6/21/06

      UNIQUENESS, NOT UNIQUE

      Hitler or Coulter? I missed only 3. (Hint for these kinds of quizzes: those who are literally Nazis have a better command of language--although some of Coulter's sentences have the same baroque structures of translated German)

      Congress votes itself its yearly pay raise, then shoots down the first increase in the minimum wage in 10 years. "The GOP has managed to repeatedly and shamelessly exploit the greatest weakness of the generally disengaged American electorate—the cognitive dissonance which allows them to concurrently hold the conflicting beliefs that our government can be trusted and all politicians are crooks."

      I guess that I'm officially Old. I've started complaining about how These Kids Today! are doing exactly the same things that I did at their age 25 years ago.
      "The old repeat themselves and the young have nothing to say. The boredom is mutual."--Jacques Bainville.
      But I'm middle aged! Where does that leave me? Repeating nothing?

6/22

      ACTRESSES WE ’D RATHER NOT HAVE OVER
[Houseplants] are dirrty. If I have to touch one, after already being repulsed by the fact that there is a plant indoors, then it just freaks me out.
--actress Christina Ricci

      Rogue Helicopter Taunts Psycho

      GWB is in the White Hizzle! "Eh eh eh eh!"

      The Thief and the Cobbler as it was meant to be. Well, except for it being shown in 17 parts. I haven't watched this yet. I've seen the bastardized version, though, with its brilliance polluted with awful faux-Disney/Bluthness. I'll watch it over the weekend. I'm sure that it'll look spectacular in YouTubeVision.

      Kiss my shiny metal good news!!

6/23

      GREAT GAME SHOW MOMENTS
Broadcaster: Bob Hope was the fifth of how many sons?
Contestant: Four.
--during an on-air Bob Hope Birthday Quiz

6/24

      RED LOBSTER, MOVE OVER!
MR. BEEF SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
--restaurant, Beijing, China

      As part of my ongoing series, "reviews of Movies That Have Been Out Forever That You've Already Seen But I Just Got Around To," I watched Best in Show. It good! You rent! Even if it was about dogs and not DEEDLE DOOT DOO DEE DEE.

6/25

      COASTLINES, DRY
Valencia will be hosting the next America’s Cup. This is because Switzerland, who won it last time, has no sea round its coastline.
--newscaster Tim Durrant

6/26

      “ON SECOND THOUGHT, LET’S GET THE SHRIMP”
BAY SCALLOPS FRESHLY SUCKED
--from an A&P supermarket flyer, New Jersey

6/27

      APPALLING COMMENTS ON MODERN TELEVISION
[Our new talk show] is not going to be: “My sister is sleeping with my father.” It’s going to be: “My sister is sleeping with my father, but they’re both interested in the Middle East.”
--talk-show host Nicky Campbell, on his new show

6/28

      WHOLENESS, SPECIFICS OF
. . . the specificity of the totality.
--Canadian prime minister Joe Clark

6/29

      “AH, THAT CLEARS IT UP”
an unsolicited real time qualifying credit promotion: a real time qualifying credit promotion which is not a solicited real time qualifying credit promotion
--definition from British Financial Services Authority

      I know that evolution is a fact and I like Guinness and I have no idea, no idea why this ad should make me drink their beer, even with the handy explanation. But it's cool!

      In fact very cool, but it flew by so quickly that I needed to find a description of the action.

6/30

      LET’S NOT GO THERE DEPARTMENT
GATORS TO FACE SEMINOLES WITH PETERS OUT
--Tallahassee Bugle headline

7/1
      

CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT DEPARTMENT
I don’t know. A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof and when you have a good proof is because it’s proven.
--Canadian prime minister Jacques Chrétien, when asked what proof he would need of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (thanks to Barrie Drain)

7/2
      

LINKAGE, ODD
GOD BLESS AMERICA
BUY A PUMPKIN
--sign outside a church in Atlanta, Georgia (thanks to Shaye Sauers)

      Maybe it's the concussion and the drugs, but I found this very amusing: What would you do for a flying car?

      I find this very extremely mucho hard to believe (Killsy was in the room when I played it, and didn't react to it the way she does when she hears cat sounds), but here's some "talking" cats.
      Although when she was young, Killsy would say "AIOUT!" when she wanted to go "Out" into the common hallway. And when she'd meow at me for no reason, I'd ask "Do you know what you want? I don't know what you want. Do you know what do you want?" she'd look a bit sheepish and say quietly "ai yeow yo," which was a reasonable approximation of "I don't know."

      Far more unbelievable than talking cats are talking Republican senators. Why vote against Net Neutrality? Because the Internet is a series of tubes. "And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material." Dagnabbit, my tubes are clogged with those enormous, enormous ELECTRONS! Oh no, the Internets are gonna blow up like those newfangled horseless carriages! Quick, turn off the gas lamps and fetch me my buggy whip!

7/3
      

SLIPS, FREUDIAN
A lot of good ballgames on tomorrow, but we’re going to be right here with the Cubs and the Mets.
Chicago Cubs broadcaster Thom Brennaman

7/4
      

MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU BRAINS, THOUGH
Co-star of Rich Girls Jaime Gleicher: We must have done something really good for us to have the privileges that we do. Benjamin Franklin was born on my birthday. Muhammad Ali was born on my birthday. Like, maybe I was one of them.
Co-star of Rich Girls Ally Hilfiger: Who? Who was born on your birthday?
Jaime: Benjamin Franklin—who invented the lightbulb.
--on an episode of the reality show Rich Girls

7/5
      

NYC DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AWE-INSPIRING
CRATE A BALANCE BEAN WITH MASKING TAPE . . .
--from a New York City Department of Education curriculum guide

7/6
      

LOYALTY, LUDICROUS
Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said.
--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing, after being asked by a reporter about comments President George W. Bush had made

7/7
      

INTRODUCTIONS, GREAT
Here is Miss Monica Dickson to give you another talk on Cocking and Snooping—I beg your pardon—on Shocking and Cooping—er—I’m so sorry—Miss Monica Dickson . . .
television reporter Leslie Mitchell, attempting to introduce a guest who was going to talk about cooking and shopping

7/8
      

COME-ONS, BIZARRO
Happy Days of Young Sheep: I’m a sheep, young handsome sheep. They say every sheep looks like me very much. But look at them carefully. Their faces are a little bit difference. So I’m lonesome sheep. Would you date me?
--printed on Japanese stationery

7/9
      

TALK ABOUT YOUR BARGAINS!
YOUR CHOICE $8.99 REGULARLY $2.95 EACH
--from an ad in the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal

7/10
      

SO POLYGAMOUS PEOPLE MUST LIKE PARCHEESI?
Game show host Chuck Woolery: What does it mean if you’re monogamous?
Woman: Um . . . you like Monopoly a lot?

      Man sues for $832M because--oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

      Weekend Rental Report:
      (abruptly develops violent, diaphragm-slamming hiccups which don't end until vomiting. Thank you, Young's Syndrome. I was starting to wonder where you went)
      Invader Zim, disc one: Wow. Was THAT overrated. It didn't suck, it just held my interest. And if "holds my interest for 30 minutes" was a valid criterion, I'd watch TV all the time, instead of barely ever.
      Naked Lunch: Well, it held my interest. I can't say that it entertained me, although I suspect that "I enjoyed that entertaining Cronenberg feel-good film" is a phrase rarely uttered. When it ended, I thought "And I'm supposed to feel or think what now?" I like to be challenged by movies, but I think that there wasn't any It to Get in this one. Maybe I didn't mainline enough bug powder before watching.

7/11
      

GOOD REASONS TO BITE OFF THE HEAD OF A DEAD BIRD AT A BUSINESS MEETING
I wanted them to remember me.
--rocker and reality show star Ozzy Osbourne, on why he bit the head off a dead dove at a CBS Records meeting

      Slow news day? Our bear and our store were mentioned in the 5PM news. I'm now watching the BIGGEST TV STATION in CT's 11PM news, and these are the top stories, in order...
      Top story: House with 60 cats, all healthy.
      School summer reading book has TWO LINES about "sex and suicide," is banned by principal after TWO parents whined about it. Book is about the Holocaust. Maybe we should burn it!
      Man tasered in New Haven. For something. NO OTHER DETAILS.
      It rained today.
      1800 bags of heroin. Local TV math: 60 cats > 1800 bags of heroin.
      Restaraunt's lease expires.
      Online gamblers can't use credit cards--except, of course, for state lotteries. "Legislators don't consider this a priority," but obviously the station does.
      Mosquitoes not causing West Nile virus in state. Also: not turning into Megalon and fighting Godzilla.
      Bank robbery foiled when it doesn't happen.
      MTV's Real Life character arrested.
      Hey...didn't anything important happen today? Oh, yeah...couple hundred people killed by terrorists, but they're brown and not American, blah blah blah. Why's this so high up on the list of headlines? Surely there's something more important!
      And here it is: Car fire in San Jose, CA. Note: CT and CA are not very near each other. This is like "truck rollover in China."
      Coming up: "Wifebeater" tshirts are trying to change their name.
      If those are the HEADLINES, I don't think that they'll ever get to our bear.
      Coming up, again: "Wifebeater" tshirts change their name. Oh, the suspense! (It just says "This is not a wifebeater" on it. If Cheney wore a shirt that said "I'm not looting the treasury for my own gain," would that make it so?)

