Whoopee.
I love Les Schwab.
Not the man (is he even alive anymore?) but his tire stores.
When you buy tires from Les Schwab, it's a full-service affair. Everybody there is busting their ass to ensure you get the absolute best service possible. Buy their tires? Free mounting. Get a flat tire? They'll fix it for free. Need to have your tires rotated? Free. Just want to have your tire pressure checked? Also free. No appointment necessary, and they're motto is "if we can't guarantee it, we won't sell it."
And nobody at Les Schwab ever walks anywhere... they run to service their customers. "May I help you sir?" they say, after having sprinted up to you at Olympic speed.
Now let's contrast my impeccable experience at Schwab for tire rotation today with my experience at the local Radio Shack thirty minutes later...
I walk in and notice they've remodeled the store. Not wanting to waste my time, I decide to ask for help at the counter. "I'm looking for a CD storage binder" I say. "It's over there" the Radio Shack minion replies as he waves his hand in a non-specific direction. So "over there" I go. But I don't find them. "Hey, all I find over there are CD sleeves, I'm looking for a binder" I say. "Then you didn't get it here. Try Office Depot" the minion responds. "But I DID get it here" I insist... "it is a Radio Shack branded binder!" Without even looking up from the paper he's reading, the guy tells me "well I guess we don't have them then!"
Well thanks for your "help", f#@%er!
The guy never left the counter, and wouldn't even acknowledge I exist until I talked to him. No running to serve me. No helping me look. He didn't even bother to check his computer to see if it could be ordered. He just didn't give a shit.
I hate that.
I mean, it's not like I'm walking in wanting to get blown or anything... I just want reasonable assistance when I shop in your f#@%ing store. Is it really too much to ask for you to put down your newspaper, haul your ass around the corner, and at least TRY to help me out?
No wonder I buy everything online.
Despite working my guts out over the holiday weekend, I still made time to go see Memoirs of a Geisha at the movies. As a Japanophile, it was an absolute necessity.
But make no mistake that I wanted to see the movie because I was a fan of the book... nothing could be further from the truth. I positively despise the book Memoirs of a Geisha on which the movie is based. It is a highly fictionalized crap-fest that shits all over the secret "flower and willow world" of the geisha and is an insult to Japanese culture on several levels. I am positively horrified that the book is the big success that it is, because it propagates stereotypes and false information that go against everything geisha are supposed to be about.
No, I went to see the movie because I am a mega-huge fan of Michelle Yeoh. And also the incomparable Ziyi Zhang, who I fell in love with ever since watching the sublime Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...
But here's the problem. Neither Michelle Yeoh or Ziyi Zhang are Japanese.
Sure their performances weren't terrible, but they should have never been cast in the first place. They were hired for the job solely because they have name recognition (no matter how vague here in the US) and because Western audiences won't know or care that they aren't Japanese. They look "Asian" and that, apparently, was enough.
Unless you appreciate Japanese culture, in which case they are about as Japanese as I am. Seriously, I could have been cast as the geisha, and it would have been just as "authentic"...
Anyway...
The word "geisha" literally means "arts person" in Japanese. Geisha are not prostitutes, as most Westerners would think, but living, breathing, moving, works of exquisitely beautiful art. Sex never enters the picture (which is not to say that geisha don't have sex, it's just that they do not have sex as geisha, which is a big difference). Geisha are highly trained from a young age to sing, dance, play instruments, compose poetry, facilitate conversation, and dozens of other art forms... like gracefully pouring tea and making ikebana (interpretive Japanese flower arrangements). They are entertainers of the highest caliber, and respected artists both in action and appearance.
Which is why the movie and book sucks ass. in order to appeal to the tawdry nature of Americans, everything is infused with sex. You've got geishas having sex (in their okiya!)... geishas selling their virginity... geishas having their clothes ripped off... all these ridiculous things which are included solely to sell books and movie tickets. Obviously I can't say that these things never happened to a geisha in real-life, but they are in no way indicative of what geisha represent, and it saddens me to think that this is the image Westerners will have of them. I mean, sure it's one-step above the prostitutes that most people have in mind now, but not much of one.
Putting the true nature of geisha and reality aside, the film still fails in my opinion. It was beautifully shot with capable actors, but that doesn't compensate for the uneven pacing that's paired with a poor (and somewhat pedophile-freaky) story. Unlike The Last Samurai, which I was able to buy into as fanciful Japanese fiction, Memoirs of a Geisha never managed to absorb me. Too many flaws kept getting in the way.
After receiving not one, but TWO emails from Memoirs of a Geisha fans railing on me for my less than flattering review of the crappy book and soulless film adaptation, my mind turned to happier times. Times where I feel safe. Times where I felt unthreatened. Times where I am in control of my own destiny in a world gone mad....
Times spent wiping my ass.
And from there it was only a small leap to the horrifying realization that I am nearly out of toilet paper and will soon have to be making a trip to Target to re-stock up on critical household supplies.
Now, as I have mentioned here many, many times... I loathe shopping. Totally can't stand it. And to avoid shopping for as long as possible, I always buy in bulk. When I need a new pair of jeans, I don't just buy the one pair, I buy five. When I need ketchup, I buy three jumbo bottles to be sure I won't have to buy ketchup again any time soon. When I crave a Tootsie Pop, I buy an entire 100-count carton... I just don't mess around when I am forced to shop.
So understand that when I buy toilet paper, I am looking for maximum wipe-age. And when you want maximum wipe-age, there's only one thing to do... buy the Charmin Mega-Roll Mega Six-Pack...
It's the Cadillac of toilet paper. And I must admit that when I saw the words "CHANGE THE ROLL LESS OFTEN" on the package, I broke down in tears of happiness. It's a dream come true for non-shoppers everywhere.
But there is a problem.
Target doesn't have a shopping bag big enough to hold a Charmin Mega-Roll Mega Six-Pack.
When you make your purchase, you have to walk out the door with this big-ass package of toilet paper where everybody can see you holding it. And that's when you realize it...
EVERYBODY IS GOING TO KNOW THAT YOU WIPE YOUR ASS!
And that bothers me for some reason.
What are people thinking when they see me walking through the parking lot with this Mega Six-Pack of toilet paper I wonder. "Boy that guy sure wipes his ass a lot!" Or perhaps "That dude has serious bowel issues!" Or maybe "Whoa, he must look at a lot of porn!"
I dunno. I don't want to know.
But it does kind of freak me out seeing all these condescending glances as I make my way to my car. "I JUST DON'T LIKE TO SHOP!" I want to scream at them. "DON'T JUDGE ME, LOVE ME!" I want to cry.
Why does buying toilet paper have to be such a traumatic experience? Shouldn't you be PROUD that you wipe your ass? I mean, it is a good thing compared to the alternative of NOT wiping your ass, isn't it?
Maybe it's just me. Perhaps I have wiping issues or something.
It never ceases to amaze me how people approach random conversation with strangers. Some people make inconsequential chit-chat with random questions like "What do you think of this weather we're having?" and "how about that game last night?" It's boring, mindless stuff, but fully appropriate when speaking to somebody you don't know.
And then there are the people who pull such bizarre questions out of their ass that you have to doubt their sanity. For example...
A while ago, I was meeting with a prospective client. This happens all the time, and I'm not really bothered by it. I enjoy meeting new people and have pretty good schmoozing skills. But this time, the potential client brought his "spiritual advisor" with him. Well, I don't know if that's what he was actually called, but he had no business input whatsoever, so I assumed that he was some kind of spiritual or ethical advisor. This didn't bother me much either, as I have dealt with a wide variety of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, beliefs, and walks of life. The more the merrier.
Except this time was different...
Prospective Client: So how would you approach a reworking of our image?
