So Slight

The Bachelorette: What. A. Shock. Plus, Sex and the Second Life.

Oh my god, you guys, all my faith in love is GONE. DeAnna and Jesse broke up! WHY? Why are the gods so cruel!? If it didn't work out between two people who met each other on a reality show and defied the odds that say square pegs don't fit in round holes (that's like, a half step away from a euphemism that I'm not sure would have made sense anyway, but whatever) and were likely paid an incentive to get engaged, WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR ME?

(Note: Probably more hope than there is for anyone hoping to get married on such a show.)

So yeah. In other implausible love stories, have we heard about the couple who met on Second Life and are now getting divorced? She caught him cheating on her. With a prostitute. What's that? Oh, no. In the game.

"You had SEX?"
"It was only digital baby, it didn't mean anything."
"You bastard! We had a WEDDING. In a VIDEO GAME. Don't you remember when you told me 'I prms 2 <3, chrish, & 0beY (lols) til some dood chops mah hed off in retaliation 4 me kickin his azz in DOOM. It rawked.' Did that mean NOTHING to you??!!"

(Okay, for the record, do NOT look up "second life sex" unless you want to see all kinds of things one should never see. Guh. I'm talking animal sex and childbirth. Yeah. Videogame childbirth. People post that sh!t on YouTube and it is detailed. Not detailed enough, however, that it isn't obvious that the person who wrote that part of the game isn't totally clear on where the baby comes out (because, who are we kidding, they can't be all that anatomically familiar with actual women, if you catch my drift). I am not linking that.)

(In my personal experience, I have played Second Life exactly once, and in those 15 minutes, most of which I spent choosing clothes and hairstyles for Second Me because that's the only fun part, I was approached by some kind of pygmy troll who asked if I'd like to fuck him. Tempting, but no. I date actual people, though if that's how they greet me, again, no thanks.)

Anyway, all is not lost for Second Life girl. She met a new guy, on World of Warcraft. And seriously, do not look up images on that. Really.

Videos: Font Conference

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

If the link doesn't work, here: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

I'm either a giant graphic design dork, this is hilarious, or both of those things are true. "Candle! Diamonds, airplane! Mailbox! Open mailbox!" Hahaha.

Thanks to Jacob Cass (Just Creative Design) for Twitter linking this and making my day.

Riffing on a concept: Is meat!

I was telling a friend about my trip to Greece, when I encountered gyro stands that were like the Greek version of New York hot dog vendors. Only with a cone of meat that the vendor shaves off into your gyro. You are a brave soul indeed if you eat these, since Athens is something like the fourth most polluted city in the world, and by the end of a day of sightseeing, you're coughing up black stuff. One can only imagine how many days your common cone of meat sits out in the open air, soaking up smog.

 

Above, you'll see a cone o' meat. Ask the vendor what kind of meat it is, and if your experience is like mine, he'll look at you like you're a moron and say "Is meat!" And if you're like me, you'll decline to try it, having never heard of an animal called "a meat." Of course, I personally do not care to eat something from "a lamb" and I do know what that is, so I'm kind of picky. Also, that knife is large, and this leads me to believe that the odds of finding a finger in your gyro are about 1 in 10.

Anyway, I particularly enjoyed the email exchange my friend and I had on this topic, so here it is:

Me: (having sent the above picture to illustrate the meat cone). I'm guessing water buffalo.

Him: No, water buffaloes are not cone-shaped.

Me: The only cone-shaped animal I can think of is a manatee. I guess when in Greece, that can't be ruled out.

Him: Jimmy Buffet used to do all these commercials down in Florida telling us not to zoom through inland waterways in motor boats. Apparently, the manatees float around in there when they're trying to make baby manatees and their backs get chopped up by propellers. Now I realize that Jimmy's main point is that the propeller marks ruin the symmetry of the cone-meat and makes it less desirable for export to Greece.

Me: ...unless he's misinformed and the propellers act as tenderizers... Sometimes celebrities only see their side of the issue. Case in point, the commercial telling everyone "don't vote" as a reverse psychology ploy... The people who let celebrities influence their decisions are too stupid to understand psychology, much less a non-literal approach.

