Because you won't enjoy them as much after you die.

Yahoo! has put together one of those lists. I've seen 65 of their 100.

It's a source of great shame for me that I still haven't watched Lawrence Of Arabia. My buddy Otis gave it to me for Christmas five or six years ago and I still haven't watched it. Because I suck.

HT for the link: My friend, Kelley, who doesn't keep a blog but does have a Myspace page. Kelley's a huge movie buff, too ... but he and I never like the same movies.

Wait, I take that back, we both liked Training Day quite a bit. Other than that, if we agree on any given movie, it's usually because we both think it stinks.

Kelley even found some good things to say about Rob Zombie's Halloween, a movie I hated. Deep down I think he's only doing that to mess with my head. ;)

Labels: Links, Movies, Trivial Matters

Here's an item you don't see on the average bookshelf:

A heavyweight study of the future of soft cheese won Britain's annual competition to find the year's oddest book title on Friday.

The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, by Philip M. Parker won the Diagram Prize, awarded by trade magazine The Bookseller...

Fromage frais — literally "fresh cheese" — is a dairy product that originated in France and has a similar consistency to sour cream.

Sounds like a fascinating read. But the $795.00 I'd have to shell out for a new copy at Amazon is a bit daunting.

I think I'll wait for the movie.

Labels: Books, Humor, Links, News

The ShamWow guy was arrested after a fight with a hooker.

Details at the Smoking Gun.

Now that he's not spending "twenty bucks a month on paper towels" I suppose he has more money for ... uh, entertainment expenses.

Not to be nasty, but I'd think that a guy who'd been going through twenty bucks worth of paper towels each month was dealing with his sexual frustration independently.

Labels: Links, Media

The headmaster at a private school in Boston is denying that the school is teeming with vampires:

There are no vampires at Boston Latin School, says headmaster Lynne Moone Teta...

"I seek your cooperation in redirecting your energy toward the learning objectives of the day. Please do not sensationalize or discuss these rumors," Teta wrote in a notice obtained by the Boston Globe and sent to faculty, students and parents.

Teta said she was concerned that some students' safety might be jeopardized because of the rumors...

HT: Moe Lane.

You know, there are things that a person might seem to confirm by denying them.

It's weird that this headmaster is basically saying "Nothing to see here! Get back to your studies!" Almost sounds like a cover-up. Not that I believe in vampires. (Or, "Vampyres" if you're one of those gay-ass goth kids.)

Zombies, now ... that's another story. If a headmaster of a school ever issues a statement denying a zombie problem ... well, I'll take it as an absolute certainty that the school has been overrun by the walking undead. I mean, some things are just obvious lies, ya know?

Labels: Humor, Links, News

MCF's latest.

1) When you see Kurtwood Smith, do you think ”Red Forman” or ”Clarence Boddicker”?

I'd actually forgotten that Red Forman was even in Robocop. I only ever saw That 70's Show three or four times. It never really grabbed me.

2) Do our social roles during our school years lock us in to who we will be for the rest of our lives?

Gut reaction: We're not locked into anything. But most of us carry over a lot of crap from high school, most of it negative and/or useless. That iconic image from Pink Floyd The Wall really gets it right. School is a meatgrinder.

3) Do you typically come to a full stop at a Stop Sign?

I think I actually do. I got a ticket once for not doing so and I never forgot it.

4) Which is prettier: a sunrise or a sunset?

Sunset. No idea why I feel that way, but I feel strongly about it.

5) On a recent episode of Reaper, one of the characters uses Les Nessman as a fake name. On a recent 30 Rock, a character was referred to as a ”Radar O'Reilly”. I love such pop culture nods, but as I'm getting older, I wonder: does anyone under the age of 30 get these references?

WOT R U TALKINBOUT? TXT ME L8R.

6) Does your imagination ever cause you to wince?

All the time. Ever been cheated on? 'Nuff said.

7) Is there a place in science fiction for more fantastic elements such as intervention from a higher power, celestial beings, or shared visions?

Sure, I guess. Never thought about it. Why wouldn't there be?

8) Baked or original Doritos?

Original Nacho Cheese flavor. Mmmmm.

10) Does anyone still use rotary phones?

I'm sure that somewhere, somebody's grandma has a rotary phone AND a party line.

11) Should the Poll go up to 11?