Dave: Well, from the brief overview I've had of your company, there are many positive strengths we could draw on to better position you in the market. In particular, the quality of your products is very high compared to your competition, yet your current marketing strategy doesn't seem to leverage this as a reason to purchase your merchandise. Your price point is higher, which can sometimes imply quality, but you should definitely be more overt in stating it to your consumer base.
Prospective Client: I see. Yes. I agree totally that this is something we need to do.
Spiritual Advisor: Tell me Dave, have you ever killed anybody?
Seriously, WTF? How do you answer this question? Do you play it for humor and say "well, not today" or get all serious and say "absolutely not!" As I sat there in stunned silence, a million things were running through my head...
"Is this guy serious?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Is this one of those questions where they don't expect an answer, but want to see how I react to it?"
"Hey... HAVE I ever killed anybody? I don't think so."
"Wow... you don't think that they are wanting to hire me to kill somebody... do you?"
"Oh crap! The longer I wait to answer, the less credible I am going to be when I say no!"
"HOLY SHIT... THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO THINK I AM A HOMICIDAL MANIAC!!"
In the end, I realized that I simply had to say something...
Dave: Uhhhh... no?
Which sounded incredibly stupid, but it was all I had. The Spiritual Advisor just said "hmmm..." and shook his head in agreement. Then, as the meeting continued, he would randomly insert other bizarre questions like "If you had to choose between wanting something tangible or wishing for something idealized, which would you choose?" and "Do you feel that we as a society are ready for where technology is taking us?" And each time I answered he would simply nod his head and we would move on to actual business again.
I didn't get the job.
I can only guess that it was due to my ethical failings (or whatever the Spiritual Advisor was judging me on), because my concepts were killer, and the person they chose instead of me did incredibly shitty work for them.
And this morning I found out that the company went out of business.
Despite the fact that I didn't get any work from them, I am still sad when I hear of somebody's business failing. That was somebody's hopes and dreams... somebody's hard work and ambition... somebody's life. I take no joy in it at all.
But deep down I know I could have made a difference. Maybe they still would have gone under... maybe there were problems so deep that nothing I could have done would have helped... but I certainly would have given them a better shot as success than what they went with. Of that much, I am certain.
But now I am left with the question of whether I respect them MORE because they stuck to their guns and hired somebody who was more compatible with their beliefs and philosophies... or respect them LESS because they were so thoughtless as to hire somebody who "fit" but did a crappy job.
I don't know.
But I'm still relatively sure I haven't ever killed anybody.
A personal message to Pat Robertson.
Shut up.
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
SHUT UP! SHUT UUUUUUP! SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!
Please. Seriously. Shut the f#@% up.
Or die.
Yes, just die. Dying would be good on you.
How in the heck did such a total ass-biting tool ever... EVER... develop such a large following? I mean, was there a point in the past where he was actually sane, and his followers have just decided to stick it out through his declining crazy years? Or has he always be a nut-job? How can anybody who consistently preaches such a freaky, hateful, racist, warped version of scripture have such appeal?
Personally, I don't really care about Robertson or his wacky cult of followers. If he was just spouting his crap from the pulpit of a rural church somewhere, it wouldn't bother me a bit. But he has his own television network, and is a prominent religious leader (or whatever), so the stupid shit he says gets put out in the world.
And then the world thinks that Americans are even more nuts than we actually are.
We sure don't need any more of THAT going on just now.
So please Pat.
Pat.
Pat, please... shut up and die already.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Dollar
BLOGDATE: April 15, 2005
In which Dave ponders the ever-declining value of the US Dollar, and tries to graph out how our currency is inexplicably and inversely linked to the price of toilet paper.
Click here to go back in time...
I swear, I do not make this stuff up.
Yesterday morning as I was walking out the door to work, I got a wrong number phone call from some older guy. I seem to be a magnet for these kinds of things.
Fortunately, this time I resisted the urge to be a smart-ass, because something tells me the repercussions could have been particularly strange...
Dave: Hello?
Caller: Yeah, I was the guy that gave you $20 last night.
Dave: Uhhh... no you didn't.
Caller: Yes, I gave you $20.
Dave: I think you have the wrong number, because I didn't get $20 from anybody last night.
Caller: Well this is the number he gave me!
Dave: Then he must have given you the wrong number, because I don't have your $20!
Caller: But...
Dave: Sorry, goodbye!
Naturally, my mind is abuzz with wonder over why somebody would give a stranger $20 in exchange for his phone number. And since he thinks that stranger is me, I've got these disturbing images running through my head.
Most of them involving me being naked or dressed naughty...
Please. Make it stop.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Mr. Bread
BLOGDATE: February 8, 2004
In which Dave explains the photos of himself that preface each entry, and wins a coffee mug for drunken bread carving.
Click here to go back in time...
Despite desperately needing to go into work today, I decided to stay at home and clean up the six months of neglect that has been accumulating.
It's pretty terrible. I've already managed to haul out five giant bags of garbage, and will undoubtedly haul out another five before the day is over. I have no idea how I manage to accumulate so much crap, but it's everywhere. Piled in the closet, stacked in corners, covering my desk... and all the stuff that I don't throw away has to be organized somehow.
Out of all of it, it's the photographs that bother me the most. Everything before 2001 is a hopeless mess, scattered around in dozens of boxes. Even if I took the time to organize and label my photos, it's still inconvenient to access them. Unlike everything from 2001 onwards, which was shot digitally, and is neatly indexed in iPhoto...
So now I'm faced with either having to buy a high-quality scanner and manually converting everything to digital... or paying a company to do it for me. The cost is about equal. But if I buy a scanner then I've got to do all the work myself, and that takes a lot of time I don't have. Oh well... it's not like I'd have a lot of use for the scanner afterwards anyway.
Wow. Some of these photos are kind of embarrassing. If I send them off to be scanned, I wonder what the chances are that they'll end up on the internet somewhere?
I love getting mail.
Which is one of those paradoxical things in life for me, because I loathe going to the post office to actually pick it up.
Fortunately, I have a billing service that collects my monthly bills and allows me to pay them online, or else I'd be in never-ending peril from bill collectors wanting to break my legs. But everything else... magazines, exciting offers from select retailers, free samples, cards, letters, and all the rest... it just collects in a bin until I get off my lazy ass and do something with it.
Faced with a huge pile of mail, I finally decided to go through everything on Sunday.
Turns out I got a lot of nice cards from Blogography readers for the holidays, so I first want to thank everybody for that. And, while I'm at it, thanks for the well-wishing emails, e-cards and stuff everybody sent as well. I appreciate it all, and cannot help but be touched that so many people spent their valuable time thinking of me.
Which, of course, makes me feel like a total bastard for not reciprocating... but that's my problem, not yours.
But hey, I make a special Blogography delivery every day just for YOU (yes, you!) so it's not like I don't care or anything...
Speaking of mail... let's catch up with a few emails I've gotten lately, shall we?
Council: Probably my favorite email in the past several weeks was from a woman who was absolutely outraged after having read my entry on Seattle's new insanely stupid strip club laws. She found it reprehensible that I could possibly be so crass as to tell elected public officials to kiss my ass... IN A PUBLIC BLOG THAT ANYBODY... INCLUDING (gasp) CHILDREN... CAN READ! The word "disrespectful" kept popping up again and again, and she wondered how I felt about inflicting such horrible, uncivil values on my readers. My response, of course, was that she could kiss my ass too.
Pivot: Speaking of ass-kissing... another email came from somebody wanting to collect "Pivot Questionnaires" published on the web. After Googling, they found mine, and wanted to know if they could add it. For anybody not familiar with The Bernard Pivot Questionnaire, it's the final questions that James Lipton asks when he interviews guests on his show Inside the Actors Studio. The show is fantastic (if you can get over what a total kiss-ass Lipton is... he just doesn't kiss ass... he FRENCH kisses ass!), and so I was happy to contribute. The Bravo website has a cool "Personality Profile Game" where you can see which actor you most closely relate to personality-wise (for me, it's Benicio Del Toro).
