I quote myself.

I'M A BIG FAT LIAR!

2008-04-01T07:08:00.000-06:00

APRIL FOOL!

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THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!

2007-12-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

What if I quote myself moved to WordPress? As Senator Blutarski once said, "Don't cost nothin."

Point your browser to http://iquotemyself.wordpress.com/ and bitch at me there!

Gameplaywright.

2007-12-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

Jeff Tidball is a guy who used to work for Atlas Games, where I met him when we played a lot of On The Edge CCG. He even worked for That Company for a while at the California office. Anyway, he's collaborating with another guy on a new blog called Gameplaywright. It's positioned at the place where games meet story, and quite scholarly so far. As the guy who tells the jokes at the strip club, I find this particular convergence fascinating.

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And because I haven't made enough posts today...

2007-12-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Festivus!

I have no grievances to air, and I suck at feats of strength, so let's just skip that.

It's a Festivus miracle!

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A link that goes nowhere.

2007-12-23T07:26:00.001-07:00

I do like the typeface.

Stargate found at NASA facility.

2007-12-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

Is this a picture of a wind tunnel facility at NASA Ames Research Center after some demolition? Or is it the NASA secret Stargate? See it in action here.

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Jet plane does whatever it wants.

2007-12-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

See the Sukhoi SU-30 fly in any direction it wants to! This thing manuevers like a Viper on Galactica, and that TV shit ain't real. But this is. "Waltz in the sky."

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What it's like to write for games.

2007-12-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

Erik Wolpaw was asked, "So what do you think is the hardest thing about writing for games?" His answer is almost too true to be funny.

At strip clubs, there’s a guy whose job is to talk between the strippers. He tries to do a good job and be entertaining and enthusiastic, but everybody’s just there for the nakedness. That’s a professional writer trick we call called an “analogy”. What I really mean is that game writers are the game equivalent of the guy who talks between the nude girls at strip clubs. Nobody cares about what that guy does, and anybody who does care is probably a little maladjusted. So I’d have to say the hardest part of being a game writer is learning all the writing tricks like “analogy”.

He totally nailed that answer.

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Top landing pages.

2007-12-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

In the style of what my old friend Dave used to call "covering the coverage," I provide for you the top ten "landing pages" here on IQM, according to Google Analytics. Like a huge news organ (God, I love typing that) such as CNN or Attack of the Show, I believe that if I find something interesting, you will too. Which is honestly a stupid idea, but it's my blog, so suck it.

1. The homepage.
2. Lost map decoded. With jpg goodness from the TV show.
3. Take what you can. Give nothing back. A quote from Pirates of the Craptastic Third One.
4. At least there are words. About erotic sexual positions, with instructions.
5. I support the writers' strike. A video explanation.
6. White out. About actresses bleaching wrinkles.
7. Robert Tilton is nuts. True facts from the Internet.
8. i am in ur base killing ur doods. Some help with a meme.
9. Aren't they cute together? Kristen and Hayden sitting in a tree.

Those long pontifications where I share my philosophies of life? Nowhere to be found. Mentioning actors, preferably female ones, gets you hits. Sex helps too. And movie quotes. So now, I'm going to try to get this post into the next top ten list.

Desperate Housewives.
Sex toys.
Lindsay Lohan.
Skateboarding dog.
"Use the Force."
Nintendo Wii.

I found that the most popular memes, like "Skateboarding Dog" or "Ask a Ninja" get less than a million hits when you Google them. I suspect they hit a temporary huge volume and then that goes away. Like a news item such as "Mitchell Report" or "Baseball Steroids."

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Hobbit? Sure. Sequel? Wait, what?

2007-12-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

I figured he'd get around to it. PJ and NLP have "put their differences behind them" (agreed on a price) and they're gonna make that Hobbit movie... and a sequel.

Sequel? Did JRRT write a sequel? Did I miss something? First I thought they're gonna split it into two parts, but that's not what they said. "The Hobbit" + sequel = ??? Bilbo Joins the Circus? The Exciting Adventure of Bilbo on the Floor? Revenge of Bilbo? Hobbit II: The Reckoning?

/got nuthin
//still think it will be good

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A hippopotamus.

2007-12-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Christmas earworms.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Not-so-wonderful Christmastime.

2007-12-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

Esquire provides tips for removing that horrible McCartney Christmas song, "Wonderful Christmastime" from your head. Of course, just by reading this, I've infected you, so you really need those tips now, don't you?

I'm just like a drug company. "If you woke up this morning and felt fine, you may have FEELING FINE DISEASE and you need to BUY OUR NEW DRUG to fix that!"

I do like the earworm picture, it's relevant and reusable. Let's face it; Esquire probably has more important things to talk about, but fuck that.

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My new answering machine message.

2007-12-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

A bunch of WAV files from the phone company (the old Phone Company, when there was only one to complain about), with your favorite classics including, "We're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected."

Or the one for the rules writers out there (represent!), "Please check your instruction manual."

I know the pic at the right isn't relevant, but who cares?

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Apostrophes 'R' us.

2007-12-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

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Determining factual content.

2007-12-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

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It's not news. It's CNN.

2007-12-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

That respectable news organ (heh) CNN provides us with a video piece (heh) about pole dancers on the subway. I find this to be informative. Perhaps even uplifting. But definitely not news, they got that right.

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Want one of those!

2007-12-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

Merriam-Webster's word of the year (is this really necessary?) is "woot." Of course, then they try to explain it.

1. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"

Note that they spell "w00t" with two zeroes. Quite the leetage.

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Givin' him the business.

2007-12-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Two examples of that rarely seen penalty in football, "Givin' him the business!" Jason, I heard you say this for years and I never saw the original footage from the Jets game. Complete with the obligatory hand signal.

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More games that saved lives.

2007-12-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

During World War Two, British Monopoly makers Waddington smuggled many useful items to POWs in their boxed games.

During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes.

Real money, maps, compasses, files, and other items that helped POWs escape arrived without inspection by the German guards.

Wishing to hide this less-than-stellar upholding of the Geneva Convention, they happily welcomed Red Cross aid packages for POWs. So throwing Monopoly games into the care kits along with food and clothing was met with little scrutiny. Monopoly was already a well-known game throughout Europe, and the German guards saw it as the perfect way for their detainees to remain occupied for hours.

Makes me think of Escape from Colditz. The coolest fact is that Monopoly was so well-known that the Germans didn't even inspect them.

Mind you, moose bites can be pretty nasty.

2007-12-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

A 12-year-old Norwegian boy was saved from a moose attack by his knowledge of World of Warcraft.

Hans Jørgen decided to play dead. He laid completely still, eye to eye with the Moose for a long time before it whirled around and took to the forest. The idea about playing dead, Hans Jørgen got from the online role playing game World of Warcraft.

You see, the Hunter class learns a skill called "Feign Death," and that's the button this young boy pushed on his keyboard that day in the woods. Figuratively speaking.

Play WoW. It could save your life.

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They love us everywhere we go.

2007-12-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

Twenty-seven years. It still hurts.

2007-12-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

No more reporting for duty.

2007-12-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

STCCG provided me with a new career. Now it's gone, and I feel sad.

