Nerf-Coated World

November 24, 2004

Workin'

Oy.

Well, it's been a rough week. Rougher for others than for me, obviously. In retrospect, I'll just call the last 7 days or so my week off, and pick up with the usual posting rate on Saturday.

Meanwhile, my day job still entails all sorts of stuff to do... There's always more to do when you build and run websites.

I've also gotten hooked on this treasure hunt. It's a promotion being put on by Sharp. Probably the most stimulating mental exercise I've done in a while. I actually wish I spent more time on stuff like this. My TV hasn't been turned on in several days.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Matt at 1:22 PM

November 20, 2004

Quote of the day

From Clue, which I watched today:

Wadsworth: Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry, specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Prof. Plum: Yes, but now I work for the United Nations.
Wadsworth: So, your work has not changed.

Posted by Matt at 4:27 PM

Posting slowed momentarily

Hey guys --

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday. There's been a death in my family, so my priorities are rearranged for a couple of days.

I would like say something about it though. Click on ahead if you care to read it.

You cannot live recklessly indefinitely. You put yourself in a state of reduced awareness and reduced faculties all the time, and you're bound to get hurt eventually.

You would never, ever, ever, ever, ever -- ever -- see this coming, even if you'd been warned.

But it happens. And it hurts the people who love you. And there's just nothing you can say or do about it once it's happened, because maybe you might not have had a fighting chance at all. It's just the blink of an eye, and it's over. No more opportunity to tell her you love her. No more opportunity to make anything else. What's done is done, and there is no more.

I'm sad about this because my best friend wanted to help him so much, but I think he ultimately didn't want to help himself. He was so afraid to admit how sick he was, so afraid he'd lose her. No one could say he was doing anything stupid -- no one could say he deserved it. But it was the kind of thing, that had he been sober, he might have had just a couple of seconds of better response time. And he might have kept his balance better. And he might be alive today, and I would have had my meeting with him this morning (I was designing his website), and he would have gone on living and doing what he loved to do.

And there was no one anything could have done to prevent it from happening. It was a freak accident, and it's left behind a wide, dark, sad hole where a guy used to be. There's no one to blame. It's just sad and there's nothing anyone can do.

Guys, be honest with yourselves. Be honest with each other. It doesn't do any good at all to put up a front, that you're stronger than you are. Be aware enough to know that your life does matter, and that if you were gone, there would be people who would be crushed by your loss. If you need help, you have to say so. You have to get it before you accidentally slip off the edge.

Posted by Matt at 3:51 PM

November 18, 2004

Blog recommended

I've been getting a big kick lately out of The Country Store.

Funny stuff.

Posted by Matt at 10:44 PM

Heh

Interesting architectural observation.

Posted by Matt at 10:41 PM

80's pop quiz answers:

Before you look at my answers, you might want to look at the quiz itself, in its unspoilt form.

Spoiler warning out of the way... here goes.