Him: His boat is probably wider than the inland waterways, so he's never even tempted to haul-ass through there and run over manatees.  You make excellent points. Maybe you can be on the Meat Export Council or something ... tell Greece that the propeller treatment not only tenderizes, but pre-slices the meat so that they won't get carpal tunnel while slaving over a hot cone all day.

Me: I'm already working on a logo. It's a manatee giving a thumbs up as a boater dices another grinning manatee. Oh, and the first one is wearing a t-shirt that says "TASTY!" I think it will sweep the Wolda logo design awards.

 

The real chicken of the sea? Perhaps we'll never know.

-------

Give me your best shot, PETA*.

*Even though obviously I'm joking. Manatees are adorable, and presumably riddled with gristle, which is really unappetizing. Like, duck level unappetizing... Have you ever eaten duck? I think that's evolution's way of saying don't eat it if it's cute. This is why we don't eat piglets like we do veal... the meat might be tender and delicious (is what I hear... I don't eat veal, that sh!t looks nasty), but just look into the eyes of a snot nosed baby pig and try to imagine it rotating on a spit with a tiny crab apple in it's mouth... It's just wrong.

Every time you say the word bacon, a baby pig gets its wings. And its best friend the spider dies. And a farmer says "That'll do pig. That'll do." but he's really thinking about back fat and pickled pig's feet and pork rinds. Because he's evil.

(Hardly worthy of being called a) Music Review: Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Cardinology

My work is crazy at the moment, so I don't have the time to do a track by track review of the new Ryan Adams album (go ahead and cheer). But let me just go ahead and say that I love this album. Best Ryan Adams album since Cold Roses. Key tracks include Born Into A Light, Fix It, Magick, Cobwebs, Like Yesterday, and Stop. I highly recommend.

It will, however, be featured in a rundown on tired and overused album art... not the front cover, but the inside booklet. Pages from the musician's lyric sheets? Again? Really?

An answer to the question, "But what does Victoria Jackson have to say about all this?"

I've pretty much always found Victoria Jackson to be the most annoying element of her generation of SNL, but now that she's voiced her political opinions on the internet, she has forced herself back into my consciousness, and not in a good way. Here is her little "Yay McCain!" tirade, with my commentary in italics. Forgive the way I go in and out of talking directly to Victoria. It's a problem I have when I'm irritated.

VJ: Why am I voting for the fantastic McCain/Palin ticket?  Simply because my "world view" is based on the belief that The Bible is the inerrant, holy, Word of God, and the Republican stance on abortion, marriage, government control, taxes, education, health care, charity, military, defense, democracy and freedom - lines up closest with the Bible's message.

Okay. I don't generally like to criticize other people's religious beliefs because that's just opening up the opportunity for them to criticize my lack thereof (and my preference is simply to not discuss it), but I seriously HATE it when people use "but the Bible says" as their justification for every little thing. The Bible, in my opinion, is a book that was written by people. And by definition, people make errors and are prone to putting their own interpretive spin on everything with which they come into contact. As proof, my interpretive spin on the New Testament is that serves as a morality teaching. It drives me bats when people justify disapproval of homosexuality, etc., by the Old Testament. To me, this defies the New Testament's message of acceptance and non-judgment. At any rate, the Bible was not a fax from heaven. It was, at best, transcribed by people, and people are, again, fallible.

Moving along. In snarky opinion news, I was unaware that the Bible took a position on education that was not "don't teach women," or healthcare other than "women are unclean," or democracy, given that in Biblical times the predominant rule at the time was monarchy and that democracy was more or less contained to Greece.

VJ: Whoever Obama's paying to help him appear to be a Christian, to win the Evangelical vote... is doing a terrible job.  He should ask me for a few pointers. 

Sure. Since you're clearly not a person who passes judgment on others and therefore are a perfect Christian. I mean, if you say he's not a Christian, he must not be.

VJ: First of all, "obscure reference in Romans" is a dead give away that he's never cracked a Bible.  "Evangelicals" love Romans.  They have it practically memorized.  -"obscure reference in Zephaniah" might have been more appropriate. 

So every Evangelical is exactly the same level of authority on Romans? This I did not know. What I do know is that in high school when a group of us did the Disciple Bible study, we ended up reading about 70% of the Bible, including pretty much all of Romans. That doesn't mean that I don't consider parts of it obscure. (Also, I threw that in there to prove that I have indeed read a good deal of the Bible, and am not totally ignorant of the things it contains.)

