The Amazing Boring Man

There is a comic strip in the newspaper that is called The Amazing Spiderman, which is astonishing. But if they called it The Incredibly Boring Emo Whiner, which is much closer to the truth of the case, I suppose it wouldn’t sell as well.

Maybe I’ll change my name to Spiderman. What do you think? Am I good enough at whining, yet, or do I still need more practice?

It all piles together

Today, praise the Lord, my father and his wife are out of town for the weekend. I’ve walked two miles for cigarettes and hard alcohol in celebration. And, lo, these are not acceptable flat, desert miles, in the comfortable 110F sun with minimal humidity. These are up and down hills, in humidity approaching 90%.

Rambling man

Saw my favorite green-eyed boy today. Of course, he’s actually the only green-eyed boy I’ve ever seen. Startling eyes. It’s not the weird green from tinted contacts, it’s a kind of sea-green that makes me think of romping half-naked on beaches. Well, that amongst the more printable notions.

Philip Jose Farmer has died. Probably, you’ve never heard of him. He was a bad hack science fiction writer, some decades back, who actually managed to win a writing award, for reasons that may never become clear. It’s not customary to speak ill of the dead but, honestly, what does he care? He’s dead. And he was a terrible writer, and slavishly derivative. Boot to the head!

I’ve been experimenting with Fritos a bit, lately. Corn chips with a long list of additives and, allegedly, different flavors. Well, the flavors do differ a bit, although you’d be hard-pressed to discover why by reading the ingredients list. Chili/cheese flavor? Well, there’s plenty of cheese in all Fritos, but there isn’t any mention of chili in the ingredients. Spicy hot? Odd, there are no spices in the ingredients list, although these will rasp the back of your throat. Basically, you’re looking at salt and MSG on a corn and oil base, with any of these chips, plus some mystery ingredients labeled as “natural flavoring”.

Slip-sliding away

Was just watching an episode of Sliders because, as you always find with TV… no matter how many channels you have, even if you have a massive library such as hulu available… well, pretty much all of it is awful, and you find yourself in the dregs soon enough.

Sliders actually opens with a rather promising and charming pilot episode. Parallel universes, brave new worlds. It all slides downhill so quickly it’s just not remotely funny, though. It jumps immediately into really bad politics based on toy histories that aren’t remotely plausible.

…which is the kind of thing you can still find yourself watching, in this fantastical future of 2008, in the lean holiday period when it seems that most of the Internet is simply vacant. Let’s get on with 2009, already.

Bibble-babble about Shows

What’s we got? We got… hulu.com. It’s like TV, only better, but worse. Unlike a modern TV, it can’t be recorded, and you can’t skip the commercials. There’s a large library of shows, from the traditional “OMG I can’t believe anyone was paid to record this” (Adam-12) to the “OMG I can’t believe those morons took the best work in the universe off the air” (Firefly).

So. What’s new and exciting? Or not so new and not exciting?

I have a dream

It’s not a dream where all white people and all black people can walk down the streets together, hand in hand. No, I think you can find that already, anyway, especially in San Francisco.

No, my dream is about mad scientists with psychic powers, televisions that can teleport tiny hamsters, and a pair of brothers that I don’t have. If this dream has a meaning, it eludes me. Different, though, isn’t it?

The mad scientist is one of the brothers I don’t have, and those are his hamsters, and his huge television. The hamsters get teleported into a tiny box full of white dust, except you don’t find anything in the box but white-dusted clumps of hamster shit.

Make of it what you will. I’m baffled.

Temporary vacancy of the mind

Sorry I haven’t been providing the accustomed entertainment, bemusement, outrage, or neat ideas, this week. Haven’t felt like saying anything. These things happen. I’ll be back.

Independence Day!

The day when Americans, everywhere, celebrate the time when the aliens came down and destroyed the White House, July 4th is…

What? No, I saw it on TV. Really? You don’t say. I see. Right. Right.

Today is the day that Americans celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, because it was signed on August 2nd. We normally have a nice picnic, during the day, or get together with family. Might go to hear some bands play at the local park.

At night, it’s time to celebrate our independence with fireworks, unless we happen to live in one of the many jurisdictions where this is no longer allowed; in which case, we go to the park and enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness vicariously, through the agents of our government who set off fireworks in our stead. That’s called “representative government”, you see.

At any rate, you probably have the day off, so grab a beer and a chicken wing. Enjoy!

Humor break

Have I posted this before? Or have I shown unaccustomed restraint? No matter. 20-second clip. Put down your coffee before watching.

…oh damn. It’s been pulled. “Rosebud frozen peas. Full of country goodness and green pea-ness.” Well, do a youtube search, you know it’ll be back under other titles.

The posts what hit me

Mercy. Do you know what posts I get the most hits for? The ones that were least worth posting, in my apparently foolish opinion. Thank goodness this is not a commercial blog but, I am gaining more understanding than I want of why popular culture is what it is. It isn’t forced on them. People… like… it.