We live in an age of forgetting.
hodgepodge
Hodgepodge
Mar 5th
* The Daily Show showed a series of Republican pundits using the same catchphrase on how Obama was going to “ram the health care bill down our throats.” Yikes, people. It’s a bill, not a cock.
* NPR’s 4:00 news promo was about a story on home remedies. “Coming up at 4:20.” We know exactly what you mean, NPR hippies.
* I think the big reveal at the end of LOST will be that the entire series was an extended, six-year promo for Hot Tub Time Machine.
* Next episode drinking game: take a shot every time a character says “I want answers!” Sometimes the dialog in LOST sounds like it is written by copying and pasting from Internet message boards. HURLEY: “D00Z tell US what’s going on!!!”
*The opening melody to Oh! Centra (and the whole song) is great.
Animal Hodgepodge
Jan 20th
* I didn’t know until a few years ago that milk gives many cats digestion problems. What I want to know is how the stereotype “Cats like milk” got started without the stereotype “Cats like diarrhea.” Our children’s picture books with images of cats lapping milk from saucers are missing an important part of the story.
* I’m sleeping over at someone’s house for a few nights, taking care of their dog, Mickey. He has developed a new technique for waking me up. It’s called using his paw as a mallet and whacking me repeatedly in the head with it. Effective.
* I use Mickey’s owner’s laptop when I spend the night with him. On previous visits, I spent hours trying to figure out why the sound wouldn’t work. Muted? Driver issue? BIOS setting? I finally figured it out: volume knob on the front of the computer. This is the most embarrassing technology mistake of my life. I used to be a computer science major, people! I sucked at it and switched majors, but still. It’s difficult to watch myself slowly transform into my Mom.
Hodgepodge
Dec 30th
* One of my nightmares is that, 300 years from now, archaeologists will unearth Medieval Times and base their entire view of our civilization on it.
* I have no sympathy for people who tear up after cutting an onion. Onions do not want to be cut. They are sending us a clear warning, and it should be heeded. Instead of cutting, we should slowly massage the onion, whispering compliments in its ear until it is ready to undress itself.
* “Zero in on” is an odd phrase. It means to focus on or to target, but I wonder why. Is it because circling something to highlight it is similar in shape to a zero? Is there an obvious explanation that I am missing?
Hodgepodge
Dec 10th
I’m not feeling motivated or creative at the moment, so here are random things from my notebook:
1. SCENE: A sub-atomic dis fest. A positron and electron are surrounded by a crowd of particles and are trading insults.
POSITRON: “Yo momma ain’t electro-cute. She electro-ugly.”
2. I have Asperger’s Syndrome. Okay, I don’t, but I say a lot of stupid things and I need cover.
3. I had an idea for a feature called “Our Children Are Stupid.” it would be a collection of overly-protective warning labels. I never bothered to develop it, but here’s a real label I wrote down. “Young children can become entangled and strangle in cord or bead loops.” (from a Venetian blind)
4. When Bush was running for re-election, some liberals were threatening to move to Canada if he won. Where are conservatives threatening to move to? “I ain’t living in a country with government-run healthcare. I’m moving to Canada. Wait, they have what? Fine, I’m moving to Britain. What? France? Switzerland? Norway? Japan? Portugal? Australia? They call it Medicare in Australia? Oh, come on.”
Hodgepodge
Aug 22nd
* “When gendered palettes came into vogue in the first two decades of the 20th century, boys were assigned pink and girls blue. This was a nod to symbolism that associated red with manliness; pink was considered its kid-friendly shade. Blue was the color of the Virgin Mary’s veil and connoted femininity.” (“Code Pink” Mother Jones Sept./Oct. 2009)
* Why you should learn how to use Facebook before you use it.
History Tidbits
Aug 20th
- Smoking was first called “drinking tobacco.”
- Many of the first colonists in Jamestown died to starvation. One man “killed, salted, and ate his wife.” It was the original Hungry Man dinner.
- The Pilgrims were originally called Separatists because they wanted to separate from the Church of England. The Puritans also had disagreements with the Church of England but wanted to stay with the church and “purify” it from within. The Pilgrims were viewed like extreme cults are viewed today, and they originally migrated to Holland, but left after 12 years for North America because they feared they were being “Dutchified”.
- That cannibalism joke was pretty sick, wasn’t it?