      Speaking of local bears (WORLD'S WORST SEGUE!), I've deliberately not talked about Joe Lieberman's reelection campaign. I find it fascinating, as I've hated the man since Bush declared him "my favorite Democrat" and kissed him after the 2005 State of the Union address (Lieberman's defense: "I didn't kiss back." I only wish that was a joke)
      Okay, that's not really true--I've ALWAYS hated Lieberman. Remember the 80s campaign to FIght the Worst Thing Ever (du jour), the naughty lyrics in rock songs? That was Holy Joe's doing (coupled with Tipper Gore!). He kissed Cheney's Dick in the 2000 VP debates, declared that complaining about Bush helps the "enemy," and his approval rating with CT Republicans is TWICE as high as his approval with Democrats. He's a sellout, he's an embarassment, he's a fucking Republican.
      So along came Ned Lamont. He's everything Joe isn't--he's a Connecticut Democrat. Lieberman responded with something I wish that I'd linked to back when it came out. It's simply the worst political ad ever made. Ignore, if you can, the fact that it's entirely full of utter lies and distortions about Lamont. It has animation worse than a Yogi Bear cartoon, and it's based on Yogi Bear! Supposedly, the guy that Lieberman defeated 18 years ago has sent Lamont out to avenge him. And--shit, just watch it. The final line "Bear cubs always do what they're told!" doesn't make any sense even in context, and given Joe's lapdog relationship to Bush, I don't know why they put it in. In fact, Lamont quickly made a radio ad saying that "I may be the underdog, but I won't roll over every time the Bush Cheney administration demands it." Then Joe simply made up even more crap about Ned, even forging a fake bumpersticker. Here's Lamont's response ad to compare to those ads--hmm, it's almost like he has a discernable sense of humor!
      Lieberman is scared so shitless that he's going to run in the Democratic primary--and if he loses, run as an independent. "I have priorities more important than the party," he sniffed. He'll run on the "Connecticut for Lieberman" nonparty, and the name should tell you all about his "priorities." Lieberman for Lieberman.
      At the start of my workweek, I saw all these new Lieberman signs on the main road to work. I thought it a bit odd that they all turned up simultaneously. Until my drive home, when I realized that only one of them was on someone's lawn. All the rest were planted on public property. Fake Connecticutters for Lieberman.
      While I was typing this and the TV blared, he ran another attack ad, again with the same lies. Yeah, Lamont voted with the Republicans. When he was on the board of selectman, and deciding stuff like where stop signs could go. Joe voted for the stuff that was "anti-Republican" when he knew it had no hope of being defeated.
      Oh yeah, odd that he doesn't mention that he was against the morning-after pill and for the "right" of doctors to refuse it based on their fundie religion because, again no shit, if you get raped in CT, there will probably be a hospital close enough that you drive to that will prescribe it. Rape victims love road trips!

      All that pointless shit, and was there one fucking mention of our fucking bear? NO. TV news sucks.
      And Joe? Stamping "I'm Not a Wifebeater!" on yourself doesn't make it so. You are a Republican.

7/12
      

GREAT BARS FOR FOOT FETISHISTS
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS— LIVE SHOES DAILY
--Hong Kong bar sign

7/13
      

LET’S HOPE NOT, INSTEAD
Let’s hope his nerves will run through his veins.
--tennis star turned commentator John McEnroe

      Kill Kill is famous for doing the same thing every day for months or years, and then stopping--for months or years, when she starts doing it again. Unfortunately, the latest was that she stopped sleeping in bed with me and Byron. She stopped 8 months ago. In fact, she hasn't even walked more than 2 feet into the bedroom in all that time. Why? Dunno.
      But today she jumped on the bed, thought briefly on sleeping right on me, then curled up next to me and snoozed. For half an hour. No idea if this is the start of a new trend, but I sure hope so.

      As inexplicable as Young's Syndrome is, July Disease is an even stranger mystery. Every year, for at least the last 10, a week or so after the 4th of July I get horribly sick. It's some weird allergy. I know that from the fact that Jessica got it the same day I did every year, and if it rains, it's an instant cure as the rain washes the pollen from the atmosphere. Jess stopped getting it when she moved. But that's the weird part--What plant dumps its pollen only once a year? What grows in central Connecticut that doesn't grow 50 miles north in central Massachussetts?
      Last year I thought that I wouldn't get it. It rained for the 3 days that it potentially happens. Then I woke up feeling like death, but I was in enough denial that I went to work anyway. It's raining, it's not July Disease! I went home 2 hours later, and found out how it had beaten the rain: there's a patch of woods near my condo, and they'd picked that morning to bulldoze it flat.
      It took until the spring to find out why they'd squashed it. They're ripping up my street (see above, "tire, destroyed by big gap in road"), and that's where they're keeping the construction/destruction equipment overnight. They've not only stripped away all the topsoil, they've literally steamrollered it. The earth is so compacted that no tree will grow there for 50 years. I've wondered ever since what this meant for July Disease--if smashing it made it worse, will leveling it make it better? And yes, yes it did. Apparently whatever caused it grew there. What, I don't know, although it did have the only willow tree in the area. I've never heard that willows have nasty pollen, but I need to ask Jess if there was a willow near where you lived before she moved.
      Minor victories, yes, but they're important to me.

      Our Prezdent love him some pig! Just ask him! Actually, don't ask him. He'll tell you. A lot. A real lot.

      Colbert on Lieberman and Lamont. (Although, for gourd's sake, the race is NOT ABOUT IRAQ AND NOTHING ELSE. It's about everything Joe hasn't done for this state, this party, this country since 2000. It's because Joe Lieberman is a Republican!)

7/14
      

QUESTIONS, GREAT
Now, Mark, this guy Tony that you share your life with—is he homosexual too?
--former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo, on his radio talk show, to a gay guest (thanks to Richard Oberholtzer)

7/15
      

TAUTOLOGIES, TAUTOLOGICAL
IN COLLEGE BALL, PARITY IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER
--Washington Post headline (thanks to Arthur Wacaster)

      And until November, it's always going to be the time of year on this page for making fun of Joe Lieberman. Get used to it.

      The Kill Kill Bot. Kinda creepy, if you ask me.

7/16
      

WE’RE KINDA CURIOUS ABOUT THE OTHER TWO-THIRDS . . .
A third of all women studying at North American graduate schools of Christian theology were female, according to the Washington Post.
--from Career Opportunities News, as reprinted in the Chronicle of Higher Education (thanks to Mike Yohe)

7/17
      

PROBING LEGAL QUESTIONS, STUPID
Lawyer: Can you describe what the person who attacked you looked like?
Witness: No. He was wearing a mask.
Lawyer: What was he wearing under the mask?
Witness: Er . . . his face.
--actual courtroom testimony

      The latest update on a guy who's proving that some people shouldn't win the lottery

      Deleted Nonsense from Wikipedia. Funny, weird, and very long. In fact, it may be the perfect thing to read while this cat picture thread on Fark never finishes loading...

7/18
      

YOU KNOW, IT DOESN’T SOUND THAT SCARY AFTER ALL . . .
Alien II—He repairs cottages and plants flowers. His eagerness to do good makes him one of the most popular.
--DVD liner notes, Taiwan

      Kevin sent me the video of Zuiikin' Girls, a Japanese show that combines aerobics with English lessons. That makes more sense than, say, gymnastics and stir-fry cooking lessons. And who apparently suffer under the Gilligan's Mary Ann Decree that they can't show their bellybuttons, and who have the skinniest arms you've ever seen that weren't mine. But they use a lot of English phrases that I rarely--hey wait, never--have used in real life. (Doesn't get really odd until about 90 seconds in, so you really don't need to pay that close attention to it until then)

      Wolcott on Bush's hand jive. Seriously--WTF is with this guy?

      And WTF is up with this? If you sent a "joke" anthrax death-threat letter to a major newspaper, would you expect to have it laughed off, or be thrown in jail where you belonged? Guess what happens when you're Ann Coulter. This country has become seriously fucked up. If the next headline you read isn't "Coulter Arrested by FBI," you'll see what the future of "democracy" looks like in this country.

7/19
      

COME ON, MR. PRESIDENT—WHY PICK ON ONE KID?
We want results in every single classroom so that one single child is left behind.
--President George W. Bush

7/20
      

GREAT MOMENTS IN CULINARY HISTORY
Then, on July 20, 1969, he and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo XI moon walk, became the first two humans to set food on another world.
--from the program notes of the 1999 PNC Bank concert series with the Philadelphia Orchestra

Vijay's friends had cars, in which stereos were fitted and they used to insert cassettes in the decks and then enjoy melody of recorded songs. "Come, let us go to the lake and listen to melodies of songs there."

7/20
      

LET’S NOT GO THERE DEPARTMENT
The wind is rushing from the player’s rear.
--golf announcer Steve Melnyk, covering a match in Augusta

      It's so sad, I just gotta laugh comic strips:
      Bush at the G8
      Another too real to be really funny cartoon.

7/22
      

THE CHOSEN ONE
I’m making a conscious decision to take this whole Judaism thing seriously. I think the Jews need me right now.
--talk-show host/journalist Geraldo Rivera

7/23
      

A GREAT WAY TO GET RID OF GUESTS WHO STAY TOO LONG
HUMAN-BITING MOSQUITO TRAP
--product advertised by Enta Manufacture Industries, Singapore

      Byron likes to sleep on the tippy-top of the kitty condo. Usually, he splays his enormous feet over the edges in comic ways. Today, he somehow fell asleep in the Sphinx position--all feet down, but head in the air. How can you do that?

      Pretty bad picture (you'd think Photoshop would have a filter called "Make less Dark," but I can't find it). What you see here is Byron sleeping upright. He's not blinking his eyes or purring, he's dead asleep, and he stayed like that for 5 minutes. It'd be like you or me sleeping while standing in line. Which is a talent I sometimes wish that I had. Be useful at the DMV.

7/24
      

THERMAL, TURTLE, WHAT’S THE DIFF?
Weakest Link game show host Anne Robinson: What “T” is a term for both an item of underwear and also a rising column of warm air?
Contestant: Turtle.

      Here's the Byron picture from yesterday, fixed by Zefiel.

