Infinite Repeat

Ever wonder what would happen if you typed "image" into Google's image search?

I thought my computer would blow up, but evidently, all you get is some pretty sciency stuff like this.

Cool.

Pretty Pictures

I just wanted to see if this picture posting thing worked. If you're wondering, this is not me; it's an anthropoligical view of Jesus.

Nice, eh?

Where's Luke?

Skywalker, that is.

Lately, during my travels in and around Pennsylvania, I've noticed a lot of weird poles: metal spears rising from the ground, and terminating in some sort of triangular platform.

I have no idea what the purpose of these poles are or how far spread across the U.S. they are. The only thing I know is that they look eerily like that funky-ass platform from the end of Empire Strikes Back.

You know the one - the rickety thing supporting poor, handless Luke before Chewy and Lando rescue him.

The existence of said poles, I've concluded, leads directly to one, world-shattering new fact:

We are living at the bottom of Cloud City.

All I want for Christmas ...

... is a Festivus Pole

http://www.festivuspoles.com/pages/Festivuspoles.htm

You don't need to be a Seinfeld fan to marvel at this design. It's like something out of a dream.

When the yellow fades, do the terrorists win?

My friend lives in a slightly more "red-state" neighborhood than I do. And by "slightly", I mean "very" - lots of ugly plastic Christmas decorations, uncreative lawn configurations, and a yellow ribbon on every tree.

Or should I say ... a white ribbon.

Yes, those "Support Our Troops" ribbons have faded, as so many neo-con hopes and dreams of a rose pedal covered Iraq.

My question: Is there anything less patriotic and more embarrassing than a faded symbol?

No, no there isn't.

And that goes double for you, stupid magnetic ribbon bumper things!

Why don't I care?

Last week, I was all about the James Kim tragedy.

This week, I could care less about the stranded climbers.

It's funny how compassion works, and I don't quite understand it. But if I see another news report with those three women holding each other's hands, talking about their husbands/brothers with all the emotion of an Ikea lamp, I might just wander up my local mountain and get lost myself.

Coffee doesn't work

I'm not a regular coffee drinker and that's a problem. Especially when my eyelids are sagging and I just can't bring myself to think lucidly about which way staples go in the stapler.

When you're not a regular coffee drinker, and you get a cup of coffee, the reaction is a bit different. Sure, you perk up just the same, and your concentration is slightly better. But what you concentrate on is not healthy.

For instance, almost immediately after taking a few sips this morning, I immediately felt sad and paranoid. I kept thinking about my lack of contribution to a pub quiz game yesterday and became depressed about my precipitous decline in "smartness."

So, no more coffee for me. I shall, instead, slap myself repeatedly in the face while singing the unused Ween jingle for Pizza Hut.

http://www.dancingjesus.com/ween.htm

And on a similar note ...

It may also come as no surprise that, had I had the opportunity, I would have totally pigged out on all of the whipped cream and chocolate sauce they had on Double Dare.

I don't understand how all the idiot contestants would just try to run through the obstacles without sampling some of that free dessert.

Mmmmmmmm, Double Dare.

Parmesan Cheese

You ever wish those fake snow makers would blow out parmesan cheese?

And then you could slolem around meatballs through a glorious trail of pasta?

No?

I guess it's just me.

Addictive

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

Theoretically, clubbing penguins is bad.

In practice? Mesmerizing.

Arggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

Why do I want to see Rocky Balboa so much?

It's bordering on embarrassing how much I want to see this movie.

Can somebody please help me with this affliction? It might leave me permanently scarred with hope and optimism. And I'm way too cool for that.

I'm bad at Christmas

I really am.

I don't send out cards, I don't have a tree, I don't decorate anything. I only get presents when I know I have to, and, even then, I deliberate over stupid decisions for hours on end.

