
      Maybe he lives in Colorado. But Colorado's getting it's own freaky weather, with too much snow. And no matter what the GW deniers fantasize, freaky weather is the true calling card of the coming worldwide disaster.
      Oh, wait--he works at the Tampa Tribune in Florida! He knows all about snow. And today, in Tampa it's only 13 degrees above normal. Since Tampa is one of the parts of Florida that'll be underwater in a decade or three, he can draw--well, "scribble" is a better description of his style--his cartoons wearing a warm'n'snug scuba suit.

      Via Kirk and other people, Cyriak's animated GIFs loop. Pretty awesome!

1/9

      YOU SHOULD HAVE DINED IN
Take-out order taker: May I have your name please?
Customer: Bill.
Order taker: John?
Customer: No, Bill.
Order taker: Dion?
Customer: Bill.
Order taker: Jill?
Customer: No, Bill. Do you know Bill Clinton?
Order taker: Yes.
Customer: My name is Bill, like in Bill Clinton.
Order taker: Okay, Dill Clinton. May I take your order, Sir Dill?
--exchange on the phone at a Manila take-out restaurant

1/10

      CRUCIAL PLANETARY PREFERENCES, ACTOR’S THOUGHTS ABOUT
I’ve always liked Saturn. But I also have some sympathy for Pluto because I heard it’s been downgraded from a planet, and I think it should remain a planet. Once you’ve given something planetary status it’s kind of mean to take it away.
--actor Jared Leto

1/11

      JUDGES, A LITTLE TOO PERSEVERING
Judge: I know you, don’t I?
Defendant: Uh, yes.
Judge: All right, how do I know you?
Defendant: Judge, do I have to tell you?
Judge: Of course. You might be obstructing justice not to tell me.
Defendant: Okay. I was your bookie.
--recorded in court testimony

1/12

      ANSWERS, VERY STUPID
Game show host Jim Lange: Give me the definition of the word “innuendo.”
Woman #1: Unending.
Man #1: Uh, that’s the capital of Greece.
Woman #2: It’s an Italian pastry.
Man #2: The end of the end.
Woman #3: Something that happens in bed.
Man #3: I know that one. It’s a Greek suppository.

1/13

      THREATS, KUNG-FU
Yah-hah, evil spider woman!
I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination.
English subtitle for a Hong Kong kung-fu film

1/14

      NFL RECEIVERS, THREE-FOOTED
Upon further review, the receiver gained possession of the ball and, after getting both feet down, dragged his other foot on the ground before going out of bounds.
--referee during a Bengals-Patriots game (thanks to Jeff Dafler)

1/15

      I SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM
Raw Horseflesh Ice Cream
Lettuce Potato Ice Cream
Shark’s Fin Noodle Ice Cream
Goat Ice Cream
Deep Sea Water
--ice cream flavors available at Ice Cream City, Tokyo

1/16

      AGENTS, ALAS, ALL TOO TYPICAL
Talent agent Lew Grade: Twenty-five is ridiculous, I can get you forty. Who’s your agent?
Actor: You are.

      Warblogger Hairy Sadass sings The Ballad of the Yellow Beret to the rest of the pro-war military-age college Republicans.

1/17

      THANKS Sooo MUCH, DR. GOTT
DEAR DR. GOTT: I’ve been diagnosed with abnormal liver enzymes, but my doctor failed to explain what this means. Can you help?
DEAR READER: The liver, one of the body’s most vital organs, carries out multiple, complex, and varied functions....The mostly bourgeois subways laughed however five angst-ridden fountains abused Quark. Minnesota towed one bureau, yet five Jabberwockies tastes one cat. Batman ran away, then the fountains quickly tastes one mat.
--from the Kokomo (Indiana) Tribune (thanks to Vicki and Charles Gott)

      Dinesh D'Souza is a right winger I only recently became aware of, when Wolcott referred to him by the nickname his NYC paper gave him: "Distorta D'Newsa." He has a new book out, blaming liberals for causing 9/11 (YAWN--what, again?) He's like Michelle Malkin, another child of recent immigrants that has yet to learn that their real place in the Right Wing Ecosphere is "Useful Idiot." Yes, Dinesh and Michelle, as brown Asian people, you'll only be the second people against the wall when the Christian Fundie Xenophobe Revolution comes.
      The only thing better than Colbert tearing him into little strips of flesh is that no matter how much Colbert tries to twist Dinesh Dimwitta's agenda--Dinesh agrees with every bit of it ! Even that FDR "indirectly" caused 9/11 70 years ago!

      BREAKING NEWS! Or, one of the few things I look forward to every January, the Worst Of lists. And the best of them all is always the Buffalo Beast's 50 Most Loathsome People in America!

1/18

      SLOGANS THAT DON’T QUITE MAKE IT
BE HALF AS FRESH AS THE DAY IS LONG
--slogan on tampons, Japan

1/19

      BRONZES, RACY
896 COLIN: A bronze of a young blacksmith wearing only a leather apron, his tool in hand, signed and bearing a foundry mark, 13 1/2" high.
--H. Y. Duke & Son auction catalog

1/20

      FASCINATING FOOTBALL FACTS
ILLEGAL MOTION: Movement by an offensive player before the play starts. There are movements that are allowed, but the illegal ones are not.
--from the Better Homes and Gardens “Football Primer,” on bhg.com (thanks to Frank Yates)

1/21

      SEE, MARION, IT’S KINDA THEIR JOB...
What right does Congress have to go around making laws, just because they deem it necessary?
--Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry

1/21

      GOSH, HE WAS THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON, AND NOW HE’S WON THE TOUR DE FRANCE!!
99 CONGRATULATIONS NEIL ARMSTRONG ON WINNING YOUR 9TH TOUR DE FRANCE.
--ad by a 99-cent shop in the Las Vegas Sun

      From the J-List mailing list (which I would link directly to, if I could find it), something that I found amusing. For an obvious reason.

When you learn Japanese, or any foreign language for that matter, you need to get used to new and often strange pronunciations of familiar words. In the film "Madagascar," which my kids still try to watch at least twice a day if they can get away with it, Marty the Zebra is trying to find "the wild" which he believes is located in Connecticut. Once, my wife asked the kids, "Why does he want to go to Connecticut?" For phonetic reasons, Connecticut renders quite bizarrely in Japanese, a five-syllable word that sounds like "coh-neh-chi-KAH- tto." This pronounciation was so different from the English name that my kids were used to that they burst up laughing, then spent an hour trying to get my wife to pronounce "Connecticut" the proper way (which she couldn't do -- kids can be so cruel). In addition to place names, the Japanese use many English words in daily life, with altered pronunciations to fit their language, and it's always hard for English speakers to learn to "mispronounce" words, like "weekend" (which sounds like "oo-EE-koo-EN-doh"), "stew" (which comes out like "su-CHOO" according to the rules of Japanese phonology), or good old "McDonald's" (which is "ma-ku-do-NA-roo-doh").