LWC worked at a local gaming store, and Dave, the guy that managed it, was friends with the folks from Mayfair. One weekend, the Mayfair dudes came into town to demo games at the shop. That night, there was a barbecue at the Dave's house. We had fun playing Speedway, the original Indy 500 design that became Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix.

At one point that night, Darwin Bromley gave Dave a packet of playtest materials for a Star Trek CCG. Dave threw it at me, saying, "Here, you like Magic, play this."

We played, I sent in my comments, and eventually I was offered the chance to preview Star Wars CCG. They flew me to Norfolk for a playtest, and soon thereafter I was offered a job at Norfolk-by-the-sea. The rest, as they say, is history.

Every time I play a card with no cost I think fondly of STCCG. So long, old friend, I'm gonna miss ya.

Fox News porn.

2007-12-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

They can't show real pornography on Fox News (that would destroy all their credibility... wait, what?) but evidently they're trying. (This is all hearsay for me, I recoil from Fox News like a vampire from sunlight.)

They have articles about salacious subjects and while the newsreader drives out the drivelous words, behind him or her are images of women in bikinis or prostitutes or whatever you might find in a lurid Maxim article.

So one of the bastions of the Republican Party and, consequently, the Religious Right and what they call "family values" is lowering itself to pandering shots of half naked women.

Why exactly are they doing this? I suppose it's because these men who chant the party line on "family values" patronize a lot of strip clubs and magazines that objectify women. Just another example of right-wing hypocrisy.

It scares me when it smells of 1984. "We say this, but we do this, and you'll just ignore that now because we invented some new words to confuse you." It makes the Cold Lizard of Creepiness crawl up my spine.

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Don't ask me what's going on.

2007-12-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Dan Dierdorf was a valuable part of some good St. Louis Cardinals football teams. Nowadays, he's simply the worst sports announcer. The worst.

He constantly asks questions, which I assume are trying to state some kind of superlative or ask a rhetorical question. Examples:

How important is this third down?
What kind of control is that?
Was that some kind of pass defense?
How special of a catch was that?

Every time he does this, and it happens about thirty times in every game, I scream at the television: I DON"T KNOW DAN, WHY DON"T YOU TELL ME???

It's his job to tell me things, not ask me questions!

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Quote of the day.

2007-12-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

The strategy of Bingo. The excitement of Chess.

I got that from Tom McMahon's blog. I found that looking for "The Last NFL Scoreless Tie," searching during the Mud Bowl the other night (which I enjoyed tremendously). Anyway, that's why they call it "browsing" or "surfing." I found a great Simpsons quote there too, from Dr. Hibbert in "Treehouse of Horror VI."

Too crazy for Boys Town, too much of a boy for Crazy Town.

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When paradigms collide.

2007-12-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

In my tiny little personal zeitgeist, there are principles and opinions and guidelines and paradigms and words to live by. One of those is that Sequels and Prequels Suck.

Unfortunately, sometimes the guidelines guide right into each other, causing a collision of principles. Another one of those is that Hot Chicks Rule.

I have watched many a lame television show cause there were hot chicks involved. Birds of Prey, anyone? I say this to free up my flamingly heterosexual brothers out there. I like women and I like to watch them!

Starring in the new series The Sarah Connor Remake are Summer Glau, who we all grew to love in Firefly and Serenity, and Lena Headey, who although British, was steaming hotness in 300.

When guidelines collide, one must win. Nothing is absolute, not even this sentence. So for now, the Hot Chicks beat the Sequels and I will give this show a look.

But you're on probation, Fox. That gal on Bionic Woman was a cutie too, but that didn't last.

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Only in fantasy football.

2007-12-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Only in fantasy football can you get 400 yards receiving... with no quarterback.

Features I don't need.

2007-12-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Facebook has taken the time to add a feature telling me when I'm online. I have about 27,000 different ways to figure this out myself when I'm browsing Facebook, but somehow they think that I need one more.

Good advice.

2007-12-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

A plastic stroller for use at a local shopping center offers a bag on the back to tote purchased goods. It has the helpful suggestion, "DO NOT PUT CHILD IN BAG" stenciled proudly. That might as well say, "DON'T DO STUPID SHIT." Ah well, I'm sure the lawyers said it would protect the manufacturers from lawsuits.

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Chevrolet 1965.

2007-11-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

A classic example of how TV stars used to hawk products. I loved all these shows and the cars too. (Okay, maybe not the Chevy II, but I used to drive a Nova.) SEE Robert Vaughn in a hideous double-breasted suit tell you the Corvair is sophisticated! BEHOLD Adam Cartwright driving a Stingray down a street in Virginia City!

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Mourning TV.

2007-11-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

A fine article by Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of Lost, about how television, as we know it, is dying.

Television has always been free. Sure, if you want all the N.F.L. games in high definition, you have to pay the piper, but the broadcast networks still offer their entire schedules for absolutely nothing. The only catch, of course, is that you have to watch commercials. Economically, it’s a fair deal. The network pays for the shows, gives them to viewers, and makes its cash back through advertising. Which regrettably brings us to the most wonderful thing TiVo does: It enables you to ignore the commercials that keep the whole system running.

Let's look at the facts:

1. Broadcast television is paid for by commercials.
2. DVRs and downloaded content from the internet let you bypass these commercials.
3. It ain't working no more.

This can't last. The whole framework of broadcast television is spiraling down the shit pot. Something new will take its place, and nobody knows what that might be.

My most fervent dream is that we extract from these catastrophes the ability to buy only the channels/shows we want to watch. I have about 300 channels available to me because of all the dumbass "tiers" I have to buy, and I have watched only a tiny fraction of them.

It's like going to a bookstore to buy a science fiction book and they tell you, "Sorry sir, to get that book you'll have to buy the Science Fiction section, and that's those hundred books over there."

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Japan turns away from PCs.

2007-11-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

I believe that whatever Japan is doing with their gadgets right now, we will be doing soon. I find this particularly interesting.

Masaya Igarashi wants $200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge on a digital camera or flat-screen TV. There's one conspicuous omission from the college student's shopping list: a new computer.

On my last business trip, I didn't take my laptop. I had everything I needed on my phone. I could check email, write blog posts, and surf the web. In Japan, where phones are even more advanced, they have even less need for computers.

For my internet needs, I had a Desktop. (Okay, I still do, it's my secondary computer for various things.) Then I got a Laptop. Then I got a Phone. The machines are shrinking, and I like that. I can't wait for the Watch or the Ring or the Tiny Subcutaneous Implant.

Go, Technology, go!

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Photography lost its innocence many years ago.

2007-11-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

There's a long tradition of manipulating photos for the media, and it goes back almost as far as the history of photography itself.

This nearly iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln's head and the Southern politician John Calhoun's body.

Lots more examples here, including political enemies airbrushed out of photos by Joseph Stalin.

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This is getting weird.

2007-11-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

One night, I was watching Chuck with my wife. She said that sometimes he acts like I do. I said I'd never act like him. Or even dress like him. And then I pointed out that he and I were both wearing a simple red T-shirt.

Tonight, Chuck (him not me) was going to Thanksgiving at his sister's house (hey, I have a sister too) wearing a gray sweatshirt with a little triangular thing at the neck. I'm wearing one too. And blue jeans. He has jeans on too.

This is getting weird.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

We're number one!

