Jibber Jabber

Wherein discovered through this GeekPress link about pranks for nerds

Monday Ballet: the 3 minute Nutcracker

Wherein why not




Here's an amazing video of a Chinese Ballet Circus pas de deux. Embedding is disabled, so click the link.

Check me off for four correct

Wherein fact: the Tooth Fairy works harder than the Easter Bunny and fat bastard Santa combined


1. Genghis Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!
2. MLB World Series
3. McFishwiches
4. ...as in not on time or as dead? I suppose the distinction really doesn't matter. Audrey Hepburn
5. World record holder for most Spam consumed....because they eat a lot of Spam in Hawaii
6. I recognize the picture, but would have never guessed the name of this animal
7. "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" is the only one I've read and I thought it was just a horribly written book. It was so awkward it hurt my face to read it out loud. That would be literally, not figuratively. My guess of inordinate vagueness is that the answer has something to do with an inanimate object. Second guess is that Santa Claus shows up for no reason whatsoever.

Just a little conversating

Wherein no reason we can't all be right



Icepick said...
"Shane," 1953. Inspires sheep ranchers everywhere to hope for a friendly ex-gunman to ride through town.

Wait, wasn't that the plot of Brokeback Mountain?
3/21/2008 02:33:00 PM


bill said...
I think of "Shane" as more of a cold war parable. Shane is the USA, the sheep herders are Europe, and the cattle ranchers are the Soviet Union.
3/24/2008 07:18:00 AM

Monday Ballet Don Quixote

Wherein and Nureyev




And here's a Boston show about ballet, with this episode focusing on Don Quixote as choreographed by Rudolph Nureyev: To the Pointe: Dancing Don Quixote with Nureyev (25 minutes)

And to be completely shallow, a Richard Avedon nude photo of Nureyev (2nd down). Totally NSFW.

Ends and odds

Wherein in lieu of actual content

Tosy and Cosh post about the health benefits of Buffalo Wings. I've contributed an idea for a recipe I have not tried.

ALOTT5MA prints my review of the Bob Mould concert. It's a big ball of "eh." I usually enjoy things I write at 2am, but apparently I wasn't tired enough when I wrote this.

In an old post of mine, was left this recent comment: Your reviews are hilarious, I'm truly inspired. Not so sure about Nixon being the greatest U.S. president. I said that?

34. "All the President's Men,". The venal, self-important story of the Washington Post's tragic pursuit of our country's greatest president is not inspiring. Nor is the fact that this story is responsible for making reporters thinks they're more important than the story.

I guess I did. Speaking of Nixon...

Lost

Wherein number of episodes until April 24

Naaaaaught!

NEW NEAL STEPHENSON NOVEL

Wherein I'm shaking with joy


New Neal Stephenson novel to be published September 2008. I haven't even read the description. Like it matters. He'd have to publish about 5 books of blank pages before I became concerned.

Today's mood: Saturnalian

I suck. Looks like information about this was out a month ago and I just find out today. Amazon.com info:

Hardcover: 928 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (September 9, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061474096
ISBN-13: 978-0061474095
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 2 inches

Earlier mention from last September:

He's writing a science fiction novel unrelated to Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. It's set on another planet and has aliens and so on. It's really about Platonic mathematics, but he needed the aliens and space opera-ish elements to spice it up a little bit, just like the pirates kept people engaged in the Baroque books. He's nearly finished writing it, and if he doesn't finish by the end of the calendar year he'll have to give some money back. If everything proceeds according to schedule, it should be available in stores in about a year.

In a time of desperation

Wherein I believe!

Poppy gets confirmed

Wherein congratulations and good luck



...and baptized. She writes:

I've been attending Mass at OLGC for more than five years now, and this past fall, when I realized I wasn't getting any better and might actually be getting worse, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. Father Pat Collum, my fellow parishioners, and OLGC itself are among the few things that have made me feel that maybe I can rebuild a stable life for myself and Chris. This doesn't change who I am (Father Pat knows all about my gender/sexuality issues and has read the Liquor books; he is one of the few religious leaders I've met who seems to remember Jesus' command "Judge not lest ye be judged"), what I believe, or what I think of the way other people live their lives. If I ever say anything sanctimonious, you are all free to shoot me. This is something I am doing solely for myself, another step in my attempts to drag myself out of the dark, sucking hole created by Katrina and its aftermath. I've discussed here before how, despite my problems with certain Catholic dogma, the celebration of Mass allows me to access a peaceful place inside myself in a way that nothing else does. I need to be a part of something larger than myself, and I know this is what I need now.

