My latest picture can be seen here.
I didn't post a thumbnail as it's slightly naughty.
For anyone not bold enough (or who may be at work) to click on it, the picture is of Carla Gugino wearing not much more than shadows in "Sin City."
As an update to the last post, I found the DVD burner I want for about $70 online, so I bought it.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
My Inner Masochist Or My Drive Burned Out: There Must Be A Metaphor In There Somewhere
Somewhere inside of me lies an extremely strong masochistic streak.
This masochistic streak does not lead me to nipple clamps and candle wax, or the pursuit of any sort of physical discomfort, nor does it have any sort of erotic component, but rather, it leads me to engage in self-inflicted acts of psychological torture.
As I said, there is no erotic component to these acts, and I really can’t be said to enjoy them, and yet, time after time, despite my best efforts to avoid doing so, I find myself doing the same things over and over again.
Masochism (or perhaps sheer stupidity) would seem to be the only explanation for this behavior.
One of the more common acts of self-inflicted torture I’ve engaged in is reading the IMDb Message Boards.
If you don’t think this is torture, you’ve obviously never been to the Message Boards.
In the IMDb Message Boards the English language is routinely butchered to an extent that goes far beyond the darkest nightmares of the most rigid of grammarians. Beyond that, though, the Boards are more than just a collection of bad spelling, wrong word choices, poorly formed, and argued, ideas, and logical fallacies, they are home to pointless insults and name-calling, rampant stupidity, and all of the very worst aspects of their nature that human beings have to offer.
A typical thread often looks something like this:
OMG
Posted by Gushingfanboy1:
OMG!!!1 shes SO hOt! i luvved her in that movie.
RE: OMG
Posted by Flamingtroll1:
ur so fucken stoopid. shes a skankho bitch who needs to DIE now! faggot!
RE: OMG
Posted by Gushingfanboy2:
she rally is hot. do you know her number? ru her? u r! i luv u and want to merry u! heres my email. plz right to me
RE: OMG
Posted by Takingthebait1:
taht is SO rood! who ru to say that shes ugly? i bet you have a small d*ck!
Of course, more often than not something like the second post would actually read “Post removed by administrator,” so the response from “Takingthebait1” wouldn’t make any sense, though you’d be able to infer what was said by the troll.
“Trolls,” for the benefit of those of you who don’t know, are people who go into message boards and deliberately post inflammatory comments for the sake of getting people angry. Trolls especially love to target forums designed for nerds to express their appreciation for a particular movie/TV show/book, and will usually consist of saying “The movie/TV show/book you are expressing your appreciation for sucks!”
This will then result in a flurry of angry responses, mixed in with comments from others who recognize a troll when they see one and encourage other users to simply ignore the comments, as a “do not feed the trolls” approach is the best way to avoid the start of a “flame war.” No one ever pays any attention, and a flame war invariably results. This is true in any and every message board of any kind anywhere, though it is especially true at IMDb.
Here is another typical thread:
When is it coming out?
Posted by newbie3:
When is her new movie coming out?
RE: When is it coming out?
Posted by pointlesslyangry4:
We’ve already talked about this in a different thread. God! People like you should be tied to the back of a horse and dragged over broken bottles! Why should I have to hold your stupid newbie hand? Just go to the main page and search the boards. Idiot! How dare you not already know everything and have the nerve to ask a question! I will now proceed to belittle you because I have no power in the real world and must rely on attacking newbies in message boards to feel good about myself, even though it would take much less effort to simply say “The movie opens on June 10th.”
With some variation, considerably more venom, and much more mangled use of the language, this is pretty much what every thread looks like in the IMDb Message Board, though they are usually much, much longer, sometimes having hundreds of posts made by people who all seem to be totally brain dead, with each post more retarded and painful to read than the last.
And yet, read them I would, all the while demanding that I explain myself. “Why? Why am I doing this?”
I could never answer that question.
What made things worse, though, was that I would often find myself reading these threads for hours, often in boards for movies or actors I didn’t even care about.
It was bad enough to be reading these irritating posts in the “Sin City” boards, but it was a thousand times worse to be reading them in a Hillary Duff board. I mean, wtf? How the hell did I end up there?
I would usually try to avoid going to the boards, but invariably I would see a thread that would draw me in. I was powerless to resist the temptation, even though I knew that nothing good could come of it.
My salvation came in the form of IMDb requiring you to register in order to even read the boards.
As I didn’t have an existing login, I was finally free!
Sure, conceivably I could create a free login and be back where I was, but however strong my masochism may be, this problem now falls under the jurisdiction of my laziness, which is more powerful than pretty much anything. As tempted as I may be to create a login when I see some especially aggravating-looking thread, my laziness determines that creating a login would just be too much bother.
These days, though, I find myself getting suckered into the comments posted on Slashdot, which, because they’re written by pretentious, self-important nerds, can be even more irritating than the posts in the IMDb Message Boards, so it looks as though I’ll never truly be free (unless Slashdot starts requiring you to register to read the comments, which I pray will be the case).
My other masochistic indulgence involves comic books.
In fact, it involves two specific kinds of comic books, neither of which is in existence any longer.
I read these comics in electronic form in the comic book newsgroups on Usenet.
(BTW, for anyone who makes use of Usenet, I highly recommend using Easy News. For $10 a month you get 20 GB of downloads, with the option to earn lots of free extra gigs, access to all the major groups, an easy-to-use and extremely functional Web-based interface, up to 40 days of post retention, and so much more. I’ve been using the service for years, and while they keep adding new features all the time the price has never gone up. It’s an unbeatable value.)
The specific comic books I read, though only when I’m really, really bored and want to punish myself, are romance comics and Lois Lane comics.
For the most part, these were all published prior to the 1970s, which can make for painful reading in any comic book genre, and due to the pre-ERA mindset can be extremely offensive to modern sensibilities.
The Lois Lane comics (Lois had her own series for quite some time, as did Jimmy Olsen, though eventually both books were folded into a series called “Superman Family,” an anthology series that focused on the supporting characters in Superman’s life) are especially painful to read, as they present someone very different from the strong-willed, driven, yet compassionate woman I think of when I think of Lois. The stories usually present her as being vain, shallow, and interested only in landing herself a “super” husband. Many of the stories focus on her rivalry with Lana Lang.
For the most part it’s just sad.
The romance comics, though, also induce their share of groans.
In neither case do I find myself as “compelled” to read as I was with the IMDb Message Boards, but it is often hard to look away.
Often with the romance comics I find myself performing a sort of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” commentary in my head as I read them, so that much, at least, is entertaining, though it doesn’t make things any less painful.
And those are the major ways in which my masochistic tendencies manifest themselves. Sometimes, as I’m wincing at a story about how Lois has been exposed to an enlarging ray that has made her so fat that even Superman has to strain to lift her, that I’m just a glutton for punishment.