2007-11-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Evidently there is a kind of football played by young men going to college! The University of Missouri team appears to be #1.

I therefore reveal that I have always been a "booster" of these collegiate games, and I am thrilled to be a part of the ascendance of "Mizzou" and these so-called "Tigers."

Is this the bandwagon? Cause I was trying to jump on. Go team! I think perhaps, "Rah rah rah!" might be appropriate, but I'm not certain.

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Aren't they cute together?

2007-11-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

An interview with Heroes stars Hayden Panettiere and Kristen Bell seems a bit fake to me. (Could be some spoilers here, if you're worried, destroy your computer immediately with a sledgehammer. Just to be sure.)

I used to typeset Tiger Beat magazine, and they would take interviews and install facts in awkward places, like "Madonna, who hails originally from Michigan and is 5-foot-3, released a new album..."

You start reading this thing and you think, "Oh isn't that nice. These two young actresses know each other." But then it just gets smarmy and suspiciously sweet. I dunno, but it seems unlikely to me that this kind of patter just comes out of somebody's mouth unbidden.

I know that all the guys reading this interview are thinking "Me sandwich on tiny blonde bread," but I offer it up nonetheless.

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Happily ever after.

2007-11-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to the Black Friday post, we later that same day went to Target and purchased a Magnavox 42-inch 1080p plasma TV I had my eye on for weeks. It was $999, comparable to all the others we looked at except for the 50-inch Hitachi.

Two guys at Target shoehorned this thing into my Malibu back seat, but when we got home, we could not get it out. I still don't know how they got it in there. I decided to cut it out of the box, and then it was easy (the thing is only 3 inches deep, after all).

We looked at a little college football in HD (the Mag has a built-in HD converter) and it was really sweet. I'm gonna watch some NFL on it tomorrow, should be cool.

In other news, today we found (at Target again, jeez I think I'm in love) a WD "MyBook" external hard drive, and I'm using it now to back up our laptops. FireWire is speedy goodness.

So I wanted you all to know that even though Black Friday was a bust for us, we got what we were looking for. Capitalism works, and perseverence pays off. You can't always get the doorbuster you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need.

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At least there are words.

2007-11-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

From Cosmopolitan, we have a frank discussion of sexual positions, including nicknames like "Joystick Joyride" and "Randy Recliner."

Sex Position of the Week
The Octopus
Carnal Challenge: [Five Flames]

EROTIC INSTRUCTIONS:
Have your guy sit on the floor with his hands on the ground behind him. Tell him to spread his legs and bend them slightly at the knees. Keeping your hands on the floor for support, straddle his lap, facing him, and raise your legs so your right leg rests on his left shoulder and your left leg on his right shoulder. Do it right and you two will look like a multilimbed lust creature.

WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT:
Because your body is tilted upward, your guy enters you in up-and-down motions rather than circular or side-to-side, bringing on deep, direct G-spot orgasms. And you both get a prime bird's-eye view of the action — a male fantasy come true! Plus, if you can master this one, you two will have entered the Kama Sutra Hall of Fame. And what could be hotter than that?

COSMO HINT
This position is all about intimate contact, so make the most of it! If you're feeling extra flexible, try wrapping your arms around his neck to get even closer to his hot body, where you can focus your attention on kissing and nibbling his lips, neck, and earlobes.

This is the difference between men's magazines and women's magazines: The latter have practical suggestions. And when I say "practical" I don't mean how to tie your tie and tuck in your shirt.

So long, Wolf U-Boat.

2007-11-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'd like to have another widescreen TV. I want HDMI and 1080p for when I get a PlayStation 3. I love television, and I hate it when people say it's bad for you. My favorite Simpsons quote of all time is when Homer tells Bart, "C'mon son, let's go watch TV." Bart says, "What's on?" and Homer replies in that loving way he talks about donuts and pork chops, "It doesn't matter."

This year, I decided to check out the Black Friday specials to see if I could find a good deal. I subscribed to some mailing lists, and saw a couple of choice deals that were sold out before I got to them. Maybe they only had 1 or 2 at that price, or maybe they were just mirages.

I kept checking prices and found a good deal at Best Buy. I read up on how Black Friday works, and found that many "doorbuster" (I love that term) deals are "ticketed." Best Buy was straightforward about how this worked: At 3 a.m., they start handing out tickets to the line for things they have only 15 or 20 of at the store (opens at 5). As far as I could tell, the CyberShot that LWC wanted and the Hitachi 50-inch plasma TV that I wanted were not of the ticketed variety.

We've never tried to play the Black Friday Doorbuster game, so we said, what the hell, let's see how it works. We set the alarm for 4 a.m. and make our bleary-eyed way to Best Buy. I had a feeling that I usually get when I'm traveling and a couple time zones out of kilter. Your body says, "No! Wrong! More sleep!" and you say, "Shut the fuck up! I got things to do."

On the way, we notice that lots are full to bursting for Kohl's and Wal-Mart. You wonder how many people really show up at 5 a.m. to wait in line in 20-degree weather. Admittedly, the Denver folks are not daunted by weather like this, but still.

Arriving at Best Buy, we see a line of about 200 people and zero parking places. We park at a nearby recreational goods store. We're there at 20 till, and the wait doesn't seem too bad, since we're pretty much dressed for it.

Once we get inside, there are lots of handwritten signs for the real doorbuster deals. Boxed DVD sets for 50% off. A DVD player, a little LCD TV, a Canon digital camera. I pick up a 250GB external hard drive which sells for $129, pretty good price.

We wander through the departments, getting an equal amount of "Excuse me" and absolutely nothing as people barrel into us in too much of a hurry. I could tell you which people were the rudest, but that would sound like a racial slur so I won't.

We find some Best Buy employees and ask about our TV and camera. "All gone. Ticketed." Well crap, I didn't realize that. I figured we didn't have enough shopping moxie to get one of the rare ticketed items. We wander around some more, and finally decide to skip the insanely long lines for checkout and I put the hard drive on some shelf.

Then we got breakfast at Denny's. Then we went home. When I finish this post, I'm going back to bed. We didn't buy anything at Best Buy. How do I feel about this? Well, for those folks who got there at 3 a.m. to get a ticket for a Hitachi P50H401, I salute them. They are better shoppers than I, and they deserve their 50 inches of plasma delight. I found out that there is no free lunch. You either go all the way or you lose.

I am reminded of a favorite comic strip by Gahan Wilson that appeared in National Lampoon back when it was a magazine. A young boy wanted desperately to buy a "Wolf U-Boat" model kit. I don't remember the circumstances, but he never got it. The last panel shows the kid saying, "So long, Wolf U-Boat." In a thought bubble, the U-Boat is sailing away, and it says, "So long, kid."

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble.

2007-11-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

No, that's not a movie or a book. It's a game, and you can download a demo. It's not anywhere near as salacious as it sounds, with a nice 1920s sensibility.

The wickedness of little girls has been well documented both in classic literature and in modern games, from Great Expectations to Rule of Rose -– and straight into the memories of our own high school days, when we moved in clandestine societies governed by unspoken laws. This theme gets a Roaring Twenties kind of patina to delectably twisted effect in Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, a pleasingly innovative hybrid between an RPG and a stat-based card game.

It reminds me of Sissy Fight but it's a much better game.

Smart or stoopid?