She adds, in answer to a comment:

Whatever your choices, I hope they bring you happiness and peace. I can't help but also hope they don't mean you'll eventually think less of the rest of us, or abandon writing about the characters I've grown to love so ... but you come first ... you can't be anything good to anyone else if you aren't happy with yourself.

My journey to Catholicism has made me think more of other people, not less. I spent much of my twenties and thirties feeling contempt for the human race -- there were individuals I loved, of course, but overall I thought people were pretty shitty. Some of them are, but whatever has happened to me -- I hesitate to call it anything as definitive as "faith" -- has made it much easier for me to see the beauty and value in people. And if anything, I hope this step in my life will bring me back to writing about the characters I love, not push me further away from them. After all, it was G-man who got me interested in this stuff in the first place (although his situation differs from mine in that he is a lapsed Catholic who feels drawn back to the Church despite doctrinal problems, while I was not raised Catholic and initially became attracted to the faith at least in part because it was so exotic to me).

My decision to join the Church is purely about what I believe I need to do. It has nothing to do with telling other people what they should believe or how they should live. I loathe fundamentalists of all stripes. As far as I'm concerned, people who use the Church as a tool to judge and bludgeon others don't deserve to be called Christians; they're Paulists to me.

I love the Poppy Z. Brite Liquor series and ever since finding her journal a few years ago I always look forward to any new content. Lively and entertaining, respectful and profane, it was her ripping a renowned New Orleans restaurant that convinced me I needed to read her book about New Orleans' restaurants. The last couple of years have been hard on her and there have been more than a few times when reading her journal was a scary adventure. Here's hoping this helps her.

Stupid ass thingys I will not be taking part in

Wherein much eyerolling and sighing caused by the email today


Earth Hour, March 29. For some sort of global warming protest, the WWF is urging people to turn off their lights for one hour. I'm sure that'll help. Fuck the professional wrestlers or pandas or both (maybe it's a team effort and it's not like I care for either wrestlers or pandas), but I'm turning on extra lights and running all the appliances; yes, I will be air conditioning the whole goddamn neighborhood. Actually, I'll be at a concert where the likelihood is great this will be mentioned. I will boo.

Scooter Commuter Day, March 24. I'm supposed to take a day off of work, burn an extra 60-80 miles worth of gas just because the Director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety for Georgia wants to engage in a cheap political stunt that does nothing more than serve as an advertisement for scooter dealers? You want to know what raises awareness of two-wheeled vehicles? Riding those two-wheeled vehicles as a normal part of your daily commute. Christ, scooters are getting as bad as hippie cyclists. In a former state of fitness, I did a lot of bike commuting, but I never rode on days when there was a Critical Mass ride because I never wanted to be associated with those assholes. Kinda like how I stopped participating in a couple local scooter forums when everyone started referring to car riders as cagers. Bunch of bigoted elitist jackholes.

In conclusion, everyone else equals attention seeking assholes while I remain a perfectly secure center of groundedness and commonsense.

Mykal Riley is a hero

Wherein off to see Bob Mould tonight. I suspect it will be slightly louder than TMBG


Here's something to think about. If Mykal Riley doesn't hit the three-pointer to send the Alabama-Mississippi St. game into overtime, there's probably a few thousand fans leaving the Georgia Dome and wandering around outside when the tornado hits.

KJ answers
1. Prophets
2. Melanie
3. Guess I don't understand the question because I've seen the movie "Legend" many times and Lady Godiva is not in it.
4. Brunch, Bolivia
5. Daly Carson
6. Kellogg
7. Something about WWII and flying saucers

Concerning Obama, I'm in pretty much total agreement with Jesse Walker. BFD.