Suggested: One email was a bit surprising in that it was just a big list of suggestions of things that the guy wanted me to write about here. Oddly enough, I had already written about most of them, which now has me worried that there's nothing left to talk about, and I should just close down my blog.
Prayer: After telling Pat Roberston to "shut up and die" I got a rather nice email from somebody telling me that this wasn't a very "Christian" thing to say, even if I disagree with the guy. My reply didn't bother telling him that I'm not a Christian in the first place... but I did write back and ask if he had written to Pat and told HIM that it wasn't a very "Christian" thing to ask God to make people dead (which Robertson has done on more than one occasion). This, apparently, was not the response the guy was looking for, and I got a nice long lecture on everything from school prayer to internet porn (sadly, no links were provided).
Privacy: Last, but certainly not least, was an email I received last month which asked a series of highly-personal questions which I would be hard-pressed to talk about to even close friends... let alone a complete stranger. The sad thing was that this person had put a lot of thought into what they were asking, and I felt bad having to tell them that I wasn't comfortable discussing those areas of my life. Over the past couple of weeks, the whole situation has been really bothering me, and I cannot figure out why. Surely it's not wrong to want to keep some areas of my life private... is it? Why would anybody want to know such things in the first place? Does EVERYBODY wonder about this stuff? Hmmm... every once in a while I get the sense of just how weird it is to have a blog.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Kiwi
BLOGDATE: October 20, 2004
In which Dave ponders the eternal mystery of Kiwi (and Photoshops a cool picture of it).
Click here to go back in time...
For those of you not lucky enough to be at MacWorld for Steve Jobs' keynote presentation... no worries, Blogography has you covered! I'll be regularly updating this page as events unfold.
Hmmm... I guess this means the keynote is over.
I must say, this was one of the most exciting SteveNotes ever, and I can't wait to get me an iToast!
Thanks for tuning in to Blogography's MacWorld SteveNote coverage! See you next year.
TWILIGHT ZONE UPDATE! I am just now watching the MacWorld streaming keynote, and have gotten to the part where his Steveness is making his own podcast in Garage Band. And what does he add to the video portion? An iPod toaster! I just know that Apple Legal is going to be sending me a cease and desist any minute now...
I confess that I am a geeky nerd.
But you probably already knew that.
My geeky nerdiness is multifaceted in that I am part sci-fi dweeb (thanks to Star Trek) and part comic book dork (thanks to Batman). And, in-between all of that, is a love of Japanimation, Macintosh, Curious George, video games, and blogging. All I need is an inflatable plastic girlfriend, and I think I'm set...
But no matter how much of a geeky nerd I am, there's always somebody who's a step ahead of me.
Like Bill Gates, for instance.
Bill is the ultimate geeky nerd, and the fact that he has billions of dollars makes him a geeky nerd to be reckoned with (not to mention exceedingly generous, since he's giving away huge amounts of money to charitable causes). Here's a dweeb who has amassed a fortune of such huge proportions that there is literally nothing he can't do...
...except get a handle on cool new trends.
He was late to graphical interfaces. He was late to the internet. He was late to video... He's always one step behind what all the cool kids are doing, and the list goes on and on. If it doesn't involve Windows or MS Office, he's out of the loop.
As a current example, here's an excerpt from an interview he gave over at Engadget regarding the new Microsoft/MTV online music store called (=snicker=) URGE:
Bill Gates: "With music, having MTV as a partner is a great thing. We think they can get the word out, do some neat things. We're also doing a lot in Messenger to make it so you can share playlists, so you can listen to different things. The next version of Messenger has music as one of the big breakthrough scenarios."
Yeah. Right. Except partnering with MTV for music expertise is laughable and so very, very lame.
You can't even FIND music on MTV anymore. In checking their schedule just now, I see a show called Next, followed by three episodes of Real World/Road Rules Challenge, followed by There & Back, followed by My Own, followed by another episode of Next, followed by Room Raiders, followed by Punk'd, and topped off by SIX episodes of Viva La Bam.These are all reality-based television shows.
WHERE IS THE F#@%ING MUSIC?!?
Teaming up with MTV for music is like teaming up with McDonalds for tacos, and I just don't get it. Sure if this were 1984, partnering with MTV would be totally sweet. But in 2006 it's just sad. Once again, Bill is behind the curve. Apple is flying high with iTunes, so now Microsoft has to do yet another "me too" by making their own music store (apparently MSN Music didn't work out?)... except they team up with a has-been and give it a lamer name like "URGE" (which could only be more lame if they called it "EXTREME URGE" or some crap like that).
When is Microsoft going to stop being the bloated whore of the tech industry so they can be lean, hungry, and bleeding edge? When is Bill Gates going to understand that these sloppy-seconds "partnerships" are just not relevant when we're talking about a ship that's already sailed. I'm tired of Bill being late to the dock, then renting a little rowboat thinking that he'll be able to catch up... all the while screaming to the media about how Microsoft is doing all this cool shit that, in reality, is only cool to him.
Total crap like "URGE" is a waste of money and makes us geeky nerds look bad. Even worse, it stifles REAL innovation by distracting attention from things that actually ARE bleeding edge and cool.
BILL... YOU HAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!! MICROSOFT IS ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST COMPANIES ON EARTH!! You don't NEED venture capital to finance something new... YOU'VE GOT MONEY COMING OUT YOUR ASS! STOP DICKING AROUND AND GET TO WORK!!
Build a flying car. Come up with wireless electrical power. Figure out a way to keep Golden Grahams from going soggy in milk... I don't really care... just do something NEW with your money for a change. Reclaim the geeky nerd you used to be and stop trying to play catch-up with the crap we've already got (seriously, "URGE"? WTF?!?). If you can't make it BETTER, it's just a waste of everybody's time.
In conclusion... wouldn't it be cool if McDonalds really did sell tacos?
McTaco they could call it!
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: DaveXP
BLOGDATE: March 6, 2005
In which Dave finally figures out a way of fixing all the bugs in Windows XP.
Click here to go back in time...
Society will eventually turn me into a psychotic killer.
Though, in the event that the District Attorney should ever question you about my mental state, I'd appreciate it greatly if you would keep that to yourself. If I ever DO go on trial for murder, I think that I should like to go free so I could kill again.
Because I hear that once you've tried killing, you really get a taste for it.
And speaking of taste, do parents teach their kids eating manners anymore? Little things like...
Anybody? Because it seems that everywhere I go, there's at least one person with positively appalling manners. I am getting really grossed out at having to listen to people smack away at their food while watching them chew with their mouths wide open, or having them spit food at me while they're talking...
Last week a work contact called me on the phone and I had to listen to her chomping away in my ear because she was too stupid to understand that it's RUDE to eat lunch while talking on the phone.
It made me want to kill her.
Then yesterday I went to a bagel shop that's not really a bagel shop because the gummy crap they serve tastes nothing like a real bagel (so few "bagels" outside of New York City actually do), and had to wait for my take-out order next to somebody who was totally incapable of chewing with their mouth closed.
He deserved to die quite badly.
And it's all because manners are getting to be a thing of the past. I guess people don't know any better, and probably wouldn't care if they did. Rude eaters should warn you of their bad behavior before inviting you to lunch... or, at the very least, ask permission first. I'm all for permission-based behavior...
I don't want to become a killer... honestly I don't. But can I really be blamed if society makes me a murdering psycho? Then it wouldn't be my fault, right... you'd forgive me?
Anyway...
Wanna do lunch sometime?
The coolest thing about having a blog is the lovely death threats you get just for stating your opinion.
Well, in this case, it's not actually a "threat" per se... it's more like harsh tongue lashing without the benefits such an activity might normally involve.
And I owe it all to Tony Danza.