1) Who were Turbo and Ozone? No idea.
2) What bar did the gang from Three's Company always go to? Ditto.
3) What was the last name of the man who adopted Webster? Gah, tip of my tongue!
4) Where were Willis and Arnold in Different Strokes from
originally? Um, let's say Philadelphia.
5) Name the two players chosen in the NBA draft before Michael Jordan. I know #1 was Hakeem Olyjuwon. The second dude went off the radar in about 1988.
6) Who were Ricky's three best friends in Silver Spoons? Alfonso, J.T., and Freddie Lippencoddleman. I loved that show.
7) What was Punky Brewster's dog's name? You got me.
8) Who did President Reagan beat when re-elected in 1984? Walter Mondale / Geraldine Ferraro. At least they carried Minnesota.
9) Who headed the PMRC and had many legal battles with Dee
Snider of Twisted Sister? No idea.
10) Who sang "Too Shy"? Kajagoogoo. Bonus points for knowing that the lead singer's name was Limahl? And that he also appeared solo to sing the theme song for The Neverending Story?
11) What was the largest selling album of the 80s? I'm gonna go with Thriller.
12) Name three Weird Al Yankovic songs. Eat It, Like a Surgeon, Fat, Ballad of Jed Clampett (the takeoff on Money for Nothing), I Think I'm a Clone Now, I Lost on Jeopardy... I'm going to stop before I plunge irredeemably from the precipice of respectable geekdom
13) What year did Poison release their first album? Guessing... 1987.
14) Whos legs did the ball go through on the Red Sox in game 6
of the 1986 World series? Bill "Shrug" Buckner
15) What were the names of the 4 Ghostbusters (character names). Ray Stantz, Peter Venkmann, Egon, and the Black One.
16) Name 3 members of the Kobra Kai. Johhny, um, Billy?, and Dutch.
17) School aged girls wore hundreds of these on their arms. Either friendship bracelets, or those plastic bracelets. Both were in.
18) What happened to the "Ark" at the end of Indiana Jones? It ripped out the souls of the Nazis and melted the scary guy's face off.
19) Who was Ubu? Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog.
20) Nigel Tufnel and David St Hubbins were in this group. Spinal Tap.
21) The Pop group "Wham" consisted of George Michael and... The other guy. Who ALSO wasn't gay, so they said.
22) What was the original title of Return of the Jedi? No clue.
23) Who was Latka's other personality in the show "TAXI?" You mean Tony Clifton?
24) Name all 5 members of the New Kids on the Block. Danny, Donnie, Mark, Brandon, Luke Perry... Don't know.
25) In the 80s, Steven Spielberg produced this
Scifi/Action/Adventure/Mystery sitcom. Amazing Stories? Wasn't a sitcom, but ok?
26) Who played "The Incredible Hulk?" Bill Bixby.
27) What was the bears name in Grizzly Adams? No clue.
28) Who were the Duke Boys' Cousins? Don't know.
29) Name the Concert in which music artists raised millions of
dollars for famine relief in Ethiopia. Damn. Don't konw. USA for Africa did We are the World, though.
30) According to Prince, what was the name of "that shrink in
Beverly Hills?" Dr. GonnaMakeEverythingFeelAllRight.
31) What was the name of the burnout in Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Spicoli. Which, incidentally, is sort of like the sound one makes when spitting in disgust at the thought of Sean Penn nowadays.
32) Who did Woody replace on Cheers? Coach.
33) Who played "The Greatest American Hero?" That blond curly-headed guy.
34) What was the name of the McDonalds sandwich that kept "the
hot hot and the cold cold?" McDLT.
35) What was the first video ever aired on MTV and who sang it? The Buggles: Video Killed the Radio Star
36) Who sang the song "I know what boys like?" The Waitresses?
37) How many times did the Celtics face the Lakers in the NBA
finals? Who won? About 6. I think they split 'em.
38) The "Brat Pack" consisted of: Anthony Michael Hall, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, James Spader, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Robert Downey Jr. Was there an official list?
39) Name 3 "Brat Pack" movies. The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Sixteen Candles
40) What was the name of the computer in the movie "War Games?" Joshua!
What game did it want to play? Chess. That is, after it got Global Thermonuclear War out of its system.
41) What was the plumbers name in the show "One Day at a Time?" Jm J. Bullock. I really don't know.
42) Who was Khan? Kirk's arch-enemy!
43) How many sequels were there to "Jaws?" They made up to Jaws 4. So that's three sequels.
44) Who was the leader of the Thundercats? Tigerclaw? Is that right?
45) What cartoon did Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids watch all the
time? Never really watched it.
46) What was Balkie's catch phrase from the show "Perfect Strangers?" Get out of the city! I know there was another one.
47) Who were the two detectives that helped Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop? Taggart and Rosewood.
48) These sneakers had little "pouches" on the side. Keds?Oh, but do you remember Kaepa? They had the interchangeable little multicolored triangles.
49) What was the toy "for a girl or a boy?" My Buddy?
50) These dolls were the most popular toy of the 80s. People
fought over them in stores and they had a signature on their butts.
51) AIDS was originally called. Cabbage Patch Kids.
52) Who teamed up with Hulk Hogan to fight Rowdy Roddy Piper and
Paul Orndorff in Wrestlemania? Randy "Macho Man" Savage. And that's a guess.
53) What kind of car fell into the water in Risky Business and
what color was it? A pink... Cadillac. Don't remember.
54) What did the old woman in the Wendys commercial say
throughout the 80s? Where That Beef Be? Or, Where's the Beef?
55) Sing the chorus to the theme song of Growing Pains. Okay, this one goes on its own line:

As long as we keep on givin',
We can take anything that comes our way,
Baby, rain or shine
All the time,
We got each other,
Sharin' the laughter and love.

