NEW 111

"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."--Kahlil Gibran

9/26/12

      I haven't updated because I really have no updates. Well, you could get off your lazy ass and spend 30 seconds signing a petition to save cats.

      Check out this season's Comments pic.

      Look at the endless joy on that toddler's face! It's either the cameraman yelling "I said LOOK LIKE IT'S FUN! LOOK FUN!" for take number 54, or he's got his pull-up pants down around his ankles and has a different concept of what they told him about the tank's "ammo dump."

       The folders that somebody in the early 90s thought that they could eventually retire on.

      9/27

      "Democrats feel your pain. Republicans inflict it."--Bill in Portland Maine

      Deleted scene from The Avengers that explains something I'd wondered since seeing Captain America: What happened to Agent Carter, the woman he loved 70 years ago? Note: kinda depressing. Kinda inspiring. Love abides.

      

      

      9/28

      I was worried if the new owner (son of the current owner) would be changed from when he was a part timer. Now the store is his sole source of income. I remember when I was in my mid-20s like he is, and just a manager of a toy store. It was "Go to work open to close, go home and go to sleep, go back to work another 12&1/2 hours." Today was typical of his work regimen:      Not exactly the workaholic I once was. But not the incredibley douchey assfuck screaming shithead angry drunk someone else is, so I'm sure I can live with the slower pace.

      Cartoon: Willard's World.

      20 New Titles for Children's Books (Based Entirely on Their Covers).

      9/29

      I'm not sure if it's worse that The Clash is now played on the oldies station, or if a coworker half my age thought that the chorus to their big hit was "Rob the Cash Bar."

      Speed! Thrills! Suspense! Red Muffler Flapping in the Wind!

      

      

      9/30

      

      

      10/1

      10/2

      Ms Killsy gave her "I would scritchies, please" meow, so I grabbed the backscratcher and asked "Would you like scritchies?" And she responded with a meow that could only mean "Well, duh!" which was a tad rude.
      I dutifully scratched her back and the OH GOD ran into to the bathroom to puke. Yes, it's one of those posts again.
      She bolted for another room, given how much she's been exposed to the dreaded sounds of Young's Syndrome in the past. After my third run to the toilet, I just said Fuck It and kept a plastic bowl next to me. Fellow vomting enthusiast Byron was fascinated. DJ eventually decided he'd had enough and joined the other hearing cat in the living room.
      Three and a half hours of horking so far!

      In less gastrointestinal news, yesterday I rewatched for the first time in probably over 10 years Rock N' Roll High School (link goes to Network Awesome's main page, as otherwise it starts playing immediately). It's still funny, largely because it's like an old 60s rock musical or beach party movie about the unlikeliest of bands, the Ramones. Well, DEVO would've been more unlikely (and they were considered for it). The Ramones, admit it, are pretty skeevy looking, and it's funny to hear the female lead gush "Joey Ramone is so cute!" And they don't break character, saying next to nothing and never smiling, and yet people react to them like they're teen idols, such as fellow puker Justin Bieber.

      10/3

      You can lose a pound a day! Just vomit endlessly and not eat because you know that it's all comin' up anyway! Those bulimics are on to something!
      I brushed my teeth before bed last night, as WHO WOULDN'T after 4 hours of puking? Of course, my old Young's Syndrome left me with the most reflexive gag reflex ever, so the barfing kicked in so bad that I didn't have time to move the 18 inches from the sink to the toilet, and just hurled it all in the sink. Sanitary! And this was the real deal: my recently swallowed heart meds and all the stomach acid my digestive tract was using on them, right out my mouth. Repeatedly.
      Of course, you get the benefit of having your esophagus burned to a crisp, and I'm sure stomach acid is really great for the smile--so I'd say stay away from bulimia. Maybe just try eating vegetarian once or twice a week; that loses weight better.

      Funny coincidence that today's Stupidest Things Ever Said quote is from Keanu Reeves, as my Netflix for the day off was A Scanner Darkly. Which is all about drug addicts in the sci-fi Near Future okay maybe not. Just drug addicts and what I guess was crack, the endless War on Drugs, and the US prison system. It suffered from a weak second act, which had no reason not to be set in the current day, and the Big Third Act Reveals would only be surprising to people on drugs, although I was thankful that "Hooray, the plot is back!" It was actually better in the first act, when it clearly was just "what it's like to be around pathetic drug addicts, without actually being around them." It was done in the semi-cartoon, rotoscoped style of director Richard Linklater used for a while, and starring such clean & sober actors as Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey Jr. I don't think they had to do any major research into their roles. Well, I think that during his takes Downey had a lot of research up his sinuses.
      Kinda not sure whether this is a thumbs up or not, but it sure beat puking! And it was based on a book by Philip K. Dick, and the "K" stands for "Konstantly drug-addicted paranoid schizophrenic," so was the other K, Keanu, turning up today JUST A KOINCIDENCE OR IS THAT WHAT THEY WANT ME TO THINK?!?!
      ...I think I need some drugs.

      Nina Paley, director/animator of Sita Sings the Blues, has a new short about a certain section of land. The one with Jerusalem in it, and thus so important to every sane person in the world. It's the other guys who are crazy!

      

      

      10/4

      10/6

      

      10/7

      Another long but interesting look at a justly forgotten show biz fringe "entertainer" by Kliph Nesteroff, The Comedian Who Became a Joke. But who was always a creep and a jerk. "Maybe if Bert talked about his wife and how she suffered that crazy patella fracture they'd listen. And the earlobe? Christ, how the hell did an earlobe get severed from his wife's head in the middle of a show last month? How does something like that happen? Such thoughts distract everyone as they watch him joking, sweating, bombing."

      10/8

      10/9

      Seen yesterday on Network Awesome, Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, a stop-motion kids' film by Rankin-Bass, the same people who made the Rudolph Xmas special. Made the following year, in fact. So why do you have Rudolph nearly memorized, but know nothing of Willy's wonderful, whimsical world of jaw-dropping racism?
      I think I answered my own question. It wasn't just as racist as a 1965 kiddie movie could get, it was gratuitously racist. They went out of their way. The villain, the subtly named Professor von Rotten, teaches a monkey to speak English. And wear a sombrero and speak in an outrageous "Mexican" accent that would embarass the Frito Bandito. Why would you teach a monkey to speak English with an accent that you don't have? Are all monkeys Mexicans, or vice versa? If the monkey was from Mexico...it learned Spanish first?
      At least the monkey was a good guy. Von Rotten (says Meximonkey: "He was one pretty nice fellow, if you like mad professors" which is the closest thing to a working intentional joke in the movie) built a time machine, with the goal of making himself famous by doing things in history before the people famous for doing them did, because no one could ever get famous for being the first person to teach monkeys to speak ESL. But he doesn't count on Senor Koko, who steals both the plans for the time machine and the list of events the Prof wants to change. He takes it to rocket scientists at Nasa advanced researchers at DARPA the first little boy he can find. Willy instantly builds his own time machine, because apparently a TARDIS is like a school science fair baking soda volcano, easily constructed from common household items. Also, given the jittery stop-motion, Willy is on meth.
      The Prof's first goal is to replace Buffalo Bill as the world's most famous gunfighter, which is like replacing P.T. Barnum as the world's most famous bearded lady. Bill is presented as a semi-literate Southern hick moron, probably alienating half of the film's target audience of racists. His sidekick is Sitting Bull, and if you think him talkum like Tonto with tomahawk lodged in forebrain, you be-um right, paleface. They sing a tuneless song about show biz, because kids' movies need a plethora of filler. The Prof challenges Bill to a duel, but Willy, Monkey and Sitting Bull intervene. "Me don't care if crazy white men kill each other, but show must go on!" It's called dedication to your craft, people, even if it's as a sideshow attraction.
      Next stop: Columbus! And I saw it on Columbus Day, what are the odds. Columbus, he talk-a like-a dumb-a Italian goombah, mama mia! His crew is, of course, Spanish, but they have American accents (before anyone knew America was there), so...maybe they were taught English by an Italian monkey, this movie's internal logic is a little too internal. The Prof naturally decides to infiltrate the crew with the least noticable disguise in 15th century Spain: as a pigtailed, ching-chong Chinaman. An "Ah, so!" asshole. His subversion of the crew fails, and they cry "You want us to mutiny in the name of your Chinese king in China!" which I'm not sure how thing works that. It didn't occur to them that Columbus, he could-a claim-a America in name-a of Italian king, pastafazool paisano? Today, we'd all be running around the streets screaming to Antony that it's-a Prince Spaghetti Day!
      Next, the Prof goes a million years back to replace the caveman who invented fire, because we all know the name of THAT dude. And I guess because the movie hadn't been racist to Neanderthals yet. Do the cavemen speak English in American accents? Sure, why not, so do red-nosed reindeer. And then--
      Well, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you. As I can't spoil it for myself. I don't remember it. This movie didn't require suspension of disbelief, it required major self-medication.
      Von Rotten, really? You couldn't have gone 40 years into the future, do some petty theft, gone back and become famous as the guy who invented smart phones, iPods, and Kardashians? You couldn't have become famous as the first guy to invent a time machine?