Not Tony Danza personally, but a Tony Danza fanatic who decided to write to me after reading my comments on his talk show. I would never have guessed that Tony was capable of having such a rabid fan base, so naturally I have come to the conclusion that Tony Danza has some kind of demonic mind-control powers. And now his evil minions are hunting down anybody who would dare speak out against their diabolical overlord.
So now I wonder... mild-mannered talk show host, or hellspawn sent to destroy us all?
Apparently the wrath I've incurred is due to The Tony Danza Show being pulled from some key markets like New York and Philadelphia. According to the email I got, horrible people like me "have poisoned people against Tony and created a negative energy to destroy a wonderful show that brings happiness to millions of people". She drives her point home by closing her email with "God bless Tony Danza and I hope you die!".
= Sob! =
Did you see that? She wants me dead! Between this wack-job and Pat Robertson, I don't think any of us are safe. If no new Blogography entries are forthcoming and I should mysteriously disappear... now you'll know why. Tony Danza finally got me.
What a way to go.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Dave Approved: Crest
BLOGDATE: August 28, 2004
In which Dave discovers the toothpasty goodness of Crest Whitening Expressions and comes up with a great idea for breakfast.
Click here to go back in time...
Despite the fact that I live in an apartment complex filled with mostly elderly deaf people, there is one thing that will still get their attention.
Car alarms.
Nothing pisses off old people quite like a car alarm going off. It's only happened to me once here, but that one time was enough to have the neighbors talking for weeks after. "WAS THAT YOUR CAR ALARM I HEARD GOING OFF YESTERDAY?" they scream as I walk by. "IS YOUR ALARM BROKEN? HA HA HA!" they yell. It's as if their lack of hearing completely dissipates while the alarm is sounding, then they go back to being deaf the instant it stops. So when I heard a car alarm going off this morning, I was understandably in a panic.
I went tearing down the stairs with my key-fob in hand, madly pressing the alarm shut-off as I went.
Only to find out that it wasn't my car, and all I did was manage to turn on my alarm as well.
And just as I turned my alarm off, I realize that I am wearing nothing more than a pair of boxer shorts, a T-shirt, and slippers.
The good news is that the coalition of decrepit neighbors who showed up completely forgot about the car alarm fiasco... "GOT CAUGHT WITH YOUR PANTS DOWN DID YA? HA HA HA!
Yeah, this is going to be an interesting week.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Suffrage
BLOGDATE: February 15, 2005
In which Dave analyzes the past, present, and future of male/female relations... using a comic book. Bring on the super-bitches!
Click here to go back in time...
It's 8:30 and yet I have no desire to get out of bed.
I don't know why. I'm not tired... I'm not sick... I'm not feeling particularly lazy... I just don't feel like getting up. I'd just rather sit here reading blog feeds and catching up with what's going on in the world. I blame wireless networking for my Sunday malaise. If it weren't for wireless, I would have to get up. So here I am, psyching myself up to climb out of bed, when my friend Meagan calls...
Meagan: Your cartoon is freaking me out!
Dave: Huh?
Meagan: The mini-you chewing with your mouth open.
Dave: Yes?
Meagan: It's hypnotic. I can't stop staring at it.
Dave: Excellent.
Meagan: Don't do that anymore.
And so now I am thinking that hypnotic cartoons are the key to my ultimate world domination...
Come to Me. Need Me. Obey Me. Follow me. Love Me.
Now all I need to do is write a virus to infect all the computers in the world with my DaveToon, and I'm one step closer to global sovereignty. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME! KNEEL BEFORE DAVE!! Bwah ha ha ha haaaaaah!
Ahem.
Yes... well...
Anyway. I'm still in bed, so I might as well check my email.
Sweet! My undying gratitude to Neil for pointing me to an interview with the ever-delicious Elizabeth Hurley in The Observer. It's all riveting, of course, but the big news is that she is the host of Sky One's Project Catwalk (the UK version of our own Project Runway, which is hosted by Heidi Klum). This is a show where up-and-coming fashion designers compete in a reality television type show. It's somewhat entertaining, but having Elizabeth Hurley hosting has suddenly made it must-see television for me...
So now I sit huddled over my PowerBook, desperately waiting for the Project Catwalk torrent to finish downloading in a mere three hour and thirty-five minutes! Oh well. Better late than never. I can only hope that BBC America picks up the show (which may confuse any Brits reading this, because Sky One and the BBC are separate over there, but here in the US "BBC America" is a catch-all for any UK shows). And, if you ARE in the UK, you can tune into fresh episodes of Project Catwalk Thursdays at 8:00pm.
Mmmmm... new Elizabeth Hurley goodness.
Okay, NOW I am ready to get out of bed.
Maybe.
After watching Project Catwalk six times... I can honestly say that it is the best show to ever appear on television.
Well done Sky One. Well done.
Granted, I only watched the parts which had Elizabeth Hurley in them and fast-forwarded through the rest... but that's all you really need to see anyway.
It was after my fifth time of running a frame-by-frame analysis that I managed to narrow down the 1,216 stills of Liz perfection down to the top ten seen below (just ignore the freaky-ass bitch standing next to her in photo #3)...
Sweet!
And the best part? EIGHT EPISODES LEFT TO GO!
Oh, and before I forget, there is a small difference in Project Catwalk from the American Project Runway version. It turns out that even if Elizabeth Hurley wasn't hosting, the British show would still be superior...
Boobies! What a pity that tight-ass American television censors faint at the sign of breasts. In the one episode I've seen of Project Runway here in the States, they felt the need to pixelate the naughty bits which is just... wrong.
Sigh. Elizabeth Hurley should host all the shows on television.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Meme
BLOGDATE: June 22, 2004
In which Dave answers a bunch of questions and figures out the perfect way to iron his shirts.
Click here to go back in time...
I've officially become the worst possible kind of blogger.
I'm now one of "those guys" whose blog has started to intrude into Real Life.
This morning a guy I work with emailed me about what a pain in the ass it was to get his father signed up for the new Medicare Drug insurance plan. Without even thinking, I replied back and said "yeah, I had a tough time helping my grandmother get that figured out" and then pasted a link to a Blogography entry where I had written about it.
Five minutes later I'm sucked into an Instant Message chat...
Chet: You have a blog? That is so gay!!
Dave: Yes. You are right. Blogs are totally gay.
Dave: Which makes it easier for me to tell you something...
Chet: NO SHIT?!?
Dave: Yeah. I've been living with this secret for a while now...
Chet: YOU'RE GAY?!?
Dave: Yes, well, no... uhhh... kinda. According to this online quiz I took, I'm 20% gay, which I guess means that I'm only 80% not-gay.
Chet: What test? Where?
Dave: Here: http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/G/gayometer/gayometer.html
15 minutes later...
Chet: Shit! I'm gayer than you!!!!!
Dave: So when can I expect to see YOUR blog online?
All of this is kind of strange to me, because I work so hard to keep my Real Life separate from my blog. I mean, sure... a lot of real-life people I know read it... but there's no overlap. I don't initiate a conversation around something I've written, and I absolutely don't point people to my blog as an alternative to talking with them about something.
At least I didn't until now.
I suppose my next step is to hang a flat-screen monitor around my neck, put a wireless antennae on my head, and just point people to Blogography entries instead of actually having to talk to them. Then I could wander around with a look of total disinterest all day, ignoring anybody I should run into...
I mean, hey, I'm coming up on my three-year blogiversary in a few months... I've pretty much said it all, haven't I? What else is left to say?
And speaking of blogging milestones - it would appear that I'm rapidly approaching my 5000th comment! I wonder if I should have a prize for whoever leaves comment #5000? Just my luck it would be some lame comment like "YOU SUCK, ASSHOLE!" and I'd have to reward that kind of troll behavior with a prize.
Or do I?
I mean, in the past, I've approved ANY comment, no matter how lame. So unless somebody was selling something or shilling for their site, I've just let it go through. But why should I? I mean, I don't care if somebody wants to call me an asshole (I'm getting used to it), but I think they should at least have to tell me WHY they think that before I publish their crap.