The same could be said, though, for people who read Threshold.
That, of course, leads us into the more conventional recounting of the events of my day.
Beyond going for a walk I didn’t do much. I haven’t been feeling especially creative this week, so I haven’t been doing much in the way of drawing or non-Threshold writing. Honestly, I haven’t been doing much of anything this week, other than performing some “hard drive hygiene,” freeing up space by deleting unnecessary files and then defragmenting.
In the interest of doing some future drawing, though, I decided that today would be a good time to grab some screen captures of Carla Gugino in “Sin City.”
So I popped the DVD in, launched my player software, and waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually, my DVD software reported that it had crashed, at which point my computer stopped being able to even see that I had a DVD in my DVD drive.
After messing around with a few things and locking up my system entirely, I rebooted.
As sometimes happens, my computer went a little way into the booting up process and just stopped dead. I’ve never been sure of the cause of this, but usually it’s nothing that a quick shot of “CTRL+ALT+DEL” can’t fix.
Not so this time.
After some frantic cursing and some messing around with setup, I got my computer to boot up, though my DVD drive was still on the fritz.
Eventually I determined that problems with the drive were actually what was keeping the computer from booting.
It seems that whenever the drive door is closed the drive thinks that there’s a DVD in it, even when there isn’t, so it keeps trying, and failing, to read the DVD, locking it into a perpetual loop of trying to read the DVD and failing.
It also gets stuck in this trying/failing loop when there actually is something in the drive.
So, as the DVD drive is set as the first place the computer looks when booting up, the computer is not able to get past this loop to move to the next boot device and boot up normally.
The only way I can get around this is to have the DVD drive door open when rebooting.
Once inside of Windows, the loop prevents me from being able to open the “My Computer” folder unless the door is open.
So as a temporary fix I went into the Hardware Manager and disabled the drive.
Of course, this leaves me without a DVD drive on my main computer, which is an unacceptable circumstance.
Rather than trying to fix what’s wrong with the existing drive, which is more than two years old anyway, I figured I’d just go ahead and buy a new one, upgrading to a Dual-Layer burner.
Further, I decided that I’d get one and install it today. The particular drive I wanted is about $100 at Wal-Mart, so I jumped in the car and headed there. I decided that I should make a quick run over to Best Buy to see if they had any bargains. They didn’t, so I went to Wal-Mart, only to find that they no longer have the drive I wanted. For $40 more they have an external version. I considered the notion. After all, when it comes to installing new hardware, I usually prefer the external versions, as it’s usually just a matter of plugging in a USB cable.
In this instance, though, I wanted an internal version. Plus the extra $40 was a bit of a disincentive.
There was a cheaper internal, DL drive there, but I decided that I would just deal with delayed gratification and order the particular drive I want online.
I haven’t actually done so yet. I may decide to hold off, as I do have a burner on my secondary computer, so, if necessary, I can get by without one on my main system.
We’ll see, I guess.
In any case, I think that will do it for this entry, and for this week. Have a good weekend.
This masochistic streak does not lead me to nipple clamps and candle wax, or the pursuit of any sort of physical discomfort, nor does it have any sort of erotic component, but rather, it leads me to engage in self-inflicted acts of psychological torture.
As I said, there is no erotic component to these acts, and I really can’t be said to enjoy them, and yet, time after time, despite my best efforts to avoid doing so, I find myself doing the same things over and over again.
Masochism (or perhaps sheer stupidity) would seem to be the only explanation for this behavior.
One of the more common acts of self-inflicted torture I’ve engaged in is reading the IMDb Message Boards.
If you don’t think this is torture, you’ve obviously never been to the Message Boards.
In the IMDb Message Boards the English language is routinely butchered to an extent that goes far beyond the darkest nightmares of the most rigid of grammarians. Beyond that, though, the Boards are more than just a collection of bad spelling, wrong word choices, poorly formed, and argued, ideas, and logical fallacies, they are home to pointless insults and name-calling, rampant stupidity, and all of the very worst aspects of their nature that human beings have to offer.
A typical thread often looks something like this:
OMG
Posted by Gushingfanboy1:
OMG!!!1 shes SO hOt! i luvved her in that movie.
RE: OMG
Posted by Flamingtroll1:
ur so fucken stoopid. shes a skankho bitch who needs to DIE now! faggot!
RE: OMG
Posted by Gushingfanboy2:
she rally is hot. do you know her number? ru her? u r! i luv u and want to merry u! heres my email. plz right to me
RE: OMG
Posted by Takingthebait1:
taht is SO rood! who ru to say that shes ugly? i bet you have a small d*ck!
Of course, more often than not something like the second post would actually read “Post removed by administrator,” so the response from “Takingthebait1” wouldn’t make any sense, though you’d be able to infer what was said by the troll.
“Trolls,” for the benefit of those of you who don’t know, are people who go into message boards and deliberately post inflammatory comments for the sake of getting people angry. Trolls especially love to target forums designed for nerds to express their appreciation for a particular movie/TV show/book, and will usually consist of saying “The movie/TV show/book you are expressing your appreciation for sucks!”
This will then result in a flurry of angry responses, mixed in with comments from others who recognize a troll when they see one and encourage other users to simply ignore the comments, as a “do not feed the trolls” approach is the best way to avoid the start of a “flame war.” No one ever pays any attention, and a flame war invariably results. This is true in any and every message board of any kind anywhere, though it is especially true at IMDb.
Here is another typical thread:
When is it coming out?
Posted by newbie3:
When is her new movie coming out?
RE: When is it coming out?
Posted by pointlesslyangry4:
We’ve already talked about this in a different thread. God! People like you should be tied to the back of a horse and dragged over broken bottles! Why should I have to hold your stupid newbie hand? Just go to the main page and search the boards. Idiot! How dare you not already know everything and have the nerve to ask a question! I will now proceed to belittle you because I have no power in the real world and must rely on attacking newbies in message boards to feel good about myself, even though it would take much less effort to simply say “The movie opens on June 10th.”
With some variation, considerably more venom, and much more mangled use of the language, this is pretty much what every thread looks like in the IMDb Message Board, though they are usually much, much longer, sometimes having hundreds of posts made by people who all seem to be totally brain dead, with each post more retarded and painful to read than the last.
And yet, read them I would, all the while demanding that I explain myself. “Why? Why am I doing this?”
I could never answer that question.
What made things worse, though, was that I would often find myself reading these threads for hours, often in boards for movies or actors I didn’t even care about.
It was bad enough to be reading these irritating posts in the “Sin City” boards, but it was a thousand times worse to be reading them in a Hillary Duff board. I mean, wtf? How the hell did I end up there?
I would usually try to avoid going to the boards, but invariably I would see a thread that would draw me in. I was powerless to resist the temptation, even though I knew that nothing good could come of it.
My salvation came in the form of IMDb requiring you to register in order to even read the boards.