About the storms

Wherein less than two weeks ago tornadoes passed not much more than a mile from the house and no one checked on us


I've gotten a couple emails seeing how we're doing after CNN and downtown Atlanta was hit with a freak storm. That was 20 miles away, so we're fine. The tornadoes that killed a couple people yesterday afternoon were 20-30 miles away in the other direction. We were glued to the weather reports during the morning because a slight dip to the south would have brought all mayhem right on top of us. But other than some rain and spooky skies we got nothing.

We did end up driving near downtown Atlanta during the afternoon and it was eerie seeing all the blown out windows on the high rises. We were in the Little Five Points area for the They Might Be Giants family show -- which was a lot of fun and really geared towards the kids. As The Wife commented "I listen to my headphones louder than this." They did toss in a couple songs for the parents, but it isn't like they have an extensive catalog of NC17 material. When it looked like they were finishing up their encore, we could see one of the Johns having a discussion with a stage manager. He came back to the microphone and announced "we're going to do a couple more songs. You parents will understand later when you watch the news."

When we walk out about 15 minutes later, there's a light rain, though based on the amount of water running down the street we just missed the torrential downpour. Our group had a couple of frantic calls about another tornado near downtown, however we never heard a mention of this while listening to the weather reports. Still, nice of the band to keep us out of the worst of the rain.

Sunday, 9:13am

Wherein people get addicted to vicodin? How? It's just about the crappiest painkiller I've ever had


First solid food in two days! And just as I was getting used to a diet of instant breakfasts and oatmeal. While not nearly as severe, refer to these for background:

1. inhumane
   
2. Broken link to Icepick's golfball of doom.

Chef Blais, we are requesting an invitation

Wherein Chef Richard Blais can currently be seen kicking ass on Top Chef


Watched my first ever episode of Top Chef last night and was impressed. We taped the show so The Child could watch. After we explain what all the beeping noises are for, perhaps we'll get a review from a 6-year old.

Very entertaining show and our household favorite looked good. Uber-confident, serious, wielding a wicked array of skills and taste combinations, he surprised and entertained the judges. Reminded me of our tasting menu a couple years ago at One Midtown Kitchen. I don't think we've ever had so much fun eating.

Never got around to writing too much about his run at Element and its closing left us extremely sad. We'd go with 3-4 people and get close to running through the whole menu. For now, we're enjoying the menu at Elevation. For a while we were going at least once a week. It seems to be doing well on its own, so we've skipped a few weeks. Probably time to go back. The Child always checks the kitchen to see if Chef Richard is there. It would be a stretch to say we know him, but he always comes over and talks to us and he seems like a truly nice guy excited by food. Now there's this news from the AJC:

Chef Richard Blais, who will be one of the contestants on Bravo’s fourth season of Top Chef (premiering tonight) has struck a deal with businessman and investor Barry Mills to design the menu and serve as executive chef for an upscale hamburger restaurant, tentatively called Flip.

Located on the West Side near the Atlanta Waterworks, the Blais’ burger palace plans to offer ground meats of all sorts, not just beef. And Blais says he intends to spend a lot time and effort creating the “best veggie burger in the world.”

“We’ll be offering house-made sodas like root beer, and I’m looking to make side dishes a focal point, like maybe house-made tater tots,” Blais told me by phone. And what of foie gras milk shakes, the his most infamous dish and critically acclaimed dish?

“Oh yeah,” Blais said, “they’ll be there.”

Blais will continue consulting at Elevation in Kennesaw, as well as other projects for his consulting company, Trail-blais.

The opening of Flip is planned for later this summer.

We are so there. However, considering the first reports of Elevation had it opening last summer and it didn't open until mid-December, you'll excuse us if we're not unfolding the lawn chairs to be first in line. Chef -- call us when it's time to show up.

Oh crap, I just realized he said he's bringing back the foie gras milkshake. Uh oh: "I could eat this until it killed me and as rich as it is that wouldn't take long. But I'd die with a happy smile on my face." Guess I need to up the life insurance.

I have my answer locked in

Wherein I confirmed it with MS Word's spellcheck


See Hair care blasphemy and predatory text.

My answer, in inviso-text: PRE-J-ATORY

The Whoreshoe Poll

Wherein with special guest judge, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer


A month ago we started a conversation about creating a new sport: Whoreshore Tossing. While there are still plenty of details to be worked out, one of the most important details is finding the appropriate shoe to toss. I think we should use the same shoe for all events.