We really gotta come up with a new Spinal Tap reference. How about "You can't really dust for vomit."

Labels: Blogs, Links

Lots of funny stuff (some NSFW) at FailBlog.

Labels: Humor, Links

I gotta make this one quick because I took my nighttime pill combo a little bit ago and it's gonna kick in soon, and soon I'll either stop typing or I'll be typing gibberish. I hate, hate, HATE waking up the next day, seeing something I've posted, thinking "WTF is WRONG with ME??" and frantically deleting and/or editing the post.

Anyway, just some recent stuff from the inbox and/or Google Reader...

• At my YouTube account I got a note from a kid named JC Van Luyn, asking me to check out his music and comment on it. I might have been a bit reluctant at first, but the note really charmed me:

  Hope the day/night is finding you well, just to let you know, I apologize in advance if I took your time in some way by you reading this message. Don't hesitate to press the delete button if it does....

  He goes on from there to talk about his music, etc, but ya know what? When's the last time someone solicited you to check out their website and preceded their remarks by saying that, yeah, it's quite possible you actually do have a life and something better to do?
  
  So I checked out his stuff, which consists of some interesting covers and original songs. I found one original that I particularly enjoyed ... but what really won me over was JC's cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya." I'm sure you remember that song, it was a huge hit a few years ago and even though I really liked it, the over exposure eventually ruined the song for me. Well, JC's solo acoustic arrangement brought the track back to life for me and, damn! I'm diggin' this:




• Speaking of YouTube, most of the time when I load that page it's to check for updates from The Mighty Zo, like this one:

  I been saying for months that this guy was going to move on to bigger n' better stuff. Looks like Pajamas Media is the first step.
  
  One day we'll all be saying "Remember back in the day when Zo Rachel was just another guy with a YouTube account??"




• Another semi-daily check for me is the What's New page at Snopes, where you can learn fascinating things, like the latest web scuttlebutt about the history of the French Dip Sandwich.
  
  The French Dip, of course, is a sandwich made of thinly sliced beef, served on a hard French role, and often served au jus. Au jus is a French term that is pronounced Ah JHOOOO and means "sneezed on."
  
  Probably sneezed on by that beret-wearing asshole who resented having to wait your table in the first place, you American capitalist dog vit no ah-prishy-a-SHAUN of cul-CHA vaut zo eveh.
  
  Well, no ... not all Frenchmen behave like characters in Merry Melodies cartoons from the 50's. Some of them are much worse. But, I think my point is, you can get the real scoop on the sandwich at Snopes.



• Instapundit has posted a link to a story about twenty celebs who've aged badly.
  
  I thought the story was a bit hard on some of these folks:
  

  

  
  OK, so Diamond Dave doesn't look like a rock star anymore. He kinda looks more like a shop teacher now. But what's wrong with looking like a shop teacher? What's wrong with being a shop teacher? Someone has to be held accountable when a 14 year old kid bandsaws off two or three of his favorite fingers.
  
  But then I saw this picture and yet another small part of my childhood died inside of me:
  

  

  
  How will we ever convince the younger generation that those two women are the same woman? And that Kathleen Turner used to be one of the hottest actresses in the business?
  
  But then I noticed something:
  

  

  
  They only seem weird when you stick them out there by themselves and compare them to their bygone youth. Youth is bygone for all of us, dammit, and comparing today to '85 is always a bad idea. But if you saw that couple, the two people in the third picture combo right above ... if you saw them pushing a cart together at Wal-Mart, contemplating the best kind of detergent to buy or looking through the bargain DVDs, you wouldn't think anything of it. Nice enough looking older couple, right? Maybe she works at a law-firm and can help Shop Teacher Dave save his job when that damn kid finally gets sloppy with that bandsaw.
  
  So here's to the celebrities that grow old ... if not gracefully than at least naturally. Maybe even fearlessly. Is there any other way to do it? Screw the Botox and plastic surgery. Screw running from aging. Aging beats the alternative, right? Get old and enjoy it. It seems to be working for that nice couple, the Roths; Kathleen and Dave.

Labels: Links, Movies, Music, Politics, You Tube, Zo

I finished 11 to 7 yesterday; man, I hate that shift. I live like a zombie when I work graveyard.

Now I'm playing catch-up and I have a ton of things to do today. But first, morning coffee, blogs, etc.

So what's on the pile for today?