56) Name the family members from Family Ties. Alex, Mallory, and that's it.
57) What was Scooby Doo's favorite food? Scooby snacks.
58) What kind of pants were good for Break-dancing. Jams.
59) What were the rules for keeping a Gremlin? 1) Don't ever get 'em wet. 2) Keep 'em out of the bright light. And whatever you do, no matter how much they beg, 3) don't ever feed them after midnight. (And I think this question meant, what are the rules for keeping a Mogwai.)
60) What show featured "Rerun" and "Roger?" What's Happening?
61) What food was "Crispy Chewy?" ?
62) What year did David Lee Roth get booted from Van Halen? 1985.
63) What was V66? Je ne sais pas.
64) In the show "He-man", what was the name of Skeletors castle? Castle Grayskull!
65) Name one song by Samantha Fox. How 'bout I not.
66) What replaced the shoelace for a while in the 80s? Velcro.
67) Who won more regular season MVP awards: Larry Bird or Magic Johnson? Guessin' Magic.
Who won more titles? Guessin' Bird.
68) What was ET's favorite candy? Reese's Pieces.
69) Did Richie Cunningham have a brother? I don't think so, but Chachi moved in to replace him. The Fonz was like a brother to good old Richie.
70) Eddie Murphy had two comedy specials. Name them. Dangerous. Raw.
71) If Richard Prior spent 30 million dollars in a month with
nothing to show for it, how much would he receive and in what movie was this? He'd get... 100 million? And this was in Brewster's Millions.
72) What song did Tom Hanks play on the Foot Piano in the movie "Big?" Heart and Soul. And Chopsticks.
73) Who was the bounty hunter that brought Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt? Boba Fett.
74) What was Pepsi with no caffeine called? Don't know. But they had clear Pepsi, which was called Crystal Pepsi.
75) Name the 4 ghosts in Pac-Man. Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde.
76) Name all the sweathogs. Horschach, Barbarino, Washington... I don't know.
77) What are three rumours you have heard about Ozzy Osbourne. Bit the head off a dove (really happened), bit the head off a bat, and that's all I got.
78) What was the character name of the little boy in Mr. Belvedere? No idea.
79) What happened when you reached 1,000,000 points in Asteroids? Who did that?
80) What was the last name of the family in National Lampoon's Vacation? Griswold!
81) Name both of Jack Tripper's landlords and his best friend
from downstairs? Blankin'.
82) What is the name of the drummer for Bon Jovi? Sheesh.
83) What was Bill Cosby's name on the Cosby Show? Clif Huxtable.
84) Who was the unknown stuntman that made Eastwood such a star? The Fall Guy.
85) Who sang the song "Toy Soldiers?" No idea.
86) What Television station did Rosie O'donnell work for? What now?
87) Finish the following line: "Well the world don't move to
the beat of just one drum" What might be right for you / May not be right for some!
88) What was the last name of the villians in the movie "The Goonies?" The Fratellis.
89) Name 2 of the members from Boston that played on Third Stage. Who cares?
90) Name three people from the Legion of Doom aside from Lex Luthor. Geez, I don't know.
91) Which band never opened for Van Halen:
A) Journey B) Dokken C) Ozzy Osbourne It's gotta be Journey.
92) What was the only year in the 1980s that the New England
Patriots played in the Superbowl? 1986., vs. the Bears.
93) What was the name of Men At Work's first album? ?
94) What was the name of the son on Sanford and Son? Blanking again.
95) What year did Kiss take off their make up? 1987?
96) What was the name of the guardian on "The Facts of Life?" Mrs.... gah.
97) Who took Pee Wee Herman's bike? Francis.
98) Name both wrestlers of the tag team "The Killer Bees." Biggio and Bagwell.
99) What movie was both Mr T and Hulk Hogan in and what were
their character names? Wow. That I don't remember.
100) What line did Cyndi Lauper sing in We Are the World? Well, well well well welll!!!! There's a choice we're makin'... We're savin' our own lives... It's true, we make a better day, just you and me.
101) What planet was Alf from? Melmac.
102) What was Jim McMahon's line from the Superbowl Shuffle? Something about him being the quarterback.
103) Name five Smurfs. Papa, Brainy, Grumpy, Smurfette... Oy.
104) What criminal lost the election for Michael Dukakis? George BUSHITLER THE FIRST!!!! Just kidding, Willie Horton.
105) Who produced a stainless-steel sports car? DeLorean.
106) What snack was always on Reagan's desk? Jellybeans.