      A funny review of websites from 1996. At least they didn't have obnoxious Flash intros back then.

7/25
      

SO THAT’S WHAT WENT WRONG THE FIRST TIME WE TRIED THAT RECIPE
CORRECTIONS: An article in The Living Section on Wednesday about decorative cooking incorrectly described a presentation of Muscovy duck by Michel Fitoussi, a New York chef. In preparing it, Mr. Fitoussi uses a duck that has been killed.
--correction in the New York Times

7/26
      

MENU ITEMS FROM HELL
GRILLED POTTIES
--menu item, Mexico

      Want to buy your own private island? The US Gummint is selling one. It's a bit of a fixer-upper--let it be known that "...all buildings had been removed...there were no functioning utilities or water supply, the runway was iffy, the golf course disintegrated, the seawall containing the nuclear waste dump was insufficient, and that nearest services of any kind are over 700 miles away."
      Umm...the thing to the what is insufficient? What should I do with this place? "If you purchase the island despite all that, your land deed 'will contain use restrictions because the atoll was used by the Defense Department for storage of chemical munitions and as a missile test site in the 1950's and 60's. The island can be used as a residence or vacation getaway.'"
      Oh! By the way! They also detonated nuclear bombs there. I think that I'd spend most of my vacation getting away from the giant mutated insects. But it'd make a nice Isle of Elba exile home for Bush and Cheney in 2008.

7/27
      

HOT TIMES IN LITCHFIELD
LITCHFIELD URGING VISITORS TO TRY A QUICKIE; MERCHANTS COMPLAIN
--from the Litchfield (Connecticut) County Times

      Byron proving that, no matter how runty a little cat you are, you can still stretch out a yard.

      Kill Kill proving that, no matter how big a cat you are, you can still go all MC Escher and leave the audience thinking "And which end is up again?"

      (Hint: there's an ear in there).

7/28
      

WHAT THAT VIRGIN’S DOING THERE I DON’T EVEN WANT TO THINK . . .
And I see that in the center of the square, there is a large conical erection with a virgin on it.
--broadcaster Dilly Barlow

7/29
      

NOW LET’S GET BACK TO WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT
The difficult and uncertain times that we have experienced since 9/11 are reflected in the autumn/winter collections; but it’s good news because whether you are vibrantly young and at the cutting edge of fashion or more mature and wanting to contemporize your wardrobe, the story is that everything is very wearable.
--brochure for the Bath (UK) Fashion Festival

7/30
      

AGE, DUALITY OF
And here’s Moses Kiptanui—the 19-year-old Kenyan, who turned 20 a few weeks ago.
--sportscaster David Coleman

7/31
      

AH, THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE . . .
Entitlement cards will not be compulsory, but everyone will have to have one.
--British deputy prime minister John Prescott

      I watched 2 DVDs yesterday that've been on my see-list for years. Decades, in one case, as I've wanted to see it ever since I'd read about it in a book on science fiction movies 30 years ago. (The book was the first film criticism I'd seen that didn't dismiss sci-fi as kid's stuff. It was imaginately titled "Science Fiction Movies") The War Game was originally to be a 1964 BBC TV show, but it was considered to harrowing to be shown anywhere but in theaters. It became a minor sensation in America, too. It was a fake documentary on the effects of nuclear war. It started poorly, as they hadn't made any attempt to remaster it. The film stock was scratchy and had long moments of what looked like water damage. And the narration was appropriately dry, but full of outdated statistics on nuclear proliferation between the West and the Commies, so it started to look like something that had been effective 40 years ago, not now.
      Then the bombs dropped.
      Today we're so jaded that nothing shocks us, but for 40 years ago, this was pretty harsh stuff. Sobbing children with their eyes melted or covered in third degree burns. Doctors dividing their patients into 3 groups--if you were in group 3, you were too far gone for medical attention, and the most humane thing they could do for you was have the police put a bullet in your brain. Mass burnings of the corpses. Food riots. The buckets of wedding rings collected from the dead.
      We're used to "horror" movies with Freddy or Jason or Rob Zombie, but this represented true horror. The narrator calmly informed us that this is what happened in WWII, not just in Hiroshima, but in cities like Dresden and Tokyo that were immolated by conventional weapons. There are screaming mutilated dying children just like this today in Lebanon, Iraq, Darfur.
      It gets pretty hard to watch, even though it's only 50 minutes long. But it'll stay with you. I know it'll stay with me.
      The second feature on the disc is by the same writer/director, Culloden. I saw this before I'd heard of The War Game, but I never knew that they were by the same person. I tuned into PBS one night, expecting to see one of their tame documentaries on an 18th century battle between the English (boo!) and the Scots (my forebears, yay!). Instead, I got my first experience with the concept of "disembowelment."
      Odd as it may seem, I wasn't in the mood for Culloden right away, so I switched gears to another movie, one I've wanted to see for a mere 5 years. Switched gears? Switched realities. From a dark world of agony, to a bright sunny happy world of agony! The Apple! Would it live up (down) to its rep as "So bad it's good"?
      It certainly was bad. Truly awful MST3K bait. It was made in 1980, but set in the (say in booming "Duck Dodgers in the 25th&1/2 CENTURY!" voice) the far-flung future year of--1994! (If you missed that, don't worry--8 times in the first half hour they remind us that it's 1994). I don't know why they do that. Eventually, the year will catch up to your movie and it'll just make it look really stupid. We're only a decade away from when Blade Runner was set, but I'm not seeing any replicants getting licenses for their flying cars any time soon. What's wrong with "The near future!" or "30 years from now!" (My personal fave--Max Headroom being set "20 minutes into the future." Now that's clever) And it's really ridiculous when, in only 14 years, everything changes. People dress in spandex unitards with clear plastic flying wedges and glitter. Even lawyers dress with giant shoulder pads in their suits and goofy glasses that the 70s Elton John would've been embarassed by. Cars have all this crazy-ass crap randomly soldered onto them--extra lights and horns and giant green bulbous boobies on their roofs. The movie opens with a big production number, and even the saxophones are nutty wacky oddball! And the music? Sounds like something from 1980. Outdated 80, as IT IS DISCO.
      It's so ridiculous looking that it gets points right there. But it loses them very quickly. There are far too many musical numbers, like in a bad kiddie film, and they don't advance the plot and it doesn't matter that they don't, as half the lyrics are incomprehensinonsense. The plot is so minor that it really could be encapsulated in its entirety in a coloring book. "Look, the evil Bim Company!" "They won't let us sing!" "Oh, I am attracted by the hedonistic lifestyle of Bim, so I must dump you, boyfriend!"
      As you might guess from the title, there's an apple. A big ass apple the size of a pumpkin, and it represents Eve being tempted by the devil. Oh, there's all these Biblical references that would be cooler if they made any sense. The followers of Bim--whether it's a record company or a world dictatorship, who knows--that makes everyone wear "The Mark of BIM!" on their heads. And there's a hippie commune in 1994 sure why the hell not, and then there's like this battle of Armageddon, except that before it starts, God walks down on his stairway from Heaven and raptures all the hippy non-Bims away. Well okay, that's all fine and WHAT THE LIVING FUCK?!?!?! THAT MADE NO SENSE AT ALL!
      I dunno, it is a really bad, goofy movie, but I found it more annoying than anything else. Even with the repeated jokes about Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

      I've been following this blog for a coupla months, and deem it worthy: How To Write Screenplays. Badly. All the advice you need to break into Hollywood screenwriting, with plenty of tips and hints. Bad ones.

      In passing: It's another major holiday today! On 7/31/99, and then on 8/01/03, one furball and then another moved in with me. Happy anniversary, kids!

8/1
      

WHAT FOLLOWING A RELIGION CAN DO FOR YOU
[The Kaballah] helps you confront your fears. Like, if a girl borrowed my clothes and never gave them back and I saw her wearing them months later, I would confront her.
--socialite and reality show star Paris Hilton, explaining what studying the Kaballah has done for her

      In related news, NBC has cancelled the miniseries that Gibson was going to make on the Holocaust. Which means that someone thought that it was a good idea in the first place. I hope that this doesn't threaten the plans of David Duke's son to make his series about the NAACP!

      I got to thinking about "setting your sci-fi in a year you actually name" after yesterday's ramblings about The Apple. And I remembered this--although I'll bet that half of you guys don't, as it was probably before you were born. Or even before your parents graduated high school: UFO! By the "Supermarionation" king and queen, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Even you yung'uns have heard your elders laugh about the goofy puppet shows "Thunderbirds" or "Captain Scarlet." UFO was live action. And, well, pretty goofy. These aliens were invading Earth in their lil spinning-top UFOs, and our secret defenders SHADO would send their "nuclear Interceptors" out from their Moon craters and blow them up, with the single big nuclear missile they were armed with (you can see this right at the end of the clip). I came across the series in syndication a few years after it was made, and even at the age of 12 it seemed incredibly stupid to me. The Aliens would get blown up 2 or 3 times an episode. It never seemed to occur to them that SHADO had exactly 3 Interceptors, each armed with a single-shot missile. And every single damn time, they sent exactly 3 UFOs. If just that ONE time, they'd sent four...Oh, and the Interceptors were based on the Moon. What, the aliens couldn't have flown on the side of the Earth that the Moon WASN'T ORBITING, just that one time?
      One time, the aliens tried to infiltrate Earth by sticking the brain of one of them into a cat's head. At the time, I laughed. Given how much bigger the human-sized aliens brains must be compared to the size of a cat's, wouldn't they have to cut a lot out before it fit? In retrospect, I think it explains a lot.
      Ahh...Why'd I bring this up again? Oh, yeah. There's some ridiculous (fumbles for word, finds there isn't one, makes one up) yearwronginess here. The Crapple was made in 1980, and set in 1994. UFO was made in 1970, and set in the amazing futuristic world of--oh, don't worry, like Apple, they'll make sure you know. And yeah, my first car looked exactly like that.
      The main reason I link to this? So I could hear for the first time in decades the second-coolest TV show theme ever! (First place goes to the theme from "The Avengers") It's so James Bond Goes to the 60s Rome Moon Lounge. And if you can't groove to visuals of a series you've never even heard of, here's the same theme with a Star Trek twist.
      And no, UFO never explained why the Moonbase was staffed exclusively by hot babes in spandex and purple wigs. And we LIKED it that way!

