Nanny 911

I watched my first episode of FOX's Nanny 911 a few nights ago. Here is a condensed transcript.

Scene: Dining room.

A middle-aged woman with unruly hair gently scoops out a spoonful of applesauce, steadies it in midair, and then pours it on top of her baby's head. The baby desperately tries to wiggle the applesauce streaming down her cheeks into her mouth. A matronly British nanny is nearby, shaking her head.

BABY: "WAHHH!"

The woman, on the verge of tears, slams the jar on the table.

MOTHER: "I don't understand. Why won't my baby eat?"

CUT TO: Dylan, the 4-year-old, is in the living room with his father. He is screaming and kicking on the floor because his dad, the brutish oaf that he is, asked him to stop smearing his feces on the wall. The nanny rolls her eyes. The mother runs into the room, lifts Dylan up and cradles him in her arms.

MOTHER: "It's okay, sweetie. Mommy is here. What happened?"

FATHER: "I kind of asked him to stop installing our walls with poop plus."

Dylan wails and tightens his grips on his mother.

MOTHER: "Daddy's sorry, honey. You can stop crying now. Mommy loves you very much."

The nanny, relying on her reflexes honed from decades of parenting, rolls her eyes again.

FATHER: "Do you think, I don't know, I mean, I don't want to intrude on your territory, but maybe we should be firm with him this time?"

She stares at her husband like he just suggested they let Dylan go on a weekend road trip with the Croc Hunter and Michael Jackson.

MOTHER: "I'm all for disciplining our children, but not if it makes them unhappy."

Out of habit, the nanny's eyes roll again. Unfortunately, they were already rolled up and are now stuck. Little Dylan, sensing something is wrong, throws a truck at the back of her head.

COMMERCIAL BREAK. Number of condom commercials: 4.

Scene: The nanny is having a heart-to-heart talk with the parents.

MOTHER: "We're not bad parents. We're just clueless."

NANNY: [under her breath] "Actually, you're bad parents."

FATHER: "What was that?"

NANNY: "Nothing. Here is the problem. Susan, you are an emotion-phobe who thinks any expression of negative emotion should be avoided. By coddling them every time they cry, you are rewarding their tantrums and undermining your husband's efforts to discipline them. Brad, you're a good father is decent instincts. But you're also a giant pussy. And both of you are letting your children sleep in your beds so you can avoid dealing with your lackluster sex life and utter lack of passion in your marriage."

Brad and Susan are stunned speechless. Dylan breaks the tension by throwing a truck.

COMMERCIAL BREAK: A post office employee points out the new services UPS is offering, including new wide-mouth mail boxes that are now large enough, the voiceover points out, to stuff a small child through them.

Scene: Montage of the next seven days. The nanny follows the parents around, shouting helpful advice like "Poop doesn't go there" and "Applesauce in the mouth." Miraculously, after only seven days, the couple's parenting skills improve greatly and the kids' rambunctious behavior is almost completely wiped out. This is because on the night of Day 6 the nanny gives up and swaps the parents and two children with look-alikes from another, superior family.

NANNY: "Well, my job is done. The Smiths has dealt with their problems, their kids are better behaved, and they are now truly a happy family. Until next week."

The family, everyone smiling, waves goodbye.

REAL MOM [from closet]: "Let us out!"

NANNY: "After the commercial break."

Perhaps the WP could have used a better headline...

...about people's responses to the tsunami than this one:

Internet Sparks Flood of Donations

But let us be thankful that CNN is on the job to tell us the truly horrible part of this disaster.

The week after 9/11...

...lines for donating blood snaked out doors and down streets. Some people had to wait hours or were asked to come back another day.

People donated so much blood, in fact, that the Red Cross had to throw some of it away because the organization couldn't store it all.

What I learned from this is that good intentions isn't always enough. I give money to causes very rarely, but when I do I spend some time and thought beforehand so I can give as wisely as possible.

I mention all of this for two reasons.

One, I know many of you have either donated money to organizations helping the tsunami victims or would like to. There are many good organizations to give money to, but for what it's worth, I ended up going with the Red Cross after looking at a half dozen similar organizations. Primarily because the Red Cross president went on record to say that donations to the International Relief Fund would be used for the tsunami victims, along with a few smaller reasons I had. If you have a better suggestion, please post it in the comments. You can reach the Red Cross donation page here. (Update: Andrew recommends Doctors Without Borders. I've heard good things about them, and they are already mobilized in Banda Aceh.)

