A new kind of debate

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we need a President who will always tell the truth!" - John McCain on 9/29/08 talking about Barack Obama's performance in last Friday night's debate.

John McCain has apparently not heard the one about the pot and the kettle.


I want to see a new kind of Presidential debate. Less of a debate, actually, and more of a question and answer session.

I want a moderator, someone like RW maybe, to call out each man on either the lies or the misleading attacks each one has perpetuated. The moderator can pick 4 or 5 specific attacks committed by each candidate and ask that man directly what he meant when he said those things. Then he can give his opponent a chance to defend himself. Afterwards each man would be forced to admit that they either lied, purposely mis-led or were ignorant of the facts. The first time that one of them refuses to do so in plain words, he gets his microphone turned off for the next round of questions. And he gets yelled at by the moderator. For being a lying douchebag!

A straight talk Q&A session. No bullshit. None. That's what I want to see.

They can start with how to properly pronounce "Warshington".

PS - And while Republicans are jawing at Nancy Pelosi for grandstanding and placing the blame for our current fiscal crisis on the Bush administration before the vote actually occurred yesterday, John McCain was doing exactly the same thing on the campaign trail in Ohio. Taking credit for getting the job done. Man, all these politicians suck! I don't know if the $700 billion deal is a good one, but now both sides are claiming the other side tried to make it about politics before the vote. Since they didn't like that, they voted against the bill. Their feelings were hurt so they changed their mind on the vote. For a party that has been claiming "country first" throughout the campaign, the country seems to be the last thing they were thinking about today. My Dad used to tell me that two wrongs don't make a right. I think this falls under that header. Feh.

Tales From the Crapper

That's where I've been all weekend. Well, not really. Just seems that way. There I three things that will guaranfuckintee me a solid (?) couple of days on the crapper. 1) Chili, even my own concoction. 2) Lots of beer. I always drink plenty of beer, but I'm talkin' LOTS OF BEER. I did that this weekend. 3) Thai food. I could eat Thai food every night. Larb, Massaman, Tom Kha Gai...I could eat that shit every night. I love Thai food. But Thai food doesn't love me. Wanna guess what was I had to eat and drink this weekend?

That's right. Copious amounts of chili, beer and Thai food. And the occasional trips to the crapper are actually less frequent than I anticipated going into the weekend. What with the three points of the Bermuda Crapper Triangle on the menu. They are my own personal Axis of Evil. Except I am willing to engage in negotiations without any preconditions, unlike our current regime. I mean administration.

For those interested in this kind of thing, I made the chili (see yesterday's post), Gia's sister made the Thai food (better than any Thai restaurant I've been to) and the beer was made by the glorious beer elves that reside in the land of hops and malt somewhere over the rainbow. They work tirelessly to bless us with their sweet nectar. Oh thank you beer elves! We love you!

You know who else spent the weekend on the crapper?

The New York Mets.

Ouch.

Band-Aid Chili

My Dad was a huge fan of chili. Chili, beer and good times. He liked them all. Over the years he perfected his recipe for chili that we came to call "Band-Aid Chili". There's a story behind that as well, but I'll save that for another time.

Dad passed away in 2003, but I've tried to keep up his tradition of bringing the family over what he called a "big pot of red". This weekend would have been his birthday. So my Mom called me and asked me to make some chili so she could ask her kids and grand kids to together so that we could all enjoy a big pot of red.

I think Dad would approve.

Band-Aid Chili

First off, the recipe below is bullshit. Every time my father made this chili and every time I have made it, it has come out differently. Different veggies, more or less meat, more or less spice. It all comes out to a different chili. So the recipe below is pretty much a guideline more than anything else. The chili I am making this weekend has 8 different kinds of peppers, for example. And more meat to veggie ratio. And black beans. I hardly ever use beans, but I'm using 'em this weekend. So take the recipe with a grain of salt. Or a pinch of cumin. Whatever you prefer. - Earl

Ingredients
1 ½ pounds ground sirloin
1 pound ground Italian sausage (sweet or hot or both)
1 large can peeled Italian tomatoes (not sure of the size, but the big can)
1 small can tomato paste (not sure of the size, but the smallest one)
1 bottle beer (user’s choice, but make sure you save some for the cook)
2-3 red, orange or yellow peppers diced (I like to mix it up for the colors)
2 green peppers diced
2 large onions diced
6 celery stalks diced
I large handful of jalapeno or similarly spicy peppers seeded and diced.
2 ½ tablespoons ground chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon salt

- Add tomatoes (you can slice them up if you like, but include all the juice in the can), tomato paste, beer and spices to large pot on low-medium heat.

- Brown beef and sausage in large pan. Drain and add to pot.