2007-11-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

I was Smart, with answers 31.3% better than average and a score of 23. How about you? Difficulty: It's timed, drink some coffee. Remember:

The Smart or Stoopid test is purely meant to be a fun quiz to see how your IQ rates alongside the average, based on the scores of other people who have taken the test. Naturally, only stupid people would take it as a true indicator of intelligence, and only intelligent people would take it as a true indicator of stupidity. Or something like that.

Oh yeah, and it's really easy to cheat, so don't. We'll know, we're watching you.

Tiniest tailgate in Denver!

2007-11-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

Watch this to see People You Know on ESPN! Keep an eye out for "The Tiniest Tailgate in Denver!"

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I'm working on Super-Genius.

2007-11-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

Cash Advance Loans

Bpaul started it. I can't help it I'm a genius. Or does that just mean I'm obtuse? Maybe I should be working on Super-Obtuse.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

White out.

2007-11-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Cybill Shepherd on Moonlighting demanded that she be photographed with "cheesecloth" on the lens, a technique that fuzzes out the wrinkles. She really wasn't that old.

Makeup commercials for companies like Revlon and L'Oreal overexpose the models to the point of near featurelessness. To me, this looks hideous.

They made a commercial with Diane Keaton, a woman I adore who is just herself and always has been. Her face was so blasted with overexposure that I couldn't find her nose. Horrible!

Then I see another commercial with Jennifer Garner, that "withered up old hag," and she's all blasted out too! Does she even have a single wrinkle?

It's awful what they do to women in advertising.

This is my helmet.

2007-11-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

There are many like it, but this one is MINE. My helmet is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My helmet without me is useless. Without my helmet, I am useless.

This is the new helmet for British pilots of the F-35 "joint strike fighter" (some kind of war on drugs thing, I imagine). The F-35 looks a heck of a lot like an F-22.

Supposedly there is no heads-up display, as all info is projected inside the helmet somehow or other. A very practical British fellow had this to add:

"It cannot be stressed how important this sort of evaluation is to the Joint Strike Fighter Programme. The helmet is a critical piece of equipment and simply has to work."

Makes a damned fine Halloween costume, I'd say. Pretty scary stuff.

Skidoo is coming.

2007-11-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Skidoo is one of those strange movies from the 60s that must be seen to be believed. I haven't seen it, but I'd like to. (Thanks to Mark Evanier for the cool graphic.)

Made in 1968 by Otto Preminger, Skidoo stars Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Frank Gorshin, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx (in his final movie role). It's scored by Harry Nilsson.

Have you seen Head, the Monkees movie? Or Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles movie? They both are horrible and completely incomprehensible, but there is nothing else like them. That's hard to say in a long history of cinema.

I've seen a lot of movies, and I like movies, and I like things I don't understand (as Grace Slick once said). If you're that kind of film buff, you should schedule some DVR time to watch Skidoo.

It won't be good, but it will be something to see.

Arrogance and humility.

2007-11-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

This interesting and thought-provoking tidbit asserts that design should have parts of arrogance and humility combined in the right manner.

It's easy for me to look at my last bunch of card designs and see the ones that have arrogance and the ones that have humility, but few combine both.

Waterboarding is torture.

2007-11-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Special Comment: On waterboarding and torture

I found this on Bpaul's blog. I had to post it. Only 50,000 views, and that's not enough. I forget sometimes that there are people in the media that care enough to get angry and put that into words.

Clive and Monica, you have failed me. You too, Paul.

2007-11-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

I finally saw Shoot 'Em Up. It was good for two acts and then completely sucked. Ridiculous stunts began and it ran out of plot, so there was no ending. Sometimes the wanting is better than the having.

I support the writers' strike.

2007-11-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

When I was a journeyman member of the International Typographers' Union Local Nr. 14, we were also told that we should take a year off from pay increases because management had to pay extra cash to buy phototypesetting equipment. Any time they tell you to "take a year off" or "take this rate now to grow the business" they are fucking you in the ass with sand in it.

The 1994 pilot for 24.

2007-11-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Might as well watch this 24 times, since there's no 24 this season. Actually, it wasn't that good anyway.

I think Brad found this first, but he sent it to me at work with a URL like "cameltap.com" and I was scared to click until I got home. Anyway thanks, Brad.

Breaking news: Surf's Up is #66.

2007-11-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right movie fans, we watched Surf's Up last night and I thoroughly loved it. Even more the second time. So now it's #66 on my Top 100 Favorite Movies, right after Monty Python and the Holy Grail and just before The Incredibles. As Dan Burns once said about my movie list, "Lots of comedies."

What got bumped to #101? It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. All That Jazz is now on the bubble. If I had a proper website, there would be a way to check my Top 100 Favorite Movies list any time you wanted to. If you suddenly feel a need to check if your favorite movie is on my list, just drop me a line.

The way I quote myself works is not entirely understood.

Who is this?

2007-11-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

Gibson on futurists.

2007-11-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, if there is an interview with one word from William Gibson, I will link to it here, so get fucking used to it. Today, he talks about his role and futurists.

The slot in culture that I'm most closely associated with is one in which charlatans declare that they know the future. My job is to sit near that slot and when people approach me I say: "Only charlatans say they really know the future." I sit near the tent where they give out bullshit and offer people a different sort of dialogue. My role is to raise questions.

Close does not count.

2007-11-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Seagate, makers of hard drives for computers, have been caught lying. They say that a gigabyte equals a billion bytes of storage.

On a 1GB drive, this would make the difference between one billion bytes of storage, and 1,073,741,824 bytes. Other manufacturers, such as Samsung and Hitachi, also measure hard-drive capacity with 1KB equalling 1,000 bytes, whereas all operating systems are based on 1KB equalling 1,024 bytes.

But they're wrong, and they'll pay you money if you bought a product from them. You'd think that computer hardware manufacturers could get this right. Use your words, and know what they mean.

The exciting adventure of Paul on the floor.

2007-11-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

When you haven't seen a movie in 42 years, except a couple of viewings on television, you wonder how it will hold up. Help! is just as delightful today as it was in 1965.

After making the pseudo-documentary A Hard Day's Night, they wanted to do something different. Director Richard Lester said that a documentary of their lives in 1965 would have been X-rated, so they needed a plot.

This is a wonderful movie. It's not a satire, it has no political references, it's not a drug-induced trip movie, it's just silly. I guess you could call it a parody of spy movies, Bond movies in particular.

Mostly it's filled with terrific locales, wonderful music (Beatles songs and incidental music as well), hilarious British character actors, and lots of witty dialogue.

It's not stupid/good, cause it's not stupid. It's too fluffy to be stupid or good. I like it a lot, but it will never make the Top 100.

I can say no more.

Worst winner.

2007-11-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

If you've been in a fantasy sports league, I'm sure you've seen this phenomenon: You have scored the second-best point total in the league this week. There's only one problem: The guy you played scored the first-best. In other words, you could have beaten anybody in the league except for your opponent. I call this "Best Loser."

This week, I found the other end of this phenomenon. My opponent and I scored fewer points than every other team in the league. Which means that if either of us had played anybody else, we would have lost. But he played me, and I beat him. That makes me the "Worst Winner."