      Via The Divine Kitsplut in the Comments:

      10/10

      A tribute to Mr Groening's retired "Life in Hell" comic.

      10/11

      10/12

      I woke to the craziest dream yesterday! It was the first day of the high school year, and yet I knew where my locker was and the combination to it, and my exact class schedule, and I was respected and popular! Sometimes my dreams can get really weird.
      In today's dream, I was getting ready to take a shower when a news reporter broke into my bedroom to broadcast "MAN FOUND NAKED IN OWN HOUSE!" which led to some gawker climbing in my window, and I called 911. More reporters turned up, dozens, but only one cop, who stood outside giving interviews about the Naked Pervert. Then they all tried to kill me, and all I had was a hand blender. It was ineffective.
      The day before the day before, I dreamt that I'd run into Holly, who was very close to being my Jessica of the 90s. Like Jess, she was smart, funny and gorgeous, although the exact physical opposite of Jess. (Short, blonde, blue-eyed, she bore an incredible likeness to Cindy Lou Who, right down to the hairstyle) We hadn't seen each other in 20 years, which was the last time in real life that I saw her. We immediately hit it off again, and returned to being friends.
      She looked like she did 20 years ago because that was the last time I saw her alive. 20 years ago this Halloween, she was killed by a drunk driver from a rich family, well-known enough that the cops waited almost 4 hours to give him a breathalyzer test. He got community service. She died at age 19.
      Two dreams about stuff that I hated that turned out happy, one about going to the shower that turned into a nightmare. But they're just dreams. They don't mean anything.
      Right?

      Well, that sure lightened the mood! Let's change gears as rapidly as my subconscious does, and read some funny stuff!
      6 Banned (For Very Good Reasons) Candies.
      In the spirit of that old InExOb, Cracked's 5 Military Weapons Clearly Designed by a 5-Year-Old.

      My dreams are amazingly detailed, but rarely include actual people I've known. Even the cats in them are rarely my cats. But I always know that I'm in a dream, whether I'm in Perfect High School or desperately strangling unkillable Fox news reporters with a blender cord. When I ran into "Holly" outside the Sam Goody that we worked at, I knew it was a dream. And I thought This is the alternate reality where she never died, and I did my best to enjoy our nonexistant time together, walking the mall and making fun of stupid stuff, just as Jess and I do in antique stores. They're called "dreams" for a reason.

      10/13

      "Sleep on it" really works, especially for harder problems.

      10/14

      10/15

      Jesus and Kumar Go To Judea. Certainly would explain the miracle of the infinite fishwiches.

      10/15

      Happy National Feral Cat Day!
      Okay, I worked late, so when you're reading this...Happy National Feral Cat Yesterday!
      I was surprised to see that Alley Cat Allies turned up in multiple places today, even on my Cat-A-Day desk calendar. You can support them directly for their fine work, as I did when I dropped a Ulysses in honor of Jess' birthday and her departed Marjoriam--little knowing that her Samson had just been diagnosed with an oral cancer that would spread so fast through his body that he would only live another 4 to 6 weeks. Jess made the hardest decision anyone can make, and he's over the Rainbow Bridge with his buddy Major now. As always, a purchase of a delightful handmade figurine from Marjoriam's Colony, with 20% off this month, will help both ACA and her own dedicated feral cat work. She does so much good work, and there are all the kitties whose lives she've saved or bettered, all the colonies of ferals she's reduced in size by catch&release, all the kittens she's socialized and adopted out.

      I was walking around the store horribly bored, when the bottles began to rattle. Since it's right by the train tracks, another huge train? No, the bottles began to move for 10 seconds, and so did the shelves! Earthquake!
      4.6, in Maine. That's like 4 hours from here. Not big by any standards except New England's. I wondered if the cats reacted to it. Since Killsy is my early warning system, and cats can sense eathquakes, I wondered if she would run up and look nervously around. However, all 3 ran when I went "AAAHH!" after tripping in the dark over the panel of carpet samples I salvaged as a scratching post. That gets knocked down during kitty chases every few months. But I also found a pile of used books on the floor right by the coffee table, and they never go up there. Earthquake? And/or panicky cats?
      Since Killsy has been very attention/pets-needy tonight, and DJ repeatedly going under the bed for long stretches of time--I say yes. And since the just-wants-the-usual-attention Byron wanted just the usual attention, maybe the theory that cats can hear earthquakes before they happen is true.

      10/18

      

      10/1910/20      I knew that my iPod would die eventually. It wasn't just first generation, my friend Kev won it before iPods were available commercially, so it's one of the first ones made. But did it have to die the week when every public radio station I listen to is having their pledge drive?

      A long while ago I won a Way of Cats contest for a Litter Robot., an automated, self-cleaning litter box. I had no real place for it, as it required an outlet, and I was afraid that it would scare the crap out of the kids, in the sense that they'd crap outside of it. So I told WoC's Pammy to give it to someone else. The second winner turned out to be ecstatic at getting it, so good karma anyway.
      She just offered her newsletter readers a chance to get a Kitty-A-Go-Go box, provided that the winner reviewed it. Since it looked cool and writing for pleasure is kind of a thing for me, sure, I'll roll the dice. I wrote:

      And guess who won, entirely at random! (SPOILER: me) In my congratulatory email, Pammy said "I would be pleased if you start your review with the Daleks reference, which continues to crack me up." I replied "Is EX-CRE-MENT-ATE! a word?" "Only on the planet Skaro," she said, which actually brings up a shitload of Dalek design issues. Where do the "bubbling lumps of hate" inside the armor leave their bubbling lumps? Do they have litter boxes?
      At any rate, I may write 2 reviews, one for the manufacturer, and one written by a Dalek because Why Not?

10/22

      AMAZON.COM, ALWAYS GREAT FOR THAT UNEXPECTED BARGAIN--listing on amazon.com

      Busy fighting with stupid new iPod and swatting an infestation of beer bugs, the obnoxious gnats that live in the dregs of the store's empties and somehow follow me home to breed every few years. Plus, nothing to say.

10/23

10/24

      Since I'm going to see Rifftrax swat down "Birdemic" tomorrow, I was thinking of yesterday's Cracked article by RT, when for no particular reason beyond "hilariously bad movies," I thought of Turkish Star Wars. Half an hour later, guess what I found referenced on one of my regular reads! (SPOILER: Turkish Star Wars) Worst Knockoffs of Popular Films Trust me, the plot description is accurate. Romney would like it, as there's a fight scene where the heroes murder giant muppets.