I'm not religious, so I'm shielded from having to go to church and celebrate. But I don't even like most of the other aspects of Christmas: shopping, travel, charity (I hate the aggressive ones) and the news stories about people mad at the phrase "Happy Holidays". Who cares?

I'll say this once and with feeling: Thanksgiving is the best holiday.

The pet that doesn't love you back

"Docile, except when awake."

Taken from a veterinary professor's lecture notes talking about hamsters.

Evidently, hamsters are evil, but gerbils are okey-dokey.

Go figure.

"Back of the baseball card"

I want to start a new phrase. Well, it's not really a new phrase, but I want to start using it metaphorically and hopefully, it will catch on with the masses.

"Back of the baseball card"

I know not everyone collected baseball cards as a kid, but I think most understand that the back of the baseball card was a repository of all the player's stats. It was basically a quick glance at the what the player had done in the last few years.

Why can't we use this phrase in everyday life? So instead of saying, "Give me the rundown on him" or "What's the 411?", you can now say, "Give the back of the baseball card version" or "Just back of the baseball card it for me, ok?"

Doesn't that just sound cool?

Ok, ok, I know it has a lot of syllables and the whole thing jumbles together when said aloud, but you have to admit, it's got pizzazz.

And, sometimes, pizzazz is the only thing that matters.

Flintstones coming, Jetsons going

In making fun of a co-worker for having a check-out process that's eerily similar to the opening sequence of the Flintstones, I noticed something peculiar.

The Flintstones opens with Fred leaving work and coming back home, whereas the Jetsons introduction chronicles the beginning of the family members' day.

This confounds me. Why wouldn't the Jetsons (which came later) stay with the same template established by the Flintstones? Is there a specific reason for this Bizarro opening?

Conspiracy Theory #26:
When Fred Flinstone gets home and goes to sleep, the slumber lasts thousands of years, and he turns into George Jetson, scrambling to get his family dropped off and his ass to work.

I bet the writers had this planned all along. What sadistic, sad geniuses.

The Perfect Screensaver

I may be stepping on someone's invention here, but this could be really cool.

Basically, the screensaver I envision is actually a software widget that records up to a half hour of screen activity and is able to replay it in a loop when the user is unavailable.

In other words, this is the ultimate "looking busy" camouflage. Just do a half hour of work, engage the screensaver and zone out. You can literally fall asleep in front of your computer and you would be the picture of serene productivity.

Conversely, if you really step away from your desk, the screensaver would make it look like you're a supergenius who's reprogrammed a computer to do work by itself.

It's ingenious! And it will help me take over the world.

Bwahhahhahahahahaa!

Heroes vs. Lost

Lost is better.

Things That Irk Me

#49 - Guys that use an open palm to turn a steering wheel.

The Italian Notre Dame

Why do the Irish get to have their own college football team? That seems unfair.

I think we should be able to designate one team for each race, ethnicity or nationality in this country, just so everybody has an excuse to check the score on a Saturday night.

So, for no reason other than its name ends in a vowel, I'm going to make Villanova the official Italian team.

I guess we'd have to change their name to the Fighting Italians, which seems completely redundant. Then again, if we're going with stereotypes, Fighting Irish ain't exactly rebelling against reputation either.

A Pixar Idea

Someone was trying to describe stores like Marshall's and Filene's Basement the other day. And someone eventually came up with this little nugget:

"It's where clothes go to die."

Immediately, the idea for an animated movie popped into my head. You know how those Disney films like to anthropamorphize everything? Like bugs, toys, cars, fish, etc.

Well, what if you made the clothes the characters? And they're all hanging out in a discount store (or even thrift store if you want to open more possibilities) wondering when their days of not selling will come to a tragic end. That's good stuff!

Can't you totally see some glove or mitten searching for his little sister, the other glove? And there's the old sweater who is tucked so far beyond the other clothes that nobody realizes he's been there for twenty years. You can even make it a holiday flick - "Clothed for Christmas."

C'mon, it's a good idea! Pixar, are you listening?

