This article ran on the front page of the PC on Saturday, June 25. (I see it’s originally from USA Today from June 15. Apparently the PC was unable to find anything more worthy of below the fold space on the front page of the paper in the intervening 10 days. But I digress.) The article uses Peter Whitney, who was fired from his job at Wells Fargo for talking about work at his blog, as a cautionary tale. Here’s the money quote:
“Right now its too gray. There needs to be better guidelines” said Whitney, who has found another job. “Some people go to bars to complain about workers, I do it online. Some people say I deserve what happened, but it was really harsh. It was unfair.”
Uhm, Peter? You deserved to be fired for gross stupidity, if nothing else. See, unless the bars people talk in somehow preserve everything said in them and broadcast it to every single individual on the planet, there is no comparison. The Internet is forever. It is undeniable. Even if you edit, someone can probably find the original in some cache someplace. Bars aren’t like that. If I gripe to co-workers in a bar, and I am careful about who I am griping to, there is no record and no one to say anything. But if you post it on the Internet? Anyone, and I mean anyone, can find it. Treat it that way, and they’ll be no problems in the future, mmmkay?
Monday, June 27, 2005
Everybody Was Kung Fu Monkey...
If you read just one blog listing today, then you probably have a lot to do at work. But try not to miss this from Kung Fu Monkey.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
More Crank Call Funny
A week or so I linked to a piece that Chris at Shield Your Eyes did on a crank call he made. He’s made another, to the Betty Crocker Hotline, that had me laughing so hard the folks at work asked what was up. Here it is.
By the way, in case you were wondering, the phrase "hot beef injection" is among the five funniest phrases ever developed in the English language.
By the way, in case you were wondering, the phrase "hot beef injection" is among the five funniest phrases ever developed in the English language.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Remembrance Of Things Past
Yesterday's post prompted me to reflect on other things that are gone, specifically places in Iowa City that are no more that I wish were still around. Here's a top ten list of those. This is a long post that I should have broken up into two, but didn't. Tough. Note: Midget sex stories ahead.
BJ’s Records – The closet thing Iowa City has ever had to the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, the best record store in the world. A great selection, decent prices, and always good music playing. I bought the first copy of Springsteen’s The River sold in Iowa City at BJ's.
Breadline – The best Iowa City restaurant no one ever went to, though not for lack of trying on my part. I took dates there, took friends there, went to eat there by myself. Still, even on a Friday night there was never more than a handful of people. Maybe that’s what happens when your theme is the Great Depression. The tables didn’t match each other, the chairs didn’t match the tables, and the tableware didn’t match. (The idea being that because it was the Depression, it cost too much to have coordinated décor and plates and such.) The food was great, the service tolerable (way slow, though always pleasant to look at). Just didn’t last.
Burger Palace – If you lived in the area while the Palace was open, you know the song.
“Everybody loves Burger Palace
Appetizing Burger Palace
Everything you’re looking for
Hamburgers and so much more
Your good taste will recall
Burger Palace has it all
Come on in and have a ball
Listen to your good taste call for
Burger Palace!”
Or, as I used to sing while working there:
“At the Palace
The Burger Palace
The hottest spot north of Dallas
At the Palace
The Burger Palace
Burgers and French fries were always the best buys at
The Palace!”
The food was good (if you ever saw a reference to Snack Packs in Bloom County, that was us – Breathed used to come in all the time), the service eccentric (who can forget Doug the foot fetishist running the register), and the clientele, uhm, bizarre.
One of my favorite things to do was sweep and mop the dining room floor after lunch rush. Seriously. You got to hear the best conversations. One time as I was mopping, Quasar (how many of you hear that and know who I am talking about – probably none) was standing in the middle, waving his hands. Quasar always waved his hands, talking to the air. Always. Everywhere he went, he was animatedly carrying on a conversation with no one. (Rumor had it that he was riding in a car, carrying on a conversation with a friend, when the car hit a truck and the friend was decapitated. I’m sure rumor was untrue.) Anyway, on this occasion, I noticed something different. Quasar had quit moving his hands. Instead, he held his (constant companion) cigarette at arm’s length, staring at it. Suddenly he whispered “Fuck You!” to the cigarette, threw it to the floor, and turned and started walking away. But no sooner had he done that then he turned back around again, picked the cigarette up, apologized to it, and walked out waving his arms talking to the air. Or the cigarette.
But that’s not my favorite mopping the floor story. On another occasion, as I neared a booth where a man and a woman were sitting, I saw him place a small box on the table. She opened it, revealing an engagement ring as he asked her to marry him. This struck me as pretty cool, as something they would always remember, as – wait. She’s frowning. I kept mopping, and heard the following:
“Uhm Steve, we’ve only been going out for two weeks.”
“Yes, but I feel like I know you so well.”
“Uhm Steve, we only went out twice.”
“Yes, but they were such great dates, and I know they meant as much to you as to me, because why else would you ask to meet me here today?”
“Uhm Steve, I asked to meet you here because I thought it best to tell you in person that I didn’t want to go out with you anymore.”
Silence. Dead silence.
“But I, but”
“Steve, I didn’t have fun the first time we went out. In spite of that, I agreed to go out a second time in case the first was a fluke. It wasn’t. I’m not wasting my time with a third date, but I wanted to tell you that in person. I figured that was the decent thing to do.”
“I need to go.”
And he left, and I admired her class and composure.
Charlie’s – Yeah, a Charlie’s is still with us. But not THE Charlie’s. Charlie’s first place, a little hole-in-the-wall place, had a great jukebox, didn’t feel like a sports bar, and was a wonderful place to hang out. I’m glad Charlie has been successful enough to open her nice huge place, and it is good she always does great business. But I still miss the old place.