      Just now, the latest household mystery: Why is the carpet by the AC so wet?
      If it's the AC, I don't see how. There's newspaper stuffed under it, and that's dry. The wall under it is dry. Nothing but the carpet is wet, and wet carpet means mildew stink. Is the AC overflow magically running down an exterior brick wall in 100 degree heat and managing to seep back in?
      No idea, so I went out the back door to see if there were any clues. I can't say that I found any. Because when I left the door behind me ajar, it went
      *click*
      My first thought: Oh no you didn't, you little bastard! But yes, BYRON HAD LOCKED ME OUT.
      I panicked a bit--I didn't have my keys, they're inside, all the windows are closed to keep the AC in! Little BASTARD! Then I had me a MacGyver moment, and went to the car, got in the trunk through the back seat, grabbed a tire iron with intent to either pry open the front window or smash it in. I climbed on the awning 2 stories above the parking lot at 1AM (not that any of the neighbors might find THAT suspicious) and discovered, in a true good news/bad news moment, that it was incredibly easy to jimmy open my window with the first tool at hand.
      And Byron was still at the back door, screaming "I WANT TO GO OUT TOOOOO!"
      "YOU!!!" I said, and made angry gestures. Futile, of course. He doesn't know what he did. I guess that I should get a third house key made, one to keep in the car.
      On the plus side, I guess I can consider burgalury as a fall-back skill.

      And suspicion over the Great Wet Spot has shifted back to Byron, given that it smells like CAT PEE. I just put the old litter box near it. Whether it's him or not, it's gonna get all mildew-stinky. Shit, it's already stinky. I'm looking to rent a wet-vac and buy some Carpet Fresh tomorrow, but any suggestions are welcome.

8/2
      

NO WONDER THE SERVICE WAS SO SLOW
NOW HIRING LOSERS.
--marquee notice for Hot ’n Now fast food (it was missing the “c” in “closers”)

      In vino veritas: Is Mel Gibson anti-Semitic? Of course not! And here's proof from his movie career.

      "Lt Ellis Gets Dressed!" popped up every time I finished watching the UFO theme, so I finally watched it. Something I'd forgotten about the show's opening credits before yesterday were the close-ups of the breasts and butts. I guess that they were shooting for a market a little older than that of Thunderbirds. It's very tame, but I love the wacka-ka-chow porno version of the theme they use (about 50 seconds in).
      If I had any musical talent, I'd record an entire album of sci-fi themes gone porn. Like the themes to Star Trek (UHURA: "Ensign Rand, could you help me out of my miniskirt?") or Buck Rogers (WILMA DEERING: "Twiki, could you help me out of my spandex unitard?" TWIKI: "Beeda beeda beeda beeda boner!"), and the Star Wars Imperial March (DARTH VADER: "The lack of proper ventilation on this battle station disturbs me! It is sooo hot!!" [strips off armor as "bah dunh dah dunh wack-a chack-a chow" plays]).

8/3
      

TOILETS, MAYBE A LITTLE NOISY . . .
BATHROOM SUITE: AVOCADO BASIN, PEDESTAL SYMPHONIC TOILET
--ad in the ADvantage, East Grinstead, UK

      Okay, "yearwronginess" wasn't a very evocative or even sane word. I think that "retrofuture anachronism" is a better descriptor of "setting your sci-fi thing in a named year which eventually passes and everything looks so much dumber than if you'd just said 'In the Future'."
      Since almost nobody had ever heard of "UFO," I laughed at myself when I remembered a retrofuture anachronistic TV show that not only most of you have at least heard of, but was also made by G&S Anderson. And it not only included the year in the title, the opening sequence included the month and the day. Woulda seemed even weirder if the big disaster had happened 2 days earlier, don't ya think? (Note: the theme song bites, and the YouTube file plays WAY too loud, so turn your speakers down unless you want everyone at work to know you're watching a truly dopey TV show)
      Remember the episode when the Moon was attacked by a flood of shaving cream from a giant floating space brain? Yeah. That was good.

8/4
      

GOOD POINTS WE NEVER THOUGHT OF
The fundamental problem with being poor is that you don’t have enough money.
--Arthur Levine, president of the Teachers College at Columbia University, on NPR’s Talk of the Nation (thanks to Joe Thatcher)

8/5
      

YOU COULD’VE FOOLED US . . .
The longer the game went on, you got the feeling that neither side really wanted to lose.
sportscaster Mark Lawrenson

8/7
      

GOVERNMENT-POSTED TOURIST SIGNS THAT WOULDN’T PLEASE THE POPE
THE ONLY CATHOLIC COUNTRY IN ASIA! BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETS
--government-posted sign at a tourist spot in the Philippines

August 7 headline in the Singapore Straits Times:
NATHAN TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT

August 8 headline:
NATHAN ELECTED PRESIDENT

8/8
      

SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
Solutions are not the answer.
--President Richard Nixon

      I'm too lazy to find a link to a story that became old this morning (okay, here's one), but Lieberman's website crashed and he blamed it all on Lamont and his army of hackers. Of course, the TV networks ran this story without taking even a second to verify it. It turns out that LIEberman, with his multimillion dollar campaign funded by lobbyists and Republicans, was using a webhost that cost $15 a month. Yes, you read that number correctly. And it went down on election day! That's unpossible! I guess that he should've gone with Geocities.

      Live blogging from the Lieberman bunker, via Jesus' General.

      To skip local politics for a bit, the best and worst sci-fi opening sequences, with video. I guess that they never heard of the best, UFO.

      Oh, and I sent Lamont another $20. If you're from CT, and aren't planning on kissing Bush, I suggest you do the same.

8/9
      

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS, NOT SO PROFESSIONAL
Where were you first born?
--musician and television interviewer Jools Holland

8/10
      

BEERY WEIRD CLICHéS
The Phillies beat the Cubs today in a doubleheader. That puts another keg in the Cubs’ coffin.
--San Diego Padres sportscaster Jerry Coleman

      Sorry to keep going on about it, but here's the Daliy Show on Joe.

      I think there were more disturbing ones on the InExOb, but here's the 10 Creepiest Advertising Icons.
      I have a doll of number one! They seem unaware of the fact that he was originally marketed as "CP," in order to rip off a then-recent movie hit "ET." Yeah, they look nothing alike. CP was made from one of their generic cake molds, much in the same way that "Fudgy the Whale" was morphed into Santa every December--despite the fact that Fudgy's tail became a Satanic-looking forked Santa hat.
      CP became famous enough in the 80s that my parents bought one ironically for a family gathering. And it was the worst ice cream cake we'd ever had. Even after defrosting for hours in the fridge, it was nearly uncuttable. And the ice cream cone nose was stale.

      This doesn't even get the "SHAWT Nice Try Award":
      Teenaged-looking pretty girl is asked for ID. She hands over an out-of-state and very fakey college ID.
      ME: Do you have a driver's license?
      HER: I just lost it!
      ME (thinking "How oddly convenient"): I'm sorry, but no ID, no service.
      HER (thinking quickly, although not quickly enough to make it seem like she's not making it up, flashing pretty white girl winning smile): It's for my grandmother!
      Well...send Granny in then. But since she's buying a half-gallon of Jim Beam, maybe she's passed out on the floor of the retirement home. When it finally became clear that we weren't going to sell, she said, "Well, then I'll just go buy it in the ghetto!"
      Thanks! I was wondering if you could possibly sink any lower in my estimation. Hey, when you get to Hartford, ask the store if you can get the "ghetto discount for rich honkies" and tell them that Stop & Shop has watermelon on sale. That'll work. For me.

8/11
      

MEL GIBSON, COSMIC THINKER
Game show host: Which mathematician said “The most incomprehensible thing about this universe is that it’s comprehensible?”
Contestant: Mel Gibson.

      Someone found the page looking for "Glitter phrases for friends blog 4." Sorry about the slight, glitter blog 3!

      Do NOT click on this! It's a medley of catchy and incredibly dumb old net memes. Don't click, because you'll just keep wanting to play it again. It's brilliant.
      It also has links to the originals, which is great if you have no idea what they're singing about. "Ducks Live on the Moon" and "Badgers Badgers Badgers"? Those went under my radar. And I'm kinda glad that they did.
      I'm disappointed that they left out "The Terrible Secret of Space" and the Animutations guy, but maybe they were focusing on the less talented ones.

      Speaking of...music...and...umm, singing, or things vaguely like them, like how a "car" and a "car crash" are related, apparently Paris Hilton has an album out. "Hilton has been quick to point out that singing is a vocation for which she is eminently skilled. 'I know music,' she reassured the Sunday Times children's section. 'I hear it every single day.'
      "While this obviously gives Hilton a massive advantage over those who have never heard any music and thus believe it to be a variety of cheese, there remains the nagging suspicion that this might not represent sufficient qualification for a career as a singer, in much the same way as knowing what a child is does not fully equip you for a career as a consultant paediatrician."