VJ: And, Obama, when you say things like, "Sin is...being out of alignment with my values."  That is a blaring siren of Biblical ignorance.  The Bible says, "Sin is being out of alignment with God's values."  That's like the number one lesson in every book of the Bible.  You really need some help. 

There's a way to make a point. Take a quote entirely out of context. In context, it reads as such (from a 2004 interview at God Factor):

GG: Do you believe in sin?    

OBAMA: Yes.

GG: What is sin?

OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.

GG: What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA: I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.

He is not calling himself God, he is saying that he feels like he sins when he doesn't follow his values, which are Christian. So perhaps, Victoria, you're the one who needs help. With your reading comprehension. Or perhaps you never even read it in context. That seems likely.

VJ: Your statements are New Age, relativist, & humanist.  Basically, they are textbook comments that go back to the first sin in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent lied and told Adam and Eve that they could be equal with God.  (Read the book "When the World Will Be As One")  "New Age" is the oldest false religion.  It is a lie. And as for your "church" or Rev. Wright,  Evangelicals think it's a sad cartoon.  Obama, call me.  I'll explain Christianity to you.

So because you don't believe it, it's a lie. Thank goodness we have you to flaunt your superiority by quoting a single contextually ambiguous comment and deciding that Obama thinks he's God. Victoria, call me. I'll explain the theory of rhetoric to you.

Isn't paganism the oldest "false" religion? Like, the sun worshiping that much of Christian symbolism and holidays are derived from, which was a way to subtly convert pagans into Christianity? Yeah, shut up.

Maybe you'll get saved and start loving unborn babies.

You're joking.You're joking with this, right?

You see, what bothers me most, besides being a Communist, and a racist (Obama writes in his book, From Dreams of My Father, "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and and animosity against my (white) mother's race.") (Obama's "religion" of the last 20 years is Black Liberation Theology.  What is that?  "It is simply Marxism dressed up in Christian rhetoric.  But unlike traditional Marxism, Black Liberation Theology emphasizes race rather than class.  It's leading theorist is James Cone who says Jesus was black, African-Americans are the chosen people, and whites are the devil.  Cone says, "What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world."  The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor), is that he is a LIAR. 

Way too long parentheses notwithstanding, this is idiotic. She quotes a passage from a book talking about Obama coming to terms with his racial identity in his youth and thinks that he's a racist because he once had resentment with regard to being raised by a white grandmother. Without having such an experience, one cannot begin to imagine what that is like. Unless you're Victoria Jackson, in which case, you know everything about everything and are an authority who considers the way they think and act to be above others.

As far as the Black Liberation Theology, first off, just because Obama's former pastor (who I kind of think took the crazy train when he got in the public eye) feels a certain way doesn't mean that Obama does. And quoting a leading theorist with no connection to Obama is irrelevant. But do go on. Why are you accusing him of being a liar?

He pretends to be a Christian and he incriminates himself everytime he speaks about Christianity.  To lie about being a believer in Christ is very dangerous.  Lightning could strike him at any minute!  But seriously, he doesn't have a clue what the Bible says and yet he pretends to be a church-going Christian to win votes.  That is sooooo evil.

Again with the condemning Obama for something that you cannot prove. You cannot know what is in a man's heart, says the Bible. Your perception does not define who a person is. Leveling condemnation and criticism at someone due to quotes you've read or heard is not fair. For instance, if I were going to judge you, Victoria Jackson, by your public persona, I would say that you are an absolute idiot because you portray one so well on TV. That's probably not true. It's unfair of me to say it, because I've never met you, spoken to you personally, gotten to know you on a deeper level. Yet here you are, doing exactly that to Obama.

I mean, let's talk about McCain. He has admitted to cheating on his first wife, who waited for him while he was a POW and raised his children, enduring a crippling injury at the same time. He had affairs while married, and began his relationship with his current wife while still married, and married her four months after his divorce was granted. If you're going to dredge up the past and blame Obama for his opinions and indiscretions in his youth, explain this McCain adulterousness away and tell me that he's a wonderful Christian by the same standards you judge Obama with.