As I didn’t have an existing login, I was finally free!
Sure, conceivably I could create a free login and be back where I was, but however strong my masochism may be, this problem now falls under the jurisdiction of my laziness, which is more powerful than pretty much anything. As tempted as I may be to create a login when I see some especially aggravating-looking thread, my laziness determines that creating a login would just be too much bother.
These days, though, I find myself getting suckered into the comments posted on Slashdot, which, because they’re written by pretentious, self-important nerds, can be even more irritating than the posts in the IMDb Message Boards, so it looks as though I’ll never truly be free (unless Slashdot starts requiring you to register to read the comments, which I pray will be the case).
My other masochistic indulgence involves comic books.
In fact, it involves two specific kinds of comic books, neither of which is in existence any longer.
I read these comics in electronic form in the comic book newsgroups on Usenet.
(BTW, for anyone who makes use of Usenet, I highly recommend using Easy News. For $10 a month you get 20 GB of downloads, with the option to earn lots of free extra gigs, access to all the major groups, an easy-to-use and extremely functional Web-based interface, up to 40 days of post retention, and so much more. I’ve been using the service for years, and while they keep adding new features all the time the price has never gone up. It’s an unbeatable value.)
The specific comic books I read, though only when I’m really, really bored and want to punish myself, are romance comics and Lois Lane comics.
For the most part, these were all published prior to the 1970s, which can make for painful reading in any comic book genre, and due to the pre-ERA mindset can be extremely offensive to modern sensibilities.
The Lois Lane comics (Lois had her own series for quite some time, as did Jimmy Olsen, though eventually both books were folded into a series called “Superman Family,” an anthology series that focused on the supporting characters in Superman’s life) are especially painful to read, as they present someone very different from the strong-willed, driven, yet compassionate woman I think of when I think of Lois. The stories usually present her as being vain, shallow, and interested only in landing herself a “super” husband. Many of the stories focus on her rivalry with Lana Lang.
For the most part it’s just sad.
The romance comics, though, also induce their share of groans.
In neither case do I find myself as “compelled” to read as I was with the IMDb Message Boards, but it is often hard to look away.
Often with the romance comics I find myself performing a sort of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” commentary in my head as I read them, so that much, at least, is entertaining, though it doesn’t make things any less painful.
And those are the major ways in which my masochistic tendencies manifest themselves. Sometimes, as I’m wincing at a story about how Lois has been exposed to an enlarging ray that has made her so fat that even Superman has to strain to lift her, that I’m just a glutton for punishment.
The same could be said, though, for people who read Threshold.
That, of course, leads us into the more conventional recounting of the events of my day.
Beyond going for a walk I didn’t do much. I haven’t been feeling especially creative this week, so I haven’t been doing much in the way of drawing or non-Threshold writing. Honestly, I haven’t been doing much of anything this week, other than performing some “hard drive hygiene,” freeing up space by deleting unnecessary files and then defragmenting.
In the interest of doing some future drawing, though, I decided that today would be a good time to grab some screen captures of Carla Gugino in “Sin City.”
So I popped the DVD in, launched my player software, and waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually, my DVD software reported that it had crashed, at which point my computer stopped being able to even see that I had a DVD in my DVD drive.
After messing around with a few things and locking up my system entirely, I rebooted.
As sometimes happens, my computer went a little way into the booting up process and just stopped dead. I’ve never been sure of the cause of this, but usually it’s nothing that a quick shot of “CTRL+ALT+DEL” can’t fix.
Not so this time.
After some frantic cursing and some messing around with setup, I got my computer to boot up, though my DVD drive was still on the fritz.
Eventually I determined that problems with the drive were actually what was keeping the computer from booting.
It seems that whenever the drive door is closed the drive thinks that there’s a DVD in it, even when there isn’t, so it keeps trying, and failing, to read the DVD, locking it into a perpetual loop of trying to read the DVD and failing.
It also gets stuck in this trying/failing loop when there actually is something in the drive.
So, as the DVD drive is set as the first place the computer looks when booting up, the computer is not able to get past this loop to move to the next boot device and boot up normally.
The only way I can get around this is to have the DVD drive door open when rebooting.
Once inside of Windows, the loop prevents me from being able to open the “My Computer” folder unless the door is open.
So as a temporary fix I went into the Hardware Manager and disabled the drive.
Of course, this leaves me without a DVD drive on my main computer, which is an unacceptable circumstance.
Rather than trying to fix what’s wrong with the existing drive, which is more than two years old anyway, I figured I’d just go ahead and buy a new one, upgrading to a Dual-Layer burner.
Further, I decided that I’d get one and install it today. The particular drive I wanted is about $100 at Wal-Mart, so I jumped in the car and headed there. I decided that I should make a quick run over to Best Buy to see if they had any bargains. They didn’t, so I went to Wal-Mart, only to find that they no longer have the drive I wanted. For $40 more they have an external version. I considered the notion. After all, when it comes to installing new hardware, I usually prefer the external versions, as it’s usually just a matter of plugging in a USB cable.
In this instance, though, I wanted an internal version. Plus the extra $40 was a bit of a disincentive.
There was a cheaper internal, DL drive there, but I decided that I would just deal with delayed gratification and order the particular drive I want online.
I haven’t actually done so yet. I may decide to hold off, as I do have a burner on my secondary computer, so, if necessary, I can get by without one on my main system.
We’ll see, I guess.
In any case, I think that will do it for this entry, and for this week. Have a good weekend.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Quiet Day, Despite The Massacre
It was brought to my attention that my diagram illustrating the messed-up lane system at the Yuppie grocery store I went to yesterday doesn’t make any sense.
I can’t see any reason why it would; the system it was intended to illustrate doesn’t make any sense either.
Bear in mind that it is intended to be a crude representation, it is not to scale, and is utterly lacking in detail. I threw it together hastily to provide a quick visual reference.
Still, in the interest of clarity I’ve placed another version of the diagram with additional explanatory text here.
If you still don’t understand what the diagram is illustrating, the inescapable conclusion is that you are an idiot.
Today was a pretty quiet one. I woke up at the usual time, despite the fact that I went to bed fairly late last night and, thanks to my nap, was unable to get to sleep very readily.
Once I was up I mustered up enough energy to head over to the fitness center here at my apartment complex and put in a half-assed workout.
Finishing that, I came home and had my standard protein shake breakfast and went out for a walk.
The walk itself was largely uneventful, and once I got home I made up a new grocery list, showered, and headed out into the world.
My first stop was to get a haircut. This involved waiting for about twenty minutes, as there were two people ahead of me and these days there is apparently only ever one person working at a time.
Once that was done I did my grocery shopping and came home.
Last night I had set the DVR to catch the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake, as I’ve intended to watch the movie for a while, but it’s only ever on at night, and I refuse to watch horror movies alone in the dark.