10/25

      Kev and I went to see RiffTrax do Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and when you actually put "Shock and Terror" in the title, it'd better not be terrible schlock. Of course, since RT was doing it...
      It's the newest movie any MST3K team has done, made in 2008. Since the director offered it to them to be mocked (another first), I worried that it might have been deliberately bad. No, it couldn't have been that bad on purpose. No one can fake that type of utter incompetence.
      It was one of those movies that would be unwatchable without paid professionals riffing on it. Kev and I are pretty good off-the-top-of-our-heads riffers, but we would've shut this off in the first 30 minutes of "Rock climbing, Joel. Rock climbing." In this case, Driving and Parking and Safely Merging Into Traffic. Take those scenes out, and half the movie would be gone. And it was clearly "director puts every one of his friends and relatives and willing local residents into it, whether their character is needed or not." The first half hour is "establishing the characters," the main two being an inaminate carbon rod--sorry, just Rod. Easy to mistake the two; he really doesn't know how to act. He's so aware of the camera that he "can't walk like a human." That is not the exaggeration it sounds like. His costar is utterly gorgeous, and is a better actor than him, but so are most fence posts. She seemed like the "I'm beautiful, I don't need to do anything else" type, although she at least was likeable. He had the charisma of a lanced boil. They meet--he millionaire software salesman, she going to be Victoria Secret cover model! So they go to the Pumpkin Festival and a dive bar and dance to a guy who sings a truly interminable song about partying with your family, and they're the only ones there. She at least acts like she's having fun dancing, he, as they put it, "It's a white guy doing an impression of a black guy doing an impression of white guy who can't dance." He meets her mom, who's making a tray of cold cuts. A toy car runs into his foot at work. As Kev said, "It's like a 12 year old's idea of how adult life works." And then
      BIRDEMIC!!
      Screaming eagles (and I do mean screaming, endlessly) swoop in and apparently start bombing houses. With bombs, the houses explode and burn. These CGI special effects are the movie's main, possibly only, reason to exist. And by "special," I mean "they take the short bus." It's better seen than explained.
      If you didn't look at that, the CGI is of birds that flap their wings every other second and don't fly, just hover. And it's the same effect duplicated over and over in every scene. It's hilarious!
      Believe it or not, it's the director/writer's version of Hitchcock's The Birds. Except with toy guns, and gun battles with said toy guns against the killer eagles. In a shockingly terrifying scene, the heroes desperately battle the Birdpocalypse on the side of the road. With normal traffic driving by, apparently unaware of the Birdmageddon taking place. Many bloody battles are fought with the screeching and the shooting drowned out by the sound of traffic. In one scene of the post-Birdemic-ruined world, the director simply could've shot from the other side of the car and left out the cars calming passing by.
      The Birds was famous for never explaining the reason why the birds tried to kill people. Birdemic breaks the mold, man! And explains it! GLOBAL WARMING! And explains it and explains it in huge chunks of exposition. Polar bears, bark beetles, you name it, the movie has yet another reason to grind to a halt and pad itself out. Yes, this is a Serious Movie, it tells itself as it rocks itself to sleep at night. The evil eagles are like the USA, man, and then they're chased away by--DOVES! And there are constant reminders of the site Imagine Peace, and I'm so sure Yoko really appreciates your attention.
      Then it ends, with the heroes (if that is the correct word) staring at the sea, the evil eagles retreating and the god doves--okay, both flocks just kinda hang there, hovering. And hang there. Aaaand haaang there--seriously, the last shot is 5 minutes long of sea and fake birds and people staring at the fake birds not moving.
      Longer clip of scenes here.
      Killsy and especially Byron were mad at me for getting home so late. Cats are like that sometimes.

10/26

      The doorbell rang today. Killsy and DJ scrambled for cover, while Byron gave them his baffled "Did something just happen?" look. A great big box came!
      It remains unopened. I want the suspense to build, and see what happens when it first makes it appearance when I'm home all day (and can take pictures).

      Assuming that I HAS A HOME THEN AAAAH
      Everyone's freaking out about the horrifying HURRICANE that will be worse than the worst Birdemic ever. Gorcery stores and gas stations are jammed. Actually, they're freaking out about the snowstorm we had almost exactly a year ago. Apparently everyone's forgotten about Hurricane Irene that came 2 or 3 weeks before. Overhyped, did nothing. That may be why when the underhyped snowstorm came, no one did anything to prepare. Then had 10 days without power. (Except that quarter-mile slice of my town that included the convalescent home and my condo)
      I imagine that if this turns out to be nothing, people will extra-freak over the first 1 inch snowstorm we get, then go back to being complacent. Until that snowstorm that they underhype...

10/27

10/28

      "I don't see why everyone's panicking about the hurricane," I said at work yesterday. "It's only a Category One." Then I listened to the news on the drive home and thought "Of course, I've been wrong before..." So don't be surprised if there's a disruption in service on this blog soon. Possibly for a long time.

      I opened the the Kitty-A-Go-Go litter box that I won from Way of Cats. I was expecting to write epic posts about it, but...They were more excited about the boxes it came in, being cats after all. It took a while after setup (which involved only filling it with litter) for anyone to check it out. Not Exactly A Spoiler: First in was the Cat Without Fear, Byron. Next DJ went in, took a tiny whiz, no doubt thinking this was the feline version of posting "FIRST!" in a blog's comments. Killsy has yet to try it, but I imagine that it's because I kept following her in there. Into the bathroom, not the litter box.
      I guess it shouldn't surprise me. When I got a second box, they just went "Hooray! Let's pee in this one, and poo in that one!" (Poo boxes are a lot easier to clean than pee ones, so I went "Hooray!" myself) It does seen super easy to clean--there's a built in rake that you pull forward, then use the scoop. Since this is hopefully the replaement for the old pee box, that could be awesome. Of course, it's only been there 3 hours.

10/29

      Hartford Courant website link: "Lost Power And Utilities? Need Help? Websites To Visit, Numbers To Call" Yeah, no power, but I'll just go online--oh, wait, I have no power. My laptop should work with the free wifi at--oh, wait, they have no power. Well, I can get it on my cell--oh, wait, the towers have no power. I'll use my landline--oh, wait, I got rid of that, and the phone lines are down anyway. Thanks for the advice, Courant! I see that they're still delivering the mail today, so I guess I can send them a letter...
      Everything's pretty much shut down, even the highways. The governor said the state police aren't going to be enforcing that, so--I guess go drive, if you're that stupid. My Honda Fit is a low-to-the-ground, aerodynamic wedge, and even as the storm barely started, it wavered over the bridge over the Connecticut River. No idea yet if I'm working tomorrow.
      And apparently, one starts to freak out buying gas and groceries 4 days before a hurricane, but waits until the day the storm hits to go to the liquor store. Endless lines, and endless repetitions of "They said non-essential workers should stay home, but you're open! Ha ha ha I am funny." Yeah, you're also in the damn store right now, buying your "essentials." And what was most essential? Lottery tickets! The entire state government outside of emergency services may be shut down, but I guarantee they'll have their daily drawings. Don't save your money to repair storm damage, use your losing tickets to patch your roof that just blew off!
      The gas lines that snaked into traffic for days are now gone. I filled up today, no waiting, and with room for the couple of extra days worth of gas I used by waiting.
      If that makes me sound on top of things...not so much. I need 4 AAs to run my weather radio, and I have 3. I have a hand-crankable radio--oh, and it takes C batteries; I've plenty of those. As for boredom, I have all those CDs I put on the new iPod to put away because filing, that's always super interesting to do. I did grab a bag of ice from work so the freezer may not melt instantly, and turned the heat up to 80. 55 degrees outside is tshirt weather! 55 inside is MY GOD I NEED ANOTHER SWEATER.
      Worst case scenario: power off at home, on at work. Best case: exact opposite.
      Guess I'll post this while I know that I can.