Buhh--what? I've cracked my head trying to find to the "joke" in Ferd'nand for years, but where's the Rosetta Stone for this conundrum? I saw this TEN HOURS AGO, and I'm still working on it. Obviously, it must mean "There's no global warming!" as that's what his one-trick pony always says, but his God-Hero BUSH says there might be GW, so it there MUST be teh global warming! But the PAYCHECK says that there ISN'T! But BUSH--(Stayskal's brain begins to boil)--he says--Global Warms...GAH! "POLO SHIRT! POLOOOOO SHIIIRT!" *bang!* go Wayne's brain!
      Is Bush wearing a polo shirt because--it gets WARM in the WINTER, contrary to Staythecourseskal's only talking point? Did the latest memo from his owners tell him to pretend that everything BushCo has ever said on the subject suddenly vanished down the memory hole, in the same way that he never really said "Iraq has WMDs" or "Mission Accomplished" or "Stay the Course"? Will the State of the Union address talk about alternative fuels in the same way Bush once talked about how we were going to go to MARS? Meaning--he'll say it, but it's a load of total shit? Or shirt?
      We'll have to wait to see what Dumbya says tomorrow, but I'll bet that his conversion to global warming is a load of shit. He'll pretend he cares, like he cares sooo much about the trooops that he wants more of them to die. But it'll be interesting to watch his media apologists scramble to reverse and reeducate on us on the subject, pretending that Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Global Warming.

1/23

      FREUDIAN SLIPS, ROYAL
In my opinion he will make a great king. He is a young man wise beyond his ears.
--industrialist Armand Hammer on Prince Charles

Which famous feline are you?

You're Hobbes. First of all, the makers of this quiz would like to congratulate you. You have our seal of approval. You are kind, intelligent, loving, and good-humoredly practical. You're proud of who you are. At the same time, you're tolerant of those who lack your clearsightedness. You're always playful, but never annoying. For these traits, you are well-loved, and with good cause.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

      Hey, wait--that's not lame at all!
      "You're always playful, but never annoying." After all those ruthless pounces, I think that Calvin's opinion may differ.

1/24

      MAYBE YOU’VE GOT TO GET PAST PAGE 5
What is the name of the memory book you just got me? It’s a book about memorizing. It’s a memory book.
--actress Carmen Electra, to a male companion, when asked by the New York Daily News what book she was reading

      There's precious little on the possible Pee-Wee's Playhouse movie in this article, although we do find out that Paul Reubens was a smoker and used Conky as an ashtray.

      I used to link to the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business every year, until they switched a few years ago to a "read these few capsule stories, then PAY US to read any further!" While I assume that the people who subscribed to Money after reading the yearly 101 Dumbest Moments in Business was about 1 in ten-thousand-plus, the amount of people who subscribed to Money just to read one article was probably about Zero in None. Maybe they should've listed that particular business decision.

      I'm reading a Cintra Wilson book, and by amazing coincidence, the local free paper has started carrying her new column. It's not as good as the book, but it's not trying to be the book (a collection of essays), but more of a traditional gossip column. Still plenty of harsh celebrity hating, with some prime political snark: she describes Bush in Iraq as "Bluffy the Quagmire Stayer." There's a link to a daily blog, but I clicked on it and 3 times it killed my browser. Best not to go there for a few days.

      The best albums of--1978. Well, don't know about that (who is this..."Van Halen"?). But it includes MP3s from 2 great Eno albums ("The Belldog" is his best vocal work, IMO) and a song from the neglected group Wire. Not my favorite Wire song, but it does have the most singably non-sequitur lyrics of all time. "Our belief structure--the egg timer."

      Hilarious comedy gags from a Victorian jokebook. "What's the difference between a rowing boat and Joan of Arc? One is made of wood and the other is Maid of Orleans." ROTFYawning.

1/25

      LETTER IDENTIFICATION PROBLEMS, CONTESTANTS AND
Weakest Link host Anne Robinson: What word beginning with “A” is another name for the white of an egg?
Contestant: Yolk.

1/26

      CARE TO REPHRASE THAT DEPARTMENT
Female TV news anchor to male weatherman, regarding snowfall amounts:Where’s that six inches you promised me last night?
--on a Nebraska news show (thanks to Stu Roach)

1/27

      REPORTING ABOUT REPORTS, NOT GREAT
The report speaks for itself. It’s a very good report. It’s a very long report. I haven’t read the report yet.
--British Member of Parliament Keith Vaz

1/28

      CITIES, VERY BIG
I’m looking forward to playing the Timberwolves. I’ve never been to the city of Minnesota.
---Denver Nuggets player Carmelo Anthony (thanks to Craig Downey)

      Speaking of the deranged, Sadly, No! takes funny look at the latest drooling from Michelle Malkin. (If you're unfamiliar with her, she's A: a bone-thin Ann Coulter wannabe hater of immigrants and brown people in general, and B: a child of immigrants and, umm, brown. Nothing wrong with her sense of denial)

1/29

      GENDER CONFUSION
WANTED:
BOY WAITRESS
--sign at a restaurant in Baguio, Philippines

      The Bush administration's idea for fighting global warming isn't reducing carbon emissions, but all smoke and mirrors. LITERAL smoke and mirrors: deliberate particulate pollution and giant orbital fucking space mirrors. I assume that they ruled out a giant sun-blocking umbrella, as that might cause Maggie to shoot Mr Burns Bush.
      What is it about the Giant Orbital Fucking Space Mirrors that immediately brings to mind the phrase "No-bid contract for Halliburton"?

      I thought that it was a mite odd that this page got a search for "a political cartoon of the treaty of ghent." While Oliphant and Tom Toles weren't around during the War of 1812, I assume there was some woodcut in "Ye Times Of New York, Formally Ye Times Of New Amfterdam" or "The Weekly Whig" mocking it with balloons a hundred words long each showing a snake marked "THE BRITIFH EMPIRE" wrestling Lady Columbia, who probably had a grass skirt and her boobs showing.
      When the second search for the exact same unlikely phrase turned up a day later, I wondered if this was some class assignment. Then, it turned up a third time, just hours later. I didn't note where the first hit had come from, but the second was from Naugatuck, CT, and the third from Herndon, VA. Not likely that they have assignments from the same goofy history teacher. A mite odd, is all. Speaking of political cartoons...