I dunno. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this is unreasonable. I wonder what other bloggers do about abusive comments by random 10-year-olds and comment trolls?
Sweet! I've just put a disclaimer on my comments form telling them not to bother.
Hmmm... I guess I really AM an asshole.
Why am I not surprised.
I had to work every waking minute today. No blog for you!
Well, okay... maybe a little blog for you since Veronica Mars is yet another rerun tonight.
Time for Dave's Entertainment Minute...
Scrubbed! Holy crap! Scrubs used to be one of the most brilliant shows on television. A show you could count on for smart comedy tempered with poignant moments of human drama. But then the new season happened, and all of a sudden it sucks ass... hard. Gone are the wonderful story threads that weave together beautifully every episode. Instead it's just a patchwork mess of sloppy gags that aren't even funny. The back-to-back episodes I just watched off the TiVo were a complete embarrassment to this once-great show. Please, just cancel it now while people still have good Scrubs memories.
Carter! Little Aaron Carter has just released Come Get It: The Very Best of Aaron Carter, which is a greatest hits collection for an artist who has no actual hits. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care. But I ran across the user comments on the iTunes Music Store and laughed my ass off. Over 300 reviews that include such gems as "If crap had a soundtrack, it would be this" and "A disgrace to music. William Hung is 10 times better than Aaron" and "There is no God" and "The Geneva Convention considers it a war crime to listen to this album". I wish I had the guts to actually buy it.
Oh! By some miracle, the self-congratulating Golden Globes wank-fest actually gave out an award that was deserved... the brutally hot Sandra Oh won Best Supporting Actress for her work on Grey's Anatomy. Sweet.
Super! The more information that gets released from the upcoming Superman Returns motion picture, the more anxious I am to see it. While I love the original Superman and Superman II films, the idea of seeing a Superman treatment with modern special effects is just too good. And now I have to wonder... they've finally got momentum going with DC Comics two most notable franchises... Superman and Batman. Who do I have to blow in order to make every comic book lover's dream come true: a Superman & Batman movie? And once Joss Whedon gets his Wonder Woman flick off the ground, how cool would a Superman & Wonder Woman movie be?
Underwhelm! The original Underworld movie was laughably bad. But what's even worse is that I will be lining up at the theater to see the sequel: Underworld Evolution for the sole purpose of seeing Kate Beckinsale run around in tight latex blowing shit up. High entertainment value with no actual entertainment... it's a conundrum of movie physics that compels me.
Not! Ouch. After airing only a single episode, Heather Graham's new sitcom Emily's Reasons Why Not has been canned, and all production has stopped. Given the millions of dollars that ABC pumped into advertising the show, I am experiencing a moment of perverse pleasure. This is the crappy network who cancelled the greatest show ever to air on television (Jeremy Piven's Cupid) after doing everything they could to sabotage it. Suck it ABC dumbasses! You so totally deserve it.
Back to work I go.
We are living in a digital world and I am a digital boy.
Oh crap. Now I'm going to have Madonna running through my head all day.
Anyway, the truth of the matter is that I am a digital boy. I love living in a digital world where I can take my entire music collection with me on my PowerBook. I love being able to take a photo on my digital camera and then digitally send it to my digital photo software and digitally do whatever the heck I want to digitally do to it.
But that's not really a digital world at all, is it? I want an actual digital world to live in... like The Matrix or something...
Flying around, blowing shit up, kicking asses with kung-fu... how friggin' sweet would that be? Plug me in!
In the meanwhile, I just have to be content with what's available now.
But when it comes to photographs, this kind of sucks because everything I have before 2001 is on film. Boxes and boxes and boxes of film. Transferring my CDs into iTunes was a pain in the ass, but I managed it. Transferring my film into iPhoto is another matter entirely. It would take days of sitting in front of my computer with an expensive scanner, and I just don't have that kind of time.
Enter a company called "DigMyPics" who will handle the drudgery of scanning your film for you.
For a price.
A pretty big price. I sent in a test batch of 920 photos to be scanned and ended up paying a cool $600 for the privilege. Was it worth it? Well, for those of you who are interested in this stuff, I've put the answer in an extended entry.
For those of you who are not interested, come back tomorrow when Bad Monkey will be making an appearance. Because everybody just loves a monkey.
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Sigh. Nothing like a dead laptop battery to ruin your day. I wrote this entry at 5:30am with the intention of posting it on my lunch hour. But then my battery ended up being totally dead, so I had to wait until I got home to the sweet embrace of my power adapter at 10:30pm.
And that's a real shame, because now I'm going to feel the need to proofread it. So an entry that took me 15 minutes to write and draw this morning will now be picked apart for two hours. It seems that once I start proofreading I have no idea how to stop myself. Worst of all, the proofreading isn't going to do anything to fix my crappy writing skills. If anything, I'll probably make things worse.
You've been warned.
Anyway...
It seems that Hollywood is just going apeshit over monkeys.
Everywhere you turn, there's monkeys. Monkeys in movies. Monkeys on television. Monkeys in advertisements. Monkeys everywhere. It's a monkey renaissance.
And that's cool because it means that Bad Monkey can get work in porn remakes! You know how they take a movie like Free Willy and remake it as a porn flick called Free THE Willy... or Under the Tuscan Sun becomes a porno called Under the Tuscan BUNS or something like that. It's all good harmless X-rated fun! Like this...
Here we take King Kong, add Bad Monkey, and the porno remake could become...
An instant classic! Here's another...
We remake the upcoming Curious George animated film, add Bad Monkey, and it could become...
And I'm sure that something porn-tastic could be made from Grandma's Boy which has a monkey in a starring role, or even the new CBS show Love Monkey which doesn't have any monkeys, but probably should because it's totally confusing otherwise...
See? The possibilities are endless! Sadly, some of the best monkey porn titles are already taken by regular movies. Iron Monkey? Ha ha ha. Monkeybone? BWAH HA HA HAAAAAH!
So bring on the primates.
Bad Monkey could use the cash, and I'd be happy to have him throwing his feces on somebody else's walls for a change.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Banana
BLOGDATE: May 11, 2005
In which Dave learns how to peel a banana from a monkey while avoiding Thai hookers.
Click here to go back in time...
You just figured out Blue's Clues! You just figured out Blue's Clues! You just figured out Blue's Clues because you're really smart!
I don't think it will come as much of a shock to admit that I was a huge fan of the Nickelodeon Kids television show called Blue's Clues. Back in my pre-TiVo days, I'd set the VCR to record the show so I could have something to watch after work. A simple show that I could just sit and decompress with. There was something about the oddly-rendered, superficial world of Blue's Clues that I found calming.
For those of you who have never heard of it, Blue's Clues was about a guy named Steve and his pet dog Blue. Each episode, Blue would wander around leaving paw-prints on three different items in order to give Steve "clues" as to what she was wanting. With each new find, Steve would draw a picture of the clue in his "handy dandy notebook" and then go sit in his big red "thinking chair" to try to solve the mystery. For example, Steve might find clues of an alarm clock, a blanket, and a bed... then come to the fabulous conclusion that Blue wanted to take a nap.
It was good clean fun, and along the way Steve would play games, dance, sing songs, and do other educational activities like read a book with Julia Louis Dreyfus...
The show was awesome, and I so totally wanted to be Steve when I grew up because he was always having such cool adventures...
Well, I guess "grow up" is a kind of relative term, because I started watching when I was 30... but still. I wanted to be Steve.
Anyway, eventually Steve left the show and was replaced by this guy "Joe" who wasn't nearly as cool. Since Joe totally blew chunks, I stopped watching and went back to reruns of Teletubbies for my entertainment. The last I heard was that the reason Steve left the show was because he had a heroin problem and eventually died of an overdose.
I was kind of sad about that.