Not too bad, considering it's been 20 years, I didn't look any of this stuff up, and I was only 3 when the decade started.

Posted by Matt at 9:44 PM

What's going on in NoKo?

Kim Jong Il's pictures are being taken down.

In North Korea, portraits of Kim Jong Il have been taken down in what may signal significant and possibly far-reaching changes in the Stalinist leader's personality cult. The apparent downgrading of Mr. Kim's public image has analysts wondering who has ordered the changes, and why, and whether they mean anything.

And what's going on with these leaflets?

On November 18, the Sankei Shimbun of Japan reported in a dispatch to Seoul that a leaflet headlined, “The 10 lies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il,” criticizing the North Korean system, were distributed at over 50 locations including Pyongyang, Nampo, Shiineuyju, Choengjin, and Hamheung.

Who knows what's up? Me, I'm going to hope that history's starting to repeat itself, and that it's about 1988 in NoKo. But just to reiterate: I'm just some dude sitting in a chair at a computer in a mid-sized American town about 8000 miles from where the action is. So take my bloviating for whatever it's worth.

Posted by Matt at 1:18 PM

November 17, 2004

Interesting ad from Dell:

On November 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that Best Buy is planning to shun up to 20% of its current customer base.

You read that correctly. Shun. As in actively resist. They've reportedly decided that as many as 100 million of its 500 million store visits each year are "undesirable." To quote a Best Buy executive as reported in the article: "They can wreak enormous economic havoc."

Posted by Matt at 11:18 PM

A dialog with you, the reader

Matt: Hey! Thanks for dropping in to my blog, Nerf-Coated World! I'd just like to take a moment to—

You: Uh huh.

Matt: ...a moment to tell you that I'm doing some upgrades at the moment—adding features, cleaning up some code—

You: Yeah.

Matt: ...which, of course will result in much improved functionality — or should I say, Much Improved Functionality©!

Matt's inner monologue: Genius! Giving it that copyright sign is a refreshingly clever play on the trite perennial promises that are in no short supply throughout the Internet! Howell, what ever will you think of n—

You: Are you done?

Matt: ...yeah. I'm just saying, if you see any links that do weird things or something, just, you know, don't worry about it.

You: You do realize I've read Jeff Goldstein's website, right?

Matt: ...Well, I thought maybe—

You: Okay, well that's where you went wrong. A little less "thinking" on your part, and I think we'd all enjoy this experience a little more.

Matt:—

You: 'kay?

Matt: Yeah. Sure.

You: Okay.

Posted by Matt at 2:17 PM

Grip suggested, refused

Vincent D'Onofrio is in the hospital again.

But he fainted again late Monday at his New York home and returned to the hospital for further observation and testing, series spokeswoman Pam Ruben Golum said.

Initial tests did not reveal any health problems, she said.

More on D'Onofrio's post-election breakdown at the HQ.

Let-me-lend-a-constructive-suggestion update: Maybe Vince should get in touch with these guys. I mean, he probably needs to get some professional help at this point.

On a serious note, it's sad that an actor as talented as Vincent D'Onofrio has been so negatively affected by an election. I've touched on it before: the moonbat wing of the Democratic party have dialed up the rhetoric so high that this one little election was almost a matter of life and death for some people.