The really weird thing is (and here's a tip) that I had one team's kicker and the other team's defense tonight. I could have started my other kicker, but I'm not bright enough to figure that out.

Which meant that as my kicker scored points, my defense lost points. It was a real nail-biter for a while there, but I finally got a field goal to stick and a couple of sacks from the D to eke out a 4-point win.

It sucks to be Worst Winner, but not as much as it sucks to be Best Loser. Of course neither of those suck worse than losing to the Worst Winner. Because no matter how ugly, winning is better than losing.

Death takes a holiday.

2007-11-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

A confluence of events caused October to be the first month in 3 years that the United States didn't execute someone. A month off from this barbaric practice is a month well spent.

Support for the death penalty remains strong in the United States, one of only a handful of democracies that still carries out capital punishment.

But the unofficial hold on executions comes amid a steep decline in the number of death sentences imposed and rising concern about wrongful convictions.
"All of this suggests that the death penalty is under a significant review in a way that we haven't had in almost four decades," said Jordan Steiker of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
October 2007 was the first October since 1989 without a U.S. execution and the first month without one since December 2004; December is a typically quiet month in the death chambers because of a reluctance to execute near Christmas.

Let's make every day Christmas, and get rid of the death penalty altogether.

Are bears dangerous?

2007-11-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

A sign on the grizzly bear pit at the Denver Zoo.

Does ice exist?

2007-11-03T08:53:00.000-06:00

Lucas peddles half-baked shit.

2007-11-02T08:06:00.000-06:00

In this LA Times article, Lucas admits there's nothing good in his new TV series.

"The Skywalkers aren't in it, and it's about minor characters," Lucas said in an interview. "It has nothing to do with Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader or any of those people. It's completely different. But it's a good idea, and it's going to be a lot of fun to do."

He's saying, "It's Star Wars, you fucking losers, you'll buy it and you don't care if it's good or not. Remember the prequels?" To further decode this missive, "a lot of fun to do" means "I'll have a lot of fun counting the money I make from you rubes."

I'll say it again: I don't want to watch anything made from backstory. Yes, I'm looking at you, Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The good news is that Lucas has nary a clue as to how television works and so far nobody wants to buy this thing. Who would have though that it was television excecutives that taught him a lesson about making good stuff?

Dollhouse!

2007-11-02T07:49:00.000-06:00

Joss is God, Joss is Boss, and Joss is Back! As scooped by Dr. Heimlich, Joss Whedon is working on a new TV show for the hellish Fox network called
Dollhouse.

Reportedly he was enticed to do so by the lovely Eliza Dushku, who will star. Every great writer needs a muse, right?

I am excited! The bandwagon starts here! Tell all your friends!

Who would win?

2007-11-01T07:53:00.000-06:00

Who would win in a fight: A minotaur armed with a trident or a centaur armed with a crossbow? A simple question, posed to many celebrities. Certainly one or two of your favorites are asked here. I voted Centaur, opting for the ranged attack superiority.

The 100 scariest movie scenes.

2007-10-31T07:54:00.000-06:00

It's an interesting list, because they are selecting "scenes" and not movies. Many movies have several scenes included. (I feel I must mention that once again, "of all time" is totally unnecessary.) Lots of the scenes have video clickies, and there is some really scary stuff here. Definitely chill producing.

I've seen 24 of these movies (I'm counting movies and not scenes) and as with most lists of "horror" movies, there are lots of the "classics" that I haven't seen (like Halloween, Friday the 13th, or any of these movies with II or III in the title).

Willy Wonka? Well, the author seems to like scenes that weird you out, like the teddy bears from Akira. Not what I thought he'd pick from that movie. It's a fun list, even just to click and see what clever title he gave to each scene. Scary movies are fun! Happy Halloween!

Top vampire movies.

2007-10-30T19:44:00.000-06:00

Peeve #1: "of all time" not necessary or even meaningful in this list of the greatest 70 vampire movies. When I first clicked the link, I started thinking about all the vampire movies I've seen, and they'll even include my favorite one, which is...

Hey, you know what? Vampire movies suck. I mean, they're bad. Really bad. There aren't any good ones. I came to the conclusion that two of my favorite genres work excellently in print and horribly on the screen: detectives and vampires.

I've seen 17 of these flicks. I guess my favorites would be the Underworld movies, Dracula (the original), and Interview With the Vampire. This list reminds me that I still haven't seen The Lost Boys, Vampyros Lesbos, Vampire Hunter D and The Fearless Vampire Killers (which sounds like a hoot).

Fuck you NFL!

2007-10-30T07:52:00.000-06:00

Coach: Well boys, we've battled our way into a tie at the end of regulation. So here's the game plan: We're gonna run a lot of power off tackle stuff, we've got lots of time. Dink and dunk until we get into field goal range and win this fucker.

Brett Favre: Fuck that, watch this!

"To be honest with you, when I let the ball go, I thought it was underthrown," the 38-year-old Favre said of his bomb that ended the second-shortest overtime (16 seconds) in NFL history. "The ball stayed up in the air a long time. ... Fortunately for me, it fell in the right place. We keep finding ways to do it, and we do it together. It don't get any better than it was at the end of this game."

He's right. It don't get any better.

(Interview and lots of reaction shots from the gorgeous Deanna a definite plus. Also, this statement from the article is stupid: "The only two cities where he hasn't thrown a TD pass are Baltimore and Pittsburgh." Uh, Ellington Missouri? I can think of a few more.)

Hoopleheads.

2007-10-29T07:32:00.000-06:00

Much has been made about the language used on the HBO series Deadwood. Most talk about the use of profanity. Many of you would say that when you think of Deadwood, you think of the word "cocksucker."

However, much of the dialog on the show is like poetry, and there are many unusual words. Characters use the word "poor" or "poorly" instead of "sick," for example.

One word stands out among many for me as the unique word of the series: Hooplehead. David Milch admits he pretty much grabbed it out of the air. The indefatigible Michael Quinion assays that it might derive from a comic strip, but there's not even a Wikipedia entry for it.

Used most often by Albert Swearingen, its always used in third person, never as a direct accusation. It's obviously derogatory, and doesn't appear to be a racial slur. As words go, it's a fine word to describe those who have done foolish things.

Our night at the World Series.

2007-10-28T08:08:00.000-06:00

We tried to get tickets online during the "malicious external attack" (some guy had T-shirts last night, pretty funny) and the next day, in which some tickets were sold but only to lucky people not like us.

Saturday, we're planning to watch the game and order Chinese, and I get a call from The Boss who says he may have 1 or 2 tickets. I consider and say, "No thanks." Then I talk to Cheryl and the phone rings again, and I say, "If he's got two, we're going."

So we did. I grabbed my Cardinals World Champion hat and we took off. We parked at work after picking up a parking pass from Dr. Heimlich (who remarked on my choice of headgear, red meaning Red Sox, but whatever), and the trip downtown was not too bad. Nothing but stop-and-go when we got off 25, but all in in all, not bad.

After standing outside the night before to get Leopard, I threw on an extra sweatshirt. I wish I had brought something for my ears and hands, but it was about 39 degrees and I survived.

Coors Field was, of course, crazy. People were chanting "Lets go, Rockies!" in the line to go in. I saw a shirt that said "Buck Foston." Our tickets came by way of Curt Schilling (it's the game company connection), so we sat in a group of about 100 Red Sox fans. One guy asked me, "How did you get these tickets?"