Two, and perhaps a more important point, it may be better to wait a few weeks before donating anything. By then, it will become more clear which organizations are best equipped to handle this disaster and you may be able to make your donation more effective.

My main motivation for donating now is so I could avoid feeling like a fraud while writing this post. Kind of like my roommate who will enter the kitchen, say something like "Wow, this floor is really dirty!" and then proceed to blissfully walk past the broom and lie on the couch by the TV, as if he just cast a magic spell that will animate his week-old baguette into a little boy that will sweep the entire kitchen floor and then throw himself into the trash can.

But I digress. And here's another digression. I have been thinking a lot recently about the gradients of good deeds, such as a poor person giving a food bank $5 versus a millionaire giving $50, or a person telling the truth who would feel guilty if he didn't versus a person telling the same truth who finds it very difficult. Are these actions equally moral, or are some better than others? What matters, the objective (e.g. the principle of telling the truth), the personal (the difficulty for you or I to tell the truth), or both?

To tie this into the original topic, most people find it easier to donate time or money immediately after a disaster rather than a month later, even though the need is usually at least as great at both times. For this type of person, is donating the money a month later "more good" than a few days after, when it is easier to act?

Firefox Go Vroom Vroom

How to make Firefox a lot faster in less than three minutes [via] ([via] also from [via]).

It makes a huge difference with certain web pages. Like this one.

(Note: This will be the first and last time I ever link to freerepublic.com.)

So...

How many brown people have to die before it leads the local nightly news?

I know it's no "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?", but it's important to me nonetheless.

The night the tsunami shattered coastal regions in Asia, the local news in D.C. did a story at 11:05. The estimated dead were at least 10,000. The top story: Some travelers were stranded at airports because, and this is really bizarre, lots of people travel around Christmas and snow continues to fall towards the ground, in spite of the fact that people are traveling for the Christmas holiday that very day.

Snow is a jerk. But will snow be a jerk in Washington D.C.? To Ronnie in the Weather Tower, a man who not only catalogued the daily weather stats but also pulled off the amazing stunt of commending viewers for bravely soldering on during the horribly frigid weather while almost-simultaneously expressing regret for the lack of snow this Christmas, a substance that, to the best of my knowledge, requires cold to form.

Then came the brown people. And, I kid you not, after describing the disaster and giving the death count, they, through an act of TV news wizardy that will put to shame any critic who ever said the news never sticks with a story, somehow, found a few stranded travelers in Sri Lanka and started talking about them.

The next night, same station, the disaster lead the newscast. At that point, the death toll had risen to at least 28,000. While that doesn't answer the original question, it provides a valuable clue.

Based on these two nights, the number of brown people that have to die to lead the local nightly news is between 10,000 and 28,000. Of course, this is assuming there isn't an obviously bigger story, like the President being assassinated or a Twinkie factory shutting down.

Personally, my gut feeling tells me the magic numbers are 18,000 brown people, 10,000 white people, and 3 Americans. Unless the Americans are in another country, where in that case it would take at least 5 killed by violent death, 12 by natural disaster, with an exception if there's a movie about the disaster coming out next week, like "Death Not Fun(nel)" or "I-cy Danger, I See France," and the media conglomerate that owns the local television station also owns the movie studio making the movie. Then the number is anyone's guess.

I'm Back

Here is my perfunctory "I'm back" post.

And this is the required end to not only this post, but all posts in general, at least until someone attempts to share with his or her friends all the digits of Pi.

A Few Things

1. I'm going home to spend time with my family for the next week. Probably won't post much.

2. I was flipping through the channels before going to bed, when I saw ALF. Hosting a talk show. A new talk show.

3. Re: #2--WHAT THE F---?

3b: The sidekick? Ed McMahon.

Social Security Reform

For my generation, Social Security is the catch-all of cynicism. It's our symbol of older people screwing us over, how adults are just as irresponsible as kids, and how our grandparents' whining about how hard they had it as kids isn't going to come close to the suffering we will endure when we are retired.