- Sauté onions, celery and peppers in a little vegetable oil until onions are a little translucent. Add to pot.

- Bring to a slow boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 4-5 hours (or until the tomatoes break down) covered, stirring occasionally.

- Serve with sour cream, grated cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, tortilla chips and hot sauce for an additional kick. It doesn't need to be served over rice, but if that's what you are into then I'm not gonna stop ya.

Enjoy!

He's Circum-Super Sized!

Everybody is getting political, yo!

It's that time of the year, or that time that comes from around every four years, I guess. Seems to me that this year the nation is divided even more than usual. This leads to a lot of in-fighting in the trenches. Even here in the blog-o-sphere. Why can't we all just get along? Republicans and Democrats. Liberals and Conservatives. Israelis and Palestinians. Hatfield and McCoys.

So let's all take a break and watch a funny little video from Sarah Silverman to take our mind off of all that crap. Nothing political about her, right? Well, nothing politically correct at least.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Okay...maybe there was a bit of a politics in there. Oy!

Enthusiasms

"Life goes on.

A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms. Enthusiams...enthusiasms.

What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?

Baseball!

A man. A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part. Of. A. Team.

Looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team. Bats himself the live-long day, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and so on. If his team don't field...what is he? You follow me? No one.

Sunny day, the stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm goin' out there for myself. But...I get nowhere unless the team wins."

De Niro as Capone uttered these wise words as a prelude to beating one of his top men to death with a baseball bat.

I know how he feels.

The Yankees are out of the playoffs for the first time since 1993 (they didn't have a post-season in '94). I know...we Yankee fans have been spoiled with the best teams money can buy over these last 15 or so years. It still sucks.

Now all I have to root for is another September implosion by the Mets. And two teams from the AL East are in the playoffs as well. Joy. Joy. So I guess I can root against the Rays as well as the fucking Nation.

Right now, I just feel like beating an underling to death with a baseball bat.


(I've seen this picture with the kid wearing a Sawx jersey too...so it's probably been photo shopped a bunch of times. I like the sentiment, though. Even if Boston clearly doesn't suck. Sigh. - Earl)

Amityville MST3K

So last night we were watching Amityville II: The Possession on Monster HD. Don't judge us! Anyway, neither of us had seen it in over 20 years, and the decades haven't been good to this one. Let me tell you. Or have they?

Prior to the most drawn out demonic possession ever filmed (I'm only guessing here), there was a scene in the basement of the house that had us cracking up and making up our own dialogue. The eldest son is alone in the house and he had gone to the cellar to get a gun because he heard some noises that could have been an intruder.

All of a sudden he hears whispering voices from behind some hidden panel in the cellar. He yells out "Who's there? I can hear you!". That's the point when we started our own MST3K-ish dialogue, imagining what the mysterious voices in the cellar were really talking about:

Satan: You idiots! He can hear us.
Beelzebub: It wasn't me, it was Azazel!
Azazel: NOT! Satan, he's always blaming me!
Satan: Enough with the squabbling! I've had it with you two!
Mephistopheles: I WANT TO POSSESS HIS SOUL!!!
Satan: Shhh...inside voices, Mephistopheles. Inside voices.
Mephistopheles: I WANT TO POSSESS HIS SOUL!!!
Satan: (to himself) I can't believe I'm stuck in here with these guys.
Azazel: Satan! Beelzebub is touching me!
Satan: (slaps his forehead) Crap!

The movie just got better and better from there. Spousal abuse, child abuse, and incest. Yes...the creepiest incest scene ever filmed (I'm only guessing here). The brother visits his sister in her bedroom one night. He asks her to play the model/photographer game, and that's fine. I mean, who hasn't played that game with his sister every once in a while. But then he asks her to take off her nightgown. Her response? "OK, but only for a minute!"

You can imagine where the evening goes from there.



You're imagining it...aren't you? Sickos!

Quién es más odioso?

All I know from the Spanish language is "taco", "enchilada" and "salsa", so I guess I'm gonna have to trust the handy online phrase translator that I found to come up with that phrase up there in the title. What did I type in? "Who is more heinous?". That's the name of the little game we are playing today. Why is it in Spanish? I dunno. I guess certain phrases seem funnier in other languages. Plus SNL did a skit many, many, many years ago called "Who is more macho?", but in Spanish. And I haven't had an original thought in my head in about two decades. So there.

So my post a few days ago about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia got me to thinking about who the most heinous characters are in television today. I'm gonna excuse the IASIP gang because, well...that's their shtick. They are supposed to be the worst people in the world. Get it?

So, if not them then whom? Did I use "whom" correctly? Whom knows. I'm going to also exclude anyone from shows like Gossip Girl, The Hills or Desperate Housewives. Because I'm a dude. A straight dude.