8/13
      

THANKS FOR THE CLARIFICATION
What we don’t know yet is what we thought and what the Iraq Survey Group has found, and we want to look at that.
--President George W. Bush (thanks to Larry Tamblyn)

IT SURE BEATS THAT BORING OLD MUSTANG

MITSUBISHI MINI ACTIVE URBAN SANDAL
SUBARU GRAVEL EXPRESS
MAZDA BONGO FRIENDLEE
DAIHATSU TOWN CUBE
--vehicle names of Japanese automobiles displayed at a 1996 Tokyo trade show, reproduced here as they appeared in English on each vehicle

      The store got a free sample of some likker last week. That's hardly unusual, but this was Champale. They make that stuff still? It was a joke even before I was old enough to drink. I first heard of it on "Sanford & Son," where it was one of Fred's favorite drinks, along with the fortified wine Ripple. He liked to mix the 2, calling it "Champipple."
      Champale is this allegedly champagne-tasting beverage made from malt liquor. It did taste (kinda sorta but not really) like champagne. Funny aftertaste that's stuck with me for hours.
      It's also giving me a buzz that's staying with me, so I guess I should write about Retrofest before I fall asleep. I Netflixed Gigantor, Ultraman and the Brak Show (umm, not really sure how that last one made it to the top of my queue; it was supposed to be the most certainly awful Supermarionation show Supercar). I've only watched 2 episodes of Gigantor so far, but I really like them. But I like old Japanese cartoons, even the smellier ones. The animation is weird, as it ranges from nonexistant to rubbery to detailed in the course of seconds. But it can also just get plain get freaky, such as a POV shot from inside the villain's mouth. Sometimes you'll be surprised by Tex Avery-like full-body spit takes, or a Fleischeresque anthropomorphism.
      The plot, of course, is manifestly insane: "Dr Katzmeow" is trying to conquer the world by taking over Antarctica, which apparently has a population of tens of thousands. Well, had a population--the show has a pretty big body count for a show aimed at kids. Early on, Gigantor (who's "taller than tall," although he fluctuates between 12 and 50 feet) fights...robot penguins with machine gun nipples. Then "Dick Strong," a hero, is lost, and a good minute consists of the characters yelling "DICK! DICK!" in the snow. What's not to love?
      And the end credits assure us that it's "Based on characters created by MITSUTERO YOKOYAMA and MARY SHELLEY." Who, of course, was the author of Gigantor, or the Modern Prometheus.

8/14
      

THANK GOD FOR THOSE COWS!
I was thrown from the car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.
--actual courtroom testimony

      Hiking in the woods today, I found a great big ol' hawk feather! Score! Later, I collected a dozen blue jay feathers! MAXIMUM SCORE! They were scattered over a very small area, so I assume that a hawk, maybe the one whose wing feather I found, had grabbed him and et him all up in a tree right over the trail.
      And who's decided that feathers are sooo 8/13? Yeah, it's Mr Can't Get Any More Spoiled. I think I'll just give him rocks for a while.

      Another story about how you might be better off not winning lotto.

8/15
      

DESCRIPTIONS, UNFORTUNATE
[She’s in real trouble because] she has a huge bush between her legs.
--golf announcer and player Marlene Floyd, covering a LPGA match and trying to describe the awkward stance of an LPGA star

      ...And, they already had their Chirstmas stuff out for sale!
      Umm, wait, I blew that. That was supposed to be the punchline, but I put the "Xmas starts earlier every year!" bit in first.
      Ho ho ho!-hum. Eventually, once the Xmas clearance crap sells off in January, the Christmas shop will open just after Valentine's.
      I only became aware of the store in question when I got a flyer in the mail. Grand Opening Tuesday Morning! I searched every square inch of the flyer, as it looked like an upscale Big!Lots, but its name was nowhere to be found. There was a map there, and it was 5 minutes away, but what was the name? Viral marketing may work on the web, but it makes no sense in real life.
      I was driving by the plaza this No-Name Lots! was in yesterday, and stopped in. The name of the store opening Tuesday morning was Tuesday Morning. Dang, but that's a retarded name. It almost beats the retardiest name I've ever seen, "Yesterday's Pizza."
      And guess what...it is an upscale Big!Lots. Featured item: 15 inch LCD TVs with NBA logos. For $200. And everything else was B!Lots type mechancrap, except twice the price. Nice business model. I expect to drive by them some Tuesday morning soon and find them closed..

8/16
      

CLICHéS, FASCINATING AND NEW
You can lead a dead horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
--Toronto mayor Allan Lamport

      An interview with Joe Lieberman's ego.

8/18
      

WHAT TO SAY TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
You’ve done a nice job decorating the White House.
--pop star Jessica Simpson, to secretary of the interior Gale Norton, on a tour of the White House

ER, NO, IT ISN’T

Game show host Jeff Owen: In which country is Mount Everest?
Contestant (after a long pause): Er, it’s not in Scotland, is it?
      One computer reboots in an endless cycle, and this, the emergacomp, has plenty of issues of its own. To be specific, the floppy drive doesn't work, and it ate the disc with my saved bookmarks, so I'm trying to remember them from scratch. I've had a very frustrating night. Thank Gourd for small furry friends who make such things bearable.

8/19
      

WOULDYA STOP WITH THE BEES ALREADY, CHE?!?!
“The peasant is like a wild flower in the forest, and the revolutionary like a bee. Neither can survive or propagate without the other. There is one essential difference between us and the bees, however. In this hive, I will not tolerate drones!”
--Che Guevara (Omar Sharif) to his rag-tag rebel army in Che! (1969)

8/20
      

SIGNS, TOUGH TO FOLLOW
PLEASE
WALK BACKWARDS
--sign put up by the Public Works Department on a street in Singapore

      My retrofest of ancient entertainment has gone thusly. Gigantor and Ultraman: goofy and fun and entertaining. But those were the two I held the greatest hope for. Next on the rental list was Supercar, which I expected to be either totally retarded or hilariously bad.
      I've seen the first two since childhood, so I assumed that I'd like them. Supercar is a show you've probably never heard of, even if you are my age. It was the first Supermarionation series by Gerry & Sylvia "Thunderbirds" Anderson. I once saw an online ad for a Courageous Cat box set, and immediately ordered the the first disc from Netflix. I was 90 seconds into the first episode when I thought, "And how old were we when we thought this was cool?" Since I gave up on it when Space Ghost and the Fantastic Four and the Herculoids and Spiderman cartoons came on the air, and that was 1967--well, I guess that I was in FIRST GRADE. Which was also when I liked Supercar.
      Amazingly, it's not laughable, despite the fact that they're puppets with ca-razily obvious strings, and the opening credits show Supercar diving "under the ocean," or, more specifically, being dangled behind an aquarium filled with goldfish. It's just BO-RING. It's fucking marionettes having long discussions while sitting. The first episode was 10% rescuing a man, a whiny boy, and a monkey from a life raft, and 90% testing fucking Supercar. "The lateral blah-diddy-blah is overheating the gorgonzola unit! BLAH DIDDY BLAH!" And the monkey was so immediately irritating that I wanted to kill it. YES, I said it, I HATE THE MONKEY! It's a pretty bad show if I hate the monkey. Well, in my defense, it's a puppet monkey, which doesn't count against my general love of obnoxious primates.
      I've made it 10 minutes into episode 2, which revolves around the monkey getting sick. Let the monkey DIE. Man, I expected that Supercar was going to suck, but I didn't expect to actively hate it.

      Stupid Comics buys a box of comics and finds a bad comics legend, Krypto and the SPCA. Maddeningly short for me, as I've wanted to read the full story since I heard about it 15 years ago in "The World's Worst Comics" series. "World's Worst" also made me aware of a comic book titled "Tod Holton."

8/21
      

AREA DENIAL WEAPONS AWAY!
airborne sanitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . bombing attack
area denial weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . cluster bombs
sanitizing the area . . . . . . . . . bombing everything
--Pentagon definitions

      Speaking of cluster bombs, why do I always get these clusters of unexpected expenses bombing my bank account? They all arrive at once--a new tire, a replacement refrigerator, tickets for the Hartford showing of Python's Spamalot (no, that is not a luxury. Dammit, I'm going!). And now, a memory stick blowing out in the main computer. Because it's always a memory stick.
      That was $65 at Best Buy. I took an old stick from the computer and put in the nice meaty new 512K one. The computer did what it did 4 days ago, just eternally boot. I took out the other one. Same thing.
      Well, Emergacomp! runs slow, so let's put it in there. I pulled a stick out and discovered that it had a completely different number of pins. Sighing, I put the stick back in and booted it up.
      beep beep beep said Emergacomp! and that was it. Not a single pixel appeared on the monitor. After much checking (had I put the stick back in correctly?) it was clear that it was even deader than the main computer.
      I went up the street to see if it could be fixed at the same place I'd bought it from, Kaplan Computers. When I saw that I could get a much more robust machine for a "mere" $129 (cluster bomb!), I went with that. "It comes with Windows installed, right?" I asked. "Of course it does" was the answer.
      "No, I don't!" insisted Emergacomp! Jr. I got an Intel screen that read "No Operating System," followed by what appeared to be a graphic of a hopscotch game. I found a Win98 disc, but the computer wouldn't run it. So back to Kaplan I went. "Oh, those IBMs? No, none have Windows installed. Putting that in will be another day, and cost $100. " The COMPUTER barely costs that! "All I want is something that I can run right away." I spent $20 more for a Dell with Win2000 on it.
      The first thing I did was try an establish a net connection. The DSL connected immediately, but when I went to configure it--Wait, there's no way that can be correct. I kept trying, then after 20 minutes I gave up, popped it open and discovered that, yes, it had no modem. The computer I bought in 1994 had a modem! (2800 bps, but it had a modem) I didn't ask them if it did because--well, it's like asking if it has a mouse port.
      At this point Kaplan was closed. I rechecked Emergacomp! the First, and discovered that one the sticks wasn't fully seated in the slot. And this time it didn't fail to boot while going beep! It didn't beep. It's dead.
      In act of the purest blind optimism that only a true net junkie might try, I hooked up the main computer. Sure, it didn't boot after 10 minutes of an endless loop of booting, but I'd never run it longer than that, now had I? At any rate, I might see that too-brief-to-read error message enough times to write it down.
      Guess which computer I'm on. Physician, you healed thyself.
      So now I still have 2 computers that are worthless to me. One is dead, and, without a modem, the other might as well be. I'll go there tomorrow and see what they say. If the main computer fails again, I'm still going to need a backup. I'm hoping that they aren't dicks about it, but the guy I bought my fridge from was one. And my economic life's a big clusterfuck lately.