So I watched that today, though the ambient light, while helping to keep me from getting too spooked, did often make it near-impossible to make out the action in some of the darker scenes.
Overall, I’d have to say “meh” about the whole movie. It was pretty standard fare.
The biggest problem I had with it was that it was supposed to have been taking place in 1973, yet apart from simply saying that it was 1973 the filmmakers made no effort to make it seem as though it actually were, so there were a lot of anachronisms in speech and behavior on the part of the young cast that was largely born well after 1973.
From about 1976 on I have fairly clear memories of the way people and things looked in the 70s, and I’ve seen a lot of movies, TV shows, and pictures from the three years prior to that, so I can honestly say that there was no one in the world in 1973 who looked like Jessica Biel.
Born in 1982, she was the movie’s biggest (and hottest) anachronism. Even hot chicks weren’t that hot in the 70s.
Beyond Ms. Biel, though, the entire cast looked out of place. The clothes they were wearing looked like a 21st century attempt at retro 70’s fashion, not like actual 70’s fashion.
But whatever. Despite setting it in the past the movie wasn’t really intended to be a period piece.
Still, the fact that they came up with many different contrived methods of ensuring that Ms. Biel’s white tank top was usually wet, it would have been nice for them to get rid of one particular anachronism: her bra.
Women went around braless all the time in the 70s, especially when they were on their way to a Skynnrd concert.
Ah well.
As for movies I also watched “The Punisher” the other day, which, along with “Catwoman,” was one of the recent entries in the comic book movie genre that I had been avoiding.
I’ve never been an especially big fan of the character, so I didn’t have any strong feelings about how the movie should or shouldn’t be handled. Having no real expectations, I couldn’t really be disappointed.
Overall I’d say it was okay. Certainly it was better than the direct-to-video 80’s version starring Dolph Lundgren, and it did at least (kind of) feature him wearing his symbol.
The biggest problem with the movie was that it was long and slow-moving. It took a significant amount of time for him to actually get on with the business of punishing, as he spent most of his time just wallowing in self-pity, and the various interludes with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and her weirdo friends was largely pointless and prevented the plot from moving along rather than actually adding anything to it.
That whole set-up, incidentally, was probably the most unrealistic aspect of the movie because, for one thing, women who look like that do not work in diners, are never single for more than, like, a day, and they do not create surrogate families with a couple of nerdy guys, the likes of whom a woman who looks like that would never cross the street to spit on.
Once he did stop being “The Wallower” and actually became the Punisher, I have to say his punishment was pretty brutal.
In recent years the writing of the “Punisher” comics has been handled by Garth Ennis.
I haven’t actually read any of it, but knowing his work on other things, I could definitely see some of his influence in the movie.
Personally, I would have like to have seen more of a Frank Miller influence, as he’s the only person who’s ever made the Punisher seem interesting to me, but it wasn’t too big of a deal, as I just didn’t care that much.
As today was pretty quiet, there isn’t too much more to say right now, so that will do it for this entry.
I can’t see any reason why it would; the system it was intended to illustrate doesn’t make any sense either.
Bear in mind that it is intended to be a crude representation, it is not to scale, and is utterly lacking in detail. I threw it together hastily to provide a quick visual reference.
Still, in the interest of clarity I’ve placed another version of the diagram with additional explanatory text here.
If you still don’t understand what the diagram is illustrating, the inescapable conclusion is that you are an idiot.
Today was a pretty quiet one. I woke up at the usual time, despite the fact that I went to bed fairly late last night and, thanks to my nap, was unable to get to sleep very readily.
Once I was up I mustered up enough energy to head over to the fitness center here at my apartment complex and put in a half-assed workout.
Finishing that, I came home and had my standard protein shake breakfast and went out for a walk.
The walk itself was largely uneventful, and once I got home I made up a new grocery list, showered, and headed out into the world.
My first stop was to get a haircut. This involved waiting for about twenty minutes, as there were two people ahead of me and these days there is apparently only ever one person working at a time.
Once that was done I did my grocery shopping and came home.
Last night I had set the DVR to catch the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake, as I’ve intended to watch the movie for a while, but it’s only ever on at night, and I refuse to watch horror movies alone in the dark.
So I watched that today, though the ambient light, while helping to keep me from getting too spooked, did often make it near-impossible to make out the action in some of the darker scenes.
Overall, I’d have to say “meh” about the whole movie. It was pretty standard fare.
The biggest problem I had with it was that it was supposed to have been taking place in 1973, yet apart from simply saying that it was 1973 the filmmakers made no effort to make it seem as though it actually were, so there were a lot of anachronisms in speech and behavior on the part of the young cast that was largely born well after 1973.
From about 1976 on I have fairly clear memories of the way people and things looked in the 70s, and I’ve seen a lot of movies, TV shows, and pictures from the three years prior to that, so I can honestly say that there was no one in the world in 1973 who looked like Jessica Biel.
Born in 1982, she was the movie’s biggest (and hottest) anachronism. Even hot chicks weren’t that hot in the 70s.
Beyond Ms. Biel, though, the entire cast looked out of place. The clothes they were wearing looked like a 21st century attempt at retro 70’s fashion, not like actual 70’s fashion.
But whatever. Despite setting it in the past the movie wasn’t really intended to be a period piece.
Still, the fact that they came up with many different contrived methods of ensuring that Ms. Biel’s white tank top was usually wet, it would have been nice for them to get rid of one particular anachronism: her bra.
Women went around braless all the time in the 70s, especially when they were on their way to a Skynnrd concert.
Ah well.
As for movies I also watched “The Punisher” the other day, which, along with “Catwoman,” was one of the recent entries in the comic book movie genre that I had been avoiding.
I’ve never been an especially big fan of the character, so I didn’t have any strong feelings about how the movie should or shouldn’t be handled. Having no real expectations, I couldn’t really be disappointed.
Overall I’d say it was okay. Certainly it was better than the direct-to-video 80’s version starring Dolph Lundgren, and it did at least (kind of) feature him wearing his symbol.
The biggest problem with the movie was that it was long and slow-moving. It took a significant amount of time for him to actually get on with the business of punishing, as he spent most of his time just wallowing in self-pity, and the various interludes with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and her weirdo friends was largely pointless and prevented the plot from moving along rather than actually adding anything to it.
That whole set-up, incidentally, was probably the most unrealistic aspect of the movie because, for one thing, women who look like that do not work in diners, are never single for more than, like, a day, and they do not create surrogate families with a couple of nerdy guys, the likes of whom a woman who looks like that would never cross the street to spit on.
Once he did stop being “The Wallower” and actually became the Punisher, I have to say his punishment was pretty brutal.
In recent years the writing of the “Punisher” comics has been handled by Garth Ennis.
I haven’t actually read any of it, but knowing his work on other things, I could definitely see some of his influence in the movie.