Which leads me to constructive suggestion #2: Let's all chill out a bit the next time around, eh? If we don't sell every subsequent election as the Ultimate Apocalyse Showdown, maybe we'll all take ourselves less seriously and we can all go back to acting, or singing (and overacting), or being funny (and I mean actually funny, and not this heavy-handed in-joke-type sarcastic condescension that these ex-comedians are doing so much these days), or whatever the hell it is we do. You know, without having a meltdown every first Wednesday of every fourth November.

Come to think of it though: I didn't think Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo were that funny to begin with. Except for that one Weekend Update commentary piece Franken did — "Science has so many unanswered questions. Such as, just how close can we send a man to the sun without burning alive? ... I say: Let's find out." Paraphrasing.

Correction: Or was it A. Whitney Brown? Memories of the late eighties aren't too clear.

Posted by Matt at 9:55 AM

November 16, 2004

Theater, Coda

Yeah, I've been known to overstate things sometimes. Ace says I certainly did in my previous post about the theater.

I think that the idea of "challenging" an audience has its usefulness. I think Matt is overstating things quite a bit when he says that they never want to entertain an audience, or when he suggests they should do only that.

One of the things I used to love about the theater is the idea that for about two hours — if your production is effective — you can really emotionally lock in to the audience. You get a good bond going with them, and then maybe they can see things from a different perspective. Show them the life of someone on stage — someone they can empathize with and understand, but maybe just from the other side of the tracks — and you can get them to think.

This kind of thing is only possible when the artists make a genuine effort to communicate. You can only affect change if you make that connection. And you can only make that connection if you really try to understand your audience and respect them and try to understand where they are coming from too.

And that last part is the essential missing component of the leading theater voices today. They don't understand Red America at all (and please gag me with a spork for using that phrase). Red America stopped going to the progressive theater a while back, because the progressive theater was so gung-ho on converting its paying audience. And now all the artists have in mind when they think of Red America is a caricature of what it's really all about.

I have a good friend who is still a part of the active local theater scene. And it is like pulling teeth to try to get her to understand that middle-class-to-rich white people are not, in fact, corporate whores or slaves who get off on thumping the Bible against their chests while en route to a book-burning -slash- gay-bashing -slash- secret meeting where they discuss how to screw the poor out of their tax refunds.

She's a smart girl. But she isn't exposed to the real people in suburbia who do care about their families and who do just want to keep more of their paycheck, and who do volunteer and donate their time and money to charity. They're good people. My friend lives in an enclave, though. It's an echo-chamber. And it's ringing with contempt for Red America. And yeah, that influences their attitudes and their play selection and their artistic choices.

So it's no wonder their work is confrontational and in-your-face instead of persuasive. It's the hard sell vs. the soft sell. You have to respect and trust your audience for the latter to work. Theater, movies, all art — they work best on the soft sell. You've got to envelop the audience in the work, and let the ideas permeate, percolate, marinate.

I think until they figure out that the other side is, in fact, human, they'll have to be content living on the margins and preaching only to the choir.

Posted by Matt at 1:15 PM

November 15, 2004

Anna Nicole Drugs

It's true. Cocaine is a fantastic appetite suppressant.

So outrageous.

(supa-fly jive handslap: Protein Wisdom)

Matt doesn't do drugs update: Okay, so I've been informed that cocaine wouldn't make Anna Nicole act so sloppy and goofy. According to our Chief Narcotics Correspondent/Testing Department, had she been taking the C-Train, she would have "had a whole lot more energy. Kinda like bouncing off the walls, not falling down sloppy."

So noted.

Posted by Matt at 11:48 PM

Because the rest of the world is just like them

From another self-immolator at sorryeverybody.com:

Please don't forget that most of us are just like you.

Hmm.... You can just picture the people inside that beautiful country farmhouse in the idyllic rustic countryside of Massachusetts... you can almost feel the warmth radiating from the self-satisfaction that resides within the walls of that million-dollar estate.

One must wonder just what exactly the residents of that quaint little cottage mean when they observe that the rest of the world that is just like them... Perhaps on a cold November night, they huddle together by the fireside, sipping cognac poured from the crystal decanter their parents gave them on their fifteenth wedding anniversary, wisftully thinking back to times past... They share stories, sometimes about their younger years, when they lived in a tent camp in the deserts of Eritrea... The blazing equatorial African sun on their backs... the clanging metallic sound of their empty ration tins knocking on the rocks after a hearty international food aid meal...

