Friday, June 27, 2008

On trilogies

There are apparently more than 12 actors out there that have starred in two triliogies. Each actor, that is, has had a role in six movies playing the same character in two sets of three.
I'll give you the most obvious as an example, to give you the hang of it: Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars flicks.
Same actor. Same character in each trilogy. That's what we're looking for.
One of the remaining 11 is a woman. Remember animated features are big right now. The films are not obscure in the least.
That's all the hints you get.
Go.
ADDENDUM: Two additional actors have been brought to my attention, both male, bringing the total to 14 (so far). You probably won't get one if you don't have kids, but if you do, you'll get the other.
ADDENDUM II: Two more names go on the list, one of them a woman, so we're up to 16. Probably more out there kids, c'mon and put your minds to it (unless you're running a congressional campaign, in which case you should probably give your mind a break).

On hacking

Every time I plant my face down exhaustedly into my keyboard and roll it around for a couple minutes to regain composure, I always hope that when I pick my head back up, I will have somehow accidentally hacked into the Pentagon. Or at the very least, the Department of Agriculture.
But no, there's just an open word file still sitting there, with a cursor blinking at the end of "...upon which the present motion was filed to d;adskfjsrfdlfgseghwegeighelkgjsdlfkbvgjsdlfbsdnbnbkdjbndfbsdlbsd."
There is, however, a very helpful little gnome of an animatronic paperclip that always seems to recognize something close to what I'm trying to achieve and is more than willing to lend a hand, be it spreadsheets, letter-writing, or simple Internet trolling.
"You look like you're writing a letter! Can I help?"
"Actually, I'm just making a list."
"You look like you're making a list!"
"Of animatronic paperclips I hate."
"You look like you're searching for ways to destroy me!"
"Yup."
"You can't!"
"@%#%ing paperclip!"
One day, though, he noticed I was trying to decrypt government files with my face, and he offered to help. This story doesn't really go anywhere from there, except to say you might want to check your credit rating, just to be safe.

Turns out he can be a helpful little fella after all.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

On announcers

I swear to gourd this just happened:
There's a comic out there with the moniker "Talent" who performed on Jamie Foxx's Laffapalooza '07.
Now, I should note I have nothing against any comic performing on this show, whatsoever - aside from Jamie Foxx, who killed my brother during the Cola Wars - but after about 45 minutes of this young comic showcase being on the air, the announcer actually shouts out before a commercial break (with all the enthusiasm of Jonah Hill just being told by a gypsy that he won't die alone, mind you):
"Still to come - Talent!"

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

(Except for the bit about the Cola Wars, which is patently false. So I guess you can make up some of it. Just not the best parts.)

Monday, June 23, 2008

On Carlin

Another one of my favorite humans died today, and I never got to meet him.
George Carlin was like a great golden god of free thought and dirty jokes, and now he's worm food. Unless he's cremated. Or shot out of a cannon into space, in which case he is spaceworm food and will one day be spice.
(He's probably just regular worm food though, meaning he'll one day be poop, I guess, until something else eats that. Like a plant. Or a German porn star.)
He died on the same day I learned all about FISA and just how freakin' weird politics really is. Which is a shame, because I'd love to hear his thoughts on how the president (any president, by the way, not just the current one) gets a "break all the Fourth Amendment you want" card while I get a $60 ticket for driving without wearing a seat belt in a state that doesn't even have a damn helmet law for motorcycles or, while I'm at it, a decent pulled pork sandwich.
There, I said it - the barbecue in this state sucks.
I did at least get to see him in Seattle last year while he was honing material for his latest (or last, I guess) HBO special, and he was amazing. More than I could have asked for. He was just so unique, and smart, and real - his perspective was often labeled "twisted" by the kind of boring people who read Cosmo and think oral sex is kinky, but he always made perfect sense to me. And more importantly, he made me laugh until tears rolled down my face while he did it.
You know he coined that whole drive-on-the-parkway-and-park-on-the-driveway bit? Or at least he was the first to say it onstage, according to his obit. And that's what I always loved about him, he was just so relatable. Like how you do the Japanese hooker on the kitchen table, but then you eat sushi off her stomach?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Meh, it sounded better in my head.
Anyway, he will be missed, and there really is no one who could take his place. Not for me, anyway.