Personally, I would have like to have seen more of a Frank Miller influence, as he’s the only person who’s ever made the Punisher seem interesting to me, but it wasn’t too big of a deal, as I just didn’t care that much.
As today was pretty quiet, there isn’t too much more to say right now, so that will do it for this entry.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Could I At Least Get A Passing Thought?
This morning in bed I rolled over onto my side, opened my eyes, then closed tightly instantly as I discovered that the sun was shining directly into them through the window.
That’s never fun.
That pretty much set the tone for my day. I got up, deciding once again not to go for a walk, did my usual morning crap and put together a grocery list.
My journey out into the world took me past HQ, so I had opted to meet Kathleen for lunch.
We ate outside in a little patio area. At first it was nice, as the sun had gone behind some clouds, but then it came back out and was beating down on us, while simultaneously we were battered by wind that popped up out of nowhere.
Still, the scenery was nice, particularly in the form of the woman getting ready to go for a run on her lunch break. I especially liked watching her stretch.
Once we finished up with lunch I headed out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. From there I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look for these cool little power strip I’ve seen in their fliers, but I wasn’t able to find it.
BB&B is in the same plaza as the Best Buy, so when I got there I reflexively parked by Best Buy, even though I hadn’t intended to go there, and it made me have to walk a fair distance to get to where I was actually going.
While I was at it, though, I figured I’d go into Best Buy anyway.
While I was there I found a bargain on an HDTV that I almost went for, but ultimately decided against it, as it’s my intention to hold off and buy some kind of flat-panel TV (this one was a CRT), though that’s going to take a lot of saving.
Once I was on my way home I realized that I was tired of being out in the world and that I didn’t really need most of the stuff on my grocery list.
Still, I figured I should pick up a few things, and because it was on the way of the route I was taking home, I decided to check out this relatively new shopping plaza that has at its center one of those pretentious, Yuppie grocery stores.
Before going in I wandered around outside to see what kind of useless, yuppie shops and restaurants they had in the plaza. There was a whole lot of nothing there, the kind of nothing designed for people with more money than sense.
As I walked to the end of the large strip I went around the corner to see if there was anything more, only to nearly collide with two people, a young black guy and an old white lady, who was licking her lips, and found that there wasn’t anything around the corner but the back of the building, replete with various loading docks.
Now it seemed to me, based on the fact that I saw other people smoking back there, that the two people I nearly bumped into, who worked for the Yuppie grocery store, were probably on their way back from a smoke break, but the fact that the old lady was licking her lips just conjured up all sorts of images, pretty much all of which were disgusting.
In any case, I finally went into the Yuppie grocery store, grabbed the few “must-haves” on my list, and walked up to the registers.
Apparently in some sort of effort to distinguish themselves from other grocery stores the people in charge of the stores opted to have the register lanes designed by total idiot.
The setup of the lanes, in part due to the fact that there are no conveyor belts, is such that you can’t really tell what line you’re standing in.
Basically, you have to push a cart up to the register, then move it around to the cashier’s side and then get back over onto your side.
I’ve created a diagram that illustrates how it works:
I can’t see how this offers any kind of advantage over a more conventional setup.
Once that was finally finished I made my way home and ended up taking a nap for a couple of hours.
And that was pretty much my day.
At work on Friday, as she often does, Jamie, who used to work with us before moving on to a job in a different department, stopped in to visit for a bit.
She was talking to Chris about some girl she knew. It was her intention to set Chris up with this girl, as she was single, even though Chris, to however ambiguous an extent, already has a girlfriend, because apparently Jamie doesn’t know any guy who is completely, desperately, and pathetically single and who doesn’t have a social or work life that is conducive to meeting people, and could therefore benefit from having friends set him up with someone.
I mean, who could she possibly know like that?
Okay, in fairness to Jamie it only makes sense that she would look to get Chris hooked up as her first priority in that regard, as she’s known him longer and is closer to him, as he does live in her basement, so it would only make sense that she would feel more in the way of an obligation to him.
Besides, from what Chris said after meeting her for drinks Friday night, it seems unlikely that the girl and I would have been a good match, though that I’m not a good match with anyone would pretty much seem to be a given. After all, it’s been scientifically proven that I’m totally incompatible with other human beings.
Still, it is just another example of how I’ve never been able to rely on friends to help me fill the romantic void in my life. No one ever seems to know any single women, and when they do it usually never occurs to them to try to hook me up, as they invariably have a long list of other single male friends to attend to first.
Either that or it just plain doesn’t occur to them.
While having lunch with Brian and Kathleen on Monday I asked Kathleen, “Why don’t you have any friends you can hook me up with? You’re surrounded by attractive women where you work. Just start networking a little, and when you make friends with single women who ask if you know any decent guys, you can lie and say that you do, then set them up with me.”
Years ago I used to launch into similar diatribes at my niece Jourdan. After all, she was generally involved in every conceivable activity: baseball, figure skating, and all kinds of other extracurricular activities. Yet despite that, none of her coaches or teachers were ever hot, single chicks. Ever.
Damn brat never did anything to help hook me up. Always too busy having fun to think about her uncle.
Of course, even when people did think about me, it never led to anything, and sometimes came as a blow to the ego.
Like my friend Rachel who used to say, “Too bad none of my friends from New York are here. They’ll sleep with anyone.”
Gee, thanks for thinking of me Rache.
The best example of not thinking of me and assaulting my ego happened years ago when I was living with my friend Eric and his then-wife Sally.
After getting off the phone with a single, female friend of hers, Sally turned to Eric, and in a spirit similar to the one in which I castigated Kathleen during lunch on Monday, said, “You need to get some good-looking friends!”
It took a while for her to figure out why I said, “Thanks Sally,” gave her the finger, and walked out of the room.
She apologized and said that she’d meant no offense, and that it never even occurred to her that I could be a potential date for her friend because she knew we wouldn’t be a match.
It was a nice save; in point of fact, I wouldn’t have been interested in being hooked up with an overweight, Crank-dealing single mother who just got out of jail.
Still, it was the sheer thoughtlessness that stung, as if she were completely oblivious not only to my presence in the room, but to my very existence.
These days my ego doesn’t really take any blows; they all pass over it as my ego dropped to the mat a long time ago.
Nor do I really get upset over “the principle of the thing.” Like most things in my life any perceived slight just ends up being material for Threshold.
Still, it would be nice to have people think of me, and maybe put forth a little effort on my behalf, every once in a while…
Ah well.
Thanks to my posters for the informative comments on zombies and the zombie lifestyle. It just goes to show that, as my mother often says, you won’t find things out if you don’t ask questions.
That’s never fun.
That pretty much set the tone for my day. I got up, deciding once again not to go for a walk, did my usual morning crap and put together a grocery list.
My journey out into the world took me past HQ, so I had opted to meet Kathleen for lunch.
We ate outside in a little patio area. At first it was nice, as the sun had gone behind some clouds, but then it came back out and was beating down on us, while simultaneously we were battered by wind that popped up out of nowhere.