Coralville Country Kitchen – Another place I worked, but that’s not the reason. First off, the counter. Dining counters rule. Second, the breakfast menu – skillet scramble with wheat toast, over easy farm skillet with wheat toast, sausage biscuit skillet with poached. Mmmm.
Fieldhouse – Not the bar, the place where they used to play winter sports. Yeah, the seats were crappy, the view often obstructed, and it was falling down. But it was a hellishly intimidating place for opposing teams, much more so than Carver-Hawkeye has ever been.
Green Pepper Pizza – On the strip where Randy’s is now, the Green Pepper had the best pizza in town. They put sauce in the crust way, way before Pizza Hut ever came up with the idea, and every pizza had a slice of green pepper on it. At the time Iowa City pizza choices primarily consisted of Pagliai’s, Happy Joe’s, and the Green Pepper, and Green Pepper was the best.
Magoo’s – WARNING: Midget sex talk ahead. For those who don’t know where it was, Magoo’s occupied that space between Rentertainment and Taste of China. Can’t remember what is there now – the Chill And Grill was there for awhile. Magoo’s was a neighborhood bar with a great jukebox. We would always go there on Wednesday’s during law school. Sure, we’d start out at the Airliner with every other law student, but after a few hours we would walk to Magoo’s.
But I was a Magoo’s regular long before that. I used to live a block away, and would always go there when in need of a beer. Hooked up quite a few times out of Magoo’s, the geekiest being a time a friend I was with saw other friends of his. I struck up a conversation with one of the females, and it turned out she was also a big comics fan. A DC fan. At the time I was pure Marvel, so we had a huge DC-Marvel debate the whole evening until she invited me to her place to see some of her favorite DC comics. Geeks in lust.
Still Magoo’s didn’t turn into the place I loved and missed until later, when I was working at Country Kitchen in Coralville. I was working second shift, getting home around 11:30. Every work night, unless a bunch of folks were going out from work, I would get home, shower, then take the block trip to Magoo’s. After a few weeks of this, it got to the point that, whenever I walked in the door, no matter who was working (unless they were brand new), the bartender would say “Hi Dweeze”, draw my beer, grab a bag of pretzels, and set it down at an open space at the bar. I didn’t drink a lot – normally only a beer or two – and then say good night and head home.
But one time the bartender on duty did much more than that for me. For some reason, I was drinking hard. Hard. And when the cute girl I was talking to asked if I wanted to sit at a table with her, I said sure. As she scampered down off the bar stool, I realized that she wasn’t just short, she was a midget. Undeterred, we went to a table, where I was soon locking lips with her. We made plans to go to her place. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and that’s when the bartender stepped in.
“Dweeze” he said, “normally we enjoy watching patrons make fools of themselves. But you’re one of the few regulars we tolerate, and as much as seeing a drunk make out with a midget usually sends us laughing, we would prefer that it be someone other than you.”
“But she’s cute!” I protested.
“No she’s not. Trust me, she’s not. She’s not nice either. Now, I will cover for you – tell her you had a phone call and had to leave. But you better go fast.”
And I did. Later, when I saw her again, I realized he was right. She asked where I had gone to, I said my girlfriend had called looking for me, and she let it drop.
BONUS MIDGET SEX STORY
Why my fear of midget sex? My sophomore year in college I ended up rooming first semester with an alcoholic freshman and a born-again hair-lipped nursing student. Yeah, you heard me right. It was in Daum, where the floors alternated men and women. Up on one of the women’s floors lived a midget, though not the same one I would later encounter. So one Friday evening, or more accurately, early Saturday morning, I awoke to the sounds of a fight from the bunk underneath mine. A male voice was pleading with a female voice to stay, that this had never happened to him before, and the tiny female voice replied “You’re too drunk to even get it up Jim!” And with that I heard her leave the bed, walk to the door, open it, and saw a very small shadow get cast into the room. Later, when I asked him about it, he said “I got drunk and thought ‘When am I going to have the chance to nail a midget again?’,” and while that is certainly a fine philosophy, you also don’t want the whole midget community discussing your inability to perform under pressure. So discretion, as always, is the better part of valor.
Pearson’s Drug – Even if the lunch counter is still at That’s Rentertainment (and I thought I read that they were taking it out), it wasn’t the same as going to the counter when it was Pearson’s. Where else could you get an egg salad on whole wheat toast, a malt, a cup of soup, and have change for a $5? Special props because Pearson’s was where I always got comics before the first comic shop opened in Iowa City.
Red Stallion – I can’t believe the Iowa City area doesn’t have a live-music country bar. The Stallion was great, and not just because I scored there a few times. (Most movie-like pickup: One night during law school, a few of us were out there. I asked a woman to dance, and as we were on the floor slow-dancing, she asked what I did. I said “I go to law school.” She said “Like a cop? You going to be a cop? I love cops!” Me, pausing, then “Yes. I’m going to be a cop.”) I also spent several months in the mid-80s as the Twist Champion, finally losing the title when I didn’t show up for the monthly contest. Good times. Goooood times.
BJ’s Records – The closet thing Iowa City has ever had to the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, the best record store in the world. A great selection, decent prices, and always good music playing. I bought the first copy of Springsteen’s The River sold in Iowa City at BJ's.
Breadline – The best Iowa City restaurant no one ever went to, though not for lack of trying on my part. I took dates there, took friends there, went to eat there by myself. Still, even on a Friday night there was never more than a handful of people. Maybe that’s what happens when your theme is the Great Depression. The tables didn’t match each other, the chairs didn’t match the tables, and the tableware didn’t match. (The idea being that because it was the Depression, it cost too much to have coordinated décor and plates and such.) The food was great, the service tolerable (way slow, though always pleasant to look at). Just didn’t last.