10/30

      The lights here didn't even flicker.
      It was the opposite of the blizzard that happened exactly a year ago. The shoreline got destroyed, the interior had sporadic power outages. After the snowstorm, my town had 95% of its households without power; this morning it was 15%. Reason: we had a snowstorm. There weren't that many wobbly trees left to fall.
      As for "sporadic," I didn't see any outages until I was an eighth of a mile from work. Then I saw 2 plazas with no power, 2 with. It was so random that the Dunkin Donuts had no power, but the pizza place 10 feet from it did.
      No one at work lost power, when last year I was the only one who had it. Well, almost no one.
      DT (already drunk at noon): You know WHY I don't have power?!
      ME, thinking: Karma?
      DT: Because I live next to a GOLF COURSE!
      Yeah, I see that cause and effect. Was a transformer knocked out by a really bad slice?

      The Doctor, The Broadway Musical:

      

      

10/31

      True Halloween horror story: 20 years ago tonight (technically, 12:55 AM 1 Nov 1992), my friend Holly was killed by a drunk driver who got off the charges. I hope no one asks me tomorrow what I did on Halloween, because "Got depressed" is the only accurate answer beyond a mumbled "Nothing."
      No need to watch the video to this, just listen. It's only about loss and the wistful feeling of "What was, versus what could've been" when you realize the title is "The Last Human."

      

      She'd be 39 now. Older than Jessica.

11/1

      Some incredible optimists have left their recycling bins at curbside since Tuesday. Normal pickup day is Monday; if they haven't come by Thursday, they're coming Monday. I imagine one is the insane optimist who put his bin out for pickup on Monday, the day of a giant hurricane. Yeah, it'll get picked up. And land 2 counties over.
      Every store was closed when I got home at noon that day, even the grocery stores. The only places open were the convenience gas marts, the liquor store (obviously doing the same gangbusters business we did), and Auto Zone and Tractor Supply Company. "Hurricane a-comin', Clem! Guess I'll change my motor oil and shop me up some of them tractor parts afore my roof blows away!"

      Recntly mentioned here, Turkish Star Wars. Really not a movie, as it gives the same long-winded exposition dump at the halfway that it does at the start, so maybe a TV show. In Turkish, but helpfully subtitled into French. Once it gets past that, it's non-stop action and hilarity as our heroes beat up guys in Muppet costumes. It's so proud of one stunt that it's shown twice: "Heroes capture horses by knocking off the riders, even though they're clearly stuffed animals."

11/2      

      A forgotten hero of the struggle against fascism in WWII: A dead pigeon in a chimney.

      Who Chose the Corporate Mascot? "SMOOTH AND EASY ON THE LARYNX WHILE SCREAMING!"

      

      

11/3

11/4

11/5      Ballotpedia, which is a listing of initiatives by state, so you don't go into your voting booth/table with a marker/Diebold machine that will steal Ohio for the GOP again and blank out as to which ones are good or just phrased so they sound good. CT doesn't have any this time, probably because we hammered that vaguely worded one that added up to "NO FAGS BE MARRY!!!!" into the graveyard it deserved to rot in. If your state has one that mumbles something anywhere near "NIG--um, we mean OBAMACARE IS THE HELLS!" it translates as "Ladies, hope you liked deciding what your ovaries are allowed to do!"
      Short article with links, The Long Con: "[T]he US Right today has a culture built on paranoia, a distrust of critical thought and a tolerance of lying, and...this culture is partly due to a system of highly successful multi-level marketing cons, get-rich-quick scams and crooked fundraising operations wrapped in inflammatory calls to urgent action attached parasitically to the conservative movement for half a century."

      This is Connecticut:

      

      This is my chicken sandwich:

      

      OMG IT'S A SIGN FROM GOD! OR FRANK PERDUE! Call the Golden Nugget Casino, we've got the match for their Virgin Mary Cheeze Sandwich!!
      LO! Behold that instead of that weird notch in the north, CT now has a TAB! We will soon own CONGAMOND LAKE again, Massachusetts! The LORD PERDUE hath spokened!
      Wait. Hungry. Ate it. Now I have to start taking pictures of my bowel movements. Again!
      Wait, I made a poop that looks like Willimantic!
      Wait. It's just Willimantic.
      Wait, sorry again. The piece of shit is just a guy voting for Romney.

      I understand that the New Owner might want to set a rapport with his employees to heal the hatred that we all feel towards the asshole DT. I, however, would draw the line at "Sitting in your pickup with a part-timer and ripping bong hits."

11/6

      When I went to vote today, the guy in front of me was driving a giant pickup that had a tow hitch with a Confederate flag on it. I think I can guess who he voted against. The hitch also said "Not Scared," which doesn't sound like the modern Republican party to me. They're afraid of everything except becoming the chattel of giant corporations.

      Of course, by now you've heard the good news:
      Firefighters Rescue Cats In Vernon Fire! It is, however, a very sad day for the manufacturers of car elevators everywhere. And now we'll never know what Rmoney's Super-Secret-20-Million-Jobs-Overnight Plan actually was!
      Scared yet, pickup guy? You could always move to a country with no gun laws, no taxes, not even a real government: the Libertarian paradise of Somalia!

11/7

      So are the people who panic-bought gas and groceries before last week's hurricane the same people panic-buying the same things before this week's nor'easter? I was in a grocery store parking lot, in a crosswalk with a stop sign, and almost got run over. So someone could rush to her fucking Cheerios.

      Be your own Bond: 10 Bond gadgets that have become readily available technology

      So we Good Guys & Gals stomped the presidency (in the pointless Electoral College, but only squeaked by in popular vote), and steamrolled through the Senate. HA HA HA, CT megamillionaire Linda "WWE" McMahon! You lost by double digits when you spent $50 million on your last attempt to buy a seat, and lost by double digits again when you spent twice that! Maybe those wall-to-wall ads about being a "job creator who only wants to create jobs" rang false with people capable of the basic math of "How many jobs could you create with $150 million fucking dollars?" Pleeease run again! At least until I see you spend away your wrestling fortune to the point where you're holding signs at an intersection that say "WIL CRATE JOBS FOR $200M".
      Of course, they have their House full of crazies, so I hope you've enjoyed the last 4 years of gridlock. If only Rmoney would let his know his Secret Jobs Plan! But I think he's less of a good winner, and more of a "If I can't win, I'm taking my ball home! To my many homes! And play in my car elevator!" kind of jerk. Assuming he ever had a plan besides the usual "Tax cuts for billionaires and regulation cuts for giant corporations," which has worked out so well for the country from the Dubya Reign to this day. It's always easier to destroy something than it is to rebuild it. It's been 11 years; is that replacement for the WTC done yet? No? RECOVERY ISN'T GOING FAST ENOUGH, FIRE EVERYONE WHO'S TRYING. AND ELECT THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP BLOCKING IT.
      My father was Democratic Party Town Commitee Chairman in my CT hometown from the late 60s through the 70s, a tumultuous time of change in politics and social mores. His best friend was Mr Warren--the Republican Town Commitee Chairman. This baffled the fringier of their politcal friends and foes. Yes, there once was a time when Republicans didn't literally think anyone to the left of them was automatically burning in hell for all eternity.
      CT GOP ex-congressman Chris Shays On A Vanishing Breed: The Classic, Moderate New England Republican. And John Scalzi has some recommendations to the GOP, all of which I agree with, and none of which I hope the current party of the billionaires, the bigots and the batshit will actually take. They are no longer the party of Lincoln. For 30 years, they've been the Know-Nothings. And the dustbin of history always lies to the right.