The Rest
Nov 5th
* The Minnesota race was called for Norm Coleman over Al Franken. Coleman won by less than 700 votes. There will be a recount, but unless people were voting by throwing darts at their ballots, it’s hard to see how it will affect the outcome.
* Alaska: Seriously? Ted Stevens was convicted of corruption. And you’re re-electing him? And D.C. doesn’t get Senators or a Representative? I think it’s time to donate to the Alaskan Independence Party and get that ball rolling.
* A crowd gathered in front of the White House last night to celebrate. I saw it on the news but was too tired to go down there. In other parts of D.C., there were people literally dancing in the streets.
* I was following Prop 8., a ballot measure in California to ban gay marriage in the state constitution. A court ruled several months ago that gay marriage was legal, and several thousand couples got married. It looks like Prop 8 is going to barely pass. Now their marriages will be invalidated. It’s discouraging. I expect stuff like that from Alabama, but I thought California had progressed to the point where they didn’t want to enshrine discrimination in their Constitution.
* Finally, on a more upbeat note, I found this passage in a Washington Post article on the Obama campaign amusing:
Dunn, the senior Obama adviser, had the unique perspective of having run a campaign against Palin two years earlier, as an adviser to Alaskan gubernatorial candidate Tony Knowles. She considered Palin a formidable and charismatic politician; she also had a grasp of Palin’s thin record and her history on the “bridge to nowhere,” and had sat through numerous Palin-Knowles debates.
That Palin expertise, shared by few in the country, would steady the Obama campaign at a moment when national Democrats embarked on what one adviser described as “two weeks of total hysteria” over the Alaska governor.
Dunn had the research staff stop putting so much energy into Palin, convinced that she could not pass the vetting process. “How was I to know that they weren’t going to vet her?” she said.
Political Roundup: Superdelegates and Oratory
Feb 18th
* Clinton’s campaign is setting the stage for a protracted battle, at least publicly. In the link, her campaign manager claims she will have a delegate advantage by around June 7th, the end of primary season. The campaign is also fighting a battle in the media about the role of superdelegates, both arguing that they should exercise their own judgment (i.e. not mirror the wishes of voters, who have given Obama an edge so far) and that they shouldn’t be called superdelegates but rather “automatic delegates” because…I honestly forget.
I agree in principle with them that superdelgates should exercise their own judgment. That’s the whole raison d’etre for superdelegates. In the “should have though of this beforehand” category though, if the superdelegates actually selected a party candidate with significantly less popular support, the rift would severely damage the party, making one wonder why superdelegates exist in the first place.
* People have an intuitive but misleading idea that you can’t be a good orator and knowledgeable about policy at the same time. It’s the same thought process behind the idea that a gorgeous woman can’t be brilliant, or a professional sports player can’t be intelligent. What’s the basis for this idea? I believe it’s primarily two concepts: limited focus and necessity. Expert skill takes many years to develop, so we assume that the star running back doesn’t have the time or resources to become well-read, and since he’s already successful in one area, what’s his motivation anyway? If you are gorgeous, the thinking goes, sure you can become thoughtful and well-read, but you don’t need to because you can get by on your looks. So why bother?
A third reason is that there is no overlap between the skills of policy wonk and orator, so it’s more difficult to believe the same person can possess those two skills. In contrast, it would be easier to picture a construction worker skilled working on cars rather than one talented in writing poetry, although if you think about it, are there really any skills in common between building a house and working on a car, besides being able to lump both of them in the category of “manual labor”?
Related to all of this is the Academy Awards. Seriously. Comedies almost never win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, if one is even nominated at all. For most people, moments of happiness or light-heartedness are fleeting, and the rest of the time is spent in a neutral or negative emotional state. We then engage in temporal reasoning and conclude that because pleasant moments are rare and fleeting, and make up a small fraction of our experiences, they are outliers and not “real life”. In other words, anything that makes you feel good can’t have lasting meaning, because we can’t help defining “meaningful feelings” as the ones that stay with us the longest. If one believes that a Best Picture needs to say something meaningful about life, it becomes easy to dismiss any comedy solely for being a comedy. Here’s some advice for any comedy trying to win a Oscar for Best Picture: don’t be too funny, and make sure to include some depressing moments as well.