      While it's not as good as the lamentedly long-dead Baltimore City Paper's "Funny Pages"--and what could be?--there's still plenty of fine snarkin' on the strips to be found at the Comics Curmudgeon.

8/22
      

SLIPS, FREUDIAN
There is no list, and Syria isn’t on it.
--British foreign minister Jack Straw

      Yes, my main computer still works. If I allow it to boot for a full 30 minutes. Maybe I'll just leave it on all the time...

      Huh. I thought that I'd stumbled across this by my lonesome, but it's turned up on more than one Major Site. They all seem to be missing the unspoken conclusion--When global warming leaves winters so mild that they don't kill off the yellowjackets, they form into hives with multiple queens, a hundred thousand vicious drones, and make nests that are literally the size of a '55 Chevy.
      Remember those pictures you saw of prehistoric life in grade school science class, when the dragonflies were 3 feet long and the spiders were the size of dogs? They only grew that big because of the excessive amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. While I enjoyed that old '50s monster movie about giant ants THEM! and laughed at the killer bee crapfest that was The Swarm, I really don't want to experience those scenarios.

8/23
      

GEE, THOSE FRENCH GOURMETS THINK OF EVERYTHING!
CHOCOLATE CLAM CHOWDER
--from a restaurant menu in France

8/24
      

DIFFERENCES, SIMILAR
Serena Williams played some great shots, but so did I, and that was the only difference.
--tennis player Jennifer Capriati

      Kill Kill was Chill Chillin' in her box, when Byron came over and began sniffing her head. Red Alert! Sometimes he gives her little kisses, but usually he clamps his jaws onto her neck. Male cats do that to females when mating to keep them from moving while doing the deed. Apparently, instinct keeps her from trying to get away when he does this, so she howls to me for help.
      But he moved from the back of her head to the side of her face. Aww, he's going to be sweet! Then he bit down on the whiskers on the left side of her face and tried to yank them off. She shrieked, and I threw a bamboo back scratcher to startle him away. Oh, he got a time-out for that one, tossed into the bedroom with the door mainly closed. As he's as good at opening doors as he is locking me outside them, he worked his out after a while.
      He's a handful because the only way to discipline a cat is verbally, and he don't hear so good. Or maybe he just needs an exorcist.

      The top ten stupidest As Seen on TV products. The dumbest I ever saw was retracted so quickly, it must've sold zero units. It took me years before I found someone who verified seeing the ad themselves; all my friends thought that I was nuts. It was the Ronco Salad Washer. It seemed to be a blender with the blades replaced with a single metal pole with two 90-degree turns. One threw one's lettuce into the sink, turned on the faucet, and the Salad Washer swished it around for you. Because it was too time-consuming and labor-intensive to throw salad in a colander and rinse it.
      sigh You don't believe me either, do you?

8/25
      

TURNS OF PHRASE, UNFORTUNATE
Reverend John, who is living with an openly gay partner, is no doubt feeling rather sore today.
--newscaster Paul Handley
      Umm...Stupidest Things Calendar, I don't get it. He's gay and feels sore? Is it supposed to be some anal sex joke? Or is it because Reverend John is from Texas, and got dragged behind a pickup truck before being strung up on a barbed-wire fence to die in agony? I dunno, doesn't strike me as funny either way.

8/26
      

WE’RE NOT QUITE SURE WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS . . .
Is the water in the toilets salty or fresh?
--question asked of a cruise ship purser

      Fundamentalist Christianity makes you fat. Just sayin'.

      Apparently Byron lives on the top of the refrigerator now.

8/27
      

NOT-TOO-PLEASANT ASPECTS OF BEING A PARK RANGER
Avoid the traffic by using one of the park’s shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.
--from a Rocky Mountain National Park newsletter

      Seems I'm Google's top hit for cake from WWII doe bot spoil! I'm probably the top hit for other randomly garbled nonsense, too!

8/28
      

RACING COMMENTATORS WHO REALLY KNOW THEIR STUFF
Mansell is slowing it down, taking it easy. Oh no he isn’t! It’s a lap record!
--racing commentator Murray Walker

      The first season of The Tick comes out on Tuesday! I would've mentioned it earlier, but I wanted to make sure that my copy was Netflixed first.
      Speaking of brilliant cartoons I've just Netflixed, the Boondocks is unbelievably great.

      We're entering that part of the year in New England when the corn mazes start being created. Here's one in the shape of...umm, The French Chef. Y'okay.

8/29
      

SPACE CADETS, GUBERNATORIAL
My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state, ah, we have the sons and daughters of people from every planet, of every country on earth, in this state.
--California governor Gray Davis (thanks to Dario Impini)

9/3
      Well, hopefully that ends my longest unplanned sabbatical from the web. I'll tell the torturous story tomorrow; right now, here's a deluge of Stupidest Things Ever Said entries:
      

INTRIGUING AWARD CATEGORIES
AREA MAN WINS AWARD FOR NUCLEAR ACCIDENT
--actual newspaper headline      

BEN FRANKLIN, LITTLE KNOWN TV-WATCHING HABITS OF

Ben Stein, host of Win Ben Stein’s Money: In Ben Franklin’s kite flying experiment, what object was tied to the string of the kite?
Contestant: It was the antenna of his house.

JUST WHAT KIND OF JOB IS THIS?!?

IDEALLY YOU WILL BE OF GRADUATE CALIBER WITH AT LEAST TWO YEARS’ EXPERIENCE IN PUBIC RELATIONS.
--classified ad for the Telegraph Group
COME AGAIN?
We do not know when he is coming. He is coming tomorrow.
--conductor Eugene Ormandy
THE NYC DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, TYPICAL
SCOOL X-ING
--sign painted on street by the New York City Department of Transportation

      Here's at least one link I couldn't upload during my enforced absence: Psychotic Leisure Music, a new blog by my real-life friend Kevin. There are downloads of out-of-print albums ranging in style from anime soundtracks to 50s lounge music and everything inbetween. It's new, so there's not that much there.
      Trust me: Kev is positively OCD about getting perfect, pristine mp3s, so if a title interests you, it'll be well worth the download. He also has interesting commentary for each one.

9/3
      WHAT AN INTERESTING WAY OF PUTTING IT

And if one of those jobs are created, we must have a system which trains people for the jobs which actually exist.
--President George W. Bush, discussing employment training