11/8

       Man Up! And Other Masculine Tips by Cats.

11/9

      After the last time I went to the doctor, I set up my next appointment.
      "When will you see the doctor next?"
      "Three months."
      "Six months?"
      "THREE months."
      Two and a half months later, I saw that she'd scheduled me for 6 months. I almost rescheduled twice, but then thought, "They just take my blood pressure. At 6 months, they take blood. I'll just save $30 and wait."
      Two weeks ago, I checked it again. And my appointment was for "Mon 11/13/12." I shook my head--there is no 11/13/12 that's on a Monday. But I was in their Manchester location, and they're in their Hartford location on Tuesdays, and it's easier to get a date confused than it is to get a day of the week confused, so, obviously it was for this Monday.
      Today I got the robocall telling me that it was for Tuesday, 11/13. And it was exactly half an hour after I could call to correct it.
      I hope when I call Monday that I don't get her. "I need a Monday between 1 and 2." "So, let me check: You need a Frogsday between a gerbil and the banana-colored robot lion that forms Voltron's penis? Is before the inevitable heat death of the Universe doable for you?"

      20 Misinformed Geek Shirts (actually 19; the Scream one isn't there). I can see about 4 of these I would buy. If they were real.

      This tshirt is real: and I just may buy it. Let's face it: we live in the Era of Geek Celebration!

11/11

      I won tickets to Skyfall, the new 007 movie! It's gotten some very good reviews, even from the only critic whose opinion I've learned to value, but it'll suck. When I win, I never really win (cf. the atheist winning a CD and having it be all Christ-y music). And if that sounds like foreshadowing of my recent win of the Kitty-A-Go-Go litter box, yeah, good guess. (SPOILER: cats love it, guy who cleans it does not. And I have to write a review of it. And the reason that I could never be a real writer is my loathing of deadlines)
      A James Bond comic book that was outsourced to India. Quote: "Ladder is coming up, climp up soon." Still better than Tod Holton, Super Green Beret.

11/12

11/13

      Last week I was to meet Jessica, but she had another condo board meeting over their stupid sprinkler system issue (her condo has to replace it, but somehow wants to do it without spending any money on it by raising fees, and has blocked any attempt for the last 2 years--I assume every other member is a Republican House member). I would've called it off due to the nor'easter, anyway. We reschedded for tomorrow, but she blew out a tire, and she has to special order them and it takes them 2 hours to replace one tire (and yet, she doesn't go to Liberty Honda of Hartford's service department!).
      We ain't doing it next week, as I have to work the day before Thanksgiving, and if it isn't the Weds after...See you next year, lady! So, I got me a free Skyfall ticket, so I guess I'll do that. And if time permits, at least start my long-delayed review of the Kitty A Go Go litter box. By "long-delayed," I mean "I got it less than 3 weeks ago," but the gifter wants a response. Glad I waited, as the cats' reaction to it has changed. I waited mainly because I was going to turn it into a multimedia comedy extravaganza! Which kind of put me off my own project. I imagine the A Go Go people aren't going to shrewdly rub their chins and say "You know what this review needs? More jokes about DALEKS!"

      

      "NEXT ON 'DANCING WITH THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORMS FROM THE STARS,' I WILL PERFORM THE 'STOMPING ON THE DOC-TOR TWO-STEP'! IT IS SUPERIOR TO ALL DANCES IN THE GALAXY!"

      "OW! MY REAR THRUSTER UNIT!!...umm...EXTERMINATE ALL THAT DO NOT AGREE THAT I MEANT TO DO THAT!"

11/14

      Whew! Dying is easy, comedy is hard, writing what you hope will be percieved as comedy for someone else's website is even harder!
      Halfway through my review of the Kitty-A-Go-Go litter box I won. Getting started was the hardest part. Finishing it I hope will not be the next hardest, as its length is already approaching TL;DR territory. This is how I did all my A+/- essays back in high school: let the ideas percolate in the back of my mind, then blast through it at the last minute. It didn't work at all for the semester & a half I went to college. Of course, if I did graduate with an English major, I'd still probably have ended up as a liquor store manager.

      Well, I'm going to watch some old Kolchak: The Night Stalker eps via Netflix while in my pajamas (flannel dorm pants, a 25 year old sweatshirt and the LL Bean slippers my Mommy gave me, ladies), and then go to bed so that I can wake up refreshed enough to be bored to death at work tomorrow. I will leave you with the History of Earth in One Minute:

      

11/15

      I got so involved in writing my stupid review of a litter box yesterday that I forgot to clean the litter boxes.

      You know how phone numbers in movies and TV shows always begin with 555, because no phone numbers in the real world begin with 555? Yesterday, caller ID announced that I had a call from 555-000-0000. Suuure I did. Maybe Citizen Kane was calling me about a lost sled! But the caller left a message: "Hi, um, this is Lynn Cochrane--sorry, wrong number!" *click*
      Today, at the exact same time of day, I got the exact same message (complete with the "um") from 661-670-2616. Google says that it's the ASPCA, in CA. I'm a member of the ASPCA, and...I really have no idea what's going on. They just send me mail. Who is this Lynn? It's a mystery worthy of a Hollywood superspy.

      Which is my smooth-as-silk segue into saying that I saw Skyfall, the latest Bond movie, yesterday. Well worth seeing for free! My winning ticket was actually for $10 off, and the first showing was only $5, so I think I should've gotten change.
      It was the best Bond in I don't know how many years. I stopped even renting them after a while. But it had actual characters in an actual plot that wasn't just an excuse to link stunts and explosions together. There were a couple of impossible escapes that happened offscreen, because they were impossible and the writer couldn't be bothered to explain them. And to anyone looking for an answer to the question "Is James Bond a person, or just a codename that MI6 has given to its top agent, one after another as one retires or dies, for 50 years?" this entirely muddies the waters. Apparently, this version's birth name is James Bond, and yet there are callbacks to earlier movies. Q mentions Goldeneye's exploding pen, saying "We don't do those anymore." But the quintessential Bond gadget turns up as an important plot point.
      Well worth watching, although one could wait for it on Netflix. There's no need to see it on the big screen. Unless you can see it for free.
      Supervillain hint: Do not send 2 guys with machine guns to kill Bond after he's killed 20 of your guys with machine guns. When the bad guy is killed by Bond (SPOILER: Bad guy is killed by Bond, a first in 50 years of 007 movies), even he makes a sound that's kinda between "Duh!" and "D'OH!"

11/16

      Powered through the 2nd half of my Kitty-A-Go-Go litter box review. I may submit it to the Guinness Book as "WORLD'S LONGEST Litter Box Review," as it clocks in at 13K. Before proofing and tweaking, which generally only makes my stuff longer.

      Top Georgia GOP Lawmakers Host Briefing on Secret Obama Mind-Control Plot. "President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That's according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month." Keep playing to "The Base," GOP! KEEP PLAYING TO THE BASE THAT'S WHY YOU SO WINS!

      

      "ME BASEY, ME LOVES INSANITY! YAAAYY BASEY WOO. Having HEAD shaped like A BLOCK only coincidence, yay!""

11/17

      My Kitty-A-Go-Go review. I tried to make it interesting and amusing, but remember: it's a 13K article about a poop receptacle.

11/18

11/19

      Hey, I guess you can get just about anything on iTunes! Like the Hybrid Kids!
      Who? A weird pair of Birts 30 years ago, making music that sounds insane 30 years later! Their first LP was covers of current (1979) hits. They did the song I hated the most then, and still now when it's played on the work radio, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? (Single version, which has 10 seconds of fiddly bits added to the beginning and end to pad it out)
      Their idea was to cover songs in as different a version they could do from the original. Thus, the dub version done by a drunk old man of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights.
      And the cover of You've Lost That Loving Feeling as apparently sung by a 1960's monster movie's Nazi mad scientist.
      Their next project? Why, of course, a Christmas album! Here's a nice and soothing version of We Three Kings! And the song that got me through every retail Xmas nightmare from 1983 to 1997: Deck the Halls. It was the rant/lecture adressed to "My fellow creatures!" that did it for me. I still have big chunks of that memorized.