In front of us was a large, older guy with huge hands and an even more huge World Series ring. I don't know who he was, though. A couple times he turned around and smiled at us when we cheered for the Rockies. The Sox folks were nice, but it was painful to be in that section in the 3rd inning when they scored all the runs. I could smell the chowder.

I called my son in St. Louis, and he said, "It's really noisy where you are!" I replied, "WE'RE AT THE WORLD SERIES!" Cause that's what you do, call somebody you know and, well, kind of gloat. I learned that from Tom's dad, he's the expert.

We cheered and clapped and sang and waved our towels. This was LWC's first game at Coors Field. (I explained to her that one particular chant split between both sides of the field I hadn't heard before because there weren't usually enough people in the stadium.) We had a blast. She got a program and a WS07 bear, very cute. We also scored two commemorative plastic cups.

It was history, the first World Series game at Coors Field, and a heck of a good time. I'm glad we had the chance to go. The Rockies rallied in the 6th and 7th and I got to see Holliday hit a 3-run homer straight out 415 feet to center field, and that was awesome. No Miracle on Blake Street for the final, but it was fun.

The Moby quotient.

2007-10-27T08:14:00.001-06:00

Has your favorite band "sold out"? Here's the equation to evaluate their sell-outedness. Just click the link, it's funny and hard to describe.

Each factor is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10; the number assignments can be subjective, but the formula is useful in gauging the relative outrage fans should feel with each instance of this continuing cultural blight. The higher the result, the greater the degree of selling out.

I love it when somebody applies something that looks like math to something that can't be quantified. With nice graphics.

One version to rule them all.

2007-10-26T09:05:00.000-06:00

Yay! Leopard is coming today. Finally, my Boot Camp will become a real program, just like Pinocchio.

“We think Leopard is the richest OS X release yet,” Brian Croll, Apple’s senior director of Software Product Marketing, told Macworld. “There is one version of Leopard — the ultimate version.”

Not four versions, and half the price of Vista. Oh yeah, and it'll work, too. Nice feature, that.

Gibson on Deadwood.

2007-10-25T15:52:00.000-06:00

William Gibson is terrific. One of my five favorite writers, amongst whom I can assign no ranking. Some cool quotes from this article in the Washington Post:

Gibson puts a premium on making his details rich. He's always wanted his world to be "naturalistic -- where people used toilets. And dry cleaners. And things got rusty and things broke." He recently caught up with the HBO series "Deadwood," which, among its many achievements, once portrayed possibly the most convincing case of kidney stone suffering ever captured on film. Gibson thinks it's the greatest television America has ever produced. "This is like what I wanted to do" in his work, he says, "but they were doing it with westerns."

[Regarding "the death of the book"] "It's the oldest and the first mass medium. And it's the one that requires the most training to access. Novels, particularly, require serious cultural training. But it's still the same thing -- I make black marks on a white surface and someone else in another location looks at them and interprets them and sees a spaceship or whatever. It's magic. It's a magical thing. It's very old magic, but it's very thorough. The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out."

I don't think I mentioned this in the blogosphere, but we've finally gotten around to watching Deadwood on DVD and it's absolutely wonderful. Terrific television.

Hazardous voltage.

2007-10-24T21:06:00.000-06:00

This label is on a box in my front yard. It's not much of a front yard, being in the main one of those little strips of land mowed by somebody I pay far too much money to as a part of my condominium arrangement. So this box and a more slender box of cable take up much of said yard. But I digress.

When faced with the task of illustrating damaging high voltage, someone felt that the depiction of an evil ball of electricity (an imp? evil spirit?) injuring a silhouetted victim would suffice.

Where does this shocking manifestation come from? What is its name or species? Does it know or consort with Pikachu?

Mysteries alas I know not how to solve.

Rams break 70-year-old record.

2007-10-23T07:52:00.000-06:00

The St. Louis Rams football club has set a new record! Yay! We love setting new records, don't we? Hey, this club is seventy years old, there must be some real long-standing records there! That makes them worth lots more, right?

This year's start of 0-7 is the worst in the Rams' history. Worst since 1947, which is even before I was born, although I'm sure most of you have no concept of that.

Yes, I'm still a Rams fan. No, I'm not becoming a Broncos fan (don't care for them at all, I don't care if they win or not). Actually, I'm still a Mike Martz fan too, but I can't root for the Lions.

Still loyal. More disgusted every week.

Not much guidance to be had.

2007-10-22T21:14:00.000-06:00

I took this photograph of my television, as an illustration of what Comcast calls my "cable guide." You will note that this so-called "guide" shows a total of four channels at a time.

Four channels at a time.

Like every cable user, I have about 200 channels that I don't want. (There are several more I'd like to have, but the next "tier" provides another hundred or so.) Several hundred more that I don't pay for access to reside in this cable guide, as what I suppose is a marketing scheme: Look! You can't watch this! Don't you want to?

Four channels at a time.

The only tool I am provided with to navigate this endless sea of shit I don't have or don't want is the poorly-named "guide" that shows me only FOUR FUCKING CHANNELS AT A FUCKING TIME.

Like many things in this modern age, a tool originally intended to help me operate a device has turned into a marketing bitch whoring itself out and in the process becoming totally useless.

Hoopleheads are in control.

Fantasy football survey.

2007-10-21T17:38:00.000-06:00

Regarding your team's performance for the 2007-2008 season:

(a) I have Tom Brady on my team and I won my league.
(b) Other.

im in ur soc sec stealin ur money

2007-10-21T07:45:00.000-06:00

First Baby Boomer applies for Social Security. Me next! I can haz munny?

Just like old times.

2007-10-20T07:28:00.001-06:00

Was happily reminded last night that when we all get together again, it's like we never left each other. We just go on talking about all kinds of things. Mostly rumors about all of you that weren't there, but hey, that's the price you payed for not showing up.

The year of Chuck.

2007-10-19T22:35:00.000-06:00

Once there were no Chucks. Except for my grandfather, the first Charles Louis Kallenbach, and then me.

I went to school with a guy named Chuck, same age, lots of the same classes. We would alternate going by Chuck or Chuckie. Or Carlos and Carlitos in Spanish class. Hard to believe. Some of my aunts, if I saw them today, would still call me Chuckie. But I wish they wouldn't.

One of my teachers called me Charles. I didn't like it. I had one teacher that called me Charlie. The only person in my whole life that ever called me Charlie. I didn't like that either.

I wrote my name eighteen different ways and decided that I liked Chuck Kallenbach II the best. Nowadays, I leave off the II for fear of seeming pretentious. Hah! My official banking name is Charles L. Kallenbach II, however.

Chuck Connors was the star of an old western called The Rifleman from 1963. (Yes, I owned a toy plastic rifle with the trademark oversized handguard.)

Then there was Chuck Norris, a movie star in The Green Berets and Way of the Dragon before Walker Texas Ranger and all the stupid jokes.

Of course, Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars sneakers were often called "Chucks," since way back in 1969.

After that there was Chuck and Bob on Soap in 1977. Not too proud of that one, that guy was a complete idiot.