In a 2004 interview with Cathleen Falsani for her book, Obama said, "...I believe there are many paths to the same place....and all people of faith - Christians, Jews, animists, everyone --- know the same God."  This is not Christianity.  It is universalism.  Either Obama doesn't know John 14:6, "Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me,"  or he doesn't believe it.  You can't be a Christian and not believe the Bible is the Word of God! 

By which she means, you can't be MY kind of Christian and not believe exactly what I believe. What of free will? Won't she be lonely in heaven if only people who believe precisely what she believes are going there?

Obama goes on to say he doesn't believe in hell, and he doesn't know what happens to him when he dies.  One cannot deny the central tenets of the Christian faith and be a Christian (Christ-follower).  Obama is a liar.

What of the possibility that the translation of the Bible which "real Christians" follow missed something? Or was misinterpreted by the prophet that God dictated it to? That means NO ONE CAN EVER BE SAVED. Isn't it likely that a loving God would accept the individual kind of relationship that each person is able to forge with Him, if any? If not, then He and Jesus probably don't get along that well.

I know my stance might keep me from LA jobs, since (almost) the whole town is liberal but, some time in a man's life, or a bleach blonde 49 year old woman's life, one must stand for what they believe in, and put truth before popularity. 

If by "truth" she means "opinion."

I pray that our country will have a revival, and that God will forgive us for our rejection of Him.  He blessed our country because we worshipped Him.  But, now our public places have kicked him out, and subsequently, (or coincidentally?), our nation is being attacked by our enemies.

At what point was our country blessed in full? Did no one believe in God during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars? Further, did the entire world get punished during the World Wars? And what would have made God turn on the Jews so thoroughly and send Hitler into the world?

So let's say there's an undiscovered tribe out in a rainforest that people haven't managed to destroy yet. They've never met a missionary or seen a Bible, or heard of God in the way that you know. Are they summarily punished and sent to hell? Do you believe that God put them on earth, yet they won't be saved for never having believed as you believe? Because it's what you seem to be implying.

(By the way, the Bible says, "Love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You." and the Koran says, "Kill the Infidel." (that means non-Muslims).  I don't think people know that.)

When did the Koran come into this? Are you about to call Obama a Muslim? Also, there are lots of things in the Bible that call for stoning. Many people are smote (smited?) for the actions of a select few. Also, that one quote is not the entirety of the Koran.

I was reading the other day in Leviticus 26:3-13, and Leviticus 26:14-25 and on, where God was warning the Israelites to obey him.  In Lev. 26:14-16 it even says, "...if you despise my statutes...I will even appoint terror over you."  I couldn't help but see a parallel to our country which was founded on the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. 

Ah, Leviticus... the book that tells us of the evils of homosexuals, tattoos, rabbits, and pork. And a country founded on the God who makes sure you like him enough that you'd be willing to kill your son, should he request such, and then there's Jacob with the multiple wives and concubines.

Just today I heard a quote from Obama where he was mocking the Old Testament (The 10 Commandments)and the Sermon on the Mount.  I wouldn't want to be Obama on Judgement Day, but I especially don't want him to be the leader of my country. 

Care to share that quote? Because without it, you could just as easily have taken a totally innocuous comment out of context again, or just made it up. Also, if he said it when he was twelve, it's probably not relevant.

"We must in all seriousness ask if Barack Hussein Obama could be a Muslim terrorist sympathizer or a Marxist mole.  His closest friends include Communists, domestic and Muslim terrorists, racists and convicted felons.  In his book Audacity of Hope, Barack Hussein Obama says, "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

This again? How do people not understand that one's name does not define them? I have a last name that is commonly Korean, but I'm pale and blond. Do you still want to accuse me of being good at math? Because I'm not. His closest friends (say you) also do not define him. You used to spend a lot of time on the SNL set with Chris Farley and Adam Sandler, but that doesn't mean you're fat, on drugs and a total tool whose movies all suck. I don't know of any movies you've been in, but knowing Adam Sandler doesn't mean you're incapable of making a tolerable film.

Also, without context, I'm going to automatically dismiss that quote. "I will stand with" could just as easily be a way of saying "I will not expell them from the country and bomb the crap out of their homeland." And what's a Marxist mole? Are there rogue groups of Marxists trying to get info from the ultimate insider, the President.