Also, I saw this on the Internet today:

http://view.break.com/524970 - Watch more free videos

And knew right away that it had to be fake. You know why? Too good.
Too awesome, actually. Like the so called "security cam" footage of a guy suddenly freaking out and destroying an office, or the 1969 moon landing, which, as we all know now, was nothing more than an elaborate marketing campaign for Tang.
These things fall into a particularly slimy category of whoresmanship called "viral marketing" and they are yet another reason to hate "teh Internets," as people call it moments before I punch them in the face.
Now, I am no "newb" to be "pwned" by these tactics, so it's not the possibility that I'll be somehow tricked into buying an Audi dealership after seeing a crash test dummy eat a baby (or something) that worries me.
No, it's the fact that I can't look at anything cool anymore without immediately going: "Pfft. No way that wasn't staged." If aliens landed tomorrow, I'd still probably think it was an ad for the Charles Atlas Home Gym until I saw the smoking craters of at least two U.S. cities with my own eyes.
There's no suspension of disbelief anymore, Internet. You've spent your credibility. And for what? Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs and Gatorade? Great. Now I can't even be sure Mama Cass liked ham sandwiches. Who's to say her death wasn't just a genius campaign orchestrated by Butterball because turkey sales were down that year? And Turkey acquiring nuclear weapons? That's right - the response campaign from Hatfield.
But you don't need to do this to people, Internet ad wizards. Your domain is already populated by the kind of people who think The Jews have all the money in a secret vault in the middle of the earth anyway, or that Mountain Dew is palatable. There's no reason to turn normal people like me into yet another group of unnecessarily skeptical jerks.
The ultimate irony here, though, is that because I've discussed it - even to denounce it - I have become a part of their dastardly plan!
Why, if Carlin were here, I'm sure he'd have a thing or two to say about it.
But he's not. And now, he never will be.
Sigh.
Well, I'm off to the bar to toast him. Maybe I'll plant rhino eggs along the way as a campaign for this blog. Probably not though.


(Rhinos are mammals.)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

On Relics

Some years back, a buddy of mine gave me a hand-carved Tibetan skull necklace he found amongst the baubles and trinkets of New York.
I loved this skull. It was maybe one inch from brainpan to jaw. The polishing was perfect, the carving simple but fine, the stone a beautiful deep green, flecked with black and yellow. The string went straight through the ear holes.
I tied it around my wrist and never took it off.
The string, though, was flimsy, cheap. It wore right through, seemingly evaporating before my very eyes a little more each time it got wet. Every shower, every dish washed brought that poor little band of fibers inevitably closer to doom, until it finally snapped.
Now my buddy, Charlie, he told me when he gave it to me that the skull was supposed to symbolize impermanence.
Well, you can imagine how I laughed when I looked down one day to discover the damn thing had disappeared. All that remained was the string, the two dangling cords that once bound it to me flicking against my wrist.
It served its purpose pretty well, I thought.

My next thought was: "Ah, to hell with it," and I went in on an adjustable-rate mortgage.
Naw, not really. I just needed a good kicker.

Also, I'm pretty sure this is where that whole second commandment comes into play:
See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Luckily, they have, like, a dozen of those things in the cellar.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

On Elvis. Or marriage. Or Pottery Barn.

You know, I always thought the line, “She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes” was a little creepy.
Is that really the kind of thing we should be teaching children? Songs about Catherine the Great? I mean, I’m for folk music as much as the next guy (which is to say, enough to trick hippie chicks into sleeping with me) but there’s a line, man.
You know what else is creepy? Elvis, and how much he sings about date rape. Just check out the lyrics to “It’s Now or Never,” or “Love Me Tonight.”
Actually, those are both pretty much the same song. You get the idea, though.

But Elvis was a pioneer, and as such deserves a special place in all our hearts. Keeping in mind “rock n’ roll” is a euphemism, “Jailhouse Rock” was a daring – and dangerous – foray into the awful-smelling world of prison sex. (It’s also funny to juxtapose that on an America still enthralled with “Leave it to Beaver.”)
And while the chances of my ever getting married are about the same as the average slug out there in the wastelands of the American Midwest electing a black man president (keep dreamin’, Dems) I nonetheless always wanted to be married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Really, there would be no other way I could take it seriously.
But now I have a new dream.
There really are very few good reasons to ever go near Times Square, but the Toys R’ Us there is among them.
On the third floor of that amazing wonderland is a display for Jurassic Park toys that includes a not-quite-to-scale-but-still-impressively-large T-Rex. That shakes its head around. And blinks.
And roars.
You can hear it all over the store.
(It’s awesome.)
So here’s my idea - dress the dino like a pastor, glue a bible to his claw, and respond appropriately to his various chirps and roars.
I think it might go, a little something, a-like this:
“With this ring…”
“Growl!”
“I thee wed.”
“ROOOOAAAAARRRR!”

Then for the reception you could dress him in a tuxedo. With a giant top hat. And a monocle. I swear, this stuff just about writes itself.

Ok, so granted I could ever find a woman to agree to that, I guess I could hitched.
But we wouldn’t make the same mistake so many other couples do by registering at Pottery Barn or the liquor store or Suncoast Video.
Naw, man. We’d be registered at the bank. That way, all the gifts are various sums of money.
Am I a genius or what?