Still, the scenery was nice, particularly in the form of the woman getting ready to go for a run on her lunch break. I especially liked watching her stretch.
Once we finished up with lunch I headed out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. From there I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look for these cool little power strip I’ve seen in their fliers, but I wasn’t able to find it.
BB&B is in the same plaza as the Best Buy, so when I got there I reflexively parked by Best Buy, even though I hadn’t intended to go there, and it made me have to walk a fair distance to get to where I was actually going.
While I was at it, though, I figured I’d go into Best Buy anyway.
While I was there I found a bargain on an HDTV that I almost went for, but ultimately decided against it, as it’s my intention to hold off and buy some kind of flat-panel TV (this one was a CRT), though that’s going to take a lot of saving.
Once I was on my way home I realized that I was tired of being out in the world and that I didn’t really need most of the stuff on my grocery list.
Still, I figured I should pick up a few things, and because it was on the way of the route I was taking home, I decided to check out this relatively new shopping plaza that has at its center one of those pretentious, Yuppie grocery stores.
Before going in I wandered around outside to see what kind of useless, yuppie shops and restaurants they had in the plaza. There was a whole lot of nothing there, the kind of nothing designed for people with more money than sense.
As I walked to the end of the large strip I went around the corner to see if there was anything more, only to nearly collide with two people, a young black guy and an old white lady, who was licking her lips, and found that there wasn’t anything around the corner but the back of the building, replete with various loading docks.
Now it seemed to me, based on the fact that I saw other people smoking back there, that the two people I nearly bumped into, who worked for the Yuppie grocery store, were probably on their way back from a smoke break, but the fact that the old lady was licking her lips just conjured up all sorts of images, pretty much all of which were disgusting.
In any case, I finally went into the Yuppie grocery store, grabbed the few “must-haves” on my list, and walked up to the registers.
Apparently in some sort of effort to distinguish themselves from other grocery stores the people in charge of the stores opted to have the register lanes designed by total idiot.
The setup of the lanes, in part due to the fact that there are no conveyor belts, is such that you can’t really tell what line you’re standing in.
Basically, you have to push a cart up to the register, then move it around to the cashier’s side and then get back over onto your side.
I’ve created a diagram that illustrates how it works:
I can’t see how this offers any kind of advantage over a more conventional setup.
Once that was finally finished I made my way home and ended up taking a nap for a couple of hours.
And that was pretty much my day.
At work on Friday, as she often does, Jamie, who used to work with us before moving on to a job in a different department, stopped in to visit for a bit.
She was talking to Chris about some girl she knew. It was her intention to set Chris up with this girl, as she was single, even though Chris, to however ambiguous an extent, already has a girlfriend, because apparently Jamie doesn’t know any guy who is completely, desperately, and pathetically single and who doesn’t have a social or work life that is conducive to meeting people, and could therefore benefit from having friends set him up with someone.
I mean, who could she possibly know like that?
Okay, in fairness to Jamie it only makes sense that she would look to get Chris hooked up as her first priority in that regard, as she’s known him longer and is closer to him, as he does live in her basement, so it would only make sense that she would feel more in the way of an obligation to him.
Besides, from what Chris said after meeting her for drinks Friday night, it seems unlikely that the girl and I would have been a good match, though that I’m not a good match with anyone would pretty much seem to be a given. After all, it’s been scientifically proven that I’m totally incompatible with other human beings.
Still, it is just another example of how I’ve never been able to rely on friends to help me fill the romantic void in my life. No one ever seems to know any single women, and when they do it usually never occurs to them to try to hook me up, as they invariably have a long list of other single male friends to attend to first.
Either that or it just plain doesn’t occur to them.
While having lunch with Brian and Kathleen on Monday I asked Kathleen, “Why don’t you have any friends you can hook me up with? You’re surrounded by attractive women where you work. Just start networking a little, and when you make friends with single women who ask if you know any decent guys, you can lie and say that you do, then set them up with me.”
Years ago I used to launch into similar diatribes at my niece Jourdan. After all, she was generally involved in every conceivable activity: baseball, figure skating, and all kinds of other extracurricular activities. Yet despite that, none of her coaches or teachers were ever hot, single chicks. Ever.
Damn brat never did anything to help hook me up. Always too busy having fun to think about her uncle.
Of course, even when people did think about me, it never led to anything, and sometimes came as a blow to the ego.
Like my friend Rachel who used to say, “Too bad none of my friends from New York are here. They’ll sleep with anyone.”
Gee, thanks for thinking of me Rache.
The best example of not thinking of me and assaulting my ego happened years ago when I was living with my friend Eric and his then-wife Sally.
After getting off the phone with a single, female friend of hers, Sally turned to Eric, and in a spirit similar to the one in which I castigated Kathleen during lunch on Monday, said, “You need to get some good-looking friends!”
It took a while for her to figure out why I said, “Thanks Sally,” gave her the finger, and walked out of the room.
She apologized and said that she’d meant no offense, and that it never even occurred to her that I could be a potential date for her friend because she knew we wouldn’t be a match.
It was a nice save; in point of fact, I wouldn’t have been interested in being hooked up with an overweight, Crank-dealing single mother who just got out of jail.
Still, it was the sheer thoughtlessness that stung, as if she were completely oblivious not only to my presence in the room, but to my very existence.
These days my ego doesn’t really take any blows; they all pass over it as my ego dropped to the mat a long time ago.
Nor do I really get upset over “the principle of the thing.” Like most things in my life any perceived slight just ends up being material for Threshold.
Still, it would be nice to have people think of me, and maybe put forth a little effort on my behalf, every once in a while…
Ah well.
Thanks to my posters for the informative comments on zombies and the zombie lifestyle. It just goes to show that, as my mother often says, you won’t find things out if you don’t ask questions.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Katrina And The Waves or Beads, Conservatives, And Zombies (Oh My!)
During the week I don’t really follow the news beyond seeing headlines on my Google portal page.
However, at work CNN is up on a big screen pretty much constantly, so I frequently find myself being made aware (or more fully aware, at least) of events I missed during the week.
Prior to the weekend I did know that Katrina had done considerable damage, but I wasn’t really aware of the extent.
Pretty much everything about the situation is disturbing: a total lack of preparedness, the baseness of human nature that leads to opportunistic looting, killing, raping, and, outside of the affected areas, price-gouging at the gas pump, the sheer impotence of our government in responding to the crisis, and the fact that I found myself agreeing with Newt Gingrich.
(Gingrich commented on how this natural disaster demonstrates just how ill-prepared we are for responding to a terrorist attack considering that we had advance warning that Katrina was coming)
And of course, there’s the fact that when help did arrive in New Orleans, rather than food, they had crate after crate full of beads and Guardsmen could be heard to yell “Show us your tits!” to the refugees waiting there to greet them….
Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. The enormity of this tragedy is truly mind-boggling, and while I feel the sincerest sympathy for everyone impacted by these events, my approach to life requires that I find humor wherever I can. It certainly isn’t my intent to disrespect the people who survived, the people who didn’t, or those who are contributing to relief efforts.
In any case, now that relief operations are (finally) underway, the most deplorable events will occur as the Pat Robertsons of the world, unfazed by the world’s reaction to the recent assassination nonsense, will be all fire and brimstone (or rather, wind and floodwaters) about how this is just another example of God taking vengeance on our permissive society. They will, no doubt, point to the state senate of California voting to allow same-sex marriages as one of the causes (God, apparently, has lousy aim), and the evils of “judicial activism.”
On that second front, though, Robertson had his prayers answered in the form of Chief Justice William Rehnquist shuffling off this mortal coil. While Robertson had explicitly prayed for another opening on the Supreme Court, he will no doubt claim (if anyone bothers to ask) that he was simply praying for Rehnquist to retire from his job, not from his life.
Over the weekend I did read a conservative commentator who, while not blaming liberals for the hurricane itself, did blame them for the government’s failure to respond quickly.
I have to admit that this was a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
After all, liberals don’t control any aspect of the government. All branches of the Federal government are, quite securely, in the hands of conservatives, and the majority of state governorships are held by conservatives.
Further, most conservative politicians and commentators boldly claim that the majority of American citizens are like-mindedly conservative.
So if you run everything, what is your rationale for blaming the way things are run on the people who don’t run anything?
The reasoning was that the stain of liberalism’s evil grasp on this country just hasn’t been fully removed and that the conservatives just haven’t had enough time to get things in order, though there were no specifics involved as to how much time would be enough.
That’s always the irritating thing about conservative thinking: they never take responsibility when they’re at fault but they will always take credit when they don’t deserve it.
And yes, I do realize that this is not something that is unique to conservatives, but, I’m of the opinion that they excel at it.
For example, the prosperous economy of the late 1990’s, according to conservative commentators, had nothing to do with the then-current leadership, but was, in fact, the delayed effects of Reaganomics. Voodoo, it seems, takes a while to kick in.
However, the sluggishness and recessions that preceded this prosperity was somehow not the responsibility of the prior Republican administrations, as Jimmy Carter was apparently able to do more damage in his four years than Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush number one could undo within the span of their combined twenty.
Considering that we are now, apparently, suffering from the effects of the Clinton administration, it would seem that most Presidents are better leaders when they aren’t in office.
So maybe that’s an idea the conservatives should consider. Maybe if they all just quit things will work out exactly the way they want them to work out.
Just a thought.
Seriously, though, when you run the fucking country, you have no business complaining about how it isn’t being run they way you want it to be run. Admittedly, I sure as hell don’t want it run the way you want it, but I’ll tell you this much, the country is never going to be yours until you take responsibility for it. Stop whining and finger-pointing, admit that you fucked up and dropped the ball, and get on with it. Quit blaming the courts, and the queers, and the feminazis, and the liberals, and the secular humanists, and wizards, and witches, and the devil and get your asses to work. No one wants to hear your excuses. You’re in charge now, so do your goddamn jobs.
Christ, didn’t any of you ever have a puppy when you were kids? If so, I’d hate to see how well you took care o them.
If you want this country so bad, it’s your responsibility to take care of it, and that includes feeding it every day, cleaning up after it, and taking it out for walks.
Now, the one point that hasn’t been addressed at in all of this is the fact that it is now abundantly clear that we would be totally fucked in the event of an outbreak of zombies.
I mean, by the time the National Guard came in to rescue us, we’d all be ambling around in that undead shuffle, moaning as we rot and hunger for the flesh of the living.
This occurred to me when I saw a picture of a black cop in New Orleans standing holding a shotgun and looking like Ving Rhames in “Dawn of the Dead.”
On the subject of zombies, though, there are several things I’ve often wondered.
For one thing, as hungry as they are, how come they always eat so little? Usually they take one good bite out of someone, then leave it at that, at which point the light lunch they’ve just enjoyed becomes a flesh-hungry zombie.
That’s another problem; what kind of species reproduces the same way it eats? I guess it’s sort of efficient, but what happens when all of the consumed are transformed into consumers? Okay, sure, the population isn’t going to die out without food, since it’s already dead, but what else is there to do? Shuffling around and moaning is fun for a while, but you’d think it’d get a little old after a while.
Of course, that leads to my other question: why don’t zombies eat each other? I mean, it would make perfect sense to me. You’re a slow-moving, flesh-hungry zombie. You can either chase after the fast-moving live meat that’s probably going to shoot you in the head, or you could just amble over to Frank, the dead guy from Accounting, and have a little gnosh.
I mean, what’s he going to do about it? He’s a freakin’ zombie.
Is it that zombies are snobs and refuse to eat anything that isn’t fresh? Who knew zombies had such discerning palates?
But back to my original point, if they would maybe gorge themselves a little more when they do get their hands on live meat, maybe they wouldn’t be so hungry later and wouldn’t have to keep chasing after every random live person that happens by.
On the topic of eating dead flesh, though, where are all the scavengers from the animal kingdom? I mean, you’d think that jackals and vultures would be having a field day in a city overrun with zombies. I mean, again, what are they going to do if the vultures come in to have a bite? They’re freakin’ zombies.
On a more serious note, I should mention that Brian, along with several other local volunteer fire fighters, will be heading down to assist with relief efforts. I’m sure he’ll have a lot of stories, good and bad, to tell when he comes back.
But speaking of Brian, this Thursday marks the passing of his twenties, as it will be his THIRTIETH birthday.
In honor of his birthday, I had a special card made for him, featuring this picture, with my hopes that all of his birthday wishes come true.
Making the card did make me consider the possibility of starting up something of a sideline business making custom birthday cards for people. It’s something I’m definitely going to give some thought. Stay tuned for further thoughts on this subject.
This morning I opted not to take a walk when I got up, but later in morning I decided that I wasn’t going to put it off any longer, but as I was preparing to head out Kathleen called and asked if I wanted to join her and Brian for lunch.
So I did. It had been Brian’s intention to eat at this steakhouse across the street from me, but we found that it was closed, as were several other restaurants and cafes, so we opted to get food from a pizza place that was open and dined al fresco, as it is a truly beautiful day today.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. There’s a very good chance that I will be back with more later.
However, at work CNN is up on a big screen pretty much constantly, so I frequently find myself being made aware (or more fully aware, at least) of events I missed during the week.
Prior to the weekend I did know that Katrina had done considerable damage, but I wasn’t really aware of the extent.
Pretty much everything about the situation is disturbing: a total lack of preparedness, the baseness of human nature that leads to opportunistic looting, killing, raping, and, outside of the affected areas, price-gouging at the gas pump, the sheer impotence of our government in responding to the crisis, and the fact that I found myself agreeing with Newt Gingrich.