Here are my candidates. (Warning: Here there be spoilers)

Kelly Kapur (The Office) - Kelly is badass in so many ways. She is a ruthless, empty-headed, shallow caricature of young American woman. Her prey is the small, almost dwarfish Ryan and she has shown that she is willing to go to just about any lengths to keep him/get him back. She even told him she was pregnant once (only to shake her head "no" to the camera immediately afterwards). And her annoying, in-your-face attitude of boyfriend brow-beating was on full display in the infamous ping-pong episode. She gets a few points, however, for being cute. Runner-up: Ryan himself. What a tool.

Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother) - I never really thought about it before, but the title of this show could be construed as being pretty dirty. Anyway, Barney, as a human, is pretty heinous. He will lie and cheat and use any means available to sleep with a random bimbo. And then dump her. He is the king of the one-night stand. My favorite was the one where he brought a woman back to an apartment he conned a real estate broker into lending him. The next morning he just left her there. Oh yeah, and he broke the "Bro Code" by sleeping with his best friend's ex. You just don't do that shit, yo! Runner-up: His best bro, Ted. He's a fucking whiny bitch.

Tommy Gavin (Rescue Me) - He's an on-again, off-again alcoholic firefighter from NYC dealing with 9/11 by sleeping with his dead cousin's wife. He then reconciles with his family only to have his son killed by a drunk driver. After his uncle kills the drunk driver, he splits from his family again. Only to have an affair WITH his wife who is now sleeping with his brother. Yeah. His cousin's widow, remember her, tries to kill him (kinda) by setting the house on fire after he tells her he won't move away with her. And that was only the first three seasons. I stopped watching regularly, but he's still pretty heinous in Season 4. Runner-up - Everyone else in the show. They are all a bunch of douchebags.

Benjamin Linus (Lost) - I can't figure this dude out. There are times that you just wanna feel sorry for him. He got his ass kicked by the Losties and endured some Abu Ghraib-ish torture at their hands. But then we found out that he deserved it by being the nefarious leader of the Others. They kidnapped, killed, imprisoned and tortured at will as well. How can you feel sorry for a guy like that? Then he lost his daughter and you wanted to feel bad for him again. But his methods and his secrecy put him firmly in the "heinous" category. Runner-up: The Lostie who escaped only to recently return in shame, Michael. This guy is a real douchebag! Or he was. Hehehe.

There are probably others, but those are the first few who come to mind. So I ask you, dear readers...

Quién es más odioso?

The End of an Era

Last night was the final game ever to be played at Yankee Stadium.

Oh sure, yeah there will be another Yankee Stadium next year. And purists will argue that the current stadium isn't really the same one that Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle played in because of the mid-70's renovations. But I don't remember the old stadium. I became a fan of the Yankees in 1972 when I was 6 and my memory is pretty strong, but not strong enough to remember the old stadium except for old highlight reels. Especially since I never visited the stadium until after the 1975 season.

So watching the final game played at my personal baseball shrine was a sad event indeed. Especially considering how disappointing of a year that they (and we) have had to endure. I've been to the stadium hundreds of times over the years. When they were great and when they were not-so great. It was almost always a wonderful time.

I'll remember Reggie Jackson and Willie Randolph and Thurman Munson. Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield and Dave Righetti. Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams and David Wells. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. Six glorious championships in my lifetime and endless moments of exciting baseball sprinkled throughout.

I'm gonna miss it.

That is all.

Tomorrow: Back to dick and fart jokes.

Beware the bubble

Gia gave me the boot the other day.

No...she didn't dump me. Here's what I'm talking about.


Doesn't it bring a tear to your eye. I included a regular 16oz pint glass and a large half-liter Hefeweizen glass in the pic just for comparison. This sucker is big, y'all. It holds a little more than six pints of liquid. And by liquid, I mean beer. Just to clarify.

Now we have to get a keg refrigerator so we can really play with it.

Can't wait.

Born to be bad

I wanna be bad.

I guess we all do, at one point or another. Subconsciously, I guess everyone at some junction in their lives wants to be bad.

But I wanna be really, really bad.

I wanna pretend like I'm injured just to gain sympathy with strippers. I wanna date someone who may or may not be a retard. I wanna bang my best friend's Mom. Then I wanna set his sister on fire so I can sell the footage and make millions. I wanna become a crackhead...just to be eligible for welfare. I wanna eat human flesh, as long as it doesn't make me racist. I wanna hunt a childhood friend for fun, and then teabag him when I eventually catch him.

In other words, I wanna be one of the gang in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

That's what she said

Saw this on Gorilla Mask the other day, and I just had to steal it. We've got new episodes of The Office coming pretty soon (that's what she said), and I thought it would be a good idea to bring everyone up to speed on what's gone on before. Enjoy!