Burger Palace – If you lived in the area while the Palace was open, you know the song.
“Everybody loves Burger Palace
Appetizing Burger Palace
Everything you’re looking for
Hamburgers and so much more
Your good taste will recall
Burger Palace has it all
Come on in and have a ball
Listen to your good taste call for
Burger Palace!”
Or, as I used to sing while working there:
“At the Palace
The Burger Palace
The hottest spot north of Dallas
At the Palace
The Burger Palace
Burgers and French fries were always the best buys at
The Palace!”
The food was good (if you ever saw a reference to Snack Packs in Bloom County, that was us – Breathed used to come in all the time), the service eccentric (who can forget Doug the foot fetishist running the register), and the clientele, uhm, bizarre.
One of my favorite things to do was sweep and mop the dining room floor after lunch rush. Seriously. You got to hear the best conversations. One time as I was mopping, Quasar (how many of you hear that and know who I am talking about – probably none) was standing in the middle, waving his hands. Quasar always waved his hands, talking to the air. Always. Everywhere he went, he was animatedly carrying on a conversation with no one. (Rumor had it that he was riding in a car, carrying on a conversation with a friend, when the car hit a truck and the friend was decapitated. I’m sure rumor was untrue.) Anyway, on this occasion, I noticed something different. Quasar had quit moving his hands. Instead, he held his (constant companion) cigarette at arm’s length, staring at it. Suddenly he whispered “Fuck You!” to the cigarette, threw it to the floor, and turned and started walking away. But no sooner had he done that then he turned back around again, picked the cigarette up, apologized to it, and walked out waving his arms talking to the air. Or the cigarette.
But that’s not my favorite mopping the floor story. On another occasion, as I neared a booth where a man and a woman were sitting, I saw him place a small box on the table. She opened it, revealing an engagement ring as he asked her to marry him. This struck me as pretty cool, as something they would always remember, as – wait. She’s frowning. I kept mopping, and heard the following:
“Uhm Steve, we’ve only been going out for two weeks.”
“Yes, but I feel like I know you so well.”
“Uhm Steve, we only went out twice.”
“Yes, but they were such great dates, and I know they meant as much to you as to me, because why else would you ask to meet me here today?”
“Uhm Steve, I asked to meet you here because I thought it best to tell you in person that I didn’t want to go out with you anymore.”
Silence. Dead silence.
“But I, but”
“Steve, I didn’t have fun the first time we went out. In spite of that, I agreed to go out a second time in case the first was a fluke. It wasn’t. I’m not wasting my time with a third date, but I wanted to tell you that in person. I figured that was the decent thing to do.”
“I need to go.”
And he left, and I admired her class and composure.
Charlie’s – Yeah, a Charlie’s is still with us. But not THE Charlie’s. Charlie’s first place, a little hole-in-the-wall place, had a great jukebox, didn’t feel like a sports bar, and was a wonderful place to hang out. I’m glad Charlie has been successful enough to open her nice huge place, and it is good she always does great business. But I still miss the old place.
Coralville Country Kitchen – Another place I worked, but that’s not the reason. First off, the counter. Dining counters rule. Second, the breakfast menu – skillet scramble with wheat toast, over easy farm skillet with wheat toast, sausage biscuit skillet with poached. Mmmm.
Fieldhouse – Not the bar, the place where they used to play winter sports. Yeah, the seats were crappy, the view often obstructed, and it was falling down. But it was a hellishly intimidating place for opposing teams, much more so than Carver-Hawkeye has ever been.
Green Pepper Pizza – On the strip where Randy’s is now, the Green Pepper had the best pizza in town. They put sauce in the crust way, way before Pizza Hut ever came up with the idea, and every pizza had a slice of green pepper on it. At the time Iowa City pizza choices primarily consisted of Pagliai’s, Happy Joe’s, and the Green Pepper, and Green Pepper was the best.
Magoo’s – WARNING: Midget sex talk ahead. For those who don’t know where it was, Magoo’s occupied that space between Rentertainment and Taste of China. Can’t remember what is there now – the Chill And Grill was there for awhile. Magoo’s was a neighborhood bar with a great jukebox. We would always go there on Wednesday’s during law school. Sure, we’d start out at the Airliner with every other law student, but after a few hours we would walk to Magoo’s.
But I was a Magoo’s regular long before that. I used to live a block away, and would always go there when in need of a beer. Hooked up quite a few times out of Magoo’s, the geekiest being a time a friend I was with saw other friends of his. I struck up a conversation with one of the females, and it turned out she was also a big comics fan. A DC fan. At the time I was pure Marvel, so we had a huge DC-Marvel debate the whole evening until she invited me to her place to see some of her favorite DC comics. Geeks in lust.
Still Magoo’s didn’t turn into the place I loved and missed until later, when I was working at Country Kitchen in Coralville. I was working second shift, getting home around 11:30. Every work night, unless a bunch of folks were going out from work, I would get home, shower, then take the block trip to Magoo’s. After a few weeks of this, it got to the point that, whenever I walked in the door, no matter who was working (unless they were brand new), the bartender would say “Hi Dweeze”, draw my beer, grab a bag of pretzels, and set it down at an open space at the bar. I didn’t drink a lot – normally only a beer or two – and then say good night and head home.
But one time the bartender on duty did much more than that for me. For some reason, I was drinking hard. Hard. And when the cute girl I was talking to asked if I wanted to sit at a table with her, I said sure. As she scampered down off the bar stool, I realized that she wasn’t just short, she was a midget. Undeterred, we went to a table, where I was soon locking lips with her. We made plans to go to her place. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and that’s when the bartender stepped in.