• New year, new schedule of surgical processes ... worst of all, the deductible starts all over for the year. I had surgery in January, I'm having another procedure next month, and damn! I'd just finished paying off last year's medical bills!
  
  I think David summed it up up adequately when he said "Is this real life? Why is this happening to me? Is this gonna be for EVER? AAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!"
  
  But enough bitching about my personal junk.

Some of the internet junk from the past days/weeks that I've wanted to link to and/or comment on but just haven't bothered ...

• Good stuff from Scrappleface:
  

  President Barack Obama has reportedly written another private note to his Russian counterpart offering to halt deployment of a defensive nuclear missile shield in Europe, this time in exchange for Russia’s help in dealing with U.S. talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh.



• I've written before about how much I dislike Rush Limbaugh, but the way the liberals and RINOs are piling on him is triggering a bit of a personal backlash.
  
  I've been praising Mike Steele for ages, but no politician is perfect and I guess it was inevitable that even he would put his foot in a pile of bullshit.
  
  How, Mike, did it make even a little bit of sense to deign to wade into this anti-Limbaugh flap? And to do so from the leftist point of view? You blew the call on this one, buddy... and you handed the left a great stick to beat you with.


• Zo puts the recent Limbaugh BS in perspective, and does a better job than anyone else. Zo always puts it all in a nutshell better than anyone else, so it's not like it's anything new. I've mentioned that Zo rules, right?

  You know what a truth rush is? It's when you hear the absolute truth spelled out in simple, understandable terms that make you feel excited and energized. Whenever I listen to Zo I always get a truth rush.
  
  Rush WHO? When will Zo get a talk program? I'd listen every damn day.



• Comedian Louis CK tells Conan that today's young people are "the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots.... non-contributing zeroes." And he's right. I hate to generalize ... well, no I don't. I do it all the time. And I really tend to believe that damn near everyone born after 1975 or so is a whining, self-absorbed, unrealistic, childish, spoiled moron. (You know who you are.)
  
  Of course I also tend to believe that the baby-boomer generation is just as bad. So, yeah, basically everyone should always ignore everything I ever say because I'm a bitter, miserable old bastard.
  
  Give this clip a couple of minutes to really get going, it's well worth it and it's funny and dead-on. This had me laughing really, really hard and I'll be looking out for this guy from now on. Check it out:

  HT: BlackFive.



• I haven't mentioned the Octomom here because the story just disgusts me. But it ain't going away and more stuff comes to the surface every day. So here's my one Octomom post, let's get this over with.
  
  What do we know about Octomom so far? Well, in no particular order...
  
  
  • She's a psycho who has children by the litter.
  
  
  • She's obsessed with Angela Jolinie (or whomever) and has had her face carved and injected so she can look like her favorite movie star.
  
  
  • She's trying to sell the videotape of the birth of her litter.
  
  
  • She flips out and calls 911, threatening to kill herself in front of her children.
  
  
  • The cops have repeatedly investigated reports that she neglects her kids.
  
  
  • She says she might do a porn move, "maybe in a year, when the baby-fat goes away."
  
  Now, we all know weirdo moms ... flake-jobs who breast-feed in public (and sometimes until their kids are in middle-school) and have their kids sleep in the same bed with them and give their kids names like Armani and Timberland. But this woman is beyond weirdo mom. This woman is a dangerous nut.
  
  My take on it is that the doctor who performed her artificial fertilization ought to be held accountable for the well-being of those children. He knew that this woman was insane and he enabled her in the worst possible way. A responsible medical professional would be advocating that this woman be forced to have her tubes tied. And that's all I got to say 'bout that.

Labels: Links, Media, Michael Steele, News, Politics, You Tube, Zo

The other day I posted the now famous YouTube video of the little boy struggling to get past the laughing gas after a trip to the dentist. David, your fifteen minutes are well-deserved. You're awesome, kid.

Later that day I mentioned the all-important Christian Bale temper tantrum.

I would have never, never, ever guessed that either of those two items could be milked for more laughs. But I guess I hadn't considered a mash-up.

What would have happened if Christian Bale had been David's daddy?

LANGUAGE WARNING!!

This made me laugh until I am now physically miserable:

All things considered, I'm glad little David has the daddy that he actually has.

HT: Ace.