On Marriage

Ok, I think I've got it down. And I don't mean the whole "marriage" thing. That was a misleading headline.

I mean getting married, the whole concept of it. After an exhaustive survey of married couples and those couples weighing the big question, here's what it comes down to:

WOMAN to MAN: Shit or get off the pot.

MAN to WOMAN: What's the difference?

This is the fundamental problem. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, or what you like to do on Sunday afternoons if you're not a football fan. Ultimately, the woman will always have some sort of timetable for getting married and the guy will not understand how life will be different after marriage.

It's funny how un-unique we are.

White Papers & Torture

A white paper is a long report produced by a company to explain (in great detail) a particular problem, issue, product, methodology or solution.

They are, without qualification, a torture to read.

So, here's my idea. We print out a big bunch of white papers - it doesn't matter which, since they are uniformally awful - and ship them down to Guantanamo Bay. If you are truly a terrorist, you will break somewhere into the third or fourth page.

If you make it to the end, you are an unfeeling, unflinching robot. And posssibly still a terrorist.

3 Things Your Blog Should Avoid (from a novice)

At the risk of alienating the growing community of which I've just become a part, I want to impart some opinions I've formed from my quick tour of the blogosphere. These are things that generally turn me off:

1. Long posts

Before you even say it: yes, I do read books and I do read New Yorker articles. I am not a video-game savant, utterly opposed to reading pages of text. But not on a blog. I just don't care that much. Make a point or two, throw in a link or a picture, and post more later. Even the most coherent, funny, rage-filled diatribe will lose me after a couple paragraphs.

2. Posts with no words

A corollary of the last issue. Don't just post one photograph, one YouTube video, or one link. We can get those things practically anywhere. Give us a little commentary, even if it's a witty, one-word caption.

3. Ugly sites

Make your site as clean as possible. The average Internet reader does not want to read anything on a background other than white. At the best, it's distracting; at the worst, it's nauseating. I don't want to throw up on your blog.

Oh, one more thing: spelling and grammar count. They always do.

Doodles

Simply the best word ever.

I always wonder just how famous I must become in order to have my doodles published. The only people that have succeeded are Presidents (there's a new book out on them) and Kurt Cobain (as part of the Journals book).

I have some pretty fantastic doodles. Can't we agree that a coffee-table book of ordinary people's doodles would be not only an interesting psychological/socialogical experiment, but the biggest selling book of all time?

Yes, I think we can.

Bobby vs. Rocky

I don't know if you read magazines as much as I do (which is a lot), but there's been a slew of articles about Bobby, the new ensemble drama directed by Emilio Estevez. One of the main themes everybody seems to bring up is that this film, or rather, the incident that provokes this film, was a watershed moment in American history. When Bobby Kennedy was shot, America lost its innocence.

Boo-hoo.

It's not that I'm insensitive to such sentiment, but I wasn't alive back then and I somehow doubt the star of Repo Man can adequately convey the sense of loss stemming from just so significant an event. Which makes it somewhat ironic that I'm pinning my hopes on another 80s era icon that has gone back to directing: Sylvester Stallone.

Here's why:

http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1521857&sdm=web&qtw=640&qth=400

I don't get it. Why is this movie pushing all my emotional buttons? I also wasn't alive when the first Rocky came out and have had only a passing interest in the franchise. But there's something here that makes me think more about America's loss of innocence than the slaying of our last great chance for an honest President.

Now, I haven't seen the finished film, but it already seem to represent the kind of movie that hasn't been made since, well ... the first Rocky. I'm all for postmodern irony, and big special effects and dark independent drama and all that, but when was the last time we saw something sincere; something emotionally honest? Rocky Balboa, the sequel (or re-hash) that it is, may not have an original bone in its frail, been-there, done-that body. But, hell, I feel inspired ... and that actually feels pretty good.