      When we last left things, I had 2 functioning computers: one which required a half-hour to boot, and a refurbished one that had no modem, which kinda didn't matter as I couldn't find my DSL install disc, despite looking everywhere. I called Yahoo DSL and requested a new one, which was to arrive in "7 to 10 days." So I just kept the old computer always running.
      That was a good strategy, until last Wednesday. It had developed this odd desire to close Netscape windows by itself, but it started doing it in earnest that night (and Earnest didn't like that). Then it decided to close the Explorer window. For ten minutes. Then it decided to send an error report with the window still unusable, but open. After sending the error report, it sent the error report. Having done that, it began sending a third error report on the still-open window.
      Then it started opening Netscape windows, apparently picking sites from my bookmarks utterly at random. They were like pop-up ads on a porn site, opening as fast as I'd close them. I had about 10 open at one point, and I couldn't actually look at anything I wanted to read. So I rebooted, and prepared for another 30 minutes of whirring hard drives.
      Instead I was greeted by something about an error in \windows\system 32\config\system\, and an unreadable HD. And that was the end of that night's surfing.
      It said something about putting in the original system disc and hitting "r," but I don't have that disc. Kevin built this computer for me, and either he has it, or he bought the HD with XP already installed. I looked for it anyway, as I'm like that. And found my Yahoo DSL disc. I guess I hadn't looked everywhere; I'd neglected to look in the CD holder that held all the discs from the first computer I'd bought that had a CD-ROM drive. It was right between copies of my Juno freemail service and the CD-ROM magazine "Blender" (remember that?), which had a cover article on the Tick cartoon and was from 1996. With nothing better to do, I installed the program, with plans on buying a modem the next day.
      Tried to install, anyway. It kept freezing up while looking for a file called Enternet. I gave up; there was no point calling Yahoo without a modem. I then watched--coincidentally--my Netflixed copy of the first volume of the Tick cartoon that had arrived that day.
      The next day, I bought a modem at Radio Shack. I called Yahoo when the software wouldn't load. The techie seemed baffled that the Enternet file was simply missing off of the disc. He gave me a dial-up number to download it from their site.
      So I put in the modem and succesfully installed it. But not successfully enough that this refurbished piece of shit I'd bought from Kaplan Computers would let me use it. It was there all right, but "not functioning." Pretty obviously, the problems with the software and the modem were because of the computer. I was startig to understand why the page had received a Google hit for kaplan computers complaint rip sucks a day before the crash. I spent the rest of the night watching the remaining Tick episodes, then going to bed early and taking a Benadryl to make sure I slept.
      Fuck it, I said the next day, and did what I should've done in the first place: rather than waste $149 on a refurbished doorstop, I went to Best Buy and bought an eMachine. It was $300, vs $149 for something that I can't return, only try to sell back to Kaplan. That place that had told me that the first computer I'd bought from them had an OS (it didn't) and the one I traded it for I could use to immediately connect to the net (with no modem, or any hope of having one). That's like going to the grocery store and asking for juice for your kids, and having the clerk sell you a jug of antifreeze.
      All I wanted was the computer, but it was $5 cheaper as a package with a flat-screen monitor. But I was on drugs. The Benadryl made me feel like I had a mind made of mud all that day, so I just bought the computer. Hours later, when the mental fog finally cleared, I realized how stupid that was. Hey, Bill, remember the time the monitor croaked 10 minutes before Staples closed, and you rushed there and spent $200 on a new one? Wouldn't it be a good idea to keep a spare for the next time that happens, and just walk to the garage and get one for negative five dollars?
      Unlike the stuff from Kaplan Computers, the eMachine worked just fine. It connected me to my ISP without me even needing the Yahoo software! But it was slow. Really slow. The virtual memory was used up even just browsing the web, and I had to reboot every 60-90 minutes. I can't believe that these are designed for people who've never used a computer before. If it was my first computer, I would've been back at Best Buy the next day, thinking it was defective.
      I still had that memory stick that didn't revive my old computer. The BB salesman told me I'd need DDR memory, and by an utter fluke, that's what I'd mistakenly bought. Luck at last! I installed it, and computer did nothing. It was like it was unplugged. Maybe there's more than one type of DDR memory? I was going back there to see if I could get the monitor anyway, so I'd find out then. I took the stick out, the eMachine booted and at least I was online. Unfortunately, my bookmarks were saved on a floppy disk, an eMachines don't come with those, so I was up till 3AM trying to remember my old bookmarks and Googling them.
      The next day I brought the floppy to work, as we had more than one computer with an A: drive. I could just attach it to an email to myself. The downstairs computer wouldn't read the disc. Co-worker Dave tried a floppy of his own, and it still didn't work. The upstairs computer did the same thing, even with a disc we had used to import files to it just 18 months ago. I just had no damn luck with anything.
      Yesterday I went to Best Buy. The sales change weekly, so I could only get the package deal on the eMachine that was current. And it no longer came with the flat-panel monitor. It came with a CRT monitor and a printer (which I don't have) AND it was $40 cheaper! Luck at last! So I pushed my big cart with all this stuff that was going to cost me literally less than nothing over to the Geek Squad counter. The Squadder looked up what kind of memory I needed, and walked--somewhat reluctantly--the 20 feet to the memory department to help me find it. "Here's one that's 512 megs..." "512 is what I want! Thank you!" I exchanged it at the returns desk. It was $20 more than the one I was returning, so, a bit of a downgrade to the overall luck.
      At home, I took my first look at the memory card. It was THIS SMALL. WTF?! I read the package for the first time--SODIMM memory?! Even I know that's for notebooks! It also describes the Geek Squadder--so very dim.
      I took the short drive back to BB, although with gas prices, even a short trip is an expensive one. The same customer service woman from my last series of returns helped me, and was very apologetic. I think she thought that I was going to be an asshole about it, but, hey, the guy made a mistkae. In fact, I just accidentally made one in spelling. Sure, it was a bit like someone asking me at the likker store for nonalcohlic wine and me giving them Mad Dog, but maybe the guy used to work for Kaplan Computers. I asked a different Geek (I made sure of that) what memory I REALLY needed. And the pegs for DDR 3200 PC memory were empty. Oh Gourd, this means how many more trips here? I was about to ask dejectedly that question that so annoys retail workers ("Do you have any more--in back?" Because, no, we do not keep the shelves empty and the storeroom full), when I noticed in the next section a pile of 4 security boxes of memory, each of a wildly different kind. I guess that someone had picked up 5 of them, asked a clerk which one was the correct one, then just plopped it down. And third down...DDR 3200. The last in the store. I was ready to DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) in the aisles myself at this point. I double-checked that I had the right one, found out that it was $20 cheaper than the SODIMM, and once again headed home.
      Once again I carefully plugged it in. The monitor flashed "New Memory Detected" and began to boot. Huzzah! And began to boot. And began to boot...
      Aaarrggh! AGAIN they sold me the wrong one? Has Kaplan taken over the world? I unplugged the machine, removed it, and rebooted. And rebooted. AND REBOOTED...Now I've got a fourth dead computer?
      I'll let it run for 10 minutes, I said, and spent that 10 getting my shoes, keys and wallet, and collecting up everything I needed to return the whole damn monkey. I unplugged it to reattach the side panel, and noticed--What's this plastic tab up for? click Somehow in plugging in the new stick, I'd slightly unplugged the original one. The computer booted. I turned it off and put in the 512 stick, and--nothing! Like that first wrong DDR stick! It was like the computer was unplugged!
      Oh, wait, it still is unplugged. Umm, heh heh.
      So now I have a reasonably effective computer. It's still not over yet--I have to try and resell the junker back to Kaplan, figure out what's wrong with my old computer, and if it's truly dead, see if I can swap out the 3.5 drive and second HD (the one with years of accumulated good stuff I was to lazy to burn to CDRs off of), and hook up the printer. Sure, how hard could hooking up a printer be? If the last 3 weeks are any indication, even the easiest thing can find a way to make itself hard.

9/5
      

ON SECOND THOUGHT, JUST BRING ME A GLASS OF WATER . . .
FLESH JUICE
HOT COKE
MINCED PORK DATE SHAKE
--beverages offered at Chinese and Japanese restaurants

      Yesterday I said "Even the easiest thing can find a way to make itself hard." Today I went to Kaplan Computers to try to sell them back that lemon computer. I was well past the 7-day return policy, thanks to me losing the Yahoo DSL disc (and when Yahoo says they'll send you something in "7 to 10 days," I'm currently on Day 14 and haven't seen the new disc). NO EXCEPTIONS! says the receipt, which I didn't bother to bring. I'm not one to be a jerk to my fellow retailers, or expect to have the rules changed just for me. I explained why I didn't want it, and the Kaplan guy said that that was a warranty issue, and if I had the receipt, they'd refund the whole sale. In fact, he was willing to do it WITHOUT the receipt, but he could only find a record of the first computer I'd bought in their files. On the drive home, I realized that the clerk who twice sold me the wrong computer hadn't refunded the first one and rerung the second, he'd just charged me the difference. After a panicked search for the receipt (it was still in the pocket of the shirt I'd worn to Best Buy), I had my money back. Amazing! Clearly, like my vicissitudes trying to buy memory at BB, the problem wasn't the business, but the clerk I'd had the misfortune to be "helped" by. I'd take my business to Kaplan again--I just hope that it'll be a long time before I need to.

      Funny: If FOX News.com had existed in 1776.

      Interesting: A look inside The Undeclared Secure Location.

JACUZZIS, NEW USES FOR
Can we borrow a couple of—um—beef patties? Your dad’s gonna fire up the jacuzzi.
--actress on TV show Early Edition

      Table reserved for WILLIAM YOUNG and guest
      William, learn how to make money online using eBay, Yahoo, Google, MSN
      and others at this FREE Conference!
      FREE! Business Organizer A $39.99 Value!
      This FREE Premier Dining Package is valued at over $120
      FREE Lunch or dinner!
      FREE Business Organizer!
      FREE Admission for two!
      And much more!

      WOO! All those FREE! goodies and random capitalization sounds almost too good to be true!
      It was on its way to the recycling bin when I noticed that the dates fall over my vacation. Mayhap I shall go to this "90 minute seminar" after all. As my guest, I shall find one of skid row's finest. Surely he'll appreciate a free meal. And a business organizer.
      It's recommended by not one but two Vice Presidents of...of...umm, well, it says "Internet Income Training" on the front top of the letter--yes, this is snail mail, not spam--well, spam, maybe, but it has a physical form--and "Internet Marketing Conference" on the back bottom of the letter. Huh. There doesn't seem to be any agreement on the name of this company, on the same piece of paper.
      It's nice paper, though! It's really slick!
      Vice President One is named C. Rex Sanders. VP2 is named C. Kevin Oliver. Man, if it's going to involve people with the first name "C," couldn't at least one of them be C. Martin "Voice of Zorak" Croker?
      If your parents gave you a sucky enough first name that you shortened it to an initial, why wouldn't you just drop the initial and go with the middle name? Going by a first initial is like a combover--nobody notices a bald guy, but a combover just draws attention to itself. Especially when the name you prefer is Rex. Were your parents really hoping for a dog? Do you have a brother named Fido?
      And then people just wonder what the initial stands for: Cocksucker? Cholera? Cooties? Chia Pet? Cavid Casslehoff? Cexplosive Chiarrhea? Combover?
      Seriously, I'd change the first initial to T. Then I'd be T. Rex Sanders! I'd sound like I eat Kentucky Fried HUMANS!
      Interestingly enough, this is what you get when you Google "C. Rex Sanders." Don't bother to click; you get squat. Almost as if--it's a fake name!
      I've got a couple of weeks to make up my mind. I assume that they're waving the carrot of a free East Hartford Holiday Inn dinner of rubber chicken and some slave-labor-made craptastic "business organizer" (it comes with a pencil!!!) in order to stick me out of some money. But the thing smells so rank that I think that after the free glass of water at the start of the meal, I'd wake up in a bathtub full of ice.
      What would you do?
      Actually, you'd do what I just did, and Google the other VP, C. Wayne Gacy, and find this. Yep. Scam-o-rama.

      Hey, waitaminnit! Who sold these sleazeballs my home address?

9/7
      

REPLACEABLE IRREPLACEABLE HOCKEY PLAYERS
He is the man who has been brought on to replace Pavel Nedved. The irreplaceable Pavel Nedved.
--sportscaster Clyde Tyldesley

9/8
      

HOW TO DRIVE A LIBRARIAN CRAZY
• I got a quote from a book I turned in last week but I forgot to write down the author and title. It’s big and red, and I found it on the top shelf. Can you find it for me?
• Do you have books here?
--actual questions asked of librarians

      If you're a fan of Half-Life, Kev has the original 1998 soundtrack as a download.