(Gingrich commented on how this natural disaster demonstrates just how ill-prepared we are for responding to a terrorist attack considering that we had advance warning that Katrina was coming)
And of course, there’s the fact that when help did arrive in New Orleans, rather than food, they had crate after crate full of beads and Guardsmen could be heard to yell “Show us your tits!” to the refugees waiting there to greet them….
Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. The enormity of this tragedy is truly mind-boggling, and while I feel the sincerest sympathy for everyone impacted by these events, my approach to life requires that I find humor wherever I can. It certainly isn’t my intent to disrespect the people who survived, the people who didn’t, or those who are contributing to relief efforts.
In any case, now that relief operations are (finally) underway, the most deplorable events will occur as the Pat Robertsons of the world, unfazed by the world’s reaction to the recent assassination nonsense, will be all fire and brimstone (or rather, wind and floodwaters) about how this is just another example of God taking vengeance on our permissive society. They will, no doubt, point to the state senate of California voting to allow same-sex marriages as one of the causes (God, apparently, has lousy aim), and the evils of “judicial activism.”
On that second front, though, Robertson had his prayers answered in the form of Chief Justice William Rehnquist shuffling off this mortal coil. While Robertson had explicitly prayed for another opening on the Supreme Court, he will no doubt claim (if anyone bothers to ask) that he was simply praying for Rehnquist to retire from his job, not from his life.
Over the weekend I did read a conservative commentator who, while not blaming liberals for the hurricane itself, did blame them for the government’s failure to respond quickly.
I have to admit that this was a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
After all, liberals don’t control any aspect of the government. All branches of the Federal government are, quite securely, in the hands of conservatives, and the majority of state governorships are held by conservatives.
Further, most conservative politicians and commentators boldly claim that the majority of American citizens are like-mindedly conservative.
So if you run everything, what is your rationale for blaming the way things are run on the people who don’t run anything?
The reasoning was that the stain of liberalism’s evil grasp on this country just hasn’t been fully removed and that the conservatives just haven’t had enough time to get things in order, though there were no specifics involved as to how much time would be enough.
That’s always the irritating thing about conservative thinking: they never take responsibility when they’re at fault but they will always take credit when they don’t deserve it.
And yes, I do realize that this is not something that is unique to conservatives, but, I’m of the opinion that they excel at it.
For example, the prosperous economy of the late 1990’s, according to conservative commentators, had nothing to do with the then-current leadership, but was, in fact, the delayed effects of Reaganomics. Voodoo, it seems, takes a while to kick in.
However, the sluggishness and recessions that preceded this prosperity was somehow not the responsibility of the prior Republican administrations, as Jimmy Carter was apparently able to do more damage in his four years than Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush number one could undo within the span of their combined twenty.
Considering that we are now, apparently, suffering from the effects of the Clinton administration, it would seem that most Presidents are better leaders when they aren’t in office.
So maybe that’s an idea the conservatives should consider. Maybe if they all just quit things will work out exactly the way they want them to work out.
Just a thought.
Seriously, though, when you run the fucking country, you have no business complaining about how it isn’t being run they way you want it to be run. Admittedly, I sure as hell don’t want it run the way you want it, but I’ll tell you this much, the country is never going to be yours until you take responsibility for it. Stop whining and finger-pointing, admit that you fucked up and dropped the ball, and get on with it. Quit blaming the courts, and the queers, and the feminazis, and the liberals, and the secular humanists, and wizards, and witches, and the devil and get your asses to work. No one wants to hear your excuses. You’re in charge now, so do your goddamn jobs.
Christ, didn’t any of you ever have a puppy when you were kids? If so, I’d hate to see how well you took care o them.
If you want this country so bad, it’s your responsibility to take care of it, and that includes feeding it every day, cleaning up after it, and taking it out for walks.
Now, the one point that hasn’t been addressed at in all of this is the fact that it is now abundantly clear that we would be totally fucked in the event of an outbreak of zombies.
I mean, by the time the National Guard came in to rescue us, we’d all be ambling around in that undead shuffle, moaning as we rot and hunger for the flesh of the living.
This occurred to me when I saw a picture of a black cop in New Orleans standing holding a shotgun and looking like Ving Rhames in “Dawn of the Dead.”
On the subject of zombies, though, there are several things I’ve often wondered.
For one thing, as hungry as they are, how come they always eat so little? Usually they take one good bite out of someone, then leave it at that, at which point the light lunch they’ve just enjoyed becomes a flesh-hungry zombie.
That’s another problem; what kind of species reproduces the same way it eats? I guess it’s sort of efficient, but what happens when all of the consumed are transformed into consumers? Okay, sure, the population isn’t going to die out without food, since it’s already dead, but what else is there to do? Shuffling around and moaning is fun for a while, but you’d think it’d get a little old after a while.
Of course, that leads to my other question: why don’t zombies eat each other? I mean, it would make perfect sense to me. You’re a slow-moving, flesh-hungry zombie. You can either chase after the fast-moving live meat that’s probably going to shoot you in the head, or you could just amble over to Frank, the dead guy from Accounting, and have a little gnosh.
I mean, what’s he going to do about it? He’s a freakin’ zombie.
Is it that zombies are snobs and refuse to eat anything that isn’t fresh? Who knew zombies had such discerning palates?
But back to my original point, if they would maybe gorge themselves a little more when they do get their hands on live meat, maybe they wouldn’t be so hungry later and wouldn’t have to keep chasing after every random live person that happens by.
On the topic of eating dead flesh, though, where are all the scavengers from the animal kingdom? I mean, you’d think that jackals and vultures would be having a field day in a city overrun with zombies. I mean, again, what are they going to do if the vultures come in to have a bite? They’re freakin’ zombies.
On a more serious note, I should mention that Brian, along with several other local volunteer fire fighters, will be heading down to assist with relief efforts. I’m sure he’ll have a lot of stories, good and bad, to tell when he comes back.
But speaking of Brian, this Thursday marks the passing of his twenties, as it will be his THIRTIETH birthday.
In honor of his birthday, I had a special card made for him, featuring this picture, with my hopes that all of his birthday wishes come true.
Making the card did make me consider the possibility of starting up something of a sideline business making custom birthday cards for people. It’s something I’m definitely going to give some thought. Stay tuned for further thoughts on this subject.
This morning I opted not to take a walk when I got up, but later in morning I decided that I wasn’t going to put it off any longer, but as I was preparing to head out Kathleen called and asked if I wanted to join her and Brian for lunch.
So I did. It had been Brian’s intention to eat at this steakhouse across the street from me, but we found that it was closed, as were several other restaurants and cafes, so we opted to get food from a pizza place that was open and dined al fresco, as it is a truly beautiful day today.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. There’s a very good chance that I will be back with more later.
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