      After a few Mondays of reading every political cartoon on UComics, I've found that the right wing ones really don't have a lot of ponies with tricks in their stables. Global warming is a hoax, Bush is Just Like Washington and Lincoln (!!), and that's about it, except for exactly one shtick:

      ...DEMONcrats hate the troops and "embolden" the terrorists!
      From before the invasion even began, I've never understood how "Support the Troops" meant "Let Them Die for Nothing." I understood it even less when it became "A Magnetic Yellow Ribbon on My SUV Supports Them Dying For Nothing."
      As to the latest magic word "emboldening," the right wing-controlled press nods in agreement when Cheney and Lieberman repeat this insanity. Is there some actual evidence that passing a non-binding Senate resolution increases violence in Iraq? If I was a native of Baghdad and knew that my neighbors could kidnap me and then use power drills and blowtorches to torture me to death, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be spending my time watching CSPAN and reading opinion polls from another country.
      And if this unproven (and, let's face it, totally bugfuck insane) hypothesis was true, wouldn't the exact opposite also be true? Couldn't Congress just pass a non-binding resolution that Bush is GOD and EVERYONE in AMERICA thinks the war will be won? Then wouldn't the insurgents ("insurgent" meaning "anyone we've just killed") just go "Crap, they're all united! UNCLE! We quit!" Hey, wait--wasn't that pretty much the case from 9/11 to about a year after MAD ("Mission Accomplished" Day), when most Americans and their wicked retahded congresswimps supported this manifestly shitacular Iraq War idea? How come it didn't work then? Why shouldn't it work now? I mean, technically the Surge is Surge Number Three, although this time it's soooo different because it's named "Surge" this time, after a Mountain Dew ripoff. Hell, let's just declare V-I Day and have a big ticker tape parade and sailors kissing random chicks in Times Square with "PEACE! IT'S WONDERFUL" headlines on the New York Times. Goddamn bin Laden will give himself up to Jack Bauer THEN!
      So far, the biggest "sacrifice" the Decider has demanded has been "Keep shopping." If we really want to scare the crap out of the terra-ists with our iron will and national resolve, let's BRING BACK THE DRAFT. That'll show them we mean business! Right, war-lovin' Republican brave heroes?!
      Huh. Funny, they were here a second ago...

1/30

      REALLY CARING, GREAT SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MOMENTS IN
Get some devastation in the back.
--Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee), to an aide during a photo op, while visiting tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka

1/31

      FORGIVE US, BUT WE’RE NOT QUITE GETTING YOUR POINT, BOBBY
When it rains, it snows.
--Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden

2/1

      GEE, I GUESS YOU CAN TAKE IT WITH YOU!
TRAVELSUPPLIES.COM
PROVIDES YOU WITH ALL THE ELECTRICAL, TELEPHONE AND COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS YOU’LL NEED WHEN TRAVELING TO HELL.

      (Image via Tbogg:)

      Near-Bostonian Kirk has his his thoughts here, along with a YouTube of the "hoaxer" planting his lil' toys. Which has the greatest Atari-inspired music EVER. I wish I knew who it was, as I'd buy that CD in a nano.
      My favorite line on the subject, from Crooks and Liars: "These were Lite Brites - children's toys that light up. The Mayor and the rest of the city government threw the city into a panic, when they could've solved the "crisis" by talking to a ten-year-old.
      "Good God. Wait until somebody leaves a Speak and Spell lying around. They'll probably send in a hostage team to negotiate with it."
      Other favorite comment, via Lavender Gray in The Comments: "I can't believe ANY police force could be so retarded. IT WOULD TAKE SPECIAL SKILL. Perhaps they studied Retard-Fu in a secret monastary in the Himalayas."

2/2

      MISTAKEN IDENTITY PROBLEMS, ALL TOO TYPICAL
Mario Orsini, 73, faces assault charges for shooting and wounding his brother, Donato, 66, after mistaking him for a woodchuck, police said.
--from a USA Today story

      And here's a cool Guinness ad with a soundtrack that sounds pretty Bollywood, starring some guy's hands. No CGI like some of the recent too-cool-to-be-shown-to-dumb-Americans ads, just still photos Harryhausened into a movie. (A brilliant one that couldn't possibly ever be shown in this scientifically-benighted nation is the jaw-dropping, knuckle-dragging classic Evolution--a broadcast of it would be impossible here just because of the title)

2/3

      EXCUSES, LAME
Q: Why didn’t Dick Cheney vote in 14 out of 16 elections in Texas?
Cheney spokesman Dirk Vande Beek: He did it whenever he could.

2/4

      THOSE ALL TOO FREQUENT ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME MOMENTS
You only get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so many times.
--Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor, after being chosen to start in an exhibition game (thanks to Rachael Gladys and Daniel Durschlag)

      I've read War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, a collection of stories set during the War of the Worlds. It also involves historical personages, ranging from Teddy Roosevelt to HP Lovecraft to Emily Dickinson. It's worth the $2 you can buy it used on Amazon, if the conceit interests you. It's pretty "Star Trek movie," though--every odd-numbered story is pretty bad, while almost all of the even-numbered ones are great. Highlights would be the one set in the court of Imperial China, and the last, when Robert Service witnesses a captured Martian being used in an Alaskan dog fight.

      Another book I've downloaded, although haven't read a word of, is "The Field Guide To Sponsored Films" by Rick Prelinger. Yes, that Prelinger. The Onion AV Club gave it a good review, although it left a link for the download that wasn't a link to the download (it's really here). Yes, I'm giving a link to something I haven't read. I've never gone through the Prelinger Archives, simply because there's so damn much there to see. This, I hope, should give me some good starting points.

2/5

      MAN, THIS SOUNDS TASTY!
Legs of squid stewed in one’s own dark juices
--menu item, restaurant in Alicante, Spain

      Speaking of Hitch!, I meant to link to a republished article of theirs, The world’s most dangerous bookstore. But I forgot.

      ...And shouldn't the Taco Bell lions have been trying to pronounce "E. coli"?