Or, more accurately, if we retire, right? Because that's how screwed up the Social Security is supposed to be. Common knowledge. This memory may be fabricated, but I think once a friend of mine questioned our belief that Social Security wasn't going to be around in 40 years, and we all looked at him like he was the stupidest, most naive person in the entire world.

"Of course Social Security isn't going to be around. The baby boomers are going to take all the money. It's either going to collapse or we're going to have to work 80 hours a week paying for our parents."

It wasn't until President Bush started claiming Social Security is in dire danger and saying the only way to fix it was to change the system from "pay for the future generation" to "put the money in the stock market for yourself" that I began doubting the conventional wisdom about the health of Social Security. It's kind of like the tricky friend who always disagrees with you and then, when he finally agrees with you on one issue, you realize he was twirling his handlebar mustache at the time and it instinctively raises your suspicions.

So this is the point where I post a few links showing that Social Security is essentially solvent and not in crisis, right? Not quite. While it's my opinion, it's a opinion based on the reasoning on others and not my own. I don't feel comfortable propagating an opinion I'm currently leaning towards solely based on heresy (albeit from people I respect). Fuck that shit. Visit the link, bitches!

Rather, I ask you to just to keep an open mind that the idea of a Social Security crisis that many of us have had drummed into our heads over the past years may be untrue. Social Security, as it exists now, may not even be a serious problem that requires anything beyond a few simple adjustments.

In other words, if at a later date I argue there is nothing wrong with Social Security, please hold off for a few minutes from looking at me like I'm a complete dumb-ass.

Postscript (12/19): After re-reading my post, it has a huge inconsistency, namely the last two paragraphs where I write Social Security "may not even be a serious problem that requires anything beyond a few simple adjustments" and, the next sentence later, when I write "if at a later date I argue there is nothing wrong with Social Security..."

Oops.

The former is my current position. Social Security needs to be adjusted, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't need huge changes and isn't in crisis. But that's markedly different from suggesting there is nothing wrong with the system, an argument that would make me, well, a complete dumb-ass.

Andrew, my guess is that you were mostly responding to this part of my argument, the idea that Social Security is fine the way it is. I wrote my response to you in the comments before I realized this.

In short, this whole post is another shining example why I should stay out of the serious stuff and stick to the monkey jokes.

About that hatred towards Muslims we had after 9/11...

It's still there! 44 percent of Americans favor curtailing some liberties for Muslim Americans! 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government! 71 percent of Americans can add 44 and 27!

After reading this study, coming out over three years after 9/11, let me be the first one to say this: whew. One of my problems with America is that we never stick with our ethnic groups. We had a great run with the blacks, but after them, nothing.

Remember that brief period in the 80s when we were throwing cinder blocks through the windshields of Toyotas and bashing the doors of Hyundais with baseball bats? Two months later, the streets of Detroit had a few leftover shards of glass, a Japanese cabinet member had to dry clean his suit, and we're all playing Nintendo.

McCarthyism was an eight-year joke. And we've barely got three decades out of the gays before they got Will and Grace.

"But what about the interment camps in WWII?" What about them? We went through all that trouble rounding up Japanese-American citizens, transporting them to remote areas, putting them into barbed-wire camps. Then the war ends and we let them out!

No commitment whatsoever. That's why I'm encouraged by this trend of consistent, irrational hatred towards Muslims. It provides a solid base to build on and bodes well for the future. And I hate to be premature, but Muslims have several innate characteristics that may make them the 21st century's hottest oppressed minority:

1) Dark skin.
2) Religious, but the wrong one.
3) Several decades of prep work as terrorists in movies.
4) Yet to appear in Gap ad.
5) Women sexy enough to protect? Who knows?
6) Popularity in other countries makes it easier to tell them "Go back home!" (as opposed to Native Americans).

And all of this is without a terrorist attack since 9/11. One attack a decade, a few more right-wing broadcasters, and we could be looking back to the good ol' days where gays got beat up for who they are, not what they say they are. Where the Confederate flag flew proudly in all the Southern states and not just most of them. And where segregation stayed in the place where it belonged: federal and state Constitutions (thanks for keeping it real, Alabama!)

Neat Vanity License Plate

INTJ (I saw it while dog walking today).