Or, perhaps they wax nostalgic about their feisty activist years — such rebels they once were! — like the time that they fought bravely for the cause of democracy in their native homeland, defying the ruling dictator, and risking their lives! The years in jail were hard at times, but the sense — no, the certainty — that they were making a difference, that they were helping to bring a free republic, with a free press, free from government oppression to their beloved Myanmar! — it was enough to get them through the constant sickness and starvation.

Oh, to be thin again. But fighting for the right to free speech — and when fault is to be assigned, of course, the right and duty to bravely and boldly admit that you're sorry — was no more poignant in the lives of these seasoned freedom-fighters of Massachusetts, the day they were burned alive at a checkpoint in a dangerous warzone, when a violent extremist detonated a car bomb at their post.

You know. So, they can relate.

They know, they've been around the world. They know with their own eyes the true strife and horrors that the world faces every day, and they look on with sadness that the worst of these tragedies — the re-election of George Bush — has come to pass within their own borders. They know it's their duty to tell the rest of the world that they are not pleased. The rest of the world needs to know the depth of their commitment and their sorrow. Because the rest of the world is just like them.

They are sorry.

Posted by Matt at 8:46 PM

Nuclear histrionics

I wonder if this Caldicott woman was saying the same thing in 1984.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Helen Caldicott fears US President George Bush's re-election will lead to Armageddon and she isn't sure if mankind would survive another four years.

"This is the most serious election that has ever occurred in the history of the human race, without a scrag of doubt," she told smh.com.

"I don't know if we'll survive the next four years..."

These people are only vindicated when a) ten million people are marched off into death camps or b) the world is a smoldering hunk of charcoal. Yet I can't help but think that their concern is not so much to prevent those horrors from happening, but to prove that they knew beforehand that they would.

Posted by Matt at 7:56 PM

Quote of the Day

Overheard from a guy talking about his relationship, which just broke up over the weekend:

Girls suck.

(pause.)

But being gay is terrible.

Posted by Matt at 5:36 PM

Theater people... I hate these guys.

At the risk of appearing to be a link-ophant* with my nose planted securely in Ace's bum, he noted something I wanted to comment on, AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, LEAVE.

One bit about Dawn's story that interests me is the shock that creative types feel when they learn they may have to shape their product to appeal to the audience. They seem to have this notion that an artist should be utterly free to "explore" whatever he likes, the audience be damned.

These damned actors and directors and self-aggradizing self-labeled visionaries see it as their damned duty to confront their audience — not entertain it. Certainly not entertain it.

They subscribe to the Brechtian notion of theater as being a force for social change. That the purpose, once you get butts in the seats, is to shake them up! Wake them from their bourgeousie slumber! Show them that there's a world out there that's slummy and ugly and more powerful than you could ever imagine! Make them feel guilty! Make them hate themselves! Make them — and this is seriously not a joke — leave the theater feeling like CRAP.

Well no wonder no one goes to the freakin' theater anymore. Stupid artists like these think they know better. And this, being a free country, where people don't want to spend $35 + parking to get the crap knocked out of them for two and a half interminably boring hours, is not the fault of the non-theater-going public for not wanting to participate.

I've endured a number of self-important diatribes bemoaning the lack of culture in this country, how Europe — where this crap-philosophy thrives and the theatergoers are entrenchedly masochistic — knows so much better, and how the state should sponsor this stuff so that The People could have access to Real Culture. What a bunch of wanks. No wonder I couldn't take it any more.

I just can't freaking stand it when these people speak.

link-ophant: see sycophant, only it's someone who sucks up via linking on their blog. Which I am not doing. Really. It just so happens that Ace writes about a lot of stuff that also happens to interest me too. Okay? So shut up. Please.

Posted by Matt at 5:15 PM

But all I could think was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful and yet again, wonderful.

I mean, what's the harm in giving this a shot?

The title of this post happens to be a quote from a movie. Any takers as to which?