“Dweeze” he said, “normally we enjoy watching patrons make fools of themselves. But you’re one of the few regulars we tolerate, and as much as seeing a drunk make out with a midget usually sends us laughing, we would prefer that it be someone other than you.”
“But she’s cute!” I protested.
“No she’s not. Trust me, she’s not. She’s not nice either. Now, I will cover for you – tell her you had a phone call and had to leave. But you better go fast.”
And I did. Later, when I saw her again, I realized he was right. She asked where I had gone to, I said my girlfriend had called looking for me, and she let it drop.
BONUS MIDGET SEX STORY
Why my fear of midget sex? My sophomore year in college I ended up rooming first semester with an alcoholic freshman and a born-again hair-lipped nursing student. Yeah, you heard me right. It was in Daum, where the floors alternated men and women. Up on one of the women’s floors lived a midget, though not the same one I would later encounter. So one Friday evening, or more accurately, early Saturday morning, I awoke to the sounds of a fight from the bunk underneath mine. A male voice was pleading with a female voice to stay, that this had never happened to him before, and the tiny female voice replied “You’re too drunk to even get it up Jim!” And with that I heard her leave the bed, walk to the door, open it, and saw a very small shadow get cast into the room. Later, when I asked him about it, he said “I got drunk and thought ‘When am I going to have the chance to nail a midget again?’,” and while that is certainly a fine philosophy, you also don’t want the whole midget community discussing your inability to perform under pressure. So discretion, as always, is the better part of valor.
Pearson’s Drug – Even if the lunch counter is still at That’s Rentertainment (and I thought I read that they were taking it out), it wasn’t the same as going to the counter when it was Pearson’s. Where else could you get an egg salad on whole wheat toast, a malt, a cup of soup, and have change for a $5? Special props because Pearson’s was where I always got comics before the first comic shop opened in Iowa City.
Red Stallion – I can’t believe the Iowa City area doesn’t have a live-music country bar. The Stallion was great, and not just because I scored there a few times. (Most movie-like pickup: One night during law school, a few of us were out there. I asked a woman to dance, and as we were on the floor slow-dancing, she asked what I did. I said “I go to law school.” She said “Like a cop? You going to be a cop? I love cops!” Me, pausing, then “Yes. I’m going to be a cop.”) I also spent several months in the mid-80s as the Twist Champion, finally losing the title when I didn’t show up for the monthly contest. Good times. Goooood times.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
I Went To Random Mentality And All I Got Was This Lousy Meme
Kris at Random nailed me with a meme. Now, there is a lot of stuff going along with it that feels awfully chainletterish (she her original post here), so I’m going to skip that. But I will go for the basic premise. Which is:
Five Things I Miss From My Childhood
Some caveats. I’m not feeling particularly loquacious lately, so this may be brief. I’ve got those “moving soon and damn hot and life bites and everything falls down at once on you” blues. Second, I’m not generally into the looking back thing. I’d much rather look forward. Not that my past is bad, by any means. Quite the contrary. But that my past is always with me, singing harmony. It is fully a part of me, so I don’t feel the need to look back at it.
What I didn’t include: I thought about including discovery, that feeling that everything is new and exciting. But I don’t miss that – for one thing, I still experience it, still am open to it. For another, having a two and a half year old lets you re-experience it. You can feel again the joy of seeing a train pass, or ducks, or putting a stack of blocks together. And I thought about saying a sense of wonder, but I try to approach my world that way anyway, reveling in the things God gave us, enjoying the small and large gifts. And I seriously considered freedom, lack of obligations, at least the sort that tie adults up in knots. Being able to roam, explore, feeling unfettered and alive. Nobody calling me up for favors. No one’s future to decide. That sort of thing. But I spent most of my adult life with that kind of freedom, and freedom has it’s own constraints. So I’ll stick with specific things, not concepts.
So with that in mind, the list.
1. My dad. I really don’t feel I need to go any farther down the list than that, though I will. But damn, just saying that is enough to make the tears well up a little. So, I’m not going to talk further about my dad, except to say that few days go by when I don’t think of him or miss him or wish I could talk to him about something. I’ll add my pet theory as well – men don’t truly grow up until their father passes away. Doesn’t matter how old they are, or if they have families of their own, or what they’ve gone through. As long as a man’s father is alive, he isn’t completely grown up – it’s that passing that takes you the last step, that makes you realize that there is no longer any man more significant in your life than yourself.
2. Knot hole games at Kinnick Stadium. Back when the Hawks were bad, bad, bad, and before the first stadium remodel, kids could get in free with their parents. You had to sit in the end zone bleachers, but you could run around and watch the game and generally have a great time.
3. Cheap gas. Gas was $.42 a gallon when I started driving, and didn’t reach the $1 a gallon spot for a looooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggg time. We would get in the car on a Friday night and drive, drive, drive, just seeing what there was.
4. Going to grandpa and grandma’s farm for a week every summer. Driving a tractor, annoying livestock, playing in the barns. Going into town to the A&W for a frosty mug of root beer. Seeing my cousins, hanging out with them.
5. Sleeping in the car. I used to love the feeling of sitting in the car, coming back from a relative’s house, and falling asleep to the rhythm of the road.
So there’s my list. Now, the chain letter parts involve me acknowledging where this thing has come from and challenging others to do it. Not going to do that. But I will ask any of my faithful readers if they want to take this up and do a post. So, do any of my faithful readers want to take this up and do a post?
Five Things I Miss From My Childhood
Some caveats. I’m not feeling particularly loquacious lately, so this may be brief. I’ve got those “moving soon and damn hot and life bites and everything falls down at once on you” blues. Second, I’m not generally into the looking back thing. I’d much rather look forward. Not that my past is bad, by any means. Quite the contrary. But that my past is always with me, singing harmony. It is fully a part of me, so I don’t feel the need to look back at it.