Having spent the last four weeks (or maybe one hour 3 weeks ago) scouring kinky/scuzzy websites, I've selected the following six shoes for voting. View the shoes, then vote for your favorite. Small note: the links to the stores are NSFW.

Red Heart	wedge	Ballet
Desire	Gold	Neon

Please Vote

My Spitzer headline

Wherein KJ quiz at the bottom

WhoreDumb

Reuters

Hooker? I didn't even...oh wait, I guess I did.



1. ????
2. I know this. It's the company he fictionally ran on Seinfeld. There's a "J" in it
3. ????
4. Betty Boop?
5. Alps
6. Ceaser
7. ?????

Will I see this tonight?

Wherein I hope it isn't sold out because I don't have a ticket


Review of Sia and Har Mar Superstar (with pictures):

Thank you Har Mar for getting naked and sweaty and trying to lure barely legal girls into your lair of dirty sin. It was fun. You are fun. I remember hearing stories about a crazy show Har Mar played at South by Southwest last year, and I have wanted to see him live ever since. He doesn’t disappoint.

I think Sia is one of those rare artists that is better to experience live than recorded. While she doesn’t move much, she smiles constantly and her voice is passionate and strong. Her charismatic personality is silly to the point of magical, especially when she interacts with the audience before, during and after each song.

Review from Arizona:

While it’s true that Har Mar (I refuse to call him Mr. Superstar) looks like a close relative of the aforementioned infamous, notably schlubby-looking Ron Jeremy (you may have seen him on “The Surreal Life”), but close your eyes and you hear what sounds more like a close relative of Justin Timberlake. Yes, the guy can actually sing…well. On top of that, his songs are catchy and entertaining as hell (as are his videos). They are a mix of steamy R&B, playful hip-hop, soul and pop music. And he can move too. Highlights include headstands, pelvic swivels, jumps, strip teases and the piece de resistance, high speed booty vibrating.

But above all, Har Mar knows how to work a room. He confidently sashays across the stage, with garments dripping off his body like sweat (there’s plenty of that too). His in between song banter is pricelessly hysterical, as are his regular queries of “Who wants to make out with me?” He writhes on the floor in the middle of the crowd, serenading ladies on the way. I didn’t see him shove his tongue down anyone’s throat as he did during the last time I saw him (at SXSW 2007), but it was an early show and he surely he had to tone it down a little for the Mountain crowd, which is more than just a bit more conservative than his average audience. Plus there were youngins about.

When Har Mar announced a song as one he “wrote for the Cheetah Girls”, Disney’s big haired, perma-grinning, all girl trio, he noticed that a few girls in the front row were “just about that demographic.”

Within a half a song, Har Mar had won over a good portion of the crowd, though I did spot a few mortified couples, like the one to my left, including one very tall man who shrieked, “God, no!” when Har Mar took his shirt off. On the other hand, to my right was a pack of screaming girls who flashed and photographed each other throughout the entire show. That is, when they weren’t shouting, “You have a hot ass!” to Har Mar.

By the time he got to the very Jackson 5-sounding “D.U.I” (fear not, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, it’s a reference to dialing under the influence), the amused audience was putty in his hot little hands.

There's one more sentence to that last paragraph I didn't include because it's bullshit. There's no point in arguing with a Queen-sniffing Euroweenie; just smile and keep walking.

D.U.I. is a great song.

Monday Ballet: La Sylphide

Wherein 14 videos

Paris Opera Ballet, part 1


Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14

Ha! I found some mindless speculation!

Wherein suckers!

That whispering sound right before something weird happens/someone suddenly appears? Human-sized pnuematic tubes. Obviously, that's how the Others get around the island.

Immodest Proposals proposes:

• Sen. John McCain = John Locke
  
• Sen. Barack Obama = Dr. Jack Shephard
  
• Sen. Hillary Clinton = Ben Linus

Hey, don't blame me, I voted for Hurley.

This week's Lost theory: nothing but competition among secretive nongovernment entities.