The one at the end with Stanley cracked me up!

PS - Six degrees of vengeance mayhem over at the MovieGrenade! You know you wanna do it.

Wha, wha, what!

There's a film coming out in a few weeks that I just saw a trailer for last night. It's called An American Carol, and its a satire on the American far left (politically, that is) written and directed by David Zucker. The guy that brought us Airplane!

The focus of the film appears to be a Michael Moore-ish character played by Chris Farley's baby brother, Kevin. I've only seen him in commercials so far, but he really sounds just like his brother. Anyway, it seems that this guy is so anti-American (like all liberals, get it?) that he wants to abolish Independence Day as a holiday. So he gets visited by 3 ghosts from America's past to help him get past his anti-American ways.

Here is the trailer, officially approved by Bill O'Reilly, if you care:

I really don't care about this movie one way or another. There is just as much to make fun of on the left as there is on the right. I don't mind anyone being lampooned as long as its funny. But from the look of that trailer, it doesn't look like it brings the funny. I'd be willing to sit through it on cable eventually, if only because of Zucker's pedigree. But, man does this look awful!

It will play for its target audience, I guess. But I can't recall a Hollywood satire aimed at either the right or the left being released this close to a Presidential election before. Help me out here. Can anyone think of one?

I'd be interested in seeing a real scathing political comedy that makes fun of both sides of the political debate in an intelligent and humorous way. Not just silly George Bush, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama impersonations. That's what SNL is for. Feh.

Anyway, what got me to post about this film was the supporting cast. James Woods, Jon Voight and Dennis Hopper all make appearances. There are 8 Oscar nominations between those three dudes right there. Some major acting muscle. And they are appearing in this? Wow! I know Hollywood doesn't seem to be knocking down there doors for meaty roles lately, but really?

They should have called this movie what it really is.

Paycheck.

Memories...

Let me take you back to a simpler time. It was the 1970's and you didn't have to worry about high gas prices or the flailing economy or an unpopular war. Wait a minute...the 70's actually were a lot like that. Hmm.

Anyway, it was somewhere around '75 or '76 and there were only three types of Doritos available to the general public. Original (who really bought those?), Nacho Cheese (as hawked by Avery Schrieber on Saturday morning television) and Taco.

This is a post for those of us who remember and love Taco Doritos.

I don't know why and I don't know when, but one day the assholes at the evil Doritos headquarters decided to stop making Taco Doritos. Oh sure, you heard rumors. They still made them, but they only sell them in Texas. Or I hear they have a surplus supply of them in North Florida...but only in the panhandle. Rumors designed to keep the hopes of a chubby 10 year-old boy alive!

I don't know if any of these rumors were true. I only knew the cold, hard abandonment of never having my favorite chips ever again. I would never pick up a Taco Doritos chip and find the side with all the flavoring* and put it directly on my tongue so I could lick it's deliciousness off in a slow, circular motion until it was time to bite down on the chip itself. I would never ever feel that sensuous joy again.

*Oh you know what I'm talking about. They've improved on the flavoring of chips over the years so that both sides now get some of the flavoring, but there is always one side that has MORE of the flavoring. And back in 1975, Taco Doritos only had flavoring on one side. Deep, dark, black, tempting Taco flavoring.

The fools at Frito-Lay have even tried to trick us over the years into thinking they were bringing Taco Doritos back. They introduced Taco Bell Doritos, but that was a pale imitation. They gave us Zesty Taco a year or so ago, but they only sold it in bags mixed with Chipotle Ranch. And there were still those rumors that Taco...original Taco Doritos were available somewhere in the South. You know, just to piss off us Yankees.

Tonight, at the Super Stop & Shop in town I thought I found the Holy Grail!

TACO FLAVORED DORITOS!!!
(I would provide a picture, but I can't fine one on the web anywhere - Earl)

It says right on the bag "They're back by popular demand" in odd lettering. Too good to be true? Unfortunately, yes. They are cheesier (?) for some reason than the Zesty Taco chips sold in the combo bag, and no where near the same flavor as Original Taco so many years ago. I don't understand it.

I don't understand why a chip that was loved by so many (read Michael Ian Black talk about the chip here) can't be duplicated. Why can't they just hire somebody who worked for Frito-Lay back in the mid-70's and put them on the job and give us what we fucking want!

Final verdict: Not bad, but not great either. I'm gonna have to live with the disappointment, I guess. Crap!