"It is ironic and ominous that just 7 years after Islamic fundamentalist terrorists blew up the World Trade Center, that America may be about to elect a President with three Islamic names - Barack Hussein Obama - who has an Islamic education (in Indonesia), and strong Islamic ties and leanings."

GAAAH.

Come On America!  Wake Up!  How stupid can you people be?!

Oh. Well, now that you've called me stupid, I don't feel bad about calling you an ignorant idiot.

One of the leading Islamic Extremist organizations, Hamas, endorsed Obama!  HELLO!

HELLO! Did you know that groups can endorse whoever they want? Without regard to the candidate's preference about same? If the Conservative Lesbians of America (apologies if there actually is such a group) endorsed McCain, would you think that he was in league with lesbians?

HOPE Americans start researching the candidates before they vote, and that they
CHANGE from ignorance and/or apathy to a passion for the Truth!

Yeah. I HOPE that happens to, but in the opposite way that you mean it. Because there's nothing we need more than CHANGE.

Scary Movies: A Halloween Hitlist

You know how I love disecting countdown lists and making fun of them... Here's another... Entertainment Weekly's Scariest Movies.I love scary movies to the point that I watch them frequently, but normally in marathons on Halloween and Valentine's Day (which I would rather refer to as Black Saturday thanks to traumas in the past which are made better by watching the entire Saw series and substituting a variety of faces from my past onto the characters suffering the most painful, degrading deaths. I've never been to a psychiatrist, but I'm sure Google searches for "appropriate ways to deal with the dissolution of a relationship" would back me up as far as this being healthy).

Ahem.

 

The Shining. It's odd that even with an attention span that rivals that of a goldfish (and unrelatedly, the upper body strength of a sickly hamster) my attention has never been undivided when watching this movie. Love of Jack Nicholson notwithstanding, I've never actually been frightened by the Shining. Which I suppose is okay, since Stephen King didn't like it either. Maybe I'll catch it one of the six dozen times it will be run in the next few days and try.

The Exorcist. Says EW: "The Exorcist is so disturbing it will mess you up for months." Really? Because I rented this and just thought it was stupid. Perhaps I was too ready for it to be as terrifying as everyone had led me to believe, but I found it more laughable than anything else. Maybe the constant "Linda Blair/pea soup" references spoiled me, or maybe I think possession is a hard-to-buy concept, but this was was just tedious to me.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Having only seen parts of this, I don't really have an opinion, but anything based on Ed Gein? A winner.

Silence of the Lambs. Excellent, if sadly over-referenced in pop culture. You may already know how much I love the "it rubs the lotion on its skin" line. Also, I'm weird and I enjoyed Red Dragon more. It's to do with Ralph Fiennes.

 

Jaws. Yawn. I'm scared of sharks and all, but not this movie. I learned from EW's synopsis that the "malfunctioning animatronic shark" was named after Steven Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce. Lawyer. Shark. Good one, Steve. That does give a whole new level of funny to Bruce the shark in Finding Nemo.

The Ring. Hey creepy. I remember sitting in the theater and having to avert my eyes when Naomi Watts yacked up that braid in order to not throw up (I have a gag reflex problem) and kind of being excited for a moment when the horse went overboard (I hate horses), said excitement quickly being replaced with ick when it was then chopped into horse-pieces (I don't hate horses quite THAT much... the drowning would have been sufficient). The premise of the video that kills you also had slight shades of the film in Infinite Jest, so that was cool too. I own this and the sequel on DVD, and though I've watched both several times, I can never remember what goes on in The Ring 2. At all. Seriously, I have no idea. I know it doesn't kill you in seven days.

Halloween. Liked it. Nothing else of note to say on this one.

Psycho. Obviously, love it. Anthony Perkins is genius, Hitchcock is masterful, the ending is absolutely awesome.

Seven. Loved this one as well. It might seem a little hokey now, but it was before all the many CSI shows made crime scenes like these commonplace. This and The Bone Collector are responsible for my love of forensic shows. I'm also a sucker for carrying a theme (in this case, the seven deadly sins) out to the end, and that it's not a happy ending. Not EVERYTHING has to end happy, Hollywood.