So imagine my surprise when I was goofing around the internet this morning and ran across a web site called "Steve Burns Rocks" which showed me that not only had Steve not died, but he eventually went all gold-tooth "cronk" and became an indie musician...
WTF?!?
Did Steve fake his death so he could escape being linked to a children's television show and instead be reborn as a "serious musician"?? I just didn't know. So I did what I always do in these cases... I wander over to Snopes to find out if they've got anything on the rumor. And they did.
So Steve was never dead, though the heroin addiction would certainly explain the gold tooth.
Personally I think the new and lame Blue's Clues host "Joe" is behind the rumors. The bastard.
And now, before I go enjoy a lovely Saturday afternoon at work and see how many emails I got from people outraged by my "Bi-Curious George" cartoon yesterday... one last question...
HOW MANY F#@%ING TIMES DO WE HAVE TO F#@%ING KILL THE F#@%ING "BROADCAST FLAG" SHIT BEFORE IT WILL STAY F#@%ING DEAD AND DUMBASS POLITICIANS WILL STOP TRYING TO F#@% US OVER WITH THIS F#@%ING BULLSHIT?!?
This is an abhorrent piece of legislation that has already been killed a half-dozen times, but now I am reading over at Boing Boing that it has once again been drug to the floor by the mentally-challenged Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, who is hereby invited to lick my balls.
Seriously lick my balls.
Once this draconian shit gets started, it will never stop. Never mind that you PAY for your television cable or satellite hook-up... that you PAY for the music and shows you enjoy... politicians want to be sure that you only enjoy them when and how THEY want you to. Flying an anti-piracy flag here is ludicrous, because there will ALWAYS be a way to pirate the crap... legislation only hurts honest consumers... not the pirates they claim to be fighting. And Hollywood should KNOW better. The more you treat honest people like criminals, the more of them will actually become criminals.
If you even remotely care about your right to watch and listen to content YOU pay for in a way that YOU want, read the article on Boing Boing and visit the EFF so you can send an email to your Senator. Then go encourage others to do the same. If you don't, it may only be a matter of time before you have to kiss your TiVo and iPod goodbye (and just forget about any cool new technologies that allow you to enjoy media in a way that's convenient for you).
Once this Bill is killed off (again) can we please just shoot the next dumbass Senator who is corrupt and stupid enough to bring another piece of "Broadcast Flag" legislation to the floor? That would be great.
The lovely and talented Liz over at Everyday Goddess has brought to my attention that today is "Blog for Choice Day". At first I had no intention of airing my thoughts on the subject, as I consider it a private matter, but eventually changed my mind. I'm not quite sure why. No matter which side you take in the abortion debate, you are bound to make enemies... and, believe it or not, I don't blog to make enemies.
But before I get into it, there is one thing I need to make clear:
Personally, I do not believe in abortion. I try to live my life according to Buddhist teachings, and my interpretation of Buddhist precepts is such that abortion is wrong. All arguments as to whether or not life begins at conception are totally irrelevant to me, because conception creates a life. So, unless the pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother, thus putting two lives at risk... there is no gray area for me. I do not condone abortion, and don't feel it should be used as a method of birth control, which our society seems far too comfortable with.
However...
I am a guy and will never have to be faced with whether or not I should get an abortion, so I am pro-choice.
I don't have to worry about becoming pregnant because somebody raped me, so I am pro-choice.
I realize that this is America, where everybody is free to believe as they wish, and my moral and ethical beliefs are not the moral and ethical beliefs of everybody else, so I am pro-choice.
I am not so arrogant as to force my interpretation of life on other free-willed individuals, so I am pro-choice.
I do not subscribe to the legal definition of murder as applying to abortion, so I am pro-choice.
I believe that once you start regulating any one choice, that it will only lead to other choices being regulated, so I am pro-choice.
I feel that anything so highly personal as an abortion has no business being decided by government, so I am pro-choice.
Shit happens, so I am pro-choice.
So there. I said it. I am pro-choice.
Not because I think abortion is a good thing... but because it's not my place to force others to believe as I do in a country where people are supposed to be able to decide for themselves what to believe in.
And that is why you won't find me telling a woman who is on her sixth abortion to "find a better method of birth control you ignorant slut"... because it's just not my place to judge.
In the end, it's not always easy to set aside one's personal beliefs when it comes to something like abortion. But if you are making decisions as to what other people are allowed to believe for themselves, you kind of have to. Lawmakers would do well to remember that.
I don't often look at my web stats because I just don't care how many people are reading my blog. But not so long ago I got an invitation to set up an account with "Google Analytics" for free, so I thought that I would give it a try. The preview showed that you get all kinds of pretty graphs and interesting numbers to look at, so why not?
Well, this morning I finally remembered to go take a look. Unfortunately, the charts and numbers don't mean a heck of a lot to me. I suppose if I gave a crap about this stuff, it would be totally awesome but, since I don't, it's boring. I'm just not seeing any data I'm actually interested in. For example, I still don't know why the hate-mails I get usually arrive on the weekend. Nope, instead all I get to see are things like where my visitors come from on a big map...
Blogography: Big in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland
So I decided to write my own analytics software. I call it "Blogography Anal". It's a funky piece of engineering that gives you information you can actually use.* Just export your Google Analytics stats, then drop them into the program and press start.
In trying to get to the root of my hate-mail question, I first ran the data through Blogography Anal's "Visitification Index" to see how many people are visiting and whether or not I should be happy about it. The results look like this...
I find it interesting how traffic remains fairly steady throughout the week, but always plummets on the weekends. I guess people have better things to do than surf this sorry-ass blog on their day off? Can't say I blame them. Though I do shudder to think of the number of lost job-hours I am personally responsible for because billions of people are reading Blogography instead of working.
But if visitor counts drop so substantially on weekends, why is this when I get the most nasty emails and rude comments? I decided to rerun the stats, but this time use Blogography Anal's "Assholification Index" to see what happens...
Ah ha! Even though my visitor counts drop significantly on the weekends, it turns out that the number of assholes stopping by shoots to over eleven billion! Last Sunday there were 13.4 billion assholes alone.
And this is a problem. My "happy zone" for asshole visitors is between one and three billion a day. Any less than a billion, and you just aren't trying hard enough. Any more than three billion, and the odds are you'll start getting emails bitching about something you've said that week.
Since this is Sunday, I guess it means there is a 96.4% chance that the person reading this right now is an asshole.
Well, not YOU... I would never think of YOU as an asshole. I just love YOU.
So it begs the question: why in the heck do I bother to write in my blog on the weekends?
If visitor counts drop, and all I am going to get for my trouble is a bunch of assholes hanging around... why do it? I just don't know. Perhaps if I stopped writing on the weekend, I wouldn't feel like starting up again on Monday? Or maybe the people who count on Blogography to brighten up their Monday work-day would be pissed if they didn't have a couple of fresh entries to read before their boss arrives?
I guess there are questions that even Google Analytics and Blogography Anal can't answer.
* Please note that the accuracy of my calculations is plus-or-minus twenty-six billion.**
** Hey, I'm an artist, not a mathematician.***
*** Oh don't give me that look! Writing software is hard... let's see YOUR stats package.
The blogosphere is abuzz with the story of how the government wants Google to hand over search records so they can see how often porn is returned in the search results. Apparently having this information will protect kids from internet porn, which is much like trying to protect orange juice from being the color orange. Of course Google is going to sometimes return porn in search results because 90% of the internet IS PORN! Oh well, it's not like we've got health care and unemployment problems to worry about. Watching people's kids so parents don't have to bother is so much more important.
But after the government gets a look at the porn we're searching for... what's next?
I worry that Homeland Security will start wanting Google search records next. Not because I have anything to hide, but because search records are not always what they seem.
For example. I LOATHE Jared Fogle the Subway Sandwich whore.