11/20

11/21

11/22

      And how was your Thanksgiving? ("Very last month!" say any Canadians) Mine was good. You know how everybody says the next day "I ate too much! I should've skipped dessert!" Well, I ate too much and should've skipped dessert. Because an hour later, I threw it up. Just not enough room in my stomach for it. Fortunately, the dessert had chocolate in it. Best tasting vomit ever.
      I met my favorite niece Cassie's boyfriend, a real nice guy and very much like her. He's in a band, Bonsai Trees, and they're good, especially as they're still in high school. You can hear their EP here. He's the drummer, and is hoping to get into a Boston music school to study production. Even I hadn't already known that, I would've been impressed with their music's production.
      Cassie talked about some not-particularly bright mutual friend who was eating a steak at a fancy restaurant and texted her "I'm eating Flaming Yawn!" You may have to say that out loud to get why it's funny.

11/23

      Half-billionaire WWE exec and TWICE-loser at the Connecticut Senate race Linda McMahon can spend $42M on her latest campaign, but once she lost...Checks Issued By McMahon Campaign Reportedly Bounce. "Basically he handed me a check with a condom in it, told me I was screwed,� Gomes told WTNH. �That�s the rudest gesture you can ever do to a person, it�s like spitting in a person�s face."
      Stay that classy, Republicans! Even to your supporters! That's what keeps you winning!

11/24

11/25

      I have a jukebox-shaped radio/cassette player on the shelf above my bed. I was not just asleep but dreaming when, for reasons known only to men with too many toes, Byron dropped it onto my head. He then dropped the lampshade from the 50 year old children's lamp with a music box and a spinning orange tabby cat, and very nearly bonked me with my WWII-era globe with black oceans, too.
      What, you don't have those above your bed? Your house is weird.

      This short Cracked article on Pathetic Attempts by Corporations to Create Superheroes is quite funny. And so is one of them, Pepsiman:

      

      It looks like it started as a US campaign, then got big in Japan. Maybe because Pepsiman has a likeness to Ultraman. Maybe because the Japanese sure love their crazy.

      Speaking of crazy... It looks "bad on purpose," which usually just adds up to Bad.

11/26

11/27

11/28

      I went to the grocery store. In a rare event, I got the closest non-handicapped spot, and it was a pull-through--I wouldn't have to waste gas backing up to get out of it. I put my car/store keychain in my pocket. When I left the store, I had a twinge of fear--my driver's side was next to the sewer! I instinctively put my hand on my keys, then thought "What is with me and my paranoia about dropping my keys into a sewer? That's never happened!" Then I saw my house keys. On the ground. Two inches from the sewer grate. How they fell out of my pocket as I was putting my other keys in, I don't know. I do know that I'll continue being paranoid around sewers. More paranoid.
      As I turned the last corner home, I heard a thump from the back seat. Damn, some groceries just fell over, I bet. But only one thing fell out. The eggs. Couldn't have been a can of cat food, but the only thing breakable I had. Only one broke, making a mess. Less of a mess than me crawling into a 6-foot-deep sewer would've made.

11/29

      The original poem that became The Nightmare Before Christmas, as narrated by Christopher FUCKIN' Lee:

      

11/30

12/1

      How Weird Are You? I think the weirdest thing is that random web quizzes like this are still around in 2012. Weird test, WHY DO YOU NO TELL ME WHAT KIND MUPPET OR DONUT I AM?

       What is your weird quotient? Click to find out!

      I'm pretty sure I'm a Boston Creme Gonzo...BUT HOW DO I KNOW, WEB QUIZ?

12/3


      Sunday's one of my 2 days off, and yet it's the most likely day for me to not post. I'm not sure why.

      It would be remiss of me not to link to Kirk's yearly Advent calendar of goofy games. I like the first one, Skating Santa, because if you make him go to the top, he totally looks like he's taking an XMAS WHIZ LOL!
      I would totally play a game where Santa made Xmas trees grow by peeing on them, but had to keep reindeer from eating them by peeing on Rudolph--Oh, wait, there's prly already a phone game out there that has that. LOL

      Oh no, I said LOL! That really means I loves me some Satan! Happy Cheezburger Cat sez "I can has Crucifix?"
      Whatever, old crazy Christian man whose grandchildren hate him. (Trust me--whoever came up with this anti-meme is an old white Christian male)
      I remember as a devout Catholic little boy in the 1960s getting a pamphlet from our church. It said that the peace symbol wasn't a dove's foot, but a Roman symbol that meant "Death to Christians!" It was the cross, turned upside down and broken! Everyone against our glorious, soon-to-come victory against the Vietnamese Commies was a SATANIST!
      "But..." I thought with my young brain, "if it's Roman, then it's 2,000 years old. No one uses it as an antiChristian symbol today. My father has a book with a big swastika on the spine. Is he a Nazi? No, it's a book he got as a kid before World War II of poems by Kipling. It's an Indian symbol for good luck that was ruined forever by some evil lunatics, the same way they ruined a perfectly good mustache."
      (Note: likely did not think all of those thoughts in a row at age 7. More likely at 14)
      And I was right. It was made up by right wingers, to pretend that people who didn't want to napalm other people hated Christ. Because Jeez was aaaall about the napalming.
      Thanks, pamphlet! You put that very first crack in the foundation of my belief in religion. More cracks would come. It took a long time, but your mighty House of Cards has long since crumbled.

12/4

12/5

      Stupidest Things quote: There's "Celebrity Big Brother," with a "celebrity" named "Nadia" I've never heard of? Who's on Non-Celebrity Big Brother, random chunks of gravel?

      I woke with a cough yesterd--oh, wait, BILL HEALTH ALERT! for those who want to skip down and not read about it.
      I woke up with a persistent cough. I thought it was from Drunken Toddler's chain smoking the day before. You could smell the Newport stank as soon as you walked in the front door. He smokes in his office, which is not only as far from that door as possible, but on a different floor. It'd be like me smelling smoke in my condo, after smoking on the roof. But the cough stayed all day. Then I felt burned out--always a good sign of impending illness--and thought, "I'll feel better when I can sit down." Sitting down in my car to go home, the coughing became dry heaving. Once home I thought "I feel like I have a fever" and then minutes later thought "I'M FREEZING!" because fever and chills are 2 great tastes that make you think of the flu together. Then, yes! Puking! ONE CAN NEVER PUKE ENOUGH IS MY MOTTO. All this took about an hour.

      

      I postponed my planned playdate with Kev & Meg today so as not to get them sick and hopefully dodge this bullet. I feel better now, after some soup. "37% US RDA of sodium," says the can. If I had less than a third of the can, so really 129.5%, can. Good for the arteries. Keeps 'em nice and hard.

      Another funny SA listing of dog classified ads.

      Onion's AV Club reviews new gift ideas, accenting what they'd be worth when the Mayan Apocalypse comes. But who will get them? Xmas is after that.