I've read much speculation on the level of evilness contained within Ben. He lies, he manipulates, he has no qualms about the murder of dozens of people...so he musst be evil. Right? Yet, in the future Sayid goes to work for him and since we like Sayid it's inconceviable he'd go to work for someone evil. Right? Let's set aside, for the moment, Sayid -- our favorite reformed torturer who can't seem to stop torturing people. Instead let us consider at least three groups in play: Ben/Others, DHARMA, Widmore coalition.

Since early in the first season I've expected a classic good versus evil power struggle with our favorite Lostaways having to choose sides for their survival. But what if good versus evil, it's evil versus evil. So far we know little about Widmore; other than he's a dick. DHARMA was conducting experiments on the island for unknown purposes. The Others, having slaughtered the DHARMA workers, killed and kidnapped the crash survivors are on the island for...for something...

The island is in play as a valuable resource that few know about. The one's that do know about it seem able to go to extremes to control it. So far, no one is looking very benevolent and only interested in the Lostaways for momentary reasons. All which reminds me of my favorite political/conspiracy novel, Interface:

Otho Simpson, eighty-six, had, as was his pattern, gone to bed at 00:00:00 Greenwich Mean Time. This time was as good a bedtime as any other and was easy to remember. Otho and Otis lived belowground, in a former lead mine, and did not pay much attention to the diurnal cycle upstairs. Their job was to gather and respond to information from all over the world, from all twenty-four time zones, and so there was not much point in trying to hew to a particular schedule. Unlike his son, Otho had a mind that, had he chosen, could have earned him a Nobel Prize in economics or physics or at least made him a very rich man in a more conventional sense. Instead, he had become an accountant of sorts, and spent his life looking after a body of investments with a total cash value in the neighborhood of thirty trillion U.S. dollars.

These assets did not belong to any one specific person or entity, as far as Otho could tell. They belonged to a coordinated international group of investors. Otho didn't know who these people were. He wasn't supposed to know and he probably wasn't supposed to think about it. But he did think about it from time to time, and he had drawn some conclusions based on circumstantial evidence. Most of them were individuals, many were families, some were corporations. Their net worths varied from a few million dollars up to tens of billions. Judging from the hours when they liked to do business, most of them must be living in American and Eurapean time zones, with a few in the time zones that were used by Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Any information that could conceivably influence the performance of the economy -- public and proprietary, opena nd secret, from hard data to vicious gossip -- was funneled into the capsule over a variety of communications links. Otho read every word of it and used it to manage the investments of the Network.

The president's State of the Union address gets everyone riled up. Otho continues:

"That bastard has just got every bull and bear in the world going insane." Otho set the faxes down on his bedside table and slipped his feet into a pair of slippers by the bed. "But he's hald right. This country has problems. Someone needs to do something or all of its investors will get screwed."

"Investors?"

"Yup. America used to have citizens. Then its government put it up for sale. Now it;s got investors. You and I work for the investors. It was just a matter of time before some politician actually became stupid enough to mention forgiving the national debt."

"How are you going to handle this, Daddy?"

"Crank up the word-processing software. I'm going to do the first round-robin report since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is too big for me to just fly off the handle -- I have to provide the Network some options."

He sat down in front of a large high-resolution monitor and began jotting down a few options, as they came into his head. Later, he could rework them into deathless prose:

a. Pull investment out of the U.S. national debt -- absorbing the losss immediately -- and explore new areas, such as purchasing the larger part of the former Soviet Union;
b. Do nothing and hope that the American political structure will muddle through;
c. Intervene directly in American politics in order to return it to a certain sort of stability and to insure our long-term investment in the debt;
d. Suggestions?

The returns came in remarkably quickly. In the aftermath of the President's speech, everyone important was awake right now, regardless of time zone.

With the exception of a few Middle Easterners who wanted the Network to invest massively in the Muslim-dominated republics of the former Soviet Union, most of the Network liked the third option. The clincher was a fax from Lady Wilburdon, the acting chairperson, who noted, "You have done well for us, and we place our trust in you. Put your country back in working order."

The United States had borrowed ten trillion dollars since the onset of Reaganomics. A significant fraction of that debt was now owned by the Network. Those loans were supposed to bring in a certain fixed amount of interest every year. The cap proposed by the President would reduce that income by an amount on the order of a few tens of billions of dollars per year.