2/6

      EDITOR’S ADVICE, BAD
You’ll never make any money out of children’s books, Jo. Keep your real job.
Bloomsbury Books editor to Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, after purchasing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (for $1,910) in 1996

2/7

      RESEARCHERS, WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT?
AS WORLD FISH STOCKS DECLINE, RESEARCHERS TURN TO AN UNTAPPED RESOURCE: WOMEN
--headline in Future Harvest magazine

2/8

      METAPHORS, NOT QUITE RIGHT
He’s not the sharpest sandwich in the picnic.
--sportscaster Tony Cascarino

      There haven't been photos here of the cats for a while. This because I never got around to reinstalling for like the millionth time Photoshop 5.5 (the one so old that it saves your photos as triangles and squares on wet clay slabs, using its patented CuneiPhorm process). I do have my Kodak software installed, but I couldn't find the original disk when I got my new computer, so I downloaded it from their site. This was the version that Kodak sent me once, overwriting my old software. My review after using it for 5 minutes was "Oh, hell no," and I immediately deleted it and reinstalled my original software (which now gets appraised highly on "Antiques Roadshow").
      The Kodak software was just as counter-intuitive as I remembered, but I finally figured it out. As to the backstory: Converse High Tops are the shoes I wore as a kid, and they're still the most comfortable I've ever worn. But they have a flaw--after exactly 2.5 years, they disintegrate. First there's a tiny rip, then over the next 2 months they decompose to the point of--well, to the point that you can't look any more like a hobo wearing them unless you carried a bindlestiff and smoked a tiny cigar butt on a toothpick.
      My pair were largely reduced to their constituent molecules two weeks ago. The heels opened up like the jaws of a great white shark, and just in time for temperatures that haven't left the low 20s. I do have an older pair in slightly better shape that I could've worn, but they've been left open to the elements, and their black is a snowy white from shedded Kill Kill cat hair. Huh. They're in a corner, why would that happen? Of course, the newer-older pair tore apart on Tuesday. If they'd done it on Sunday, laundry day was Monday, and I could've washed the older-older ones into presentability. And of course, Tuesday is the beginning of my work week, so I could only buy a new pair after work, and I hate doing stuff after work. After paying a grand to fix the car and my property tax the same month, it's not like I'm rolling in money. Oh, if only I'd married an octogenarian millionaire and got me a reality show! It's so hard being me!
      So I said, what the hell, I've got a gift certificate and they sell every other damn thing short of polonium-210, so maybe...And, yes, I found out that you can buy sneakers on Amazon. They arrived today.
      As I laced up one, Kill Kill became very interested in the one on the floor. She sniffed it, then she rubbed her cheeks on it, so I put the laced one down and then she

      orgasmically writhed all over the damn things. When I went to finish lacing the other, their black was a snowy white from shedded--hey, WAIT! Dammit! So that's where it came from! Crazy foot fetishist cat!!

      And for you other foot fetishists out there, here's a picture I found on the camera.

      Imagine the size of HIS sneakers.

      Oops, almost forgot: via BTW (which you plry read anyway) The Science of Godzilla.

      The Soccer War. A heartwarming story about how Bush wins over the hearts of Iraqi children and warms and them and--never mind.

2/9

      AND IF YOU WANT A RIDE ON THE FERRIS WHEEL, YOU GO TO THE BUTCHER SHOP
Game show host Peter Marshall: What do you like if you’re a carnivore?
Woman: Um, I go to carnivals.

      Who wants a fridge magnet? My job just got a metric assload of fridge magnets. They want us to hand them out to every customer, but if we do, most customers will need to buy an extra refrigerator. I don't think they'll miss 30, if I take them a few at a time. BUT: You must send me a local fridge magnet in trade, and also NEVER CALL the phone number on the one I send you. Because if you do, I will so hate you forever. So send me a magnet, and I'll send you one back. Maybe two!

2/10

      OK, WE WON’T ANYMORE
Warning on a bottle of hair coloring:
DO NOT USE AS AN ICE CREAM TOPPING.

      Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 66% Magneto 60% Poison Ivy 58% Apocalypse 54% Mystique 52% Lex Luthor 49% Green Goblin 48% Mr. Freeze 47% The Joker 42% Catwoman 36% Juggernaut 36% Dark Phoenix 36% Two-Face 36% Venom 30% Riddler 30% Kingpin 20%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

      SO CLOSE to Magneto. I think that by default, I should be RefrigetorMagneto.
      Hmm...if Dr Doom and Magneto ever met, wouldn't they just stick to each other?

      Strangely fascinating and also kinda disgusting look at History's greatest banquets. They make your biggest Thanksgiving dinner look like that time in college when you were so poor, for dinner you had half a roll of Certs.

2/11

      THANKS FOR THE INFO
WPLY-FM (Philadelphia) DJ: Where can I buy a big inflatable snowman for my yard?
Caller: You can pretty much find them wherever they sell them.
--(thanks to Carol Slowey)

2/12

      PROBLEMS, DEFINITIONAL
Tech-support staffer: Type http://...
Caller: It didn’t work.
Tech support: Ok, read me the address you typed.
Caller: H-T-T-P-C-O-L-O-N—
Tech support: No, no. Colon. On the keyboard.
Caller: What?
Tech support: Do you know what a colon is?
Caller: Of course I do. I am a doctor.

2/13

      STATEMENTS LIKE THIS ARE FAIRLY UNCOMMON, BUT NOT THAT RARE
Abductions like this are fairly rare, but not that uncommon.
--Good Morning America host Charlie Gibson (thanks to Lin Malki)

2/14

      OB-GYNS, RANDY
Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many ob-gyns aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.
--President George W. Bush

      Sweetly cute in the first half, then pretty funny in its second half, Otto loves perfect strangers. Warning: May make you want to adopt a stray cat.