Labels: Humor, Links, You Tube

Does Jimbo at BlackFive speak for all of us? Maybe not. But he damn sure speaks for me:

Language warning: Jimbo uses the appropriate terms to discuss President Daffy Duck's shit sandwich.

You know, I've avoided debt all my life. I've never lived beyond my means. If I can't afford it, I don't need it. A life dangling from a credit card is no life at all.

My mama taught me that. I've tried to teach it to my kids.

Thank you, you titanic f---heads in congress, for trying your best to undo all those lessons. We've got a word for you Rent-A-Center low-lifes down around these parts: White Trash. I don't give a damn what your race, color or creed is. Every one of you who voted for this bill is plain ol' White Trash, pure and simple. May each and every one of you rot in hell.

Labels: Blogs, Links, News, Politics

Scott at Good News Film Reviews has been posting some excellent movie quotes lately and it's got me thinking about some of my favorites.

Here are some of the ones that have popped into my head. Some will be very easy to recognize, some are obscure, and many of them won't make any sense at all if you aren't familiar with the context. I'm not saying these are the best movie quotes of all time, I'm just saying that they've popped into my head lately. You can click the quote itself to see the source. Think of this as a little trivia quiz.

Have I done this before? Probably. Heck, I've probably even used these same quotes before. Anyway ...

• "Seriously. Last night, man, I was so drunk, I was calling Morocco, man. Calling, trying to get to the Hotel Hilton at Tangiers in Casablanca, man. That's, I mean, that's, that's pathetic, man! Is that what you wanna do with your life? Suck down Peppermint Schnapps and try to call Morocco at two in the morning?"



• We'd better get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night. Mostly.



• "He keeps putting his testicles all over me... You know? Like octopus?"



• "'Deserve' has got nothin' to do with it."



• "I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come into my life somehow. And he didn't, and I don't blame him. If I was him I would have the same opinion of me that he does."



• "Ah yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it."



• "Can the imaginary training of fifteen years be put to use? Apparently not."



• "You know how I know you're gay? ... You like Coldplay."



• "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for it's cheese."



• "I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, 'Hi, I see that you're good at Centipede.'"

Hope that provided somebody with some shits n' giggles.

Labels: Links, Movies, Trivial Matters

I made fun of Christian Bale the other day for his infamous tantrum. Well, the guy has publicly expressed regret and contrition. Good for him. He manned up. Everybody behaves regrettably from time to time, God knows I do, and Bale's apology is a good example for all of us.

Good job, Batman.

Labels: Links, Movies, News

I just have to say that the first five minutes of Sunday Night's post-Super-Bowl episode of The Office is probably the funniest five minutes of TV I've ever seen in my life.

I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

If you watch the show, you know that they never go for slapstick. The humor is all situational and dialogue-driven. So this one time when they went for big, physical jokes it really worked. What a HUGE payoff. So, so, so funny.

Labels: Humor, Links

Somehow it makes perfect sense to me that the guy who owns Jack Ruby's hat also bought a Frosted Flake shaped like Illinois for $1,350 on e-Bay.

Labels: Links, Trivial Matters

Can this really be the twenty-fifth round? I guess so. Wow.

1) Where were you when America's new president was sworn into office? I know not everyone voted for the guy(I didn't), but it's hard not to notice the historical significance, and as much as I was dealing with in my personal life this past week, I definitely saw the effects of the inauguration on those around me, and I'm sure we all have interesting stories to share.

I was at work. I made a half-hearted attempt to watch some streaming video of the event over the net but couldn't get anything to load. Apparently, for the first time (to my knowledge), the company's servers were overloaded. I guess everyone at work tried to watch the inauguration over the internet.

Sorry, that's not much of an interesting story, is it? Maybe I should embellish it just a bit:

I was scrounging for money to buy heroin with writer/actor/producer Mike Meyers when Obama was sworn in. We're behind those two dumpsters in that lot across from Freddie's place. Mike, he's trying to listen to the inauguration on an old transistor radio he found someplace, but the antenna is missing and we keep picking up the PA system and the walkie-talkies down at the railroad. "Checking 5," some railroad dick keeps yelling, "checking 5," like we know what the hell that means. Mike keeps banging the radio against the side of the dumpster and cursing between fits of scratching himself like crazy and wiping his nose. Me, I'm not so bad off as Mike, I'd got fixed up the day before. Mike's been jonesing for three days. Freddie had cut him off, something about how Mike owes him money from lost options on a Love Guru sequel that's clearly not going to happen now. Not with everything shook up at Paramount. Every few minutes Mike tells me how Freddie is a "no-count shitf++k" and he tells me how he's gonna kill him. "Shhh," I say, "the new president is talking." But it's just that guy from the railroad again. "Checking 5," he says, "checking 5."

