Bad Mothers
Do you ever randomly remember things from when you were a child? I had this memory just pop into my head this morning.
I was like 9 or 10 and I was playing kickball in the street with some of the street kids. It's 2 on 2, and my team is winning, and we hear that this other kid Donnie is going to be coming out soon because his grounding is almost over. I say, "oh no, Donnie's coming out" because that means he'll be on the losing team and it'll be 3 on 2. His mom and the other kid's mom hear me. Now both of these moms are really white trash and b*tches to boot. So Donnie's mom was pissed at him already for something, after she hears me, she decides that she's going to extend Donnie's grounding and uses my comment as some half-as$ed excuse for it. It doesn't make sense, meanwhile the other mom says something to us like you shouldn't say bad/mean things about others, especially if it gets them into trouble. Really, she's trying to take jabs at me, because she never really liked me because, honestly she's the kind of person who would be jealous of people who are better in anyway than her or her kids, which honestly wasn't that hard.
I just burn with indignation now, because now that I'm older I realize how vindicitive and manipulative these two moms were, trying to make kids feel bad for whatever petty reasons. And at 10 years old, I couldn't put words like this together, let alone say them to an adult. I liked Butterfly Effect for that reason, you had this 10 year old kid saying things to adults with all the logic and force that a grown man always wanted to say.
Copyright Lucas
Do any of you guys use a site called
books24x7.com? It's this sit full of manuals and guides for applications and programs for business use. So books on databases, graphic design, MS Office, the whole works. It's pretty cool, except that the full books are only available online. You're technically not allowed to print out "large portions" of the books. Copyright laws.
Copyright laws are what prevent the continuation of the Spaceballs "franchise". Because of George Lucas, Mel Brooks cannot make any merchandise or any sequels. George Lucas rabidly attacks anyone who even attempts to look at his precious universe covetously. It was only through a very small and hard fought loophole was Spaceballs even allowed to be released. It was considered a "parody" of the Star Wars series. It was allowed for it's satirical content, and considered to be commentary on the social impacts of the movie on popular culture. however, if Mel Brooks were to make a Yogurt doll, or make another Spaceballs, he would be establishing a franchise that directly profits because of the existing Star Wars franchise and its storylines and ideas.
Yogurt: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower. [turns it on]
The Dinks: Ooooh!
Yogurt: [reacts to dinks] The kids love this one.
[a dink hands him a doll that looks likes Yogurt ]
Yogurt: And last but not least, Spaceballs the doll, me. [pulls string]
Doll: May the schwartz be with you!
Gym Chicks 2
I swear the things some women wear to the gym is unbelievable. I went on Sunday and this new woman was, this is like the second time I'd seen her. That day she was wearing what can only be describe as Lycra briefs, so small that you can see ass cheeks coming out. And she's wearing one those sports bras too. This is an extreme version, but a lot of women definitely come in where these sexy little spandex man. It's great for motivation. I always try to line myself up on a machine behind them, it's like a little bit of extra motivation to run longer or push harder.
Vacuum Salesman
So I went to go work out last night. When I come back a little past 10, there's some brown kid sitting at my dinner table eating curdhi kichri and talking to my parents. I've never seen this kid before in my life, so I'm kinda confused. Turns out this kid goes door to door selling $1800 vacuum cleaners. He'd been out knocking on doors for abou 12 hours, so apparently my parents decided it was appropriate to feed him until his boss came to try and close the deal on this cleaner. So I sat there eating my tuna trying to make conversation with him, he's 19, goes to boxing, his brother has his license suspended beacuse some friend of a friend he was driving threw drugs onto the dashboard when they got pulled over by cops and pinned it on him. Lots of random things. When his boss came to try and get us to buy, he was real pushy, used car dealer pushy. At one point, he tried to get us by saying that whichever kid sells 15 vacuum cleaners in a month, gets an all expenses paid trip to bermuda (room for 2, food, drinks, etc). What the hell kind of selling point is that? Wait, if i spend 1800 bucks, and you MAYBE manage to sell 14 more off this kids demonstrations, then this kid can go down to the island and engage in expense free hedonism and debauchery? Shit, for 1800 bucks, my parents damn well ought to send me.
It was mad weird. And no we didn't buy the vacuum.
The West Wing
The West Wing is a superbly written show, at least prior to the 2004-2005 season. Definitely the episodes written by
Aaron Sorkin before he left were the best. The show wouldn't be as good if the wing was inhabited by conservatives. It is a fiercely liberal show, with actors that are equally fierce.