2/15

      FAMILIES WITH HUGE APPETITES
I’m insulted [by the offer of 10 million per year]. I’ve got my family to feed.
--NBA star Latrell Sprewell (thanks to Richard Oberholzer)

2/16

      THANKS FOR THE HELPFUL INSTRUCTIONS
1. This meter taxi already anti-meter to time.
2. If the tariff flashing light should be standby.
--printed instructions inside Jakarta taxi cabs

2/17

      KINDA MISSING THE POINT
We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!
--Dr. Kathleen Dixon, director of Womens’ Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, commenting on the resignation of Dr. Richard Zeller, who wanted to teach a course in how liberalism has led to political correctness

      My clever plan to foil whatever evil Microsoft had inflicted on my computer yesterday kinda missed the point. Avoiding IE for Netscape worked until I checked the last post by "viewing in system default browser." It worked long enough for me to make sure there were no typos and FTP it up, but since the default browser was IE, things went straight to hell after that. Everything would freeze for a minute out of every 2 minutes. I went to bed, vowing to change the default and never open IE again.
      Today it took me 45 minutes to do gourddamn nothing. Netscape froze continually, without IE ever being opened. So I gave up, opened IE one last time, and downloaded Firefox Foxfire and imported my bookmarks. And all is well.
      I've no idea what that IE download was that caused all this, unless its purpose or side effect was to kill Netscape (although not Mozilla). But while Foxfire works all kickasseriffic, I've used Netscape since I first got on the net, with version 2.02! Even when I got online, I kept using my offline email downloader Juno, until that stopped working. I used the same provider, nee Connecticut Online, later called Netplex, until I got DSL. I don't like getting rid of things that work. I don't like saying Goodbye to an old and trusted friend.
      My next car would be a Mercury Tracer, if they still made them.

2/18

      ER, KIM...
People magazine: The cell phone plays a role in your latest film. Do you have one with a camera?
Actress Kim Basinger: I hate that thing with the camera because we have been so disturbed by them. Sometimes, like at a Broadway play, people will start taking your picture. I am a mom, so I have a cell phone. It’s that simple.
People: Besides the phone, what do you carry with you?
Basinger: A camera.
--(thanks to Michael Thomas Perone)

2/19

      SISTER, DAUGHTER, SISTER, DAUGHTER
One of the most meaningful things that’s happened to me since I’ve been the governor—the president—governor—president. Oops. Ex-governor.
--President George W. Bush

2/20

      UMM...SURE...
Can you be sure that whatever is being done is being done?
--KFI radio host Bill Handel, to Oliver North (thanks to Lin Malki)

2/21

      CHOIRS, NOT THAT POLITE
The pastor will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing “Break Forth Into Joy.”
--in a church bulletin

      To totally change the subject from shit to cheese: Someone's found and restored the lost footage from Leonard Nimoy's "Bilbo Baggins" video. Yes, it's real. I love that goofy song.

2/22

      THANKS, BILLY, FOR THAT INSIGHT
Its mediocrity was celebrated to an art form, but only in retrospect.
--actor Billy Zane, on avant-garde cinema

2/23

      THAT’S USUALLY HOW IT GOES
So the first thing that you heard was the one that you overheard with Mr. Jones stating that he didn’t want any women in his department. And the second time when you were in this exact conversation would have been after the first time?
--recorded in court testimony

2/24

      BUSINESSES THAT APPARENTLY DON’T RESPECT THEIR EMPLOYEES
NOW HIRING TWO FRENCH DIPS FOR TWO DOLLARS
--sign at an Arby’s in North Bend, Washington

I think the black-orange-white coloration is beautiful, but the name, "toyger" - ugh. Toy tiger. Pets aren't toys, and cats aren't toys. A cat is a cat. Well, OK, a tiger is a cat, but Felis Catus is not a tiger. It's just a cat with funky coloration.

At least this woman is not trying to create a breed basked on a mutation. How many of those have we seen lately, and how many feline mutations that define breeds have harmful aspects? A sampling: Manx cats can have spina bifida, and a double dose of the tailless dominant equals a dead kitten; Scottish Folds suffer a degenerative joint disease characterized by cartilage overgrowth that is linked to the cartilage defect that causes the folded-over ears. And many non-mutation breeds have been so overbred and distorted that they suffer. Persian breeders have lately been shying away from the peke-face look which caused sinusitis and blocked tear ducts, but their cats' fur is still so thick that the cats simply cannot groom themselves.

2/25

      MAKING THINGS EXCESSIVELY CLEAR
We’ve said it previously and we’ve said it before.
--soccer coach Colin Hendry

2/26

      STRAWS, MORE REWARDING THAN YOU EVER DREAMED!
FRESH
Let’s try homeparty fashionably and have a joyful chat with nice fellow.
Fujinami’s straw will produce you young party happily and exceedingly.
Flexible straws which we can bend freely are very convenient for us.
--slogans on the box of Fresh flexible straws, Japan

      I wondered today if I've ever mentioned that Mimi's new comic comes out in 2 weeks. I checked her bloggy thing, and she says

Oh yeah, and the comic con went pretty well. The only downer was that we had no copies of Divalicious! in stock to sell there, but the reason for that is apparently because Borders ended up buying 4 TIMES as many as they preordered and cleaned out the first print run.

      "Behold, this bizarre demographic. Behold this odd and simmering and rather shockingly large hunk of the American population because chances are very good that at least some of them live right next door to you and breathe the same air and steal your parking spaces and often don't shower for six days at a stretch."

2/27

      OVAL OFFICE INSIGHTS
Even the President is not omnipotent. Would that he were. He often says life would be a lot easier if it were a dictatorship.
--White House budget director Joshua Bolton, on George W. Bush (He added that Bush is actually “glad it’s a democracy.”)

"Oh and the Other Reason it was not a quiet morning is because Neil woke up to a holiday party in the weather room. Caribbean music, streamers, pie, candy, celebrities making computer image appearances, things covered in yellow highlighter, dancing and sparklers. I'm not kidding. The occasion? Today Mount Washington has 11 hours and 11 minutes of possible sunlight. Everyone knows this is a hobbit reference worthy of a party. Happy Eleventy One One Day!!!!!"

      Scalzi kills Hitler! Eight times!

2/28

      CUSTOMERS WHO NEED A LOT OF HELP
Customer service rep for a wireless communications company: Thank you for choosing Arch. How can I help you?
Customer: Hi—uh—yeah—I get my bill from you guys every month on like the 26th and I normally pay it on like the 30th.
Rep: Uh-huh.
Customer:Well I was just wondering—uh—when am I supposed to pay my bill this month? There are only 28 days in February.
--actual dialogue (thanks to Kim Hart)

3/1

      THE PENTAGON, ALWAYS SO VERBOSE
Pentagon description of Titan II nuclear missile:
A very large potentially disruptive re-entry system

3/2

      THANKS, BUT NO THANKS
Genital wart volunteers needed
--classified ad in the Washington Post

3/3

      I THINK WE CAN FIGURE OUT WHERE THIS FILM IS HEADING
Girl: Excuse me—how far is it to Camp Crystal Lake?
[everyone looks at her in horror]
Waitress: [after an ominous silence] What is it, Enos, about twenty miles?
Truck driver: About that.
Local woman: Camp Blood? They’re opening that place again?