Post-Election Bumper Stickers I'd Like To See

"Don't blame me. I voted for giving all our money to carnies."

"Don't blame me. I'm an adorable wittle baby." [photo of baby]

"Rigged the election and on the run."

LeGuin Responds To Earthsea Miniseries

This will probably only interest 1 out of 20 of you, which, considering the number of people that visit my site, comes out to a right arm and part of a torso.

The SciFi Channel recently ran a 4-hour miniseries based on Ursula K. LeGuin's EarthSea books, a well-liked fantasy series that I suspect holds particular appeal to teens because of its realistic portrayal of adolescence.

Based on other adaptations of books to the screen, what do you think is her reaction to the TV series?
1) Pleased with the result and appreciates all the time and effort the writers and producers made to stay true to the spirits of the books.
2) Mad that they fucked everything up.

With the exceptions of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, two books with vastly greater fan bases, has it ever been #1? Ever? In fact, isn't fucking things up the job of writers and producers who translate novels to the screen?

It's why that while I respect LeGuin's opinion, my heart remains a snug three sizes too small. No one held a magic staff to her head and threatened to turn her into a balderbeast if she didn't sell the TV rights to her books and relinquish all creative control in the contract. And based on the sample size of every single novel adapation in history, how could she expect anything different to have happened?

On another note, if you are looking for a good read, check out her novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. Excellent sci-fi book, even if you're not a huge fan of the genre.

Stop Me If You Heard This One Before

I went to a stand-up comedy show a few days ago and one of the opening comedians did a joke I've already heard from at least one other comedian. But right as he said it, I got hit by a form of cognitive dissonance and forgot who stole it from whom. I think he stole it…or maybe it was the hack at the Chuckle Hut last week…or that other dude last month at the Fun Factory.

If I had to pick him about of a police lineup, I fear I would let society down.

OFFICER: "Sir, can you pick out the comedian who stole the joke?"
ME: "Um…#2?"
OFFICER: "The guy in the yellow jump suit and floppy red shoes?"
ME: "Yes…no, wait. It's not him. He sells fries. #4? Maybe if I heard him?"
OFFICER: "#4, please step forward."
#4: "What the deal with sleep medications? I'm taking this new one, Sleepitor. There's a list of side effects on the bottle. You know what's the first side effect listed on it is? Drowsiness!"
OFFICER: "Thank you, that's enough."
#4: "I mean, what's next? A warning on heroin? 'May cause irritability'."
OFFICER: "I said, that's enough."
#4: "Speaking of irritability, let me tell you about my girlfriend. Boy oh boy. Here's the difference between men and women."
OFFICER: [pulls out gun] "I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!" BAM BAM BAM [comic collapses and crumbles in a ball] "…Oh, no. What have I done?"
ME: "Justice, my friend. Justice."

But maybe I'm being too judgmental. I'm not a stand-up comic. Is joke stealing even a crime? Perhaps standup has a service similar to the Associated Press, a common pool of jokes any comedian can use when he or she is short on funny material or doesn't have the time to fly to Florida and write his or her own jokes about old people getting flu shots.

Or maybe, similar to the Illuminati, there are only 12 funny joke writers in the world, and they supply materials for all of the comedians. To maximize their efforts, they'll send the same jokes to different regions of the country and require comedians to take a blood oath promising to work local. But the oath is occasionally broken and the comedian travels, revealing the flaws in the system before he can be silenced and sent back to waiting tables (hence the high turnover rate in both industries).

Great Headlines in Newspaper History

Terrorists May Use Lasers, U.S. Says

Hey, guys? The election is over. YOU CAN STOP USING FEAR TO PUNCH RATIONAL THOUGHT IN THE STOMACH ANY DAY NOW.

The article is about how there have been "two or three cases" (hey, who's counting?) of a laser beam shining in the cockpits of planes as the pilots are landing.

There is only one solution to this new terrorist menace. A 67 million dollar program to cover every cockpit window with a solid black "laser protection" shield, preferably installed by Haliburton, although in dangerous times like these, any Republican donor will do.

(Side note: Blogger's spell check suggestion for "Haliburton" is "half-hearted.")