SNL = Seriously...not laughing

I remember when I used to look forward to Saturday nights for something other than a drunken binge at the pub or a pop-in to the local cinema to see the latest Wesley Snipes feature. Saturday Night Live has been a part of my life for a very long time, sadly. I say "sadly" because it has spent far more years seriously lacking in the funny than actually bringing it.

Besides the brilliant impersonation of our possible future VP by Tina Fey in the intro sketch (seriously, did you think they were gonna get anyone else to play her?), the funniest moment in the entire show happened when musical guest Li'l Wayne rocked a guitar solo at the end of one of his forgettable numbers. That was awesomely awful.

Michael Phelps, as the host, proved that he should stay in the water...and never speak in public again. Andy Samberg's hit-or-miss weekly digital short was a huge miss this week. And the newest cast member is this guy from the latest ESPN radio commercial. Guess they felt they needed a Seth Rogan-ish/Jonah Hill-ish character to round out the tribe. He didn't bring the funny either. Especially in the skit which had him playing an annoying ethnic waiter at Pizzeria Uno.

To bring insult to injury, the political season heats up and they have no one on the cast capable of decently playing either John McCain or Barack Obama. So we get Palin and Hillary in the opening act. Bleh! So what has been comedy gold in past presidential elections looks to be an empty mine shaft this time around.

Its only gonna get worse, I'm afraid. Amy Poehler is leaving the cast shortly to join the cast of The Office spin-off. She has been hit or miss with me, but you can generally see that she has talent.

Remember when SNL was relevant and funny?

PS - Saw Burn After Reading this weekend and it was really good. Very different from the trailer. A bit darker and not quite as madcap as they would let you believe. But brilliant acting + absurd situations + The Coen Brothers = wonderful. In my book, at least.

"Not the rear entry situation"

Too tired from excessive commenting yesterday.

So today you get a trailer for the new Coen Brothers' comedy Burn After Reading.

We are gonna see it this weekend. How about you?

Oink!

I first saw Barack Obama's infamous (now) "lipstick on a pig" quote yesterday morning at the deli as a headline on the auspicious pages of that bastion of journalistic integrity, The NY Post. And I have to admit, I laughed a little bit at it. I've been kinda waiting for Obama to get mad about something, anything that is going on with the Republicans campaign of deflection. And I thought this was it.

Then I saw the video that it came from and my thoughts turned to "OK...he is just using a common phrase to outline a serious issue." That he was sick of the McCain campaign claiming they are the real agents of change. Smart people are gonna see that, right?

Wrong.

It did get a good laugh at wherever he was when he made those comments, that is true. Palin's pitbull/hockey mom comparison is still ringing pretty loudly in ears of the American public. So it was probably intentional on the part of the Obama campaign. Use her soundbite to initiate his own.

Was he calling Palin a pig? Um, no he wasn't. He may have turned around her words to point out the deficiencies in the Republicans change message, but I think even John McCain would agree that he wasn't actually calling Palin a pig. That, of course, isn't stopping the Republicans from crying "sexism". Rovian politics, my friends. When you can't defend, attack. Unreasonably, if necessary.

Listen, John McCain has used that same exact phrase just in the past year a few times. On one occasion he used it when talking about Hillary Clinton's health care platform. The crowd he was addressing laughed just as hard as Obama's crowd from the other day. Was McCain being sexist then? Hardly. Smart people know that, and Republicans would have been offended if Democrats had made that accusation. Or campaigned on it.

And McCain isn't the only major Republican or Democrat how uses this phrase in common usage. A bunch of them do, including current VP Dick Cheney. It is especially common on the campaign trail. As a way of attacking spin.

I'd rather that the Republicans address what Obama actually said and maybe try to convince me that he is wrong about their campaign of change. Show me that they really are for change. Don't get mired in rhetoric and deflection. That would be hoping for a lot, I guess.

Oh, and my favorite bit of irony about the entire silly fucking thing? John McCain's former Press Secretary published a book a few years ago. Guess what the name of that book was...go ahead, guess.



And I'm spent.

It's the end of the World...

...as we know it. I guess I feel fine.

The Large Hadron Collider goes online today. Apocalypse conspiracy theorists are agog over the possibilities of catastrophe. Me too, although I really don't think any of them are gonna happen. The mind, however, races.

There is the remote possibility that it could create mini-black holes that would spawn and multiply and eventually devour the entire planet. I think that theory is just racist. They wouldn't be as upset with white holes, I tell you that. But they just hate those uppity black holes.

There is the remote possibility that it could generate something called dark matter. I don't even know what dark matter is, but getting worried about this one sounds racist as well. Dark/light...black/white. You be the judge

Or how about the remote possibility that it could actually cause some kind of temporal displacement or flux. From there we could have the basic model for time travel, for lack of a better phrase. How could this be a bad thing? There is nothing I wish for on a daily basis more than time travel. Well, there is that invisibility/women's locker room fantasy. But I digress.