Now, there are Chucks everywhere. Chuck Bartowski in NBC's Chuck. Charlotte "Chuck" Charles on Pushing Daisies. (A friend of mine had a girlfriend she called "Charlie" whose name was also Charlotte. I named my hamster for her.) Chuck Darling on Back to You, that Kelsey Grammer comedy that's going to break his string of hits.

As my mother would have said, "Every dog has his day." Even if his name is Chuck.

A scorpion from Denver, returned.

2007-10-18T21:22:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, I worked for a fine fellow name of Gartin at a nice company called SwimWays. On a business trip far away from the headquarters in Virginia Beach, he took the time to buy me a souvenir of Denver, Colorado.

He found a lucite-encased scorpion paperweight at a gift shop. "A souvenir of Denver." He knew I would appreciate the silliness of this item, since scorpions are not common to Denver.

I've lived in Denver a year now, and the paperweight is returned. Haven't seen a scorpion in all that time. Not a single one.

High score?

2007-10-17T07:56:00.000-06:00

From our Yahoo Fantasy Football league, I find that my St. Louis Ducks have the "Viagara High Score of the Week." You'd think that Viagara would be an award for the low score of the week, and make it bigger. Maybe that means that my high score will last all the way until next week. I'll call my doctor if it lasts for more than four hours.

I sprained a hammy.

2007-10-16T22:30:00.000-06:00

Jumping onto the Rockies bandwagon. Hell, I've done this before. When I was in Seattle, the Seahawks were in the playoffs and winning the NFC championship. It was fun to be there, and I kinda rooted for them, even though they're in the same division as the Rams.

So the Cards have taken a break from the playoffs this year, and now I'm watching the Rockies. I don't hate the Cards. I'm not a fairweather fan. But I've been to a couple games here and I'm getting to know the Rockies. They're having an incredible run, and it's fun to be a part of it. I don't feel like I'm cheating on my favorite team. Even though I'm wearing a purple shirt as I say this.

Funny, I always have and still do hate the Redskins, despite all those years in Virginia. Some would say because they never reached the playoffs.

Is this a sin? Liking another team when my team is out of the playoffs? Am I cheating on my home team when I wear a purple shirt and not a red one? Trust me... if the Cards play the Rockies tomorrow, I'll be there in red from head to toe.

Know your asshole footprint.

2007-10-15T07:51:00.000-06:00

Sure, you've figured out your carbon offsets. But what about your asshole footprint? Vanity Fair tries to be another men's magazine I'd like, but it's no Esquire.

Regrettably, some Americans are simply not aware of how large an asshole footprint they leave on the planet. Here, Vanity Fair offers a questionnaire that will help such individuals determine the size and breadth of their footprint.

Also provided are ways to reduce your asshole footprint, and places to contribute in order to purchase asshole offsets.

(I only answered 1 yes in the assigned questions for my age group. Which is how I know this test is bogus. But funny.)

Which Hero are you?

2007-10-14T07:49:00.000-06:00

This test is bogus. Guess who I am?

What are we doing in Iraq?

2007-10-13T11:31:00.000-06:00

Why are we there? We can't leave until somebody can answer this question.

It seems like a simple question. "The United States has 150,000 troops deployed in Iraq because..." I can't finish that sentence.

Personally, and this is just me, when I'm doing something and I don't know why, I quit doing that and do something else.

Some good names not taken yet.

2007-10-12T07:57:00.000-06:00

Since carmakers make more money on SUVs, they make lots of different models. Many more SUVs than coupes or sedans these days. Unfortunately, the folks in charge of naming these things are completely overwhelmed. Used to be that an auto manufacturer would create a new model every three years or so, but they're rushing these environment-destroying death-traps to market like new sandwiches at McDonald's.

So what are they using as names for these McGriddle mobiles? Interestingly, I'll mention the first thing they're not doing any more: animals. Since the Ford Bronco, there hasn't been another animal name. Weep for the critters.

Since the Ford Explorer, there have been many outdoorsy names. Navigator? Explorer? TrailBlazer? Pathfinder? These are good ones, probably the best, and seemingly appropriate. I'm not going to get into the issue that 99% of these "outdoorsy" SUV owners never get their tires dirty.

Special credit here for the Subaru Forester, which to me invokes an image of deforestation, which is a wink to say, "We know these vehicles are destroying the Earth, but don't say it out loud."

Lots of companies use letters for model names, and that's an old tradition going back to the Model T. MKX? SRX? HHR? Sure, I guess that's okay.

Places? Again, a classic naming strategy like the Malibu, Bel Air, and Camaro. So Santa Fe, Acadia, Denali, they evoke more outdoorsy images, that's good.

Subaru also makes the Tribeca, which is a place, but it's a neighborhood in Manhattan. That's got to be some kind of mistake. What are they thinking there at Subaru?

We'll give the Volkswagen Touareg a pass here, since it's named for a nomadic tribe. Nobody can pronounce that word, however, and that's a minus.

Kia Sportage - What the heck is a "sportage"? Is that like when Buffy says "slayage"?
Honda Element - Perhaps the worst name for a vehicle ever.
Dodge Nitro - Whoa, that one sounds safe! Reminds me of the inflammable Pinto.
Suzuki Grand Vitara - Suzuki again! What is a "vitara," and how does it get "grand"?
Chevrolet Equinox - Like a broken clock, right only twice a year.
Pontiac Torrent - Because it takes a torrent of gas to fill it up?
Buick Rendezvous - Ooh, it's French, and it's lame.
Ford Freestyle - You can do whatever you want, as long as you get to a gas station once each hour.
Isuzu Ascender - Probably for climbing onto curbs and across medians illegally.
Buick Enclave - Enough room for a whole tribe inside?
Nissan Armada - Could be a step in the right direction, see below.
Ford Escape - Escape from what? Carbon offsets? Miles per gallon?
Ford Edge - "Edge" is not a name. Especially for that guy that can't play guitar.
Saturn Relay - You need two or more of these to get where you're going. And a baton.
Buick Terraza - The terrace. I don't get it.

Here are my suggestions for SUV names. I think there's a large, untapped resource here. I freely offer these to the auto industry.

Chevrolet Crusher
Buick Ballbuster
Saturn Executioner
Ford Slayer
Nissan Liquidator
Isuzu Annihilator
Suzuki Eradicator
Pontiac Mutilator
Dodge Destroyer
Honda Hellraiser
Kia Killer

We have lots of guns.

2007-10-11T21:51:00.000-06:00

Do you own a gun? I do, but it's a family heirloom. A muzzle-loading shotgun that belonged to my namesake grandfather. Not the kind of thing you use in a crime of passion, except as a club.

Anyway, this article says that us Americans own lots and lots of guns. We're skewing the worldwide average something awful.

"There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said.

The really sad part is that the American fascination with firearms is irreversible. There are just too damned many of them. If we made them illegal tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. There's no way to clean up this mess.

Gotta love those drug companies.

2007-10-10T17:01:00.000-06:00

A new acid reflux medicine is called "AcipHex." It's pronounced exactly like "ass effects." You have to hear the commercial to believe it.

A new allergy medicine includes this disclaimer: "The way Veramyst works is not entirely understood." Can't that be said about any medicine? I guess it's nice for them to be so upfront about it.

50 best movie robots.

2007-10-09T08:09:00.000-06:00

I have to say it's a thorough list, although I have a couple of issues (surprised?).