Rosemary's Baby. Haven't seen this one, but I love Roman Polanski films. It's in my Netflix queue.

Poltergeist. Carol Anne, Carol Anne, go into the light... Yeah. We've covered how I feel about that part. Isn't there a screaming skull or something at one point? If so, that's the point where I laughed out loud. The curse? A little creepy, but if one of my other favorites makes this list, there's a rival to which curse is creepier.

28 Days Later. One of my all time favorites. I'm not a huge zombie movie fan (except Shaun of the Dead, but that's different), but this one has infected humans who are fast... Eek. Also, Cillian Murphy. I find him easy to look at. I have a feeling that The Happening by M. Night Shyamalan was trying to go for this kind of stark feeling, failed, and quickly turned into one of the worst movies ever made by a normally good director.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. I hate hate hate hate hate this movie. It is truly one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I always wanted to see it when I was a kid, and my mom wouldn't let me. I saw it a couple of years ago, and my god. I guess it would have scared me as a child, but oh. It's just awful.

The Thing. I haven't seen this, but all I needed to convince me to Netflix it is this: "no moment in the movie is more unsettling than watching cuddly Quaker Oatmeal pitchman Wilford Brimley go insane." I'm in.

The Evil Dead. Another one I haven't seen, but aspire to. All I know about it is that it was the movie Donnie Darko and Gretchen were watching when Frank the bunny showed up in the movie theater. There should be an entire movie about how terrifying Frank the bunny is. Yeesh.

Carrie. I watched this on my prom night after the prom and wished my prom had been so much fun. Worth seeing just for the "dirty pillows" part. Also, "They're all gonna laugh at you!"

Night of the Living Dead. Inspired a thousand more zombie movies like it, and for that, I am indifferent to it for the most part.

The Omen (1976). As far as non-torture porn movies that I love (and I realize that the Saw movies suck, but I fell in love with the concept and there's no accounting for love/taste) The Omen is my favorite. I adore Gregory Peck, for one thing. For another, I probably watched the decapitation scene ten times in a row and it didn't get less revolting, especially given the lack of realism in effects at the time. Speaking of, here's the IMDB account of the curse that followed this movie:

Having changed its title from "The Antichrist" to "The Birthmark," the film seemed to fall victim to a sinister curse. Star Gregory Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer took separate planes to the UK... yet BOTH planes were struck by lightning. While producer Harvey Bernhard was in Rome, lightning just missed him. Rottweilers hired for the film attacked their trainers. A hotel at which director Richard Donner was staying got bombed by the IRA; he was also struck by a car. After Peck canceled another flight, to Israel, the plane he would have chartered crashed... killing all on board. On day one of the shoot, several principal members of the crew survived a head-on car crash. The jinx appeared to persist well into post-production... when special effects artist John Richardson was injured and his girlfriend beheaded in an accident on the set of A Bridge Too Far (1977).

... Spooky. How often to people get beheaded? Also spooky?

Photo by Dave Roth.

If that's not a little girl version of Damien, I don't know. Somebody get that kid for a sequel!

An American Werewolf in London. All I've ever seen is the transformation scene, but that's probably enough.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Haven't seen it, so I'm not sure what makes this scarier than other horror movies.

As far as what I would think was left off, I'd say Hostel, since it's still the only movie that's ever made me physically ill. I mean really, the eye? Was that even necessary? Seriously, I've never seen anything more disturbing.

So there we go. What's your favorite horror movie of all time?

May I present to you the most profound moment of the entire Twilight Zone series?

I mean, Rod Serling was really ahead of his time, wasn't he? How was he to know just what a looker people would consider John Mayer?

Psychosis and snorting cocaine off the dog.

Today in ridiculous news (and yesterday too, since I couldn't drag up the will to post anything), I'd like to play a very short game of "Who said it, and why?"

Ridiculous quote #1: I went in like a cropduster with my nose flying first and snorted the cocaine off the dog.

Ridiculous quote #2: The whole thing makes me feel badly. Poor man. There is such a sickness there. It's so patently obvious that there is a psychosis there. I don't know what his original thing about me was. I have no idea.

Let's try and think of a way to make them make sense. For the first one, if I didn't already know the answer... I can't think of anything. There's no scenario other than the actual context in which that could possibly be normal.