Every time I hear how Jared "inspires people to eat better and lose weight with Subway Sandwiches" I want him dead. Because all he really does is inspire sales of Subway Sandwiches from people too stupid to understand what a fraud he is. Do you know why he chose Subway when he decided to try and lose weight? Because it was next door to his apartment. It was convenient. It's not like he went out and did a bunch of restaurant research for his diet. He was a lazy turd that ate at Subway because it was closest to where he lived.
He could have had salads at McDonalds and lost weight. He could have had sandwiches at Quiznos and lost weight. He could have eaten ANYWHERE and lost weight if he made healthier menu choices. There is nothing magical about Subways... it was because he decided to stop eating mass quantities of high-fat foods that he lost the weight. I could go into Subway twice a day and order up a sandwich loaded with extra cheese and a bunch of sauces and mayonnaise and GAIN weight. But you won't see a commercial for that. Does it really take Jared the Subway whore to tell people that eating a veggie sandwich with no cheese instead of three Big Macs will make you lose weight? Well, DUH! It's just common sense! When are people going to realize that Jared is not this altruistic prophet here to help you... HE'S JUST A WHORE SELLING SANDWICHES FOR MONEY! It's his JOB.
So that's why when I see commercials with Jared comparing a veggie sandwich with no cheese to a Big Mac, and telling people that they should eat at Subways because it's so much healthier... I want him dead. Why not compare a veggie sandwich to an Arby's SALAD you stupid f#@%?
And because I loathe Jared so badly, much of my free time is spent fantasizing of ways the whore can die. Sometimes it's pretty basic... I just walk up to the dumbass with a gun and shoot him or something...
Jared says: "I am such a whore that even I hate me!"
But on days where he is really pissing me off (like he comes out with a new idiotic Subways commercial), just shooting him isn't good enough. I want something much more elaborate and painful.
And that takes a lot of Google research.
Because it's not like I know how much battery acid it takes to melt somebody's head... I have to Google it. And when I need to know if it's possible to drown somebody in low-fat mustard... I have to Google it. If I am curious as to how many volts it takes to electrocute somebody through their testicles... I have to Google it. All this stuff has to be researched.
And what happens if Homeland Security sees this stuff that I'm Googling, decides that I'm some kind of sadistic terrorist, and then ships me off to have MY testicles electrocuted??
That would be bad.
Not to mention grossly unfair, because getting rid of Jared is more like a public service than an act of terrorism.
Anyway, that's why I think that Google shouldn't have to hand over any records. It can only lead to innocent people like me being shocked in their balls.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find out if low-fat turkey slices are still flammable once they've been shoved up somebody's ass.
Nothing is happening. Nothing at all. Must be time for that "What are you looking forward to" meme?
Today: I am looking forward to breakfast right now because I'm hungry. I think it will be Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and some toast.
Tomorrow: NEW VERONICA MARS!! Finally.
This week: I read the original short story Brokeback Mountain and found it to be slow, boring, and pointless. I had no intention of seeing a slow, boring, pointless film based on it, but everybody and they're dog is telling me that I simply must see it, so I am going to do that later this week. I'm kind of looking forward to it.
Next week: After watching James Lipton kiss Elton John's ass for two hours straight on Inside The Actors Studio, I was a bit shocked to see that next week's guest is Dave Chappelle. The interesting bit is that Lipton somehow mustered the balls to ask Dave about his freak-out retreat to Africa in the middle of filming the third season of Chappelle's Show. I will definitely be looking forward to that.
This month: The months almost over, so I guess I am looking forward to the month being over.
Next month: A good friend whom I haven't seen in a very long time will be in town next month. Sadly, she's only around for a few days, but I am absolutely looking forward to seeing her.
This year: Believe it or not, I am looking forward to the release of Windows Vista. I know, I know... I'm a Microsoft-loathing Mac whore, so why would I even care? Because I am tired of having to work with Windows as it currently exists. Windows is a bug-ridden, virus-laden pile of crap that I've found to be faulty and unreliable. And since Vista is supposed to fix so many of the problems I have with the OS, I can only assume that it will be easier for me to deal with. That's a good thing. It would be nice to work on a Windows machine and not have to be screaming the entire time. It would also be nice for Apple to have some renewed competition so they continue to push ahead. So yes, I am looking forward to Vista, which I think is supposed to launch this year.
Next year: Futurama, my favorite animated show of all time, is coming back for a series of four feature-length, direct-to-DVD films. Bender is the most brilliant animated characters ever, and I've missed him terribly. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that (much more than the news about the possible new Friends movies)...
What? Is that it? I'm done? Okay then, I'm off to breakfast.
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Dental
BLOGDATE: March 9, 2004
In which Dave is captured by the enemy and subjected to oral torture.
Click here to go back in time...
A couple of days ago I wrote about the government requesting that Google release their search records. Ever since then, I've been addicted to the stats page which shows the keyword searches people are using to find Blogography. Sure I've looked before, but now I'm seeing them in an entirely different light. What if the people requesting some of these wacky searches were tracked by the government? Scary.
And if these freaky-ass searches are finding my blog, what in the heck does that say about me?
As it turns out, it's not always my fault. When you combine a bunch of unrelated entries into monthly archives, suddenly a word from June 7th combines with a word from June 13th and a word from June 20th to create something truly disturbing. What was once an innocent separation of words on different days has suddenly been Googlized into something naughty.
And while that's true most of the time, it's not true all of the time.
Searches for things like "penis salad" I have no excuse for.
But hey, here's a question... WHO IN THE HECK DOES A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR "PENIS SALAD"?? What could they possibly be hoping to find? I made it up as a joke... are these people serious?!? And it's not like it was only a one time thing... I've been hit by that search 11 times this month. ELEVEN PEOPLE WERE LOOKING FOR "PENIS SALAD"! WTF? Over half of them are from the U.K., so perhaps it's a British slang term that I am unfamiliar with?
Anyway, for the moment at least, Blogography is the #1 hit in both text and images. I did a screen capture to preserve this moment forever...
And there it is. My proudest moment as a blogger. Out of 701,000 results for "penis salad", I'm #1 on Google. How cool is that? I might as well close up shop and move on to other challenges. I've climbed my Everest. There's nowhere else for me to go with Blogography now. It's all downhill from here.
And, on that note, I should mention that I've passed 5000 comments from brilliant readers such as yourself!
On January 23rd at 6:28pm, "Used Hack" hit the magic number, and has won a pair of quality T-shirts of his choice from the Artificial Duck Store PLUS a gift certificate for $20 from either the iTunes Music Store or Amazon.com, whichever he likes best! It's a prize valued at $43.85, so congratulations Hack!
Comments are cool, and this blog wouldn't be half as much fun without them. I should have comment prizes more often.
And lastly, did anybody see Betty White's masterful performance last night on Boston Legal? Betty with a gun kicks ass!
BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Bleh
BLOGDATE: February 7, 2004
In which Dave finds Betty White in his mailbox and contemplates life without clean underwear.
Click here to go back in time...
My chapped lips rub roughly against the blanket as I awake with too little sleep yet again. From under the covers my arm reaches out to the night-stand, groping blindly for Chapstick. In darkness the lip balm burns with a kiss of peppermint, but my eyes have yet to open. I lay there clutching the small tube because it's too cold to return it to the night-stand. My mind goes cloudy and I start to drift. It's warm under the blankets and I'm in no hurry to leave them...
RRRRRRRRING! RRRRRRRRING! RRRRRRRRING!
F#@%ing telemarketers.
While the number of calls I get have dropped drastically since the "National No-Call List" was enacted, they have not stopped completely. This time it was a travel club offer or some kind of crap like that. I don't really remember, because I was screaming "PUT ME ON YOUR DO-NOT CALL LIST AND NEVER, EVER CALL ME AGAIN!!" at the top of my lungs.
I spent the rest of my morning wishing that it were possible to shoot a gun into the phone and have an explosion come out the other end, just like in Bugs Bunny cartoons...