9/9
      

WE RUN AWAY FROM STORE
WE MAKE HOLE IN EARS WITH GUN
--sign advertising ear piercing, in a shop in Mussoorie, India

9/10
      

“BUT, SHAQ—WHAT ABOUT C SQUARED?”
Our offense is like the Pythagorean theorem: There is no answer!
--basketball player Shaquille O’Neal

9/11
      

ETHICAL EXCUSES BY SENATORS CAUGHT SPENDING THEIR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS ON THEIR CAR DEALERSHIPS
I don’t know every damned thing in that ethics law.
--South Carolina state senator Robert Ford, accused of the unethical practice of using campaign money for non-campaign purposes—namely mailing ads for his car dealership in Charleston

9/12
      

DALAI LAMA, MOVE OVER!
People all over the world recognize me as a spiritual leader.
--action film star Steven Seagal, on his Buddhist faith

9/13
      

CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT DEPARTMENT
Family Fortunes host (UK): We asked 100 people what a girl should know about a man before she marries him. Lynn, what would you say?
Contestant: His name.

      Star Trek and the Holy Grail

      Almost as funny: Burger Chef and Jeff, 1974.
      There was a Burger Chef in my college town of Oberlin, OH back in '78, a time that surely encompassed the height of the Munchies Era. And yet, it never seemed to have a lot of business...But take a look at the unappetizingly-presented food here, and I think we can guess why Burger Chef has gone the way of the dinosaurs.
      What's better? The adverb/adjective/random wordsmash "INCREDABURGERLY!" or the news that "We still sell them ready to eat!" As opposed to McDonalds, where they hand you a bun and a chainsaw and give you directions to the nearest slaughterhouse. Or is it Burger Chef's serial-killer fake laugh?

9/14
      

“WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .”
We note with regret that Mrs. Calhoun is recuperating from an automobile accident.
--from the Florida Baptist Witness

9/15
      

RéSUMéS THAT JUST DON’T WOW US
• Exposure to German for two years, but many words are inappropriate for business.
• Accomplishments: Completed 11 years of high school.
--portions of actual résumés

9/17
      

MUSICALS MOST UNLIKE THE SOUND OF MUSIC
“INCREDIBLE is the word for the world’s first monster musical! See in magnificent Eastman color—the DARING DANCING, enticing and horrifying—The INCREDIBLY Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!! Who is the woman branded in birth, wearing the wart of horror?”
--promo for The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, 1964

      CLARIFICATIONS, REALLY INSIGHTFUL

We are going to freeze auto insurance rates. That won’t lower them and it won’t higher them.

9/18
      

SLOGANS THAT JUST DON’T QUITE WORK
WE TRY OUR BEST TO DECREASE YOUR LIFE
--slogan on shop, China

      Here's some video clips from The Physics of Superheroes PowerPoint. The guy is as nerdy looking as you'd expect, but he's also quite funny. I wish could see the whole presentation, not just a few clips.

      What your musical tastes tell about your personality. People who like rap are more likely to commit a crime, huh, who saw that coming? You can take part in the study by filling out this survey. It's Anglocentric, and mentions many musical styles I've never heard of, let alone heard. And I spent 6 years working in record stores. It gets points for seperating classical music into different genres, but loses them when ambient and trance are lumped under the umbrella "Dance/Electronica."

      Reason We Invaded Iraq du Jour: Rummy the Dummy says it's because if we hadn't, gas prices would be high. What? I remember more than one rightwing coworker claim before the invasion, "Do you know how cheap gas will be when we win?" It was $3.20 a gallon a month ago.
      Rumsfeld also claims that Iraq would've used all those windfall profits to help Iran build nuclear weapons. Goodness gracious, yes! Why wouldn't they want their MORTAL ENEMY to be able to nuke Baghdad? It's no different than how Israel is giving suitcase nukes to Hamas! It's just good strategic thinkafication!

9/19
      

MOBSTERS, SAD FACTS ABOUT
The people who join the mob now . . . don’t have the values their predecessors had.
--Ronald Goldstock, New York State Organized Crime Task Force

The selection was cancelled the day before. That was my big hope for tomorrow, but obviously, that didn't happen.
I went, sat there for 4 hours, and then everyone was told to leave. Apparently they'd decided to settle out of court. That's my next best hope.
I sat there for 8 and 8 & 1/2 hours the next 2 times. They eventually read off a list of people who could leave. I was on the list. Alphabetically, of course. I may change my name to Aardvark.
Everyone but me on the lists fled the courtroom as soon as they heard their name. I stayed to fill out a form that earned me a fucking whopping 20 bucks for turning up--and a "Get Out of Jury Duty Free for Three Years" card. I used that for my last one.

9/20
      

LIKE, IT IS?
No, 23 is old. It’s almost 25, which is, like, almost mid twenties.
--singer Jessica Simpson

      When I first got home, Byron was sitting up in the front window, staring wide-eyed and fixedly at a point in the distance. Oh, wait, no he wasn't--he was asleep sitting up with his eyes open. Never seen him do both at the same time before. When he awoke, I invited him to explore the garage with me, and tried my best to get Killsy to come, too. I gave up after she hissed at me.
      Byron spent 75 minutes down there before I got so bored that him picked up and carried him screeching into the common hallway (he was the one screeching). I got him upstairs, and Kill Kill popped out into the hallway. Maybe now she wanted to try the garage? She stopped halfway down, so I went outside to get the mail and zip she was out the door. After the attempt at vehicular homicide on Byron, I don't want either of them out there. She clearly had decided that she was Dora the Explorer, but after 5 minutes I got her back inside. She still wouldn't go into the nice safe garage. While we'd been out, Byron had come outside, knocking the propped-open door shut in the process. Fortunately, this time he hadn't locked it. I still didn't have the mail, so I snuck out as he tried to follow me. He was screaming at the door when I got back, wanting to go into the damn garage again. Sorry, that invitation is closed for today.
      Back home, Killsy went uncharacteristically bonkers, running around and jumping on things. Byron decided to climb on a rack of dishes (filled with glasses) and used those thumbs to pop the cabinet door open. He then proceeded to climb in there and fling the tub of catnip to the floor. Jeez, all you had to was ask. I gave them some, which they both ate. I wish I'd grabbed the camera, as KK made a ridiculous anteater face while she lapped it up with her tongue. When Byron was done, he opened the cabinet again, so I gave them more nip. He ignored it; he just wanted to open the cabinet a third time. I was only able to finally calm them down with a documentary on luxury RVs. Actually, they continued to act crazy, until I had a dinner of tuna salad and gave them all the tuna water. Comfort food puts them to sleep.

      Presidential Thunderdome: Dubya vs FDR.

      The type of story that brings a smile to your face and a lump to your throat: Siblings seperated 65 years ago by the Holocaust reunited. And it's further proof that the Internet is the greatest thing ever.

      The complete article from (of all magazines) GQ is linked to at the end, but maybe only people from Connecticut will want to read it. For the rest of you, here's excerpts from it, on Lieberman's truly inept campaign.

      Lieberman: "You mean about the Bush screwups?”
      Reporter: “Yeah, and that history will judge them harshly. That sounds new.”
      “Yeah, you know, I do say it, but, I don’t know, it’s interesting. I—we may look back at this—” He stops again and laughs bitterly....
      The most fascinating thing in politics is the intersection between a grave policy question and an individual leader’s personality. In my opinion, there’s a major psychodrama playing out in Joe’s head about Iraq. He aborts every sentence that implies a concession that he made a mistake. It’s like his conscience starts to get just a bit ahead of his pride, and then the hubris races to catch up and tackles the concession midsentence.

9/22
      

“NO, I THINK IT WAS ERYTHROMYCIN MCNABB”
Game show host: Which Scotsman discovered penicillin in 1928?
Contestant: Alexander Penicillin?

COUNTING PROBLEMS
[My biggest sex fantasy] is a threesome with a mother and her two twins.
--NY Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey

      Ha ha! No we won't.
      And it was a beautiful day to go, plenty of sun and Orb-like Little Fluffy Clouds. It was smaller than I imagined it. But it was gorgeous, a crazy structure made of local rocks and cement, and lavishly appointed on the inside. It cost a million dollars to make in 1912-19, but was willed to family members who couldn't afford the property tax, and sold to the state for $30K in 1942 (in modern dollars, it would cost $20 miilion to build, and then was sold for $335,000, or what a good-sized house on an acre of land sells for in this insanely expensive state).
      William Gillette became rich performing as Sherlock Holmes on the stage, and this was his modest retirement bungalow. He was also its architect. The intricately-carved doors all had complex wooden locks more suited to a puzzle box than a house, and features designed to accomodate his cats. He never had less than 12 a time. I like this guy!
      And what a site. It's on a commanding view Beside The Great Tidal River (the translation of the Mohegan Indian word "Quinnehtukqut," aka "Connecticut," don'tcha know). After the tour, I followed a trail down to the Connecticut River. Despite living here for 47 years, I think that this is the first time that I've ever been on the shore of it. I found a souvenir for Byron, a waterfowl feather. Maybe he and Killsy would've preferred what I found next, a freshly dead catfish. The gentle waters were full of minnows and something that looked exactly like earthworms, but couldn't be, as they weren't drowning.
      At the gift shop I bought a dandy snowglobe and a beanbag of one of Gillette's favorite cats, a girl who was all white.
      I thought that it would take me about 45 minutes to get there, but it was 55 minutes, and I got stuck in an early traffic jam and almost ran out of gas...Umm, this isn't a very interesting post, is it? Well, I had fun.