I want an old man crawling back in the ring to stand toe-to-toe with some primetime player. I want slurred speech, big montages, over-the-top emotion. I want a damn theme song that I can actually hum and feel better about myself and the world.

In short, I'm buying what Rocky Balboa is selling. To hell with all the cynics.

Yes, I figured it out

Yes, I need mental help.

Me & Technology

Why is a blog this difficult?

Why is my header not blue?

I think I figured everything else out. But I can't get the damn top of my page to be blue.

That green is really starting to irk me. Man, it's been a long time since I used that word.

Irk, irk, irk, irk, irk ...

Smart Dogs, Stupid People

Who's a stupid person? You're a stupid person. Yes, you are. Aw, who's my stupid little person? It's you. Now, go potty.

And that's how we should talk to idiots who adopt a dog and don't have the common sense to get a good leash. Thus, the dog escapes. Thus, the dog gets run over. Thus, an animal who was saved from imminent destruction becomes just another statistic.

All because of people's stupidity.

Anyway, the conclusion was different (thankfully) but I'm sure this sequence of events happens all the time. Don't adopt a dog, have kids, get a goldfish, save a spider or do anything remotely thoughtful to life on this planet if you're an idiot. Because, inevitably, you will screw it up.

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

Does this guy ever post?

No.

But since I just discovered that my friend is linking to this blog, the pressure is on.

So expect the unexpected. Unless the unexpected is dull, stupid and unfunny. Don't expect that.

Our Saviour Art in Heaven

You know how, for every disaster, there's a Christian organization just waiting to be born? This is the part where I should give examples, but I can't think of any right now. Just trust me.

I was talking to my friend about this very subject and he agreed that if something were to happen to the shuttle again, that the Christian zealots would be foolish not to start some sort of charity website to capitalize on the outpouring of grief. (Keep in mind, I said "Christian zealots" not just Christians. Sheesh.)

Thus would be born ... Christ in Space, and its affiliate site www.christinspace.org.

Seriously, I can't believe nobody has thought of it before. Do people consider space too science-friendly and therefore not religious enough?

If Christians (or any religion for that matter) formed a closer bond with NASA and the space program, you could sign up kids by the boatload. I mean, as long as you don't worship space aliens and get all science-fictiony with it. That's just Scientology.

Robert Downey Jr.'s the man ...

And Winona Ryder has big, animated breasts.

That's what I learned from a preview screening of a Scanner Darkly.

I don't think that was really the point of the film, but the whole "drugs are bad for you, even though this trippy movie makes them seem cool as hell" point was a little humdrum. Yes, I just used the word "humdrum."

So, the flick was pretty good, better than most critics say it is. Maybe it helped that I expected an absolute snooze-fest, like Waking Life (and that coming from a philosophy major who loves metaphysical snooze-fests), and was surprised by a pretty lucent, if meandering, little movie about drugs in the future.

By the way, Scramble suits are probably the coolest visual gadget to come along in quite a while, even though watching them makes me slightly nauseated.

RD Jr. owned the movie ... great performance. Keanu was actually pretty serviceable and Woody Harrelson had a throwaway part (although well-performed). Winona sucked, except as eye-candy, and even then she looked mildly retarded - an amazing feat for an animated film where flaws are automatically painted out as part of the process.

What does it say about your talent when you can't even act in an animated film? I don't know, but I'll just say that Winona might want to go back to stealing because parts for her will be drying up faster than babies in the desert.

Blogs Take Time

And I don't have it. However, I will come here to discuss and publish my ideas. I hope that there's some sort of implicit copyright to this activity, or at least a basis to ridicule and undermine people who would steal my ideas. Anyway, here's one that almost shook me loose from my seat today.

Krog's List

Huh? Get it?

It's basically Craig's List for cavemen. You know ... where you get together and list useful items like clubs, tumbleweed and dirt and exchange information on to make your very own wheels and fire.

It's a joke, people. Surely one of you will buy it from me. I'll take any offers, even barter.