In the long run, then, the Network stood to lose hundreds of billions of dollars from the measures that the President had just proposed. Otho was therefore justified in spending real money here -- easily in the tens of billions. This was more than enough to throw an election. Perot had nearly done it for just a few hundred million.

Otho knew perfectly well that his Network was not the only organization of its type in the world, and that he was not the only person running through this sort of calculation tonight.

If the Network planned carefully and wasn't too obvious about it, it could actually erect a system that would enable America's investors to have a permanent say in the management of their assets. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that it was a sound decision. He should have done it a long time ago.

The United States of America had served its purpose. It was time to cash her in. Like a big creaky old corporation, her individual parts, intelligently liquidated, were worth more than the whole. Under new, fiscally responsible management, she could still perform well, pay her debts, and provide a tolerable standard of living for her citizens. Otho needed to make sure that that management was provided by the Network and not by one of the other entities with which the Network competed.

Later, Lady Wilburdon explains further:

There are only five entities in the world with sufficient wisdom to pursue consistent strategies over periods of several centuries," Lady Wilburdon said. "These entities are not national or governmental in nature -- even the best governments are dangerously unstable and short-lived. Such an entity is self-preserving and self-perpetuating. A world war, or the rise and fall of an empire or an alliance such as the USSR or NATO, is no more serious, to it, than a gust of wind buffeting the sails of a clipper ship.

"In no particular order, one is the Catholic Church. One is Japan -- which is nothing more than a group of zaibatsus, or major industrial combines. The third is a loose network of shtetls. After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, they forcibly realized the importance of longe-range planning, and in the intervening years have accumulated formidable assets. The fourth one we don't know much about; it seems to connect many of the recalcitrantly traditional cultures of the Third and Fourth Worlds and to be headquartered somewhere in Central Asia. And the fifth is the Network. It is an alliance of large investors, both individual and institutional, predominantly European and American. You might think of it as the legacy, the residue, of the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the American railway companies, Standard Oil, and the technological empires of our time. It is the most decentralized of the five entities -- really just an effort to pursue investments, and certain other activities, in a coordinated fashion."

"So you're saying that the Network is going to take over the United States?"

"The Network wouldn't want it," Lady Wilburdon said. "Governments, as I mentioned, are dodgy. All the Network wants is to stabilize the return on its investment in the national debt."

Slow motion screaming: Noooooooooooooooooo

Wherein oh the humanity

MY

iPOD

IS

DEAD

reader_iam exits her cone of silence to send along this:

I sniff in empathy and solidarity with you! And XWL's well-documented anti-Apple stuff aside (I love him, but it's clear), he's silly about the every 18-month thing. We have something like five iPods of various types and vintages around here, not counting the iPhones and including one of Apple's earliest versions, and they are all*** working just fine. All but the iPhones are older than 18 months.

Take care, and I hope you're going shopping tonight,

***My husband did misplace a shuffle a year and a half back or so, but I assume that one is working just fine, wherever it is, except that it may need a charge!!! Heh.

What I'm listening to

Wherein this post serves no real purpose other than to let slip that I'll probably skip doing a Lost mindless speculation this week


Tripped to the used CD store and returned with:

• Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. What August Darnell was doing before he became Kid Creole and the Coconuts. I've heard of this, but think I haven't heard it. Cherchez La Femme was the big hit and I don't recognize it.
  
• Jack Johnson, Sleep Through the Static. Because we loves us some lyrically incoherent and somnolently played beach music. Yes we does.
  
• Elect Slappy White For Vice-President. LP from 1975. I was hoping this would've been funnier. I chuckled a couple of times and laughed out loud a couple of mostly, mostly due to surprise. Liner notes are up elsewhere and the tracks will join them in a couple days.

And borrowed from the library:

• Leonard Bernstein -- Peter & the Wolf / Carnival of the Animals
  
• Subdudes -- Behind the Levee
  
• MTV's hip hopera: Carmen

Shocking!

Wherein more muddled clarity




Don't bogart those superdelegates

Probably explains the following photo of Clinton ordering two bags of White Castle sliders.


credit: Reuters

My Brett Favre headline

Wherein if I ran the newspaper...