So, if for any of these reasons the World starts a quick journey to it's inevitable end starting today on the Swiss/French border (that's always where I assumed it was gonna happen anyway - Earl), here are the top 5 things I wanna do with my remaining days. Assuming, of course, that the whole time traveling thing is for real.

Top 5 Time Travel Vacations for Earl

1. I would love to go back to Ancient Sumerian times to be the first person in the history of the world to have a beer. They invented it, ya know. They even had a Goddess of Brewing. I pray to that Goddess every week, and I never even knew about her. Ah, I can already taste that sweet nectar!
2. May of 1939. Hitler was on the rise and the second World War was less than six months away. Oh, I wouldn't have done anything to stop the War. That would be a bit of grandiose posturing, I think. Nope...I'd pick me up a copy of Detective Comics #27. The first appearance of Bob Kane's Batman. How sweet would that be?
3. November of 1966. I'd tell a certain young boy to not be afraid of the cruel world waiting for him in the future. I would tell him to face his fears and strive for greatness in a society that can beat you down easier than it builds you up. I would tell him to boldly go where no man has gone before. But somehow I don't think that Carrot Top would listen to me.
4. I think it would be cool to go back to pre-historic times. When man first started walking upright on that long climb into the realm of Civilization. And I would fuck with their heads with a flashlight or an iPod or something. Nothing brings the funny like messing with Neanderthals!
5. This last one is serious. I would definitely go back to 325 AD and have a little chat with Emperor Constantine. The Council of Nicaea was a decent idea and all, I guess. But it's legacy of state-sanctioned religion has led to all kinds of trouble for the human race. Trouble we still find ourselves in today. 1,700 years down the road. Plus I heard that those Roman Emperors had all the best booze and whores. I wanna party with that guy!

So where/when would you travel back in time to if this Super Collider thing actually delivers?

PS - I told you yesterday something was going on with Kim Jong Il. You heard it here first!

Mr. Science

Mr. Science says "a boomerang, when thrown correctly, will always return to the person who threw it. EVEN IN ZERO GRAVITY!!!"

So you think that all the experiments in the International Space Station are of the ground-breaking, scientific discovery type, eh? Nah! Sometimes those dudes just want to see some fucked up shit in space. In this video, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi throws a boomerang in zero gravity and the motherfucker comes right back to him! Dude!

In his next video he is gonna play hacky-sack and smoke a big bowl while listening to Widespread Panic. Just to see the science behind it all, man.

PS - So there is this Japanese professor who thinks that Kim Jong Il died way back in 2003 and has been replaced by up to four body doubles ever since. And we think America is fucked up.

True Blood

I just finished watching the premiere episode of HBO's True Blood, and I'm hooked. I was actually thinking about passing on the series. I had read a couple of negative reviews, and I really didn't want to get wrapped up with another TV show. Especially on Sunday night with the third season of Dexter just around the corner.

I'm glad I tuned it. It is exactly the kind of thing that is right up my alley. And it took me a while to realize what about it that I was loving, but it came to me toward the end of the episode.

It reminded me of a comic-book. A really good comic-book. Something along the lines of Garth Ennis' "Preacher" or Alan Moore's run on "Swamp Thing". It always seemed like the Brits just did "America" better in comic-books than actual Americans. Something about the wonder of it all, maybe.

That's neither here nor there for my point. None of the creators of this show are Brits. They are true Southerners, in fact. Charlaine Harris (her novels are the source material for the show) is from Mississippi and Alan Ball is from Atlanta. But I couldn't shake the feeling like I was seeing Ennis' or Moore's material up there on the television screen.

And that is about the biggest compliment I can give.

PS - I loved the "God Hates Fangs" sign outside the Church during the opening credits. I think this show is gonna have lots of real-life parallels about discrimination, sexual politics and race relations. How delicious!

Note - Can't get enough of the Presidential race? Try these guys on for size. It's not going to be for everyone, but hey...neither am I.

C'mon Sheeple!

I just became a follower.

Not of the Jesus.

Not of Xenu.

Not even Buddha.

No, I just started using Blogger's Reading List feature and widget. I was hesitant at first because it didn't seem different from Google Reader at all. And I already import my Google Reader feeds (most of them) onto the Blogroll on my sidebar. So why did I do it?

I dunno. I was bored. It's raining out and Notre Dame sucks, so there ya go. But there is one cool feature that it has. It will tell you how many other bloggers out there are following you. That's kinda cool. You can even put a new widget on your sidebar which will show all the bloggers out there who are following you through this feature.

How neat! How utterly wonderful for us ego-maniacs. Now we can tell exactly how many people are following us, hell-bent on listening to every word we say.