2) Who is your favorite legacy hero and why?

I really don't have one. I guess I'll say the second Night Owl, but really only because Watchmen is so great and it's currently in the forefront of my mind ... and everyone else's.

3) What was your best concert experience?

I've written everything I can think of about my concert experiences previously at this blog. If I had to pick one specific concert, I suppose it would be U2 on the Zoo TV Tour at Three Rivers Statium in Pittsburgh. That was the spring of '92, I think. Three Rivers doesn't exist anymore, of course, so that's part of what makes that show so memorable.

Other stand-out concerts would include Slayer at Betsy's Boathouse in Norfolk (early 90's, I think), AC/DC at the Roanoke Civic Center (probably late 80's), Tori Amos, solo, with just a piano at a tiny hall at UVA (early 90's again) and Metallica, who have always been really outstanding every time I've seen them.

4) You're piloting a plane when geese fly into your engine; what do you do?

Well, I'd try to do exactly what that heroic pilot did. I'd try to sit down ever-so-gently in the Hudson River. That might be especially difficult if I'd taken off from, say, an airport in Sicily ... but I'd point the nose in the general direction of the Hudson and I'd try everything I could to get there.

SPECIAL BONUS QUESTION: Can you name all the GoBots in the following questionable clip?

Holy crap, dude. Why don't they have names already? Why didn't the creator of the Go-Bots name them? Damn. OK, if it's up to me to name them, I'm gonna call them Carrie, Marlon, Mo, Steve, LaRue, Jerry Lee, Eggplant, Rufus, Dummy, Star, The Glob, and Leeroy Jenkins.

Labels: Blogs, Links

This is pretty darn cool. I saw it at Geekologie.

At gigapan.org you can see an an amazing picture of the inauguration that you can manipulate almost endlessly.

You can scroll, drag and zoom to an extreme degree, going from as far back as this:

To as close as this:

The technology that makes this possible is explained at the site if you're interested. Basically this panoramic picture is really a series of many, many pictures all stuck together. Super powerful megacomputers and lasers and voodoo are all employed, I'm sure.

I found myself crawling all over the picture for a long time, first noticing some of the famous people who had roles to play that day...

...and former Presidents and their wives...

I'm a big fan of Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas, and I don't blame him for taking the occasion of Obama's speech to grab a quick nap...

And then I started scanning the crowd for celebrities. And I found a few!

Check it out, it's TV and cinema's Michael Chiklis...

...and hippity hoppity rapper extraordinaire Snoopy Doggity Dog...

...then I saw radio talk-show host and vigilante Curtis Sliwa with a big-ass camera...

...and boxer Mike Tyson and his date, cleverly disguised as Eskimos...

...and a real legend from the world of cartoons, Elmer Fudd...

...and, look! It's Ruben Studdard and the late Ossie Davis, elbowing each other as they chuckle over one of Obama's "promises," har har har...

...then things got really freaky. Imagine my surprise when I saw the hideous, haphazardly constructed Frankenstein's Monster...

...and Bilbo Baggins, only a millisecond after he slipped on The One Ring to disappear into the crowd...

...and what's a view of a panoramic crowd without an appearance from Waldo?

Labels: Humor, Links, News

At the Vortex Bar & Grill in Atlanta you can order (if you don't know any better, and I don't) something called the "Double Bypass Burger."

That's eight ounces of beef, fried eggs, cheese, bacon and all the fixin's ... and it isn't served on a bun. It's served between two grilled-cheese sandwiches.

The tater-tots ain't for eatin'. The tater-tots are for throwin' at any wussy you see with a salad.

I saw it on Man Vs. Food.

Labels: Links

Just having a little fun courtesy of Obama Icon Me.

Labels: Links, Video Games

A look back at the year as it closes ... each of the thumbnail pictures below is clickable. Click one and it'll take you to the relevant post.

This is 2008 as I followed it at the blog. The political, the cultural, the personal and the trivial. Mostly the trivial.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Links, Movies, Music, Personal, Politics