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was not a movie, and the list would be fine without Twiki.

The robot spiders from Runaway were much cooler than #43. Of course, I prefer faceless robots to stupid sycophantic Threepio.

By the way, the names of those two toasters are "Artoo" and "Threepio." Those other nomenclatures are their designations. That's geek nitpicking at its finest right there.

I still cringe at the word "droideka." It was invented between the moment we finished writing cards for Young Jedi and the premiere of the movie. We exchanged shocked and stunned looks when that word hit the screen.

Cylons at #32? They haven't seen the new series. Perhaps anthropormphic skinjobs did't make the cut, or maybe they wised up about the TV thing. If we had to dip into the TV pool, Six is better than Twiki.

I don't think they've missed any movie robots. Can you think of any?

Infuckingfixing.

2007-10-08T21:51:00.000-06:00

Neil Gaiman has a most delightful blog, in which he relates things he has learned and by which we can learn them too. It turns out that words like "absofuckinglutely" have a grand linguistic heritage.

An infix is an affix inserted inside another morpheme. This is common in Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages. For example, the Tagalog language has borrowed the English word graduate as a verb. In this language, a grammatical form similar to the active voice is formed by adding the infix to the first syllable of a verb, so a speaker saying "I graduated" uses the derived form grumaduate.

It's called "infixing." When Snoop Dogg says "hizouse" and "shiznit," he is also infixing. There's a special entry for expletive infixation with many delightful examples. Fanfuckingtastic.

Commoncase, I miss you.

2007-10-07T08:13:00.000-06:00

A popular trend in the 80s, "commoncase" is the use of mixed capital and lowercase letterforms in the same font.

I've always liked this, and I can't really say why. Evidently it's unheard of now... Google and Wikipedia searches came up with nothing. Typography is all but dead now anyway, so I guess this is just another casualty. Somebody at Just Brakes knows what's going on, though.

Plasma > LCD.

2007-10-06T08:14:00.000-06:00

Our new condo has a large living room, and we're thinking about a new TV. I need to get a 1080p with HDMI anyway, for when I get a PS3 in July. My friends are telling me that the new LCD TVs are much better, and I should get one of those. I absolutely love my plasma, so I had to be convinced.

We spent some time at Best Buy and compared about a dozen or more flatscreen TVs, and I still think the blacks and contrast on plasma are far superior to LCD. So we're still looking, but now I'm fixed on plasma. I measured the distance between the windows, and we've got room for a 60-incher. Woot!

Things that disturb me.

2007-10-05T09:09:00.000-06:00

Not things that make me angry or things I don't like. I talk about those things here every day. I'm talking about things that just plain weird me out.

Baby corn. Reminds me of some 50s sci-fi movie involving a shrink ray.

Wheels with 7 spokes. The 360 degrees of a circle do not divide by 7. It's not natural.

Spiders. Not any kind of irrational fear, but a significant discomfiture. Upon finding them in video games, for example, I am most interested in resovling the encounter with haste.

Claustrophobia. Nothing clinical or chronic, but elevators and showers have always made me uncomfortable, unless they had at least one glass wall. This has gotten worse as I've gotten older, and the thought of attempting another MRI makes me uneasy right now.

Clocks that tick. Sorry, but that just bugs me. I try to ignore it but I can't.

Women wearing neckties. As disturbing to me as a man in a bra.

That darn Congress.

2007-10-04T21:17:00.000-06:00

Your House of Representatives questioned hip-hop artists about their objectionable lyrics. (Evidently they could find nothing more important to discuss.) I wish to God that one of those artists had responded like this:

"Congressman, when you say 'f-word,' do you mean 'fork'? Or 'flag'? I don't know what words you are talking about. I know what words I wrote and sang in my song, but I don't think you know what I wrote or said. If we're here to talk about words, tell me what words you are most concerned with, rather than speaking baby talk."

I hate all this pussyfooting around.

MacGuffin value meal.

2007-10-03T09:36:00.000-06:00

How to turn your movie into a Hitchcock thriller in thirteen easy steps. Too bad he couldn't come up with 39 steps. Ha!

Even when you know how this works, it's still amazing to see it in action. We watched Rope, a Hitch flick neither of us had seen before, and all the trademarks were there.

Watching a Hitchcock film is like watching that guy spin the plates on Ed Sullivan. You know what he's going to do, but he's so damned good at it that it's fun to watch.

The new laws of fashion.

2007-10-02T21:54:00.000-06:00

My beloved Esquire, the only real magazine for men (women have millions, like shoes), produced a list of fashion guidelines. There are 50 of them, and I agree with about 12, including 4, 10, 17, 19, 24, 30, 33, 35, 42, 45, 47, and 48.

I disagree with 10 of them, especially 9 (my color palette has only blacks, blues, greys, and reds and certainly no fucking pink) and 14 (if women look good in a man's shirt, then I look good in a bra... which I don't, not even a bro... women in men's clothes disturb me greatly). The other ones I disagree with are 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 25.

Mongolian death worm.

2007-10-01T09:14:00.000-06:00

It is described as a fat, bright red worm, two to four feet long (about 0.6 to 1.2 meters). The local name is allghoi (or orghoi) khorkhoi (хорхой) which means "blood filled intestine worm," because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow.

There are a number of extraordinary claims by Mongolian locals (such as the ability of the worm to spew forth a yellow poison that is lethal on contact, and its purported ability to kill at a distance by means of electric discharge).

However, there are no known reliable sightings. Some believe the worm is actually a reptile, legless lizard, or arthropod because of the dry climate in which it lives. The colour yellow is said to attract the worm.

Twenty-nine and counting.

2007-09-30T09:48:00.000-06:00

September 30th, 2007 is our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. Every day is still precious, every day is still new.

"A contemporary or modern 29th anniversary gift has a theme of Furniture." Sensible choice, that one. We've recently bought a pedestal table for LWC's craft room and a table and four chairs for my Office/Game Room. Yesterday we bought a convertible sofa for the media room. Yes, we really do have lots of rooms.

All the good names were taken.

2007-09-29T08:13:00.000-06:00

This is a Saturn world-killing death-trap SUV called "Relay." Honestly, can't they come up with anything else? Someone once said to Strong Guy, "You must be X-Factor!" and his reply was, "Yeah, all the good names were taken." This from a guy named "Strong Guy."

Why I am a Sad Panda.

2007-09-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

From the irrepressible Bernie Miklasz on why the Rams suck:

The Rams have attempted 109 passes so far, and 22 have been caught behind the line of scrimmage. Another 51 have traveled 10 yards or less. That means 67 percent of the Rams' passes so far have been dinks. If you're petrified of throwing the ball downfield, then why have so many expensive wide receivers? Why sign Drew Bennett and tight end Randy McMichael? If Bulger's ribs prevent him from making longer passes, then play Gus Frerotte. That's why you gave him a three-year, $6.3 million deal.

I haven't even watched a game on TV and I can corroborate this evaluation. Yes, even the endorsement of Frerotte, and I never thought I'd say that.

I watch the game play by play on internet hookups, and I am disgusted by (a) play calling in general and (b) the inability to manage a game (how to get ahead, how to stay ahead, how to manage the clock). I loved "Mad" Mike Martz. I wish he was still there.