Smartass

Who hasn't seen A Christmas Story (IMDb)? If you haven't, woe be unto you, because you're missing out on a classic. Why mention it on Groundhog Day, you ask? Well, I submit to you one Derreck Lowe, good friend of mine and blogger-who-doesn't-blog-much:

Right? Right. Now, compare to A Christmas Story's Flick, played by Scott Schwartz:

Come ON! It's right there! While Derreck is a bit too young to be Schwartz's twin, it's pretty damned close, isn't it? And given Schwartz's career change, I'm willing to bet Derreck wouldn't have minded being mistaken for the former kid star.

My point? None, really. Just some Saturday Morning fun while we await today's Caturday Thread to emerge over on Fark, and give it some time to fill up...

Get Off My Lawn

Wow. It has been forever since I've culled any content to talk about from BoingBoing. I don't know why, really. For the past two years, BB just hasn't been the major destination it once was for me. I still visit it on occasion (obviously), but I dunno. I think there might be an underlying snark vibe going on there that kinda puts me off...

At any rate, BB links to a list from Beloit College's Department of Public Affairs on the Mindset List for the Class of 2011, or those four-year college graduates born in 1990, quite the year for those of us who have memories of it (aka the "old folks.").

Some of the things on the list really stood out for me, given my perception of this particular generation, especially #55: MTV has never featured music videos. To that generation, the M has always been about "Material." Kinda makes Madonna's Material Girl oddly prophetic in a way.

See, I DO remember videos on MTV. Hell, I was nearly four years old when MTV launched on August 1st, 1981. I lived in a world without it at all, though I have little to no memory of that time, other than the arrival of my baby brother CJ that December. No different these days, really. Videos have been relegated to insomniac fare, amid the craptastic programming line-up that has polluted what was supposed to be Music Television since the first Real World.

They live in a world without true MTV.

Another one that was nifty for me was #41: The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere. I suppose it marks me as old that my first memory of BMG was when they were simply "The Blue Men," a performance art group that made news when they "Buried The 80s" in 1988 or '89. Struck me as odd, given the fact that the 80s still had a year and change to go, and that these guys were walking around painted blue. Years later, when they showed up in their current form, I was taken right back to that news report.

They've never seen a world without a cellphone smaller than a brick. To them, Distrubed did Land of Confusion (originally Genesis), Dope did Spin Me Round (Like a Record) (originally Dead or Alive), and "rapcore" has always been a genre of music.

As the spoiled brats known as the Class of 2011 graduate from High School this year and get slapped with the real world, I offer them this advice: It's a cold place, kids. It's not going to give you what you want, when you want it. Bundle up, add layers, and don't even think for a second that you're just going to "cruise through life." Your generation needs to learn how to not take things for granted. Only then will you be able to function in our modern society, fucked up though it may be...

01-31-07: The Day Boston Freaked Out, Big Time

Blog post not withstanding, I'd like to point out that today is also my mother's 60th birthday, and she doesn't look or act a day over 40. Seriously. I'm totally not kissing her ass right now, I mean it. My mom is a hell of an awesome person, and over the years she (and my dad, equally as awesome) has done a lot more for me than any mom should for their kid. I love you, Mom. Happy Birthday!

It was a harmless thing, really. More or less a primitive Lite Brite with magnets on the back. A simple, illuminated picture of a simple, foul-mouthed character from one hell of a hillarious cartoon show for grown-ups.

A marketing firm tasked with promoting a movie based on said cartoon hired two performance artists to hang a number of these Lite Brite knockoffs around the city of Boston, as they had done for a number of other major cities nationwide. Hundreds of these harmless devices hung in obtuse spots in these cities for two weeks, glowing warmly while they shot the finger at people passing them by.

And no one said a word until one Boston commuter, obviously drunk on the government-spawned paranoia about "tur'rests" and "enemies of freedom" and other things the Bush Administration wants you to be afraid of while it pilfers the taxpayers' money, had a fit of panic and called the Boston Police.

What happened next has been called laughable by most, embarrassing to those involved, and to this very day, still called a necessary reaction by the very people who overreacted in the first place. The Boston Mooninite Bomb Scare. It happened one year ago today (Fark Thread).

Yep, a little green dude flipping the bird nearly brought the City of Boston to a standstill, and showed the world just how badly the US Government has messed with the heads of its citizens.

But for some reason, it only happened in Boston. In several other cities around the country, dozens of similar devices had been hung as part of the geurrilla marketing campaign behind ATHF:MFFT. Out of the dozen or so cities involved, only Boston flipped its lid. Not even terror-prone New York City so much as flinched.

Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were arrested, and when they gave their first post-incident press conference, they pulled a fast one on the media and kept the topic of conversation strictly to Hairstyles of the 70s. Hairstyles of the 70s! Genius! Of course, this didn't make BPD or Homeland Security very happy, but what were they going to do? They just spent millions in taxpayer money to assess and eliminate the threat of a few Lite Brites with vulgar little dudes on them.