So how many followers do I have?

One.

Thanks, Lotus!

ManTown

So besides toiling here on the Bug-Eyed Blog and reviewing beers over at the Beer-Eyed Blog and reviewing "bad cinema" over at the MovieGrenade!, I've been asked to help out with a cause near and dear to my heart. I've been asked to contribute to another blog by our friend, Evyl. A blog dedicated to, um, manly issues. Where we manly men speak of manly things in our manly underwear. Or something like that.

He and Smoke started it out a whiles back, and then they were joined by Crazy Dan (no link provided). Now it will be the four of us, and they have re-titled the joint ManTown. There are no by-lines, so you will have to guess if you want to figure out who is posting what. But you might be able to tell which posts are mine. Maybe. ;)

So head on over to ManTown and give us a holler. As always, the ladies are welcome as well. Be sure to check your dignity and your political correctness at the door, but bring as many fetishes as you are comfortable with.

PS - Before Slyde asks, no...it's not a gay thing. But we are willing to learn. - Earl

The Elephant in the Room

That would be what was left unsaid in Sarah Palin's speech last night at the Republican Convention. No, I'm not talking about her family's issues. I really didn't expect her to discuss her family's "issues" at length or really at all. That's not the elephant in the room that I am talking about. I'm talking about the mess that our country has become over the past eight years while George W. Bush has run things along with his misfit band of sycophants. An un-just war, a recession, inflation, corruption...it goes on and on.

Sarah Palin said last night that the job of politics is to "...challenge the status quo, to serve the common good and to leave this nation better than when we found it". The Bush administration has failed on every one of those counts. Miserably. But that is something that never gets mentioned by McCain's camp.

So what did she talk about? She rolled out the greatest hits list just like the rest of the speakers thus far. Keep our country strong, drill now, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, blah, blah, blah. But basically that we should vote for John McCain because he is a war hero and Obama is not. That's it. Everything else is moot. Oh, and apparently we are now winning the war over in Iraq thanks to men like John McCain. "Victory is in sight." I didn't know that. Cool! When can our troops come home?

The Democrats had a similar list that they droned about, so I'm not giving them a pass either. I just wish, for once, that someone would truly talk about all the issues in play rather than just the ones that sound good to their partisan crowds. I know it ain't gonna happen, but that would be the candidate I would be most excited to vote for. As it is I get to pick the one that makes me the least sick to my stomach.

As I suspected, Palin is a strong, intelligent, confident and passionate public speaker. Like I said yesterday, I don't agree with her politics but that doesn't mean that she is wrong all the time. Just that we disagree most of the time. I especially liked how she, and the rest of the convention speakers that I have seen, have taken the fight to the "liberal" media rather than to the Democrats themselves a good deal of the time. Keith Olberman and his buddies must have loved that.

Her two biggest soundbites of the evening, in my opinion:

1. Do you know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick.
2. Some candidates who use change as a way to promote their career. John McCain uses his career to promote change.

I'm sure I didn't get those quotes exactly right, but you catch her drift. The first one sounds like something that she has been rolling off of her tongue for years. It sounded like her. The second one sounds like something written by an advertising agency. Actually, most of the second half of her speech sounded like something that came right out of McCain's speech writing camp. So we know that she can read other people's words pretty well.

That's politics.

Chris Matthews on CNBC dismissed her as an alternative to Hilary Clinton (as some had speculated), but as an direct alternative to Barack and Michelle Obama themselves. A cultural torpedo, so to speak, aimed at their ship. One that won't dismiss small-town values or religion or national pride. Looks like McCain hired himself a bully to beat on the Obamas. A bully with a sniper rifle pointed at their hearts.

Now I can see why he picked her.

I despise all that she stands for, but for McCain's purposes she just might be the perfect choice for this role.

Random Wiki: I think I've officially become bored with this gimmick. Say goodbye to the Random Wiki. Sniff.

Palin Comparison

Because all the cool kids are doing it.

There have been lots of delicious rumors going around about Sarah and Bristol Palin and which one is the mother of young Trig (what an awesomely awful name). I'm not going to re-hash it all here, but I will give you this link which outlines the rumors of the alleged concealment about as well as one could hope for. I can't tell you whether or not there is any validity to these rumors, but the wide-eyed space monkey in me is praying for it to be true. Not because I am a Liberal and/or Democrat (guilty on both counts), but because it would be the most awesome-ist story to hit the national political arena since it was rumored that President James Buchanan (1857-1861) may have been gay. It would just make me so happy to find out that she pretended to be pregnant so that her 16/17 year-old daughter wouldn't embarrass her. That's gold, Jerry!