What I didn’t include: I thought about including discovery, that feeling that everything is new and exciting. But I don’t miss that – for one thing, I still experience it, still am open to it. For another, having a two and a half year old lets you re-experience it. You can feel again the joy of seeing a train pass, or ducks, or putting a stack of blocks together. And I thought about saying a sense of wonder, but I try to approach my world that way anyway, reveling in the things God gave us, enjoying the small and large gifts. And I seriously considered freedom, lack of obligations, at least the sort that tie adults up in knots. Being able to roam, explore, feeling unfettered and alive. Nobody calling me up for favors. No one’s future to decide. That sort of thing. But I spent most of my adult life with that kind of freedom, and freedom has it’s own constraints. So I’ll stick with specific things, not concepts.
So with that in mind, the list.
1. My dad. I really don’t feel I need to go any farther down the list than that, though I will. But damn, just saying that is enough to make the tears well up a little. So, I’m not going to talk further about my dad, except to say that few days go by when I don’t think of him or miss him or wish I could talk to him about something. I’ll add my pet theory as well – men don’t truly grow up until their father passes away. Doesn’t matter how old they are, or if they have families of their own, or what they’ve gone through. As long as a man’s father is alive, he isn’t completely grown up – it’s that passing that takes you the last step, that makes you realize that there is no longer any man more significant in your life than yourself.
2. Knot hole games at Kinnick Stadium. Back when the Hawks were bad, bad, bad, and before the first stadium remodel, kids could get in free with their parents. You had to sit in the end zone bleachers, but you could run around and watch the game and generally have a great time.
3. Cheap gas. Gas was $.42 a gallon when I started driving, and didn’t reach the $1 a gallon spot for a looooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggg time. We would get in the car on a Friday night and drive, drive, drive, just seeing what there was.
4. Going to grandpa and grandma’s farm for a week every summer. Driving a tractor, annoying livestock, playing in the barns. Going into town to the A&W for a frosty mug of root beer. Seeing my cousins, hanging out with them.
5. Sleeping in the car. I used to love the feeling of sitting in the car, coming back from a relative’s house, and falling asleep to the rhythm of the road.
So there’s my list. Now, the chain letter parts involve me acknowledging where this thing has come from and challenging others to do it. Not going to do that. But I will ask any of my faithful readers if they want to take this up and do a post. So, do any of my faithful readers want to take this up and do a post?
Friday, June 17, 2005
Thought For The Day
The issue isn't whether or not we are the same as the Nazis, the issue is that we aren't different enough. Avi Schlaim, Israeli historian.
Or, in other words, don’t we as Americans aspire to something higher than “We aren’t as bad as the worst people who ever were!”?
Or, in other words, don’t we as Americans aspire to something higher than “We aren’t as bad as the worst people who ever were!”?
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Batman Begins - Thoughts
This is a great film. This is a stunning film. This is the most perfectly realized comic book film ever. As much as I loved the two Burton films, I recognized after watching Batman Begins that Burton's films owe far more allegiance to the tv show than to the original source material. Would it really be that jarring to have a huge *BAM* or *POW* appear onscreen when Nicholson's Joker or DeVito's Penguin makes an appearance? Batman Begins, on the other hand, is a graphic novel brought to screen. The strength of the film is grounding it in a real world - I found Gotham much more effective as a real city than as the construct Burton made it. (And again, much more in line with the original source material.) The casting was excellent, other than Katie Holmes, and the problem with Katie wasn't so much the casting as the fact that, with the exceptions of Leslie Thompkins and Renee Montoya, there aren't any interesting non-costumed women in the Bat Universe.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Batman Begins Update
Matt, TanMan, and I will be attending the Batman Begins midnight show at Coral Ridge this evening. If you come, look for us playing poker in the line. Review tomorrow.
Funny Stuff
Go read this by Chris at Shield Your Eyes. Now. If nothing else, read this and the follow-up. His other stuff is good reading, too, but this? Is hilarious.
Batman Begins
Midnight showing. Tonight. Coral Ridge or Cinema 6. Who's with me?
(Offer limited to Iowa City area readers only, unless those of you in the far reaches of the country want to try to get here by midnight central, in which case let me know and I'll get tickets for you. You're on your own for popcorn, though.)
(Offer limited to Iowa City area readers only, unless those of you in the far reaches of the country want to try to get here by midnight central, in which case let me know and I'll get tickets for you. You're on your own for popcorn, though.)
Monday, June 13, 2005
Jackson Verdict In
You know, you’re such a smooth criminal with the way you make me feel. It don’t matter if you’re black or white, cause I’m dangerous. You wanna be starting something? I want to rock with you (all night), and don’t stop til you get enough. I told the man in the mirror that the girl was mine, but I just can’t stop loving you.
P.S. I told Billie Jean it was human nature to beat it, and now she’s out of my life.
P.S. I told Billie Jean it was human nature to beat it, and now she’s out of my life.
This Makes Me Feel Good
Pilots crashed because they tried to see how high their plane could go. Film at eleven, story at Yahoo.
Strange, but I am not comforted that Beavis and Butthead not only got pilot licenses but also got hired together. I was going to make up dialogue, but I didn't have to do so. Quoting from the story:
"Man, we can do it, 41-it," said Cesarz at 9:48 p.m. A minute later, Rhodes said, "40 thousand, baby."
Two minutes later, "There's 41-0, my man," Cesarz said. "Made it, man."
At 9:52 p.m., one of the pilots popped a can of Pepsi and they joked about drinking beer. A minute later, Cesarz said, "This is the greatest thing, no way."