3/4

      SOMETHING’S A LITTLE WRONG HERE...
You should not leave someone’s ashes on a doorstep, whether they are deceased or not.
--funeral director Tom Bull

3/5

      VIRGINS WHO TAKE IT REALLY SERIOUSLY
VIRGIN HOLDS OFF 10,000 IN PEACHTREE
--headline in the Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune, about long-distance runner Craig Virgin's victory in the Atlanta Peachtree Classic race

      It was an overcast and blustery day, as opposed to a dark and stormy night. I was sitting at the computer and thought, "Hey, the sun came out!" and stood up and was startled to see that yes, it was sunny, and a snow squall was blowing. I couldn't see 100 feet straight ahead, but the sun was out, directly above. One cat tried to smash through the window to attack the flakes; the other looked, said "I'll be in the bedroom if anyone wants me" and went back to sleep. I leave it to you to decide which cat did which.
      And 10 minutes later the sky was, as Nixon would say, perfectly clear. Later it was time to get the mail, and I discovered another miniblizzard. After the short trip to the mailbox, I was covered with white, like a very skinny Yeti or a human/snack food hybrid that crossed a man with a powdered doughnut. One cat took a step back in horror; one briefly looked up and then went back to sleep. You decide which!
      Then the answering machine went off. It seems that Stop & Shop wanted to know when I was going to pick up the Triglide scrip they wouldn't sell me last week. O I WILL GET TEH RIGHT BACK TO U!!!

      Via Kirk, it's A Dictionary of Common Sci-Fi Metaphors, complete with examples so bad that the only thing that kept them from being published is that they were made up. Maybe you've seen it, as it's on Something Awful. Or maybe you haven't--I'd forgotten SA even existed. The Internet is so big a series of tubes, one can't keep track of all of it.

3/6

      CONGRESSIONAL THREATS, SERIOUS
If you don’t get those cameras out of my face, I’m gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that’ll clear this room!
--Congressman James Traficant (D-Ohio), to photojournalists covering his House ethics subcommittee hearing

      The Prestige, by the director of Memento, or as we all know him, "the Memento guy." Mementos, the Freshmaker! The candy you'll always forget!
      Damn, I'm already going on tangents, aren't I?
      It announces in the opening narration that it's about a magic trick, and one can infer that the movie itself is a trick. That's what Memento was, and it was probably the most fun I've ever had at a movie. It certainly was the one I most wanted to end, and NOW, just to see how it came out, and also wanted to keep going on, as I was enjoying the torture. When it ended, it was a great rush to see how everything fit together perfectly. (Perfectly, except for when he changes clothes with the drug dealer--that only happened to keep the plot moving forwards. Or backwards, in that case)
      I really didn't have that feeling at the end of Prestige. It looked great and was always interesting, if occasionally confusing. But, despite an ending that pretended to be happy--or something--there was no reason to root for either main character. They're both equally unlikeable obsessives who do nasty things to everyone around them. At the end, it's a movie not only without humor, but at its core, without hope.
      I'll grant any work of fiction one egregious unbelievable coincidence or character behavior. Like "changing clothes for no reason." However, when one of your minor characters is Nikolai Tesla, you're basically marching a one-man-band carrying a sign that says "HERE'S THE TRULY UNBELIEVABLE THING" across the screen, and that only raises more questions than it answers when the movie's done. But this is a thumbs up, provided you understand that this isn't the feel-good movie of the Victorian Years.
      Anticipating Prestige, I rented a movie that I'd never heard of, nor ever would have if I hadn't searched Netflix for "cat." Cats Don't Dance. It's a cartoon described as a "nostalgic animated version of classic MGM musicals" set in 1939. What? Most kids movies today have stuff aimed at entertaining the parents in the audience, but this is the first aimed at their grandparents. (Not a bad idea when you think about it, though) It's a Warner Brothers cartoon from 1997, so there was that frenetic, hyperkinetic energy that fans of "Animaniacs" would like. The first 20 minutes flew by at a such an attention-span-of-a-gnat speed that I thought only 10 went by. And it was pretty funny, the songs didn't suck, and Darla Dimple was a great villian. She was Shrilly Temple, a child star apparently raised on a diet of live wolverines, with a Sunset Boulevardian bodyguard of Kong-like proportions, but with the personality of a Panzer Division. And it was 2-D animation! There's some CGI, but it's barely noticable. If you want something light and funny to balance out your darker weekend rental, this is an overlooked bit of fun.

3/7

      WHAT DOES AN ABNORMAL INVERTING SPARKLE LOOK LIKE?
OPERATION...
2. CHECK BEFORE BEING USED Let the tool have nonloading for one minute and see whether the function of the transmission position is flexible and there is abnormal noise and the scraws become flexible and fall off and the inverting sparkle is normal or not.
--instructions for an electric hand drill made in China (thanks to Paul Brogger)

3/8

      TENNIS COMMENTARY, WEIRD
As Boris Becker sits there, his eyes staring out in front of him, I wonder what he’s thinking. I think he’s thinking “I am Boris Becker.” At least, I hope that’s what he’s thinking.
--tennis commentator John Barrett

      For some odd reason, I got a mailing from the avant garde band Bang on a Can today. A physical mail, you know, those things that have stamps on them. Doubly odd, as I received 2 of the same mailing. So I don't feel guilty sharing the semi-secret code word SAVEFIVEBUCKS at checkout when buying, even on downloads. In fact, use two, as I don't expect to be using any. 1-Bit Music looks crazy cool--a CD that you play by plugging your headphones into the case, as there IS no CD!--but there are no samples of the music, and even with the coupon, it'd be $20. Neato-keen idea, though. At least until the batteries or whatnot burn out, and all you have is this 1-time bit of conceptual art.

      Green Nazis is frontrunner for odd book prize.

3/9

      UH, JUST WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO SAY?
Your Honor, in the first place, as they say, I am going to say it. I was going to say what you said and the reason I am going to say it is not because you just said it. If you had not said it, I was going to say it first.
--lawyer speaking to a judge, recorded in court testimony

      The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.--Larry Hardiman

      A while back, I mentioned "specific dates for sci-fi series that now seem ridiculous," such as "Space 1999." Here's one I forgot, although I watched and laughed at it a few times back in my days as a stoner: THUNDARR the Barbarian!
      If you have any idea of astronomy--such as, say, the moon doesn't orbit the earth from 5,000 miles away, and "runaway planets" aren't quite that common, or small, and that splitting the moon in 2 and ripping the earth's atmosphere away won't lead to crazy mutations beyond "everything dies"--I'm sorry, I forgot what I was talking about. It features Hookla, the mock Chewbacca, who is a giant hamster with anger management problems and is also terrifyingly stupid, if you watch any of the accompanying YouTube clips. Although ocean liners and VW bugs and George Foreman grills will be remarkably well-preserved after the Hamster Holocaust.