The dynamics of inspiring rhetoric are different from those governing movies like “Juno”, but what they face in common is an almost insurmountable suspicion of the value of anything that is fleeting and makes one feel good. It’s a justifiable suspicion in many cases, like eating junk food or a juicy hamburger, but not always, and that’s what most people don’t get. Something can make you feel good and have deep value as well.
“So, how’s your life going?”
Jul 29th
“HORRIBLE!”
“Oh. So you have cancer or live in Iraq?”
“Well, no, but….I just want to whine, okay?”
Plants. I water my plants as often as I update my blog. My plants are dead.
Mouse. WHY WON’T YOU DIE. We have a mouse or mice scurrying between the walls of our house. My roommates bought some cruelty-free traps, which are akin to small tubes that the mouse is supposed to walk right into and close the door behind him.
That would work great, if this were some country rube mouse who was born in a stack of hay and lived under the knot of an apple tree. “Golly gee, there’s some cheese in that there fancy hole. I’m gonna go git me some!”
Not going to work for city mouse. Centuries of rough living and brutal Darwinism have weeded out any sense of fear or compassion for our cheese. City mouse is tough, sophisticated, and intelligent. He gnaws through our bread bags and poops on our counter without fear. I came home one day and turned on the kitchen light to see him rappelling down to the stove from the ceiling. He froze when I saw him, and then tossed a smoke bomb to cover his tracks.
This mouse isn’t going to walk into a slender metal box labeled “Conto Mouse Trap” just because it has a mote of cheese at the end. This mouse can read. Yet my roommates think I’m the unrealistic one just because I’m willing to do what is necessary: buy a comfy chair, a sniper rifle, and a pair of night vision goggles.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It’s a post-apocalyptic computer game that takes place in Chernobyl. I kept getting killed by packs of rabid dogs. By the time I open my inventory to toss them a treat, they tear me apart. Hey, quit it! I walk your friends in real-life.
In a way, they are like the dogs I walk. Except my dogs try to kill me indirectly by licking the sunscreen off my arms.
Poker. @#$%^&**#A#$@. I’m too angry to play poker regularly. I overestimate my emotional fortitude, get frustrated with the natural downs of the game, and ended up not playing my best or having fun. I wish I could teach a robot what I know. A robot me would kick ass. And I’d be a robot, which is a reward unto itself.
What would you do if you were a robot? First, I’d walk in all in the scary neighborhoods. With my wallet hanging from my neck, like Flavor Flav with a MBA. Then I’d get a few lasers, because every robot needs a few lasers. Next, I’d hit on a some guys. I already have a come-on line. “What is this ‘love’ you talk about?”
Finally, I’d find President Bush, and give him a good, robot kick in the balls. “Crappiness does not compute, Bush.” [whack] Then I would go on the morning talk-show circuit and tell everyone that robots have gained sentient life, and our first duty was to deliver a clear and decisive message unto President Bush’s nut sack. Read that as you may. I’d also hint that we would not hurt the vice-President, as we wouldn’t harm one of our own.
It would be total bull, as I would be the only sentient robot, but we all know how the media is liberal and doesn’t ask tough questions. I’d wave goodbye, announce I’m leaving for my homeland, Japan, and then lie in hiding and hopefully watch a wave of change brought upon us by The Little Robot That Could (Children’s book I would have pre-written before the event. A robot has got to make money too. Especially after being banned from playing poker)
Hodgepodge
May 6th
* There are certain oft-quoted phrases that have a lyrical quality to them but are bereft of wisdom once you focus on the literal meaning of the phrase. Like “No rest for the weary.” Well, yeah. That’s why they’re weary. Isn’t that like saying “No work for the unemployed?” or “No sex for the guy in the Vulcan ears?”
* The stature of a basketball player is so great that it eclipses whatever humor people would find in an odd name under normal circumstances. Harry Dick could join the NBA, and nobody would laugh at his name as long as he got 20 and 10 during the regular season.
And Magic Johnson? He’s literally saying his penis is magic. That’s a lifetime of ridicule, even among adults, but have you ever heard someone poke fun of his name? Everyone loves Magic Johnson. The WNBA will finally hit the big time when one of their stars is called Special Vagina. “Special Vagina from downtown…IT’S GOOD!”