      Reasonably funny for a show that's sucked since the Clinton years:

      

      

12/7

      I did not get over my sick. I crawled from bed yesterday and slumped over the bathroom sink and thought "I should call out...No! I have to do the beer orders!" I was so out of it that it was only today that I thought "I could've done both--called and told work that the salemen have to write their orders."
      I left early, if by "early" you mean "the longest 4 hours in my recent life." At home, I did...something. Kind of a blank. Slept a lot. Had a hearty meal of 5 Wheat Thins. Went to bed, for over 11 hours.
      Today, of course I had to go to work! To put away those beer orders! Which all came after the new owner came in an hour later. He was there for 5 hours, worked less than 10 minutes. Wouldn't want him to chip a nail.
      I felt better as the day wore on (and, boy, did it wear), but "better" and "feeling good" are different things. I expect tomorrow to feel better, but still coughing and fatigued. I'll bet I'd feel fine, if I'd just decided yesterday to be sane, rather than the Good Trooper who gets no appreciation for what he does anyway.

      The Awful Radio Morning Show we have on at work ran a read-from-a-press-release list of Merriam-Webster.com's most definitions downloaded from 2012. I realize that not everybody, even in 2012, is net-savvy, especially at the oldies station. I realize that most people don't know what "schadenfreude" means. I think that radio DJs might look up the pronunciation before running through every possible not-pronounced-like-that version. They settled on "shoo-den-food." And they spent most of the segment sneering at people who would look up words that they, themselves, don't know. Learnin'! That's fer nerds and fags!
      They also laughed at "meme". This was pronounced as "meh-MAY." They thought it was one o' them uppity Frenchie words. At that point, I thought "Are they pretending to be stupid?" and I realized, "No, they think they're the smart ones" after they mocked Joe Biden using in a debate "malarkey." One DJ said "He loves to use big words!" And, of course, through the whole thing, they pronounced "Merriam-Webster" as "Miriam Webster" as if that was a woman's name. Possibly Emmanuel Lewis's mom on that 80s TV show.

12/8

12/9

      Wow. I'm still sick. But not as sick (in the head) as some people.
      As Jon Stewart said: "It's official: Republicans hate the United Nations more than they like helping people in wheelchairs." That's right, GOP, you lost the election because you're not hatefully insane enough. Keep living in that little mental rubber room of yours.
      
      "YAY WE DEFEATED U.N. CRIPPLES YAY! Basey, me eat more lead paint chips now YAY!
      "Oh, me Basey so excited, me made little round poopy. Smells like paint! YAAAY!!!"

12/10

12/11

12/12/12
DID ANYONE ONLINE POINT OUT THAT YOU COULD WRITE TODAY'S DATE LIKE THAT?!? I BETS TEH NOT!

      A 4-page transcript of possibly one of the earliest of online chats, on ARPAnet in 1976. A short one between some painter, Yoko Ono, Jim Henson, and Ayn Rand. I leave it to you as to who comes off as "people you'd like to chat with" and who invents "first internet troll." Hint: it's an innovator!

      01/01/01 through 11/11/11. I've always posted dates like that. Suddenly this year, it's important. Why? And why not 11/12/13?

12/13

12/14

      When I went to lunch, it was "Three people wounded, one taken to the hospital and listed in stable condition."
      Half an hour later: "At least 18 dead, mainly children."
      This fucking country.
      The work radio became all news (One DJ: "I said, What do we do now, play 'Holly Jolly Christmas'?"). But news was scarce, and the talking heads all agreed "There's nothing any of us can say right now," and so they filled the air with empty words.
      A DJ, in a single paragraph, said that the mass murder of children was because of "the economy" and "kids with their iPods and Facebook" and "his parents were divorced" and "We don't pray enough these days." Yeah, that's what it was--where was your fucking all-knowing/all-powerful God today? Getting divorced on Facebook?
      To continue to waste time, they took callers. They agreed with a caller that "the killer--the alleged killer, we have to legally say that"--was inspired by "violent video games" and "graphic TV shows." This deep psycholgical analysis was provided by being based on someone no one knew anything about. In fact, it came just before they announced that the "alleged" killer wasn't the guy they kept claiming it was, but his brother.
      Thing absolutely no one mentioned? He had a fucking assault rifle. That's not the cause of the atrocity, but it sure was the means. By now someone is claiming "If only all the teachers had guns...!" as if that's the problem. That this country doesn't have enough guns. And then someone in government will say "It's too soon to talk about gun control!" by which they'll mean "It's never time to talk sense about guns." And in a month, it will be forgotten by them and this nation of easily-distracted idiots. And all those innocent children will never come back, and more will join them in the next massacre.

12/15

      I overheard a coworker today saying on his phone "Yeah, nobody in the store is smiling today." With good reason. But...well, I'd like to cheer up a bit.

      What do you get the cat who has everything? How about his own tank!
      That's really only worth seeing for the picture of General George S. Catton poking out of the cupola. And so that I could get to use the word "cupola."
      Hey, maybe your cat is a budding DJ! Scratching, get it?
      This one is perfect for fans of Godzilla or the old Goodies' episode "Kitten Kong"!

      The Cat Tank includes an incredibly boring video. And for those of you wondering "What's 'Kitten Kong?'"...here's a more entertaining video.

      

      

      

      

12/16

      As I said on Facebook while listening to my "the iPod": "This country guts its mental health system, and fights any attempt at gun control. Why are people surprised that this nightmare is the result?
      I remember when CT had a ban on assault rifles. Then the NRA pumped in a fortune to overturn it. And yet the Socialist Nanny State still refuses my George Washington-given right to own hand grenades."

      Columbine, martyrs, and growing up NRA at the end of the world.

      And, in lighter YouTubes:
      This is a teaser pilot for a series for children, but I would watch the hell out of it.

      

      

12/17

      I went to see Kevin today and MY GOD HE HAS A BEARD! Real beard, too, not my carefully manscaped Puerto Rican styled beard. A cheeks and neck kinda beard. And it looked good. At least it wasn't like mine, which is currently so turning white you'd think I sloppily eat only Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches.
      (Although I did recently have a salesman at my door who asked how long I'd lived here, and I said "25 years." He mentally did the math and then said "Aren't you...like, 40?" "I'm...over 40.")
      With his dogs Penny and Stella hopefully watching for dropped food, we had some AWESOME wings from the People's Choice Pizza Soviet. His came with limp high school cafeteria style crinkle cut/reconstituted from frozen concentrate fries. Happily, mine did not. There was our usual yelling about politics--the NRA was the main subject, no surprise between angry liberals in CT after 12/14/12.
      Then we watched a RiffTraxing of Tourist Trap, the first R-rated horror movie Kev ever saw. At a drive-in when he was in third grade. Taken there by his Mom. Kev went to school the next day and was given a little blank book to write/draw a story in. He recreated the film, with many bloody knives. His early 80s teacher didn't think it worth telling his mother about it. Since then: immediate expulsion and school lockdown. That's how you properly deal with little kids! OVERREACTION! How you deal with assault rifles that murder said children: Ignore their existence.
      SPOILER: The movie wasn't good. We were supposed to be SHOCKED when the insane murderer turned out to be--ONE OF THE ONLY 5 CHARACTERS! In fact, we were supposed to be shocked the next 2 times it was revealed. He had incredible telekinetic powers that allowed him to manipulate mannequins as if they were actors in bad mannequin makeup. I think that if I had incredible telekinetic powers, I'd make millions as a PGA golfer who always got holes in one. Oh, and are those mannequins--REALLY PEOPLE HE'S MURDERED FOR HIS WAX MUSEUM? AND COVERED IN WAX and blah blah blah. Yes, it are supposed to be a big surprise that was too also.
      The wings were good, as was the company of a good friend in a trying time, happy dogs and all.

12/18

      26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year

12/19

      It's that most wonderful time of the year! Time for the most incomprehensible, insane and drug-fueled Xmas cartoon ever: Bakshi's "Christmas in Tattertown." Made for Nickelodeon in 1988, it seems pretty clearly an hour long cartoon that was cut in half. (The first line of character dialogue is "DOG! You're alive!") And there's a greedy Jew who's a Christmas tree. So I'm guessing that this made no sense when it was full length. Also: The only Xmas special wherein Santa yells
      "WA-HOO! I HAVEN'T HAD THIS MUCH FUN SINCE MiG ALLEY!"
      