But at 10:03 p.m., the pilots reported their engine had failed. Five minutes later, they said both engines had failed and they wanted a direct route to any airport.
Okay, I do have to make up dialogue:
"Dude, what a buzzkill, we're crashing."
"Dude, if we had some Dew, we could jump out and float down and land on our Dew-powered bodies and walk away without a scratch."
"Dude, that would be so totally awesome! Not like this crashing and dying thing, which is so totally NOT-awesome."
"Dude, there you go with the buzzkill again."
Fortunately, the plane was empty. Doubly fortunately, these two will never fly again.
Strange, but I am not comforted that Beavis and Butthead not only got pilot licenses but also got hired together. I was going to make up dialogue, but I didn't have to do so. Quoting from the story:
"Man, we can do it, 41-it," said Cesarz at 9:48 p.m. A minute later, Rhodes said, "40 thousand, baby."
Two minutes later, "There's 41-0, my man," Cesarz said. "Made it, man."
At 9:52 p.m., one of the pilots popped a can of Pepsi and they joked about drinking beer. A minute later, Cesarz said, "This is the greatest thing, no way."
But at 10:03 p.m., the pilots reported their engine had failed. Five minutes later, they said both engines had failed and they wanted a direct route to any airport.
Okay, I do have to make up dialogue:
"Dude, what a buzzkill, we're crashing."
"Dude, if we had some Dew, we could jump out and float down and land on our Dew-powered bodies and walk away without a scratch."
"Dude, that would be so totally awesome! Not like this crashing and dying thing, which is so totally NOT-awesome."
"Dude, there you go with the buzzkill again."
Fortunately, the plane was empty. Doubly fortunately, these two will never fly again.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Linkage Part Whatever
Once again, time to update the links. I’ve added Pam at Brain Fart and Ilse at Rogue Myrmidon into the Friends and Family category. I’ve also added Balloon Juice and Kung Fu Monkey to the main listings. Balloon Juice is a conservative commentator who should not be missed; Kung Fu Monkey is a screenwriter with interesting observations on movies and TV.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Sith Happens
I took Andrew to see Revenge of the Sith on Sunday. (Lesa had seen it while she was in Portland, and we figured it would be too much for Ethan.) Now, my opinion of the movie is not colored by the fact that I saw four cool previews – the Owen Wilson / Vince Vaughn Wedding Crashers (presumably also featuring Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, as those four are contractually bound to appear in each other’s movies and you know, the scenes of them bouncing into beds with scantily clad women were probably more inappropriate for young audience members than anything in Revenge of the Sith); Steven Spielberg’s (We Only Took The Title From H.G. Wells And Nothing Else And We Took That Not Because Most People Coming To This Movie Know The Book Or A Previous Version Of The Movie But Because It’s A Cool Title) War of the Worlds, and while I would like this movie a lot more if it didn’t have Tom Cruise in it, it still looks pretty cool; Batman Begins, which there is no chance whatsoever I won’t see; and Fantastic Four, which I am cautiously optimistic on – wait, which I’m very optimistic on – cool, cool trailer. So I was in a good mood when Sith began.
I’m going to play the “Dweeze is old” card again. I saw Star Wars in its original run, back when it was just Star Wars and not Episode Four: A New Hope. Hell, I remember seeing the original trailer. (It? Was a very cheesy trailer.) You can’t truly appreciate what Star Wars was, what it meant, unless you were there at the time. You can’t know how different it was from all that came before without that context. You just can’t. The only comparable movie-going experience I’ve had in my lifetime was seeing The Matrix. Both movies set a new bar, and if subsequent sequels didn’t reach the same bar, or didn’t also set a new bar, well, that’s how it goes.
Now I’m not saying that the elements that make up Star Wars weren’t there before. They were. But something about the way they were put together made the movie so special. Empire and Jedi were able to continue that mixture, and both are films well worth watching. Menace and Clones, perhaps because they were so far removed from the original films, were not able to recapture that specialness. Oh, they have there moments – at least Menace does. But they don’t feel like valid heirs to Star Wars. Sith does. Sith lives in that universe, recaptures that magic, and is a worthy addition to the canon.
I’m going to play the “Dweeze is old” card again. I saw Star Wars in its original run, back when it was just Star Wars and not Episode Four: A New Hope. Hell, I remember seeing the original trailer. (It? Was a very cheesy trailer.) You can’t truly appreciate what Star Wars was, what it meant, unless you were there at the time. You can’t know how different it was from all that came before without that context. You just can’t. The only comparable movie-going experience I’ve had in my lifetime was seeing The Matrix. Both movies set a new bar, and if subsequent sequels didn’t reach the same bar, or didn’t also set a new bar, well, that’s how it goes.
Now I’m not saying that the elements that make up Star Wars weren’t there before. They were. But something about the way they were put together made the movie so special. Empire and Jedi were able to continue that mixture, and both are films well worth watching. Menace and Clones, perhaps because they were so far removed from the original films, were not able to recapture that specialness. Oh, they have there moments – at least Menace does. But they don’t feel like valid heirs to Star Wars. Sith does. Sith lives in that universe, recaptures that magic, and is a worthy addition to the canon.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Inexplicable Toys
Andrew and I were at K-Mart last night, looking for one of those plastic pools because it was SO DAMN HOT! Naturally, Andrew can’t go anywhere with a toy aisle without looking at the toy aisle. The same applies to me of course. But I digress.
There, in the clearance toy aisle, on the top shelf in the clearance toy aisle, was a toy I had never seen before, a toy I would never have dreamed existed. That toy? A toy Shop-Vac.
I’ll let that sink in.
I imagine the following scene played out more or less in every household where a toy Shop-Vac has been given as a gift.