3/10

      IT DEPENDS WHAT THE MEANING OF “FOREVER” IS
I think when you get married it should be forever. Even though I did get married once and it was annulled.
--singer Courtney Love

3/11

      WHIZBANG PROMOTIONAL IDEAS
FREE SHIPPING WITH ANY PURCHASE WHEN YOU PICK IT UP AT THE STORE.
--BestBuy.com

3/12

      WELL, WE WOULDN’T BE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT THAT THEN
Reporter: Do you have any concerns about opening your NBA season in Tokyo?
LA Clippers forward Bobby Simpson: Well, I don’t like Chinese food.
--(thanks to Richard Oberholzer)

      The only TV that I watch is "Ebert & Roeper," or as it's been for almost a year now, "Somebody & Roeper." Roger Ebert had cancer of the salivary glands--yes, you can get spit cancer, which means you can get cancer of the anything. Multiple mouth surgeries I can see precluding him from public speaking, but in that near-year, he's written two print reviews. Like Siskels' abrupt end, I don't think we'll be seeing Roger for a while, if ever.
      A few month's before his cancer was announced, I'd linked to an article about his life. It mentioned in passing that Disney has always lost money on the various versions of his movie review show over its 25 years. It's a prestige thing for them. I assumed that when Ebert was taken from us, so would the show.
      They've kept the show running with Roeper and a guest host ever since. For the most part, they're either knowledgable film critics or media smiley faces, and so far, the twain have never met. They're critics made of cardboard, or they have screen presence and are vapid.
      Since I doubt that the only TV show I watch will exist much longer, here's a new feature guaranteed to interest everyone, defining "everyone" as "only me"! It's called "Review the Guest Reviewer"!
      This week it's Kim Morgan, "chief film writer for msn.com, contributor to Salon!" She also probably reviewed "Legally Blonde" for her high school newspaper. As Kev said, "I'm a reviewer for blogger.com!" So I guess he's next week's host.
      I liked her just fine until she opened her mouth. Hey, where's Nicholas Cage? Because Valley Girl's here! She's one of those wave people whose lips can't move without wave her hands wave moving, moving, MOVING wave with EVERY wave SINGLE wave WORD. She was quite fond on making the "OK" guesture, but never doing it to mean "OK." When the teleprompter was on, she was as stiff as Lincoln in his Memorial, and read with same heartfelt emotion that Dubya uses when he's not talking about killing people. I realize that she was nervous, but after her first disagreement on a movie, she whimpered "You still like me, right?" to Roeper. She and Soap-on-a-Roeper generally agreed on the movies, but her style of speaking? You know? She really liked wave movies that like wave mallrats would like and stuff?
      So, Kim Morgan, you get the first thumbs down! However, you did have a very interesting thumb--You seemed to be double-jointed there, so the last knuckle was at an angle from the vertical. That's cool.

      Mike Nelson on the worst kind of bad movie, comedies that aren't funny. But one could also say the same about the latter years of MST3K.

      Moving on to better things, today's the release date for Divalicious! So go buy it.

      To get the free shipping for Divalicious!, I poked around Amazon for a while, then discovered that the complete "Cool McCool" DVD was coming out. It was a cheap 60s cartoon, and the pitch session went "It's Get Smart fighting the villains from Batman! We can even get Bob Kane to give his blessing, he's that poor!" Those were my 2 favoritest TV shows back in the kid years, so I loved Cool McCool, too! I have some budget VHS tapes I've watched repeatedly for a dozen years.
      Of course, you'll fucking hate Cool with a passion that burns like a thousand flaming hemorrhoids. Something I passed on as an add-on was the last book by John Scalzi. Eh, I'll wait for the paperback. He's posted the first chapter online for free, and it's a lot of fun. I'm gonna be John Scalzi when I grow up! (Wait, I'm older than him. Crap. I can't plan anything right)

      I've been linking to stories about this for years, so why stop now? Staying hungry means living longer. With properly balanced nutrition, duh. Otherwise, Karen Carpenter would be the Highlander.

3/13

      PROPOSITIONS, DIFFICULT
It’s too early to think about these things, but we can talk about them.
--entertainment radio host Robert Elms

3/14

      CLICHÉS, ONES WE’VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE
Free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.
--President George W. Bush

3/15

      WE GET THE POINT
We were scoring, they were scoring. Then we stopped scoring and they kept scoring.
--basketball player Tyronn Lue, on his team's seven-minute scoring drought in the fourth quarter of a game (thanks to Richard Oberholzer)

      ...The FUCK?
      I left the computer on last night, and Microsoft did another of those "Upgrades we don't ask you if you want" again. And it turned huge blocks of everything in "quotes" in my web editor INTO HUGE BLOCKS OF ALL CAPS. Page up and take a look, it's everywhere! Do you know how LONG it'll take me to retype this shit?!?!? FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!

      Okay, I saved the page source's cache on Google, so I only have to retype 5 days worth. I'm still pissed. This is the second unannounced-until-it's-installed-itself Windows "upgrade" in less than a month that's fucked my computer. Where do I go to turn these off?

3/17

      JUST WHAT KIND OF CHURCH IS THIS, ANYWAY?
Dedication and commencement of Ecumenical Stud Groups on the theme "Growing Together."
--from a church newsletter, Greater Manchester, England (They meant to write "Study Groups.")

3/16

      CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT DEPARTMENT
Game show host Bob Eubanks (asking questions of people on the street): A way to a man’s heart is?
Woman: Through beer.

      Mp3s fromThe Ed Wood Zone. Note that "Bride of the Monster" is of Ed Wood quality.

      Did you know that there's an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie? I didn't, until last week. The trailer was funny, in a "trailer to a nonexistant movie" sense. And also the Frank Frazetta-ish poster (or is that "Someone making fun of Frank Frazetta's making fun of his own style with the National Lampoon's Vacation poster-ish" way? Meta-meta-post-ironic-ish irony?)
      Any way, here's the first review. They don't like it. But if the movie succeeds, haven't the 1/31/07 Boston terrorists already won?