No. This entry from Daily Kos is the kind of thing that bothers me more than conspiracy theories regarding her 4 month-old son. Sure, a lot of people don't know that the Pledge of Allegiance originally didn't contain the phrase "under God" in its language, and a lot of folks don't know when it was written. I have no problem with Average Joe/Joan claiming ignorance on those points. But for a woman who was running for the Governorship of Alaska (I'm assuming that is when she answered the questionnaire) to say that she doesn't mind the inclusion of the phrase because "...If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me.", I gotta call foul. This has been a hot-button topic for a few years now and anyone in the political arena should know the FACTS about the issue. Certainly before they speak about it*.

*I don't want to pigeon-hole everyone on the religious right here. I've done that before and I've been wrong. I have an aunt who is staunchly conservative and most of that comes from her religious views, so I will use her as an example. I've argued with her about the "under God" phrase in the Pledge. Her views are similar to Ms. Palin's views. Except that she refuses to believe me when I point out the facts. I don't know Palin, so I don't know what she thinks now about the issue. But my aunt firmly believes that the founding fathers of this nation intended our nation to be a Christian nation and she backed it up by bringing up the "under God" issue and the fact that we, as a nation, take the oath on the bible. Including the Presidential Oath. I calmly point out that the Pledge, as written, doesn't include the phrase and that there is nothing, NOTHING that specifically states that the Presidential Oath needs to be done on a bible. Doesn't matter. She brushes aside those FACTS as if they didn't matter. Her mind is made up on the issue. We are a Christian country. I wonder if Palin is as stubborn.

Listen, everyone makes mistakes (see Bristol Palin), but you can't be indignant and self-righteous about an issue when you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Makes you sound like an fucking idiot (see George W. Bush).

And, I disagree with just about everything that comes out of Sarah Palin's pie-hole. For those of you who aren't aware of her political opinions, here is a sampling of her greatest hits**:

Abortion: She is pro-life. Staunchly so.
Capital Punishment: She supports it in some cases.
Sex Education: She supports a policy of abstinence-only education in schools.
Creationism: She wants it taught in our public schools.
Same Sex Marriage: She opposes it.
Gun Control: Don't even get me started. She's a gun nut.
Global Warming: She doesn't believe that we (humans) have had any hand in it.

**I'm not referencing any source material, it's too exhausting. This information can be found in just about any article you read on Sarah Palin. Go ahead and have fun. - Earl

I've got no problem with her position on any of that stuff. I really don't. I think she's wrong, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. What I have a problem with is that she comes across as a fucking idiot when she speaks out of ignorance on a silly little topic like the Pledge of Allegiance, and it makes you wonder how suited she is to discuss any of the really important issues. Eh?

And this could be our next Vice President. And a heartbeat from the big boy seat.

Random Wiki: "The Banality of Evil is a phrase coined in 1963 by Hannah Arendt in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal." I copied all that directly from Wiki, by the way. Wow! Talk about a topical Random Wiki! I'm just sayin'.

So, where did I get that from?

"If wishes were fishes, we'd all be Pope" - No idea.

There are words and phrases that somehow just become a part of our everyday life. We hear them on the radio, on the television, in the local pub, on the street and in the bedroom. They speak to us, even cling to us until they become a part of us.

The quote up top is one of those phrases that has stuck to me.

The thing is, I don't know where I heard it from originally. In fact, I'm not even really sure just what the Hell it means. If wishes where fishes, we'd all be Pope. Does it mean that if wishes were as common as fishes, then we would all get our most cherished wish. To be Pope? Who the Hell wants to be Pope anyway? You have to ride around in that stupid bullet-proof car wearing that stupid hat holding that stupid cane. Hey, maybe it appeals to some folks, but I kinda like my way jeans and flip-flops.

I even Googled the phrase. You know what I found?

1. The message boards on deviantART.com. There is one user there who uses it as his/her tagline.
2. This blog from some woman in the Philippines. It's actually a pretty good blog. I've been reading it for a few days now. She used the phrase in one of her posts.
3. My blog.

That's it. That's all there is. We three are the only ones in the history of the interwebs to use this phrase, or so says the Google Gods. Maybe I'm getting the wording wrong, or maybe the three of us are living in a dream world where this phrase actually exists. Like we are all living the same dream at the same time, the three of us. I think I just freaked myself out!

So I put it to you. Have you A) ever heard this phrase before and/or B) heard of where it came from? What are its origins? I'm just dying to know.

Random Wiki: Wham Bam Slam was a short film featuring the Three Stooges from 1955. It was a Shemp, so no one really gives a shit about it. I think the plot revolved around Moe picking up a girl at the local diner, jumping into bed with her and then dumping her. Or Shemp has a toothache. One or the other.