Canada's Supreme Court Declares Same-Sex Marriages Constitutional

For a month, just a month, we need to kidnap 20 million U.S. religious nuts, swap them with 20 million Canadians, and pass a telephone book worth of good laws. "Hey, fundies! Welcome home. Oh, by the way, while you were gone, we legalized gay marriage, laminated the Constitution so you can't change it back, installed a laser system in government buildings that will destroy any version of the Ten Commandments within 50 feet, got Barbara Bush to spank George at his inauguration, and renamed partial-birth abortions God, at least until you make an exception for protecting the health of the mother. So if God is telling you to ban God, well, that Her business.

Yup. It's Her now. We're taking turns. But don't worry. We'll switch back in 1,000 years.

Adventures in Typography

Those of you in the design community may have heard of the multimedia artist and visual fusion DJ Evangelical Ro. He does interesting work, usually melding disparate areas such as music, graffiti, and computer animation to create presentations that gently expand our notion of what multimedia is, a notion that has shrunk severely in face of the marketplace definition of the word, such as interactive CD-ROMS and DVDs with computer-only content.

He recently posted a few of his new projects on his web page. How can you get a typographical tribute to Biggie Smalls?

Does God Exist? Part II

(continued from previous post)

My reasoning is that we can infer the possibility and nature of God's existence through observations of the world and how the universe works.

For instance, let's say that every time a truly destitute person plays and loses the lottery, a hot ham sandwich falls from the heavens, followed shortly thereafter by a beverage, cloth napkin, and utensils, pointy side up. This event is impossible to explain rationally, so we could only conclude that God exists and directly influences the world in small ways to mitigate people's suffering.

On the other hand, let's say every time a homeless person buys a lottery ticket, thick, dark clouds mask the sky and a big, booming laugh emanates from the walls. After many seconds, the laughter dies down and a deep voice bellows, "You think you're going to win the lottery? Oh, that's rich. Almost as rich as this hot bowl of tomato soup. Mmmm. Wish I could share some with you. Oh, wait. I can share some with you. I'm God. Ha ha ha ha ha ha."

Then, it would be obvious that, a, God exists, and b, he is a colossal jerk. As a corollary, religious fanatics working full-time to make life miserable for anyone who disagrees with them really would be doing God's work.

But these hypothetical situations have no place in reality. It is unreasonable to expect God to give direct proof of his existence. For one, if he does exist, he has better things to do.

Two, there has been no direct and credible evidence of God's existence, in spite of many people trying extremely hard to prove otherwise. Basing the verisimilitude of your entire belief system on a birthmark appearing on a goat's ass that kind of sort of looks like Jesus is just plain silly. What are these people trying to say, God exists, but he's a hillbilly?

GOD: "I'm so proud of you, son, I'm gonna be putting your image on a goat's be-hind."
JESUS: "I can't believe you’re my Dad."
GOD: "And I can't wait for your birthday. I gonna git you a present that's gonna be hee-lar-i-ous! You still like grilled cheese, right?"

Third, and most important, we can't expect God to actively reveal his presence is because God, by definition, is lazy.

What I mean is that laziness is a requirement of omnipotence. Can you imagine a Type A personality being God? Everything would have gotten done in the first five minutes of the Universe. God would have had to spend the next 20 billion years dusting.

No. If God does exist, the Bible got it right. He took off Sunday and slept in.

For the next two thousand years and counting.

God went on extended vacation and told his followers that he wouldn't be appearing in the sky for a while because, uh, look, just trust me. I'm here. If there is a heaven, it's filled with millions of souls, pressing divots into the cloud-shaped floor as they wander around aimlessly and wonder when the hell God is going to get back and refill the beer in the fridge.

With the necessity of a supernatural being to be shiftless and unmotivated in place, the task now becomes to examine the natural workings of our Universe and ask ourselves, "Did all this stuff happen at random, or did some dude, albeit a lazy dude, have something to do with it?"

It's a question that is impossible to answer definitely, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to yes.

1. Gravity. Here's the effect of gravity. You can dump a bunch of stars and planets in space, give them each a flick to get started, and never, ever has to worry about them again. Gravity is the pet goldfish of the omnipotent beings world.
   

2. Evolution. Same principle. Bucket of primordial ooze, lightning bolt. Check back every 500 million years. Perfect for the hands-off manager who likes to take naps under his desk.
   