The guys got off with community service, and Turner got a little free publicity for the movie out of it in the end. Boston, to this day, maintains that, if given the same situation to do over again, they'd do it just like they did the first time: Act completely irrational because they're terrified little children, afraid of the terrorism boogieman. They've allowed themselves to be told what's right and wrong by Good King Georgie, and as a result, they've made complete asses of themselves.

And hey, come to think of it, that exposed a serious tactical flaw in a major US city's terrorism defense and response plans: YOU JUMP AT THE DROP OF A HAT. You might want to fix that, Boston. Terrorists aren't just stupid, backwards Arabs ignorant of the modern world, you know...

'Cause My Head Is Like A Sieve

Let the chorus echo throughout all of mankind, because it's been said countless times by countless people over countless thousands of years of human civilization.

I fucking hate being sick.

For the past two or three days, my sinuses have been playing a sick joke on me. On the left side, it's like the Anduin was flowing from my brain. But on the right side, Arakkis, dry as a bone, but minus the worms and spice. Today is no better, either, because now both sides want to take turns doing each thing.

Human existence has its fun moments, doesn't it? Moments where life is so unbelievably uncomfortable that you have no choice but to stop, look at it, and chuckle a bit. The very sadness of the situation makes it quite humorous in itself.

And I noticed that. What does that say for me?

Today, I'm winning the battle with the furnace, without interference for once. When I came in this morning, the thing was on its last legs due to early morning neglect, so I basically had to start from scratch. 30 minutes later, though, I once again had hell and damnation going great guns, and it wasn't long after that that the coal piled on and began to cook quite nicely. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the coal we're using now is better quality, no-sir-ee-bob...

Kudos to Derreck on his recent stroke of good Karma. After what he's been through lately, he deserves a good upturn. Now, if only I could get an upturn of my own. Anyway, go read his blog, and leave comments. It might encourage him to write a bit more...

Apparently Lawyer Mama either glanced over my name-check yesterday on WWdN:IX and contained her jealously, or she totally missed it. Either way, she became the newest commenter here at my stupid blog. Two comments in a month isn't too bad for me, really, given the rarity that any show up at all. I know you're all out there reading, and I want you to know that it's OK to talk back if you'd like ^,^

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Internets...

On A Dark Desert Highway

Praise be unto Darwin, who, in his stuffed monkey wisdom and grace, has blessed us this day with teh goodness and hawesome. Ahhh, man.

And there was much rejoicing (yay).

The Audio from Wil's performance is up and live on teh Intarwebs (which is a series of tubes), and there are several ways for you to get your hands on it. I won't type anymore so you can get to downloadin':

• Directly from Pulp Gamer, who was kind enough to record, encode and release it (41.1 MB 128K MP3)
• As a backup, Wil has posted a copy available on WWdN:IX itself (41.1 MB 128K MP3)
• A Rapidshare Link, provided by WWdN:IX Reader Patrick G
• And two torrents: One on The Pirate Bay from WWdN:IX Reader Michael S
• And the other on Mininova courtesy of yours truly, The Lost Prophyt

I reccomend the last route, since I'm seeding that puppy as we speak, and will continue to do so as long as I have the uptime. That might be a bit shaky right now, though, given the fact that, six feet in front of me and through not much more than brick and glass, there's one hell of a high wind session going on.

The usually sullen and rather rare creaking of the sign for the office below us is now a batshit crazy pendulum of constant "hit me with some WD40" noise, and looking out the window reveals lines swinging like a double dutch rope.

Good times in Central PA...

Update: My update color is never the same, but that's not the update. The update is thus: I hope Lawyer Mama doesn't get too jealous, but for my torrent effort, I got name-checked over on WWdN:IX. I'm still seeding, and we're up to four total seeders now, with just one peer as of 2:20pm my time. On the bright side, I've tossed up enough for two copies, so my part is done :D

Don't Be A Dick

Those were the words spoken by one Richard William Wheaton III during his keynote speech at last year's Penny Arcade Expo. And soon, they could be on a t-shirt near you. Beware, the Monkeys are about to reveal themselves to the world...

Yep, Wil's considering a whole new batch of Wil-branded geekwear. There are all sorts of nifty ideas in the entry's comments section, and I'm sure any number of them will end up being used. Having designed some popular shirts myself (for the Avenue), I of course support the notion of a design contest, suggested by several Monkeys.

(By the way, for those of you not "in-the-know," Monkeys are what WWdN/:IX readers refer to themselves as. Darwin be praised.)

While I highly doubt that tiny pirate hats will be on the merch menu, I can't help but post this picture from last year's International Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th, me buccos!):

Don't be a dick, er ye can walk the plank! Arrrrr!