3/18

      HOSPITALS, PERFECT FOR THE VERBOSE
A national magazine says Loma Linda University Medical Center is the place to go for treatment of broken bones, stomach, ear, nose or throat problems, or blabber ailments.
--San Bernadino (California) Sun (thanks to Tanya Maes)

3/19

      BOY, THAT’S A RELIEF!
PANTY PESTS EASY TO CONTROL
--headline in the Oconto County (Wisconsin) Reporter

      And the circle is complete: Once I had pet guinea pigs, now I am one.
      I signed up for the metabolic high-triglycerides study. The reason I was asked to participate: My pant size. (Apparently people who take a 30 waist only because the sizes smaller are in the boys' department aren't supposed to get all lipid-y) It's a drug interaction study; they want to combine a bunch of proven meds into one pill, and I get to find out the side effects. They're all safe and proven meds, said the woman running it, and I'll get "top-of-the-line drugs" and "great medications." Lady, I went to high school in the late 70s, so you had me at "drugs"!
      They pay for everything, the Great Drugs, the office visits, and the monthly bloodletting. If I'd asked, I think I might've gotten cab fare out of them.

      A medical condition possibly conspicuous for its absence round these here parts: Young's Syndrome. Its departure coincided with the arrival of the blood meds, but I assume that's just a coincidence, as it predates my blood problems. And it went into remission for 6 months in 2005, only to return with renewed gastrointestinal fury, so I'll believe that it's gone when it's been gone for a few years.
      One thing that I despised Young's Syndrome the most for: The only action that would make me vomit with 100% consistency was drinking a cup of tea. I love tea! Just a cup after awakening on my days off, but something in it made me recreate scenes from The Exorcist with clocklike certainty. The tannins maybe? Which is kinda ironic, given that tannins are what make tea healthy.
      I went two and a half years without drinking tea. But after that many months of no puking, I figured I'd try it again. And I kept it down! The only drawback: Avoid all caffeine for 20 months and you'll become more paranoid than a midwestern militiaman, and such a shaker you might as well make fine furniture. Or get really shitty at metaphors. But I didn't think of that today when I decided that I was still thirsty after the tea, so I grabbed a free-sample-from-work bottle of Celsius ginger ale. Ginger ale with B vitamins and taurine and green tea and lots of caffeine AAAAAAAAAH TEH CAFFEINE, IT BURNS! I was like all wired and knotted in the stomach and what's this doing to my blood pressure nothing good is what I bet and it's like I'm on drugs and not those good ones from high school and I have to buy groceries but I don't want to leave the house because my metabolism is like a fruit fly's now, I've got a 24 hour lifespan I'll be killed by Islamofascist ninjas can't sleep clown will kill me but I went anyway and I got groceries but I'M TIME TRAVELING, because I left the house at 135PM and I left the store at 2 but only 5 minutes went by and WORLD WHY ARE YOU VIBRATING SO MUCH
      But after 90 minutes, the caffeine wore off and the time dilation effect stopped before I ended up in the year 2525. Which was good, as I'll bet we still won't have the damn flying cars even then.

      Oh, if I'd but known of the effects of too much caffeine last night, when me and Kevin saw the theatrical rerelease of El Topo. My review: El Don'tGo. It's a legendary cult movie--in fact, it's the first "midnight movie," and it's been out of circulation for decades. Because of copyright issues, not because it was an ultrapretentious egofest that made no sense. The artsy-fartsiness could only be more blatant if every few minutes a narrator yelled "SYMBOLISM! APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!!" 3 times. Okay okay, the writer-director-star is JESUS, we get it even without the stigmata and the no-shit-he-really-yells "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?!" But WHY is he Jesus? So I could mutter "JESUS, this sucks!" under my breath every 5 minutes? It was time travel in reverse--after 2 hours, I checked my watch and found that 50 minutes had gone by, with over an hour left. A sad, slow hour of more "Here's another thing that looks like a penis!" to go.
      It was pretentious, but who would've thought that a movie with so much gratutious sex and (especially) violence would be so dull? Thankfully, I can safely say that no animals were harmed in the making of this movie. Animals were massacred in the making of this movie: disemboweled donkeys, owls and sheep literally crucified (HE'S JESUS YOU KNOW), and, bestest of all, dozens of cute lil bunny wabbits killed by giving them rat poison, judging from the loving close-ups of them twitching in their final spasms of agony.
      Kevin liked it. There's no movie so bad someone won't give it a good review.

      ...Which segues into the new feature here that no one requested the return of, "Review the Guest Reviewer on 'Not-Ebert and Roeper'!" This week's fill-in: David Edelstein of New York magazine. He didn't have a Resonant Television Voice, but he was knowledgeable and funny, and he punched Roeper down a few times with sarcasm. In fact, he apologized for not disagreeing with Roeper more. That I would've like to have seen, as Roeper tends to shout people down like Bill O'Reilly, and like a middle-schooler, seems to think that if he gets the last word in, he wins the argument by default. I wouldn't mind seeing Edelstein again.
      Review of his Thumb: Nice in the Down position, but oddly pudgy and truncated in the Up. Thumbs down on Edelstein's thumb.
      (I apologize for saying "Bill O'Reilly or a middle-schooler" in the same sentence. At least a middle-schooler has an excuse for being a big whiny baby)

      ...Which segues us right back to El Topo! The Circle is Complete again! Danny Peary's book Cult Movies was the first book on the subject, and a bible to me for years. I intended to watch every movie he recommended, even if that was an impossible task when the book came out. In 1981, the VCR was something rich people owned. But every movie I came across in theaters, and in later years on VHS, was worth watching. He'd reviewed El Topo. So why did he finally recommend a bad movie?
      I reread the review and found that he didn't. He thought it to be self-important wankery, too. You can read his essay on it here, in eye-stabbing white-on-black text and with many peculiar typos. But where else will you find the auteur proudly telling the world that the many penis-shaped things in his masterpiece were based on the size and shape of his own personal pee-pee?

      ...And the Circle becomes a Moebius strip: Today QOTD had a quote from Mitch Hedberg, a comedian mentioned at the top of this post, and who I've never heard of. Nor are likely to, since he's dead. Too bad, he seems really funny. Here's QOTD's collection, and a longer one that doesn't overlap much with the first.

      ...And now the Moebius strip is...umm, sorry, nonfunctional seque. A video for William Shatner's subtle interpretation of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Apply directly to forehead.