3. Natural disasters. The problem with unguided evolution is that, while it requires a minimum of maintenance, it's kind of like a child raising himself in a Mega Mall. The ice-cream shop is next to the gun store, which is next to the book store, which is next to the magazine kiosk with all the porn, and so on. Yeah, you could watch over the kid to make sure he doesn't get too crazy, but if you wanted to do that you wouldn't have abandoned him in a Mega Mall in the first place.
   
   So the choice, throughout the history of the Universe, when faced with a potential fuck-up, has always been a long-term intervention program involving constant attention and nurturing guidance vs. Big Fucking Meteor. Check the fossil records. Guess which one always wins?
   
   Score another one for the OLB (Old Lazy Bastard).

I know none of this is conclusive, but it's good enough for me. I feel confident enough to believe that one, God exists, and two, he is really lazy, and his laziness explains a lot of why the Universe is the way it is.

Even if you don't agree with me, I suggest you at least hedge your bets. It's very simple to do. On your death bed, just make sure someone buries a six-pack with you.

Super Size Me

I just saw Super Size Me. Then, five minutes later, I read this news story. My, how things have changed.

Does God Exist? Part I.

While driving I often get lost in thought. The radio drifts in the background and my mind goes form mundane topics such as the necessity of procuring ketchup on my next trip to the grocery store to intellectual matters such as the origin of the words ketchup and catsup, and if class or the over-production of tomatoes played a role in the product coming into existence.

(After reading a few articles, the most interesting factoid I found is that ketchup was first introduced as a time-saving device. Supposedly, Heinz advertised the first commercial ketchup with the tagline: "Blessed relief for Mother and the other women in the household!")

Okay, I don't really spend most of my time thinking about weighty but irrelevant intellectual questions. I mostly think about food, sex, and the question, "Where is that smell coming from?"

But there are exceptions! Like yesterday, when I was trying to figure out whether God existed or not before the light turned green. My initial thoughts:

Evidence That God Exists

1. Whenever a sports announcer makes a sweeping statement complimenting a player or team's performance, such as "Hughes is on fire from the free throw line, six for six" or "Manning hasn't thrown an interception in the last 93 passes " the player will always, and immediately, without fail, screw up.
   
   
2. Jesus appears on grilled cheese sandwiches and dental X-Rays.
   
   
3. Some natural disasters point to the influence of a higher being. For example, take the giant meteor that contributed to the dinosaur's demise 65 million years ago. Somebody wanted a do over. How do you live on a planet for over 200 million years and not even develop Seinfeld?
   
   Jerry/Allosaurus: "You should go out with her."
   George/Stegosaurus: "I don't know. I like a girl with a few humps. Does she have a hump?"
   Jerry/Allosaurus: "Yes, she has a hump. Plenty of hump."
   George/Stegosaurus: "And what about a tail fin? I love tail fins. They're great for back rubs. They can always get that spot I can't reach with my own tail."
   Jerry/Allosaurus: "I'm sure she has a very lovely tail fin."
   
   Kramer/Tyrannosaurus rex comes running in and skids as he tries to stop.
   
   Kramer/Tyrannosaurus rex: "Jerry, you got the keys?"
   Jerry/Allosaurus: "Sure, Kramer. Catch." [tosses keys]
   Kramer/Tyrannosaurus rex: "Uh oh."

Evidence That God Does Not Exist

1. 11/1/04. The day before the election. Number of lightning bolts thrown at Bush: 0.
   
   
2. The dinosaurs. Hands-off is nice and all, but if God existed you would think the G-ster would have intervened sometime before Tyrannosaurus rex's hands shrunk to the point where he couldn't play tennis.
   
   
3. Life isn't fair. For many years I have accepted life's unfairness as an immutable fact. Railing against it made as much sense as complaining about the color of the sky or the number of toes on one's feet. (Everyone else has 11 too, right?)
   
   Then I realized how easy it would be for a truly omnipotent being to make life fair. Would it have killed God to hide a movie ticket every now and then in my thick tuffs of back hair? Or give people who top out at 4'11" magnetic hands so they can draw cans on the top shelftowards them? (Trivia: I'm not saying I know what inspired George Lucas to come up with The Force, but he is 4'9" with lifts).
   