(Interior family living room, on the occasion of the son’s sixth birthday. Present are father, mother, and son.)
Father: Here’s your last present! (Hands box to son.)
Six-Year Old Son: Oh boy! It’s huge. (Unwraps, revealing toy Shop-Vac.)
Mother: What the …?
(Long, uncomfortable pause.)
Father: It’s a Shop-Vac. A toy Shop-Vac. Now, after you use your toy tools to pretend to build something, you can use your toy Shop-Vac to pretend to clean up!
(Another long, uncomfortable pause.)
Six-Year Old Son: Fuck you dad.
Father: (To mother.) Did you hear what he just said?
Mother: I could have married Carl you know. I COULD HAVE MARRIED CARL!
There, in the clearance toy aisle, on the top shelf in the clearance toy aisle, was a toy I had never seen before, a toy I would never have dreamed existed. That toy? A toy Shop-Vac.
I’ll let that sink in.
I imagine the following scene played out more or less in every household where a toy Shop-Vac has been given as a gift.
(Interior family living room, on the occasion of the son’s sixth birthday. Present are father, mother, and son.)
Father: Here’s your last present! (Hands box to son.)
Six-Year Old Son: Oh boy! It’s huge. (Unwraps, revealing toy Shop-Vac.)
Mother: What the …?
(Long, uncomfortable pause.)
Father: It’s a Shop-Vac. A toy Shop-Vac. Now, after you use your toy tools to pretend to build something, you can use your toy Shop-Vac to pretend to clean up!
(Another long, uncomfortable pause.)
Six-Year Old Son: Fuck you dad.
Father: (To mother.) Did you hear what he just said?
Mother: I could have married Carl you know. I COULD HAVE MARRIED CARL!
Statistically, It Was Bound To Happen Someday
A team coached by Larry Brown will play a team formerly coached by Larry Brown for the NBA Championship.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Presidents Of The United States
Matt has a post here about the Presidents in his lifetime. This struck me as a cool idea, and since the blogosphere would be nothing without people taking other people’s ideas, I thought I would jump in with my rankings of the President’s in my lifetime (1959-2005).
Starting from the bottom:
10. Bush II: Not just the worst President of my lifetime. The worst President ever. Heads an administration that is ten times more corrupt than Nixon but with none of the pragmatic streak Nixon had. The nicest thing I can say about him is that I think he sincerely believes the crap he spews. The worst thing I can say about him is that I think he sincerely believes the crap he spews. The deaths of thousands of Americans, and tens of thousand Iraqis, are directly on his head.
9. Reagan: Overrated hack. His sole contribution to the end of the Cold War was to stand around doing nothing, this despite the protestations of the intelligence community requesting action. By this standard, Reagan should also get credit for the sun rising every day, my graduating from college and law school, and the Challenger disaster. Signed into law the largest single tax increase in U.S. history, and if you want to see a young Republican’s head explode, you can point out that fact.
8. Kennedy: Pretty boy who looked Presidential instead of being Presidential. Unable to get a single piece of substantive legislation passed. Gave birth to phrase “Vote Early, Vote Often”. His becoming President may have been the single worst thing to happen to the Democratic party in the history of the party – it added a great deal of fuel to the paranoia Nixon exhibited, it put the Dems in position to suffer the consequences of Vietnam, and it gave the Republicans the opportunity to craft the Southern Strategy that would serve them very well in seven Presidential elections.
7. Ford: Caretaker President. More notable as punch line to a joke or assassin’s target than as President. On the other hand, didn’t actively try to make society worse, and didn’t inspire cult of devoted and deluded followers.
6. Bush I: Nice guy, smart guy, way in over his head guy. Very knowledgeable about foreign affairs, yet let others wrangle foreign policy away from him.
5. Carter: Not given anywhere near enough credit for what he actually did. Despite popular misperception, economy actually stronger under Carter than any of the three Republicans who followed him (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II). Devoted humanitarian who truly cared about people.
4. Eisenhower: Led country to strong economy, peace, and stability. Perfect post-war President.
3. Johnson: Effective Senator who became an effective President. Got more substantive pieces of legislation passed before noon than most Presidents get passed all day. Put in place framework for Great Society that improves lives to this day. Refused to run for re-election rather than try to defend indefensible foreign policy decisions.
2. Nixon: Rated solely on his crimes, he’d be in ninth. Rated on the good qualities, second. Those crimes are well documented: domestic spying, authorizing break-ins, assassination plots. Not so well documented are the good things he did – improved the economy, ended the war, opened up China and the Soviet Union (this did much, much more to end the Cold War than Reagan ever did). Truly cared about working class families and working class people, as that is where he came from. Hated wealthy people who pretended to be working class (he had a hatred of the Bush family so intense that Bush I was considered by many to be the most likely candidate for Deep Throat). Supposedly won enough money playing poker in the service (where he actually, you know, SERVED) to finance his first run for Congress.
1. Clinton: One of the top five Presidents ever. Maybe top three. By any qualitative measure, country was better off after eight years of Clinton than any other period this century. Would STILL be President today if not for those pesky term limitations. Lied about sex to the American public, causing harm to no one, prompting Republican outrage orgy, unlike Bush II, who lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, prompting nary a peep from the Republican party. Beautiful political instincts mixed with, what is by all accounts of people who have met him, a genuine concern about the people. It was an honor to vote for him twice.
Starting from the bottom:
10. Bush II: Not just the worst President of my lifetime. The worst President ever. Heads an administration that is ten times more corrupt than Nixon but with none of the pragmatic streak Nixon had. The nicest thing I can say about him is that I think he sincerely believes the crap he spews. The worst thing I can say about him is that I think he sincerely believes the crap he spews. The deaths of thousands of Americans, and tens of thousand Iraqis, are directly on his head.