In situations like this, there is only one word that is appropriate:

QUITTER

quick links

Wherein the quiz the quiz


Matt Welch on moving to Washington D.C.:

One extremely shallow way to gauge a city is by attempting to buy some new clothes. From this extravagantly unscientific experiment I can exclusively report there seem to be four main categories of male consumer -- Chamber of Commerce Republicans, stylish gay guys, the most ridiculous, retch-inspiring, pressed-shirt yachtsmen you have ever seen; and black guys hitting the clubs. (Many, many people belong to multiple categories.) Hard place to find a decent pair of shoes, in other words. Also, the few malls here make you pay for parking, which, as Emmanuelle rightly notes, is "unAmerican" and "culturally unsound."

Hate the Player, Hate the Game, Hate Everything is an epic rant about people who refuse to understand the very simple concept behind Moneyball. And grammar:

What if money was no object?

Quick review of the subjunctive. I'll wait here.

...

Okay. Let's move on.

A Blazing Saddles appreciation:

Mel Brooks once said his films "rise below vulgarity." Witness Blazing Saddles, a film so politically incorrect it should come with a surgeon general's warning for the easily offended. The film is full of racist language, Black jokes, Jewish jokes, gay slurs, religious blasphemy and cruelty to both animals and old ladies. There are at least three jokes about rape, two jokes about improper use of cattle (one of which I've already counted in the rape jokes) , and one joke about implied masturbation between a cowboy and his bathing boss.

I've a rule about comedy which states that nothing is offensive to me so long as it's funny. Luckily, Saddles is hilarious, but every joke is a powderkeg of potential offense. Nothing is sacred in its skewering of the Old West, and I know every perverted line of dialogue in this film by heart. I try not to work in absolutes, but Blazing Saddles is easily the funniest movie I have ever seen.

KJ said "It was Wallace the segregationist, by the way, not the stand-up comedian." Ken, by your answer it is obvious you read this blog, so fix the two spaces thing. Please.

1. Burgoo? Based on mint juleps I'm going with that horse race thing in Kentucky. I'll think of the name later.
2. I'm curious to see if this is an act I know.
3. *** and scurvy. Not vitamin C, it's that other thing...Ascorbic Acid.
4. I think it's a fall thing, so Thanksgiving. Never smoked, though the whole tone of the smokeout week makes me want to buy a carton. Kinda like TV Tuneout Week tempts me to duct tape my face to the tv screen.
5. Probably not a European country. So an Asian-Pacific country with relative stability post WWII.
6. I think I stumbled across the answer and will leave it in the comments.

Thanks to the government I now know how to get high

Wherein why is so much of this illegal when they're spending so much time and money promoting it?


Back in my day, there was only beer. Sure, there were jokes about sniffing airplane glue, but anyone who had ever made models knew this would only cause splitting headaches. Now, like everything else, kids today are mollycoddled when it comes to using drugs.

Read this American Council for Drug Education fact sheet on inhalants. Apparently a person can get high from a can of whipped cream. No shit? And date rape drugs are found in nail polish.

Then there's the new television campaign: For teens, getting drugs can be as easy as opening your medicine cabinet.


You know what the government told me when I was in high school? NOTHING! Bastards. Just in case that ad wasn't clear enough, there's another one emphasizing there's no need to buy from the skeezoid in the bad part of town:


That's the problem with the youth of today. There's no incentive to work for anything, we give them everything they could ever want.

March is the month I go to concerts

Wherein it's incontrovertible or is that the type of car Oliver North drove


Last year I went to two concerts; both in March. This March I'm looking at three probable concerts and a slim chance at two more. The odd thing is they're all at the same place: Variety Playhouse.

For warmest personal regards, guess 3 of the 5 concerts I want to see. Guess at least 4 correctly and I'll write a blog post on the topic of your choosing.

Monday Ballet: two views

Wherein somedays there's more, somedays there's less and today is a less day.


Hint: watch for 1:15 of the first video, stop it, and watch the second video. Then finish the first one.

This song was not on the soundtrack

Wherein feel free to guess what is my favorite song on the soundtrack


Got a lot of music recorded this weekend, so I should finally have some fresh stuff up on the other site this week. Including the soundtrack for one of my favorite movies -- that I think I teased ripping back around Thanksgiving. It's just a great collection of 80s music. I'm having a lot of fun listening to it right now.