It is this last line of thought that, on the drive home, I realized could answer the question of God's existence once and for all.

Part II coming on Tuesday.

Remember the "Badgers Badgers Badgers" Guy?

I don't know how long Magical Trevor has been around, but it gives one of his previous creations, Badgers Badgers Badgers, a run for the crown of Insipidly Mesmerizing Flash Animation. And it's catchier too. Link from one of my favorite sites to steal links, LYD.

I Didn't Know Acceptance Was Controversial

This is almost beyond words. NBC and CBS are refusing to air an ad because it makes the "controversial" statement that turning people away from a church because they are gay is wrong.

It's a good thing Janet Jackson's nipple wasn't gay, or the villagers would have burnt the network down.

You can watch the horrifying ad here, and read about the networks' justification for rejecting the ad here.

Planet Feedback, Part 1: The Movies

I just found a web site that will likely waste weeks of my time. It's Planet Feedback, a collection of complaints, compliments, and suggestions people have sent to almost any company you can think of.

It's a perfect mix of light voyuerism and comedy. Some of the letters are hilarious. Here's a collection of some of the best ones about movies: (links open in new windows; you can also hold shift while clicking to open a link in another browser window.)

"You have done our Country a great favor."

Fahrenheit 911--another opinion.

Make this man a movie mogul.

The funniest one of them all.

"Superman or Gooberman?" Comic Book Guy speaks.

Dubya: The Movie

We're out of power in the Presidency, both Houses for Congress, the right wing has their own major newspaper and television station, and roughly 15% more of Americans identify themselves as conservative compared to liberal*.

But at least we still own the comedy market. Dubya: The Movie (link from atrios).

* Not a new trend.

There Is No Greater Struggle Than The Fight For Cake

A few weeks ago in my Saturday morning stuttering therapy group, our therapist mentioned that we wouldn't be meeting for a few weeks. She said something about having to go to a few conferences, but I suspect she is seeing another group on the side. I catch her turning around to peek out the blinds around 11:30, and she is very insistent about us leaving at noon.

Once, group ran until 12:15 and she made us walk out the back door wearing our jackets over our heads. She said, "Pretend the paparazzi are trying to catch you stutter." While it was fun, I figured out the truth on the car ride home after my jacket slipped over my eyes and I almost ran into a telephone poll.

Someone proposed in the meantime we get together on a weeknight, November 30^th. My birthday. Five years ago, I would have never mentioned my birthday was the same day. When you're extremely self-conscious, the thought of dozens of pairs of eyes staring at you while they holler a ballad honoring the day of your birth is mortifying.

That was before I got my first full-time job and learned a valuable lesson. You find a way to mention your birthday is coming up, you get cake. You don't, no cake.

Furthermore, if you don't mention your birthday and next week a co-worker asks about your weekend, and you let it slip out that you went out with a few friends to celebrate your birthday, you will become a social pariah. Because not only did you deny yourself cake, but you denied the whole office cake as well, in addition to an hour or two off of work.

In short time that part of my self-consciousness quickly eroded to make room for an altruistic desire to use my birthday to further in my own small way the global consumption of cake products. So when my stuttering posse, after rejecting half a dozen dates to meet and finally arriving at a day that miraculously seemed to work with everyone else asked for my acquiescence, I decided to play hard ball.

"Hmm. I'm not sure I can make it then. The 30^th is my birthday."

"What's that? Celebrate my birthday too? But by what manner do you propose...oh. Cake. Well, let me ponder upon your proposal for a moment. Hmm. While you do have my deepest gratitude for your offer of eating plain cake on my birthday, I fear I must...yes? Hmm-mmm? Chocolate cake? With sprinkles? What a novel idea. You know, I do believe I will be able to reschedule my plans for the 30^th. For the good of the group."

So I got my cake. There it was, sitting next to several platters and trays of food and a humongous cake, Cake Sr., to celebrate the one of my friends in the group moving to Princeton next month. Mary, the sucker who bought me the cake, lit a candle on Cake Jr. and they sung Happy Birthday. Then someone handed me a piece. I laughed. Ha! I'm not actually going to eat the cake! I just wanted someone to buy it for me.

Nine-tenths of the cake is now sitting on my counter. It's a waste, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.