9. Reagan: Overrated hack. His sole contribution to the end of the Cold War was to stand around doing nothing, this despite the protestations of the intelligence community requesting action. By this standard, Reagan should also get credit for the sun rising every day, my graduating from college and law school, and the Challenger disaster. Signed into law the largest single tax increase in U.S. history, and if you want to see a young Republican’s head explode, you can point out that fact.
8. Kennedy: Pretty boy who looked Presidential instead of being Presidential. Unable to get a single piece of substantive legislation passed. Gave birth to phrase “Vote Early, Vote Often”. His becoming President may have been the single worst thing to happen to the Democratic party in the history of the party – it added a great deal of fuel to the paranoia Nixon exhibited, it put the Dems in position to suffer the consequences of Vietnam, and it gave the Republicans the opportunity to craft the Southern Strategy that would serve them very well in seven Presidential elections.
7. Ford: Caretaker President. More notable as punch line to a joke or assassin’s target than as President. On the other hand, didn’t actively try to make society worse, and didn’t inspire cult of devoted and deluded followers.
6. Bush I: Nice guy, smart guy, way in over his head guy. Very knowledgeable about foreign affairs, yet let others wrangle foreign policy away from him.
5. Carter: Not given anywhere near enough credit for what he actually did. Despite popular misperception, economy actually stronger under Carter than any of the three Republicans who followed him (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II). Devoted humanitarian who truly cared about people.
4. Eisenhower: Led country to strong economy, peace, and stability. Perfect post-war President.
3. Johnson: Effective Senator who became an effective President. Got more substantive pieces of legislation passed before noon than most Presidents get passed all day. Put in place framework for Great Society that improves lives to this day. Refused to run for re-election rather than try to defend indefensible foreign policy decisions.
2. Nixon: Rated solely on his crimes, he’d be in ninth. Rated on the good qualities, second. Those crimes are well documented: domestic spying, authorizing break-ins, assassination plots. Not so well documented are the good things he did – improved the economy, ended the war, opened up China and the Soviet Union (this did much, much more to end the Cold War than Reagan ever did). Truly cared about working class families and working class people, as that is where he came from. Hated wealthy people who pretended to be working class (he had a hatred of the Bush family so intense that Bush I was considered by many to be the most likely candidate for Deep Throat). Supposedly won enough money playing poker in the service (where he actually, you know, SERVED) to finance his first run for Congress.
1. Clinton: One of the top five Presidents ever. Maybe top three. By any qualitative measure, country was better off after eight years of Clinton than any other period this century. Would STILL be President today if not for those pesky term limitations. Lied about sex to the American public, causing harm to no one, prompting Republican outrage orgy, unlike Bush II, who lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, prompting nary a peep from the Republican party. Beautiful political instincts mixed with, what is by all accounts of people who have met him, a genuine concern about the people. It was an honor to vote for him twice.
24 This And That
To me, this from the 24 Insider, who was able to accurately spoil every episode at least one week before it aired, just screams David Palmer dying in a bombing at the UN.
I’m hearing that the season will start off with the terrorist bombing of a “high-value target”. It’s unclear if the high-value target is a person or a building but it's looking more and more like a combination of both a prominent building and a high-ranking government official who will be among the many killed in the terrorist attack. There are several other scenarios I’ve heard rumblings about and every single one of them has the same concept of a terrorist bombing of a building with extremely strong international ties. They are also thinking about bringing back a former character to be among the many dead in the massive explosion.
It makes sense that they would kill Palmer – he is the toughest character to figure out a way to work into the plot, and yet a character people will always demand to see. At the UN, or some other international target, makes sense because the best way to bring Jack Bauer back, and resolve the issue of the Chinese, is to make it so Jack has to SAVE THE WORLD!
Also, in today’s Ask Ausiello column in TV Guide, it is revealed that a scene was filmed where Behrooz was found alive and the script originally had Michelle committing suicide when she thought Tony had died. The latter fact led Ausiello to comment that Tony and Michelle would be coming back next year.
I’m hearing that the season will start off with the terrorist bombing of a “high-value target”. It’s unclear if the high-value target is a person or a building but it's looking more and more like a combination of both a prominent building and a high-ranking government official who will be among the many killed in the terrorist attack. There are several other scenarios I’ve heard rumblings about and every single one of them has the same concept of a terrorist bombing of a building with extremely strong international ties. They are also thinking about bringing back a former character to be among the many dead in the massive explosion.
It makes sense that they would kill Palmer – he is the toughest character to figure out a way to work into the plot, and yet a character people will always demand to see. At the UN, or some other international target, makes sense because the best way to bring Jack Bauer back, and resolve the issue of the Chinese, is to make it so Jack has to SAVE THE WORLD!
Also, in today’s Ask Ausiello column in TV Guide, it is revealed that a scene was filmed where Behrooz was found alive and the script originally had Michelle committing suicide when she thought Tony had died. The latter fact led Ausiello to comment that Tony and Michelle would be coming back next year.
My Life As Expressed As An Old Henny Youngman Bit*
Actual conversation with an actual seven-year-old who bruised his knee at recess yesterday.
Seven-Year-Old: My knee hurts.
Me: Does it hurt all the time?
Seven-Year-Old: It hurts when I do this (pushes on knee).
Me: Then don’t do that!
*Actually, all Henny Youngman bits are old Henny Youngman bits.
Seven-Year-Old: My knee hurts.
Me: Does it hurt all the time?
Seven-Year-Old: It hurts when I do this (pushes on knee).
Me: Then don’t do that!
*Actually, all Henny Youngman bits are old Henny Youngman bits.
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