      
      
      

12/20

      A Heavy Metal Xmas, sung by Christopher FUCKIN' Lee!

      Now I have to go to stupid work tomorrow because the stupid WORLD didn't feel like ending! THANKS SO MUCH MAYAN JERKS

12/21

      Today, at 930AM, there was a nationwide moment of silence, in memorium of what happened a week ago in Newtown. A day when the world really did end for many families.
      I wondered how the radio station would handle it. What would they play before and after it? Before, they played a Christmas song. That one based on Pachelbel's Canon, so appropriately quiet. They went silent for 10 seconds, and then tolled a bell 26 times, once for each of the victims. I counted each toll. I could hear the Catholic church on the other side of the street tolling their bells.
      I thought that probably the only song an oldies station could play after the silence was Clapton's "Tears in Heaven." No, the obnoxious morning DJ read that awful internet poem that begins "Twas 11 days before Christmas." If you haven't run across that already, it's the worst "poetry" outside of a Mallard Fillmore comic strip, and involves the murdered first graders being happy that they were slaughtered, because now they get to have "Christmas with JESUS!" Wow, that maniac did those kids a huge favor by letting them die in terror! (If you want to read it, fuck you. Go find it yourself. Also, I guess any Jewish kids cruelly butchered by a madman with an assault rifle are very disappointed right now, as Christians say that they're in Hell)
      "I'm not listening to this tripe," I thought as I went inside the beer cooler for a minute until it ended. When I came out, the first words I heard were from the first song they played after the poetastry:
      "It's a DEATH TRAP, it's a SUICIDE RAP! Baby, we were BORN to RUN!"
      Yes. Children running from a death trap caused by a gun nut who committed suicide.
      FUCK YOU, WDRC FM! There was not even ONE OTHER SONG you could've played?!

      And the NRA finally broke its silence to announce: We need to ban the assault weapons that are the means of all these recent massacres! No, wait, those are totally cool. We need to stop gun violence with MORE GUNS. Armed cops in every school. And we need this NOW! before people have a chance to think about it.
      Teachers in this benighted country have to buy their own school supplies. So who's paying the armed cops? The NRA? Maybe we should have a surtax on gun owners, especially the ones with Bushmasters and AR-15s!
      Yeah, that won't happen. And all this would guarantee is that the first person to die in the next school shooting will be the cop on duty, before the shooter blasts his way in. Maybe we should replace every school window with bulletproof glass! Just don't expect the NRA and their fellow creeps to pay for it! Guns are their business, not their problem.

      Lighter stuff: This cat must see turtles everywhere!

      

      

12/22

12/23

      A really long, angry post on Sadly, No! about the Sandy Hook atrocity. Long and angry on Sadly, No!? How unusual!

12/24

      Regular retail Xmas is 4 to 5 weeks of rapidly ascending chaos and a descent into a hell of increasingly angry and abusive customers. The booze biz? Two or 3 days of pretty happy customers. Even less this year, as we were open Sunday, taking sales from Saturday and today. And I don't work Sundays, ha ha!
      After my $400 cash in Xmas bonus plus my $100 in free product, I was told by the New Owner to leave 20 minutes early. 20 minutes that I'll get paid for. Yeah, I think that I'll stop complaining about my job. Even DT is going part-time, and of course, I'll be there when he's there, but sheesh. 25 years ago I was a manager for Kay Bee Toys. That was no fun.

      This, however, is very fun!

      

      

12/25

      Remarkably, I awoke to a white Christmas. Just enough to almost cover the grass and then melt, but still.
      We had Xmas brunch over at sister Judy's. With mimosas and Bloody Marys at 1130AM. No wonder I ended up working in a liquor store. When sister Pat & fam arrived, suddenly everyone had the same thought: "Where's Mom?!" Sister Sue had forgotten to pick her up. Home Alone!
      I got some money, despite saying that I didn't want or need anything. From favorite niece Cassie, there were cat toys. A motorized spinny thing with a wand with feathers that Weebles around the floor. Mr Byron was particularly eager with it. Many a year ago I got one, and it took him only a week to destroy it. Also, balls of compressed catnip, which KK and Deej found fascinating. DJ to play with, Killsy to lick and drool on and then vigorously rub her cheeks on scratchy surfaces.
      I also received a big box of Mom's Home Cooking, as always. She'd put it in a big Amazon box, which Byron immediately loved. It was packed with a 6 foot length of brown paper, which Kays (with some help from me) quickly assembled into a nest. She snoozes there now. Cats love what gifts come in more than they love the gifts.

      Yeah, I'm a wee bit late, but here's the Onion AV Club's Cheap Toy Roundup. Do they just randomly stumble across odd objects like I did on my old feature, or do they scour the dollar stores for weeks?

      NRA Xmas Cards.

      Psychedelic Screwball: The Films of Italian Director Bruno Bozzetto. Ever see the animated film Aleggro non Tropo? Unlike people with normal jobs, I don't get any extra time off at Xmas, so I'll be browsing through these short cartoons when I can.

12/26

      Have yourselves a merry little Boxing Day.

      Jack Klugman died. You may remember him as the guy on "The Odd Couple" who wasn't gay. I find it funny that Doris Day, held up by old people in the 1960s as a squeaky-clean paragon of Proper Morality in the hippie era, had her romantic roles played opposite Tony Randall and Rock Hudson. Also Richard Harris in that one movie, and who, while straight, in the 60s was a drug-fueled orgy maniac.
      Readers of this page may remember Jack better as the guy that a cartoon mantis in a vest chanted "Klug-Man, Klug-Man, Klug-Man!" about, or from this sketch:

      

      ...As he also played Quincy, Dead Guy Whisperer. He was just an actor.
      An actor who saved countless lives: He was the force behind the Orphan Drug Act, fighting a Republican politician who wanted to protect corporate profit over lives. May you be at peace, Greatest of the Klug-men!

      Eating Asparagus May Prevent a Hangover. Uh, I think I'll stick with the hangover.

12/27

12/28

12/29

      Oh, Gourd Forbid we close the store early during a major snowstorm! "You can close if you have 10 minutes without a sale," said the Old Owner, just as some grubby guys bought some big cans of Icehouse. Yeah, why worry about the safety of your employees when you can make 20 cents a can on that? (And lose many dollars by paying 4 people to be there to sell them)
      And I felt like I was at the daycare and ran out of juice boxes. My 3 whiny coworkers acted like not closing a lousy hour earlier was like...was like...WAAAH WHERE JUICE BOX DONT WANT NAPPY! I should point out that all 3 want as many hours as they can get. I said "That extra hour if we close early is going to be gone in an hour, but you'll miss it when you get your paycheck." But they were all mad at me for not just declaring "WE CLOSE HOUR EARLY!" without the owner's permission. I also said that I wasn't going to jeopardize my job so that they could get home minutes earlier. While thinking to myself "If you care that little about me, why should I care about you?" These are my coworkers, people. Expecting to fill their diapers and leaving me to deal with their shit.

      Yeah, I said that I shouldn't complain about my job. When I got home from my 40 minute crawl through the semi-plowed roads, I saw this: Woman finds note from Chinese labor camp prisoner in Kmart decorations. I read it thinking "I shouldn't buy anything that says Made in China on it!" and then read further.

      People look at me funny when I say that The US Top 1% wants to turn the whole world into China, making everyone work just enough to not kill us so that we'll be alive to work our next shift. I'd be very happy to see some evidence that I'm wrong.

      That's from the SF Examiner, which I know nothing about. On their main page is The worst San Francisco offenders of 2012. It's kind of like News of the Weird, except not very funny.

12/31


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