Maybe not a gun, that's kind of violent, but you should at least be able to bitch-slap somebody through the phone.
Although if you could shoot into your computer and have it come out and explode all over a spammer, I would definitely do that. The only thing I loathe more than telemarketers is spammers.
In better news, MRK over at Itch & Be Merry has finally figured out why I keep getting Google search referrals for "penis salad" out of the UK. Apparently the phrase was used in some kind of risque sitcom. At least I think it was a sitcom. The video clip MRK found was a bit vague, but I would certainly hope that any use of "penis salad" would be for comedic effect.
Eww... what if it was a reality TV show??
Here is my one word review of Brokeback Mountain from last night...
Borrrrrrrrrrring.
It was boring. Beyond boring. The cowboy love story was not enough of a story, and everything in-between was so mind-numbingly, coma-inducing, kill-me-now, BORING that I found myself counting ceiling tiles. Yes the cinematography was first rate and the scenery was pretty... but that doesn't excuse this long, drawn-out, snore-fest of a film. I remain positively dumbfounded that Brokeback Mountain is getting such critical acclaim. Between Heath Ledger mumbling every word of his incomprehensible dialogue and having to sit through long stretches of NOTHING, I can honestly say that this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
I never thought I would find myself looking forward to watching some hot man-on-man action but, since that was the only action to be found, there was nothing else to do. The story tried to show how society was so unforgiving of their love that they had no choice but to enter into straight marriages that neither were happy in. But the result was cliched and felt tacked on... as if stereotypical screaming babies and an unapproving father-in-law were supposed to be some kind of excuse for them to keep having feelings for each other. In the end, the wives who were being cheated on for the sake of forbidden romance were the more sympathetic characters. I always felt that Ennis and Jack's marriages should have been a sad result of something both wanted but weren't brave enough to have... but this didn't come across in the film. At least not to me.
On a more positive note, I'll bet the porn remakes are going to be entertaining...
The thing that surprised me most was not the actual movie, but that there were so many people there to watch it. Despite this being 2006, I live in a somewhat redneck area of Central Washington. To have a fairly good-sized audience of mostly older people at a 4:45 showing is remarkable. I can only hope that this indicates society is becoming more accepting of gay cowboys having sex. It would be nice to live in a world where consenting adults can have love and happiness wherever they are lucky enough to find it, and not have to worry about being judged or killed for it.
Overheard in the parking lot after the movie was over: "I nearly choked on my popcorn when that boy took that other fella from behind like that... heh heh heh, homos!"
Errr, well... maybe there's a ways to go yet, but at least the guy had a mind open enough to go watch a Western where the cowboys had been all homosexualized by the homosexualizations of those homosexualizers in Hollywood. That's a start.
Anyway, the night wasn't a total loss. Thanks to Michelle leaving me a hot tip in a comment, I was able to drop by Safeway and pick up a couple boxes of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch cereal for the bargain price of 2 for $5... score!
I wish I could quit you, Captain Crunch.
Heaven help me, I've been sucked into the bizarre Lynchian world of Twin Peaks. Again.
When the show first debuted back in 1990, I was instantly addicted. Not only was it quirky and entertaining, but it had a stunning cast of actors playing some of the most fully-realized characters ever seen on television. Everybody had a story. Everybody had a secret. Everybody was linked to everybody else. It was a delicious web of lies, deceit, danger, and mystery that was (and still is) unique to television. It was the best soap opera ever.
And lest we forget Laura Palmer all dead and wrapped in plastic...
Last week I was digging through a bunch of papers and found my Twin Peaks Access Guide. It's a travel book for the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington. And though the town may be fake, the exterior locations used for the show are very real. Having lived in Washington State most of my life, I've been to many of them.
Anyway, finding the book reminded me of the show, and so I've been watching the first season episodes I have on DVD. I just finished the last one (episode 7), and now I am depressed that season two hasn't been released. It was supposed to happen last year, but we're still waiting.
Good thing for Paramount that my log does not judge...
The story kind of wandered a bit near the end but, taken as a whole, Twin Peaks is still brilliant television. Hopefully I'll be able to finish watching it again one day soon.
"Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds... fire, walk with me."
I don't really care about football because I'm more of a baseball kind of guy with an occasional basketball infatuation (college ball only, because pro basketball doesn't seem to be about basketball anymore). But even then, it's just entertainment and not a reason to go insane.
And yet if you live anywhere in the vicinity of the Pacific Northwest, odds are you are going out of your freakin' mind right now because the Seahawks have finally managed to make it to the SuperBowl. It's a pretty big deal here, or so I gather.
All I know is that every time I turn on a local television station lately, I've got to watch everyday citizens dressed up like clowns and acting like obnoxious douchebags...
People with blue hair. People with green hair. People with painted faces. People yelling and screaming... "WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!" and "STEELERS SUCK!!" — It's kind of like what I envision armageddon is going to be like.
Don't get me wrong. It's not like I have anything against people being all excited and having team spirit for fun... but the idiots that they're always showing on television act like rabid freaks who are in desperate need of therapy. I'll be very glad when football is over, though a bit frightened at the possibility of Seattle losing. I envision the Space Needle on fire and the city engulfed in chaos... the WTO riot of '99 is still fresh in my mind.
Anyway, for the sake of all my fellow Washingtonians who are dying to win the SuperBowl, I'll shout out my obligatory "Go Seahawks!" for the Showdown in Motown.
That's about all I can do, considering that winter storms have caused multiple avalanches on the mountain passes, and westward routes to Seattle are closed until further notice.
In even more disturbing news... whilst flicking through channels last night, I noticed that sicko pervert Pat O'Brien is back to hosting one of those boring Hollywood gossip shows. It is impossible for me to even look at the freak without having those disgusting drunken answering machine tapes playing in my head.
Was it too much to ask that he quietly disappear after being released from rehab?? As annoying as he was before all this, he's just plain creepy-scary now.
In other words, he's perfect for politics.
You know the satisfaction that comes from a job well done? The sweet victory of completing a project you can be proud of? Knowing that you took the time to do something right, and it shows?
Yeah, me to. It's a great feeling isn't it?
Unless you are building a web site.
Because no matter how much time you spend making sure everything is compliant with web standards... no matter how long you take to validate every line of hand-coded HTML... no matter what you do to ensure that everything will appear exactly as you intended it to look...
It all falls apart when you look at the site in Internet Explorer...
Suddenly, all the hard work... all the hours... all the painstaking attention to detail... it's all turned to shit because Microsoft's browser sucks ass. Sometimes the Internet Explorer Effect™ is so heinous that sites which render perfectly in every other browser on earth become unusable. I could go into details (the box model is f#@%ed up, floats aren't handled properly, no support for max-width, etc. etc. etc. etc.) but none of it really matters. The simple fact is that Internet Explorer is garbage. Unfortunately, people don't seem to realize it...
HALF the world is using Internet Explorer, so it doesn't matter that the browser sucks donkey balls. You pretty much have to hack your site to work around all the bugs, omissions, inaccuracies, and f#@%-ups in IE, or else all these people will think it's your fault things look like crap.
There's always the hope that the next version of IE will fix all the problems, but it doesn't really matter because so few people will bother to upgrade. This makes Internet Explorer the equivalent of a case of herpes that will never go away completely. All you can do is put a condom on your site and hope that it doesn't mess things up for the browsers that don't have an STD.
I dunno. Maybe if enough IE victims are convinced to make a better choice, the percentage of users will drop so low that designers won't have to worry about the Internet Explorer Effect™ anymore. Finally, the internet will be beautiful once again (and mostly disease-free).
Oh well. Since I've spent most of my day being beaten into submission by a crappy web browser, I might as well get that "FOUR THINGS" meme out of the way. I've been tagged a couple of times before, but now Gerry and Karla have nabbed me in a weakened state, so here we go:
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