Martin Sheen, as the president, is such an imposing figure and so near perfect in his execution of the character. But can we really be surprised by that ever since
Apocalypse Now?Anyway, here's a clip that I particularly like because it uses the Bible to beat down a Bible thumper.
President Josiah Bartlet: You're Dr. Jenna Jacobs, right?
Jenna Jacobs: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: ...Forgive me, Dr. Jacobs. Are you an M.D.?
Jacobs: A Ph.D.
Bartlet: A Ph.D.
Jacobs: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: Psychology?
Jacobs: No, sir.
Bartlet: Theology?
Jacobs: No.
Bartlet: Social work?
Jacobs: I have a Ph.D. in English literature.
Bartlet: I'm asking because on your show, people call in for advice and you go by the name Dr.
Jacobs on your show, and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology or health care.
Jacobs: I don't believe they are confused, no, sir.
Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President, the Bible does.
Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus.
Jacobs: 18:22.
Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side-by-side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing, while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.
Ordained Minister
I just wanted to let you all know that I've been an ordained minister for quite some time and would like to move to a more active role. So if you need to be bare your soul or get married or need a place tax deductible donations, I'm here for you, my child.
A Response
The following is a posted response to Yero's original post
"les mathématiques" :
Whenever thinking of the universe in mathematical terms, I always thought of it as a really large formula. You know on a calculator when you're squaring a number or something, and it's slowly getting bigger and bigger and more and more complex, reaching into assorted powers with all sorts of non terminating numbers. That's how I think the universe is mathematically. It's like an iterative equation, with each unit of time being another hit of the "equal sign button". The universe doesn't work out the math for the way a single leaf bends in the wind...it's got the master formula running from which all else is derived.
Of course you've got to ask the question, is there ever a memory overflow in the universe's "calculator"?
Fantastic Powers
With the upcoming movie, one which I'm convinced probably won't address the issue, I have a question about the powers of the Fantastic Four. If cosmic radiation has "fundamentally altered [their] DNA" what accounts for the radical differences in their powers. Particularly, the differences in Sue and Johnny Storm's powers. With similar genetic makeups, shouldn't there be *some* overlap in the manifestation of their powers. Invisibility and force shields are pretty radically different than the powers associated with total flame/plasma control. Also, depending on what origin story you're reading, very often they show the inside of the cabin moments after the radiation struck the ship. The scene implies that the actions taken immediately after the dosing are what is responsible for thei powers. Reed is seen trapped by his harness trying to reach for Sue. Ben is trying to left a support beam that's fallen across him. Johnny is surrounded by flames, but they don't hurt. And I can't recall what Sue was doing, although she was obscured from the others' view by smoke. This would imply that genetic makeup played no factor in power determination.
On a side note, has anyone ever seen Venture Brothers? Particularly the episode where we're introduced to Mr. Impossible. It's a spoof of the Fantastic 4. Except Mr. Impossible is the only one that's just like Mr. Fantastic, although a bit more arrogant. Invisible girl can only turn her epidermis invisible, but not the rest of what's underneath. The torch is always running around on fire and in extreme pain, and the thing is stupider and just as ugly. It's funny stuff though.
"Poke her, Damn near killed her"
[Obligatory "Scathing" Reply Included Below]
So the guys came over last night and we went out to dinner. Afterwards, we came back to my house to watch some
Reno 911 /
Stella and commence round 2 of our poker match. Given my firm stance that Stella won't last more than 3 episodes, this week's episode of Stella was decent. It wasn't great but it had some pretty funny moments, although the whole robot thing I didn't really get.
Playing under the spectre of last week's
blog bashing by Rob, we played some nice hands of poker. For the better part of an hour, we all played pretty conversative, more willing to fold than play. The big turn happened when Yero went all in on a three way hand with me and Keith. I got Keith to call as well, and won the hand with a pair of Kings, giving a slight lead over Rob. The next couple hands was back and forth action, as I couldn't afford to lose to Rob by playing reckless. After two raising of the blinds, I drew pocket 7s, went all in, and got called. Rob called so quickly that I was scared, turns out he's got pocket 6s. He was pretty pissed and I won the hand. It was a huge pot for me and put me well into chip leader. Then came a lot of turns folding and blind stealing. The final hand I slow played Rob for all I was worth, getting a good chunk of his chips into the pot, thereby forcing him to call my all in on the River card. Rob merrily believed that his two pair would hold up, not even realizing the straight that was out there...and in my hand. So Rob, I say Booyah!