* “Closed captioning for Malcolm in the Middle is sponsored by…” Is closed captioning so unworthy a task that programs need to be paid to do it? “Closed captioning for Scrubs is sponsored by…no one. Sorry, deaf people.”
* A job can influence how one looks at the world. For example, I’m a dog walker. A lot of people are calling for Paula Abdul to leave American Idol because she allegedly slept with a former contestant. I don’t care if she slept with him. But I think she should be kicked off the show for this:
“He says Abdul advised him on his clothes, haircut and song selection for “American Idol,” and slept with him in the guest bedroom of her Los Angeles home, where he shared space with her dogs Thumbelina, Tulip and Tinker Bell.
What kind of sick person names their dogs Thumbelina, Tulip and Tinker Bell? I’ve walked over a hundred dogs, and still, those are the Three Musketeers of stupid dog names. What’s worse is that I’ll bet at least two of those dogs are males. I hope Tinker Bell pisses all over her sheets.
Mix O’ Stuff
Jan 14th
* God: the first activist judge.
* People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. If you’re rich enough to own a glass house, don’t sully your hand with a dirty-ass stone. Have the maid do it.
* When a sports announcer says, “How do ya like that?” I usually don’t.
A Few Things
Dec 21st
1. I’m going home to spend time with my family for the next week. Probably won’t post much.
2. I was flipping through the channels before going to bed, when I saw ALF. Hosting a talk show. A new talk show.
3. Re: #2–WHAT THE F—?
3b: The sidekick? Ed McMahon.
Hodgepodge
Oct 17th
* This Tuesday, George Carlin is appearing at the Arlington Olsson’s. Tickets are being passed out at 8:00 a.m.
* This Thursday, David Rees, creator of “Great Your War On” will be signing his new book. Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. 202-364-1919.
* Berkeley Breathed’s Opus has been on a roll these past few weeks. Another funny one today.
* Gary Busey meets George Bush (link from Metafilter). Well done.
* Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire. It’s the angriest and most frustrated that I have ever seen him. It’s sad, because he’s still under the impression that CNN is a news channel, and he sees the show as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the news media. From the questions Carlson and Begalia ask him, it’s obvious that they somehow miss the point of The Daily Show. The heart of his show isn’t a satire on politicians. It’s a satire on the media.
* I was having dinner last night with a group of gay friends. Kerry’s mention of Mary Cheney’s sexuality during the debates came up. We joked at how absolutely offended we were that a person would dare mention that an out lesbian was…a lesbian! And on the TeeVee, of all places! This blog quotes a writer for Salon who wrote a commentary on the issue that I would have made if I didn’t write like monkey shit.
* This is for the certain person who pointed out multiple times that I should have the links open in a new window. 1) You are absolutely right. 2) I AM LAZY! All of your descriptions of how to do this involve work on my part. This is a deal breaker.
* Update: Ralph just showed me a simple way to have links open in a new window. It’s not robot-easy, but it may just be easy enough.
Hodgepodge
Sep 30th
Has anyone read “America: The Book” written by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show Writers? Amazom.com has a pretty funny video intro by Stewart on their site.
I’ve read a fair share of “Questions to Ask the Candidates” articles in reference to tomorrow’s Presidential debate. This one is the best by far. The questions are directed to President Bush, so if anyone has a good article with questions Kerry should be asked to recommend, go ahead.
Speaking of which, you may see a few cut-a-ways during the debate of John Kerry scratching his crotch, or George W. Bush waving a pair of flip-flops to the camera and making a jerk-off motion with his hand. Guess who’s going to control the camera shots during the debates? No, really. Guess! You’ll never guess who it is. Not in a million, bazillion years. Okay, here’s a hint:
IT’S FUCKING FOX NEWS.
Misc.
Aug 15th
- If New York were invaded by a giant race of ants, and someone looked at the invasion from the top of a skyscraper, it would look just like a lot of ants attacking a lot of other ants.
“Who’s winning?”
“I’m not sure. Which side has the ray guns?
- One of the dogs I am taking care of over the weekend greeted me this afternoon with a pile of watery poop on the carpet. The one good thing about cleaning a dog’s poop (and there is only one good thing) is that it makes other chores a lot easier. Like cleaning the bathroom. “Hey, my roommate didn’t poop on the floor. Awesome!”
- You know you’re really rich when you can poop like a dog: on the carpet and have someone else pick it up.
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