As for the second, the speaker could be talking about just about anyone famous. The weird Baldwin? John McCain? Andy Dick? It's not such a stretch. Forgive me for the lame examples, but a greater part of my brain is currently being used to process the fact that I learned that a midget apparently works in the deep recesses of our building and only comes out during fire drills. I was unprepared. I'm trying to organize all my stray brain cells in order to figure out how its desk might be set up. For real, I'm a little shaken. I just poured the hot water for my tea and didn't notice that there was no teabag in the cup. "Carol Ann! Carol Ann! Go into the light!" That's where my head is at the moment.

So anyway. Ridiculous quote #1 was uttered by Gary Busey. Gary Busey snorted coke off his dog. Suddenly it doesn't seem all that ridiculous anymore, right? It's not like anyone is going to look askance at you if you say "Guess what? Gary Busey snorted coke off his dog!" More than likely, their response will just be "And?"

Ridiculous quote #2 was said by William Shatner. Again, not surprising. Surprising? That he's talking about George Takei. Why on earth would Shatner be accusing Sulu* of psychosis? Because he didn't get invited to George Takei's wedding. Or so he says. Takei and his partner say that Shatner never RSVP'd. To go so far as to say that someone has a "sickness" and is a psychopath because they (allegedly, in Shatner's head) don't like you? Just how unselfaware is William Shatner? He's almost intolerable in the best of circumstances.

*I am not a Star Trek fan. I will admit to liking the Tribbles episode, but on the whole, I hate Star Trek. The exception? George Takei. I love him. I don't know why. Perhaps because it's nearly impossible to find a picture of him not grinning and flashing the Live Long and Prosper.

        

Or that he was on the only episode of Secret Talents of the Stars and sang a country song.

Did you know that it's also nearly impossible to find a picture of William Shatner where he doesn't look like a douche? It's true.

   

Also, I was unaware that his third wife drowned and he was unwilling to jump into the pool because it might ruin his new toupee. Allegedly. And I am unbelieving that he found four women willing to marry him.

 

Essential Inspiration for the Runner

If only I had seen this prior to my race this weekend, I might have had a more impressive PR:

I mean, I'm happy with my somewhat improved PR, but if I'd known that I had this video at home to get back to, I probably would have bettered it by a good three minutes.

Seriously... what the hell is this? And why is Carl Lewis wearing such horrid shorts? And such dramatic eye makeup? And why doesn't he ever blink? I'll bet he saw that lady naked.

Running... and not politically.

To avoid a fifth mockey of US politics post in a row, here's some blather about running...

I'm running a 5k race this Saturday. One that I've actually trained for. I have a game plan this time:

1. To actually eat well for the days leading up to the race. I have a problem with this. I resent that I have to eat so many times a day, every single day. I do not enjoy most food, and the food that I do enjoy is just horrible for running/me/humankind in general. Of course, the switch to viable, energy producing food may send my body into what-the-hell mode and I'll be even worse off than I was before. But maybe not.

2. To run conservatively. I always start off too fast and burn out before mile one. Oh, who am I kidding. Half mile one. I've gotten to the point that I can run about 25 minutes or so at an 11:30-13:00 minute pace. If I can hold back well enough to get close to that, I'll be happy. Facing reality, I am still unable to run the entire 3 miles without a walking break or two, so I don't expect that to change dramatically. But I do know that on several recent runs, I've been able to consistently run two miles without a walk break, so if I can get close to that, it'll still be better than I've done in past races. And! I've been told that I run inefficiently in that my heels never touch the ground, which is like putting on brakes or something.

3. To not try and do anything about that. I tried to fix my form yesterday and found out that it takes even more energy to try to fix how you run than it does to run badly. What a no win situation that is.

4. To not try for a certain time, because it only disappoints me. I'm too competitive for someone who has only been running consistently for five months. That said, I will explode with joy if I make it in under 30 minutes. Otherwise, I will be happy to have finished upright.

5. To run in memory of my grandmother. This 5k is to benefit a local breast cancer research fund started by Liz Hurley, a ten year survivor and local newscaster. This year is the 20th anniversary of my grandmother dying from the disease.  

Now, however. I believe a beer is calling out forlornly for my attention.