Pimp my link update: Thanks to a heads up from Kahuna, the link, she's fixed.

Posted by Matt at 4:58 PM

November 14, 2004

We're Sorry

Jim Treacher's all over these.

Group therapy update: Ace notes that our apologies have been accepted.

All together now: AWWWWWWWWW! Hug, anyone?

Man: These people must be beyond satire. I Photoshopped the above photo to read as it does now, and no one has noticed... You know you're not effectively persuading people of your message when they can't tell the difference between your real line and someone else's parody of it.

Or maybe my parody just sucks. Could be that.

Posted by Matt at 11:57 PM

Attorneys... I hate these guys

I think lawyers often deserve to be called parasites. Stuff like this confirms that point-of-view.

I wonder... is it better to enter a profession that is infected with this kind of destructive ugliness, to make it better? Or to avoid it?

Posted by Matt at 6:58 PM

OMG LOLZ! ROFLMAOZ!!!

This is old, but it provided me with some gut-tightening laughter this evening.

Posted by Matt at 6:25 PM

Boy that evil Bush

That Texas-lovin' gurney-strappin' poison-injectin' cowboy! Since he's been President, the death penalty has been skyrocketing!

Er, make that dropping.

Posted by Matt at 5:10 PM

Covert political commentary

Nice.

from Jim Treacher.

Posted by Matt at 3:17 PM

On superheroes, spokespeople and empathy

Suzy Hansen and Sheelah Kolhatkar at The New York Observer are a little mystified at how movies like Team America and The Incredibles have connected with American audiences — and that shock — these movies almost espouse conservative values! Like the fight between good and evil! Or between the State and the Individual! For example!

The movie is about a family of superheroes forced by the government to go into a superhero-relocation program, suppress their awesome powers and hide out in the beaten-down, charmless miseries of suburbia—among tract homes, leftovers, cubicles, commutes, and dreary elementary-school commencement ceremonies in which every kid is celebrated for being "special."

Eventually, of course, the superheroes—up against it in a dangerous world—release their superpowers, break free of Anytown, U.S.A., and explode with enough personal initiative to make The Fountainhead look like a bedtime story....

The message of The Incredibles—reported everywhere!—was that the chosen few should have the right to exercise their powers over a wide, bland majority of fans and mediocrity-worshippers, and save the world from a bitter, deadly evil.

The authors bemoan the fact that the left has no one capable of speaking sincerely and capably for the cause. And in spite of the glut of actors ready and willing to speak up for the left — they just don't count. No one believes them or trusts them. Team America rightly skewered them. The right has cornered the market on its ability to connect with the everyday "little guy". And, sadly, the left has no "superheroes" of its own to do the same.

And in what would have been an interesting enough article that could have stopped right there, the authors wrap up their piece by seeking the opinion of one of the worst possible spokespeople the left has at its disposal: Ted Rall.

What kind of heroic, larger-than-life figure could occupy that Hollywood void? ...

"I would be in favor of Empathy Man," said Mr. Rall. "The man who plants the seeds of empathy into the cold, stony heart of the average red-state American."

Here's Ted Rall mocking the widows who lost their husbands in the attack at the World Trade Center.

Here's Ted Rall mocking Pat Tillman, a man who gave up a contract paying him over $3 million a year to play pro football because he thought he could make a difference in the fight against the Islamic extremists who attacked us.

And here's Ted Rall mocking the 60,000,000 people who voted for Bush by comparing them to the mentally and physically handicapped.

Ted Rall, please do us a favor. When it comes to expressing your opinion on how others need empathy,

Posted by Matt at 2:10 PM

November 13, 2004

Is that a giraffe?

These are really cool.

Posted by Matt at 8:04 PM

Free agents are out of the gate

Jayson Stark knows people who know Roger Clemens and Carlos Beltran.

And it's clear to those who know how Clemens ticks that the better their team looks, the more difficult it will be for Cy Clemens to resist playing again. Especially after a season that ended with such a powerful sense of unfinished business.

That means the Astros have to make a serious charge at keeping Carlos Beltran. ...

Where will Beltran end up? Way too soon to tell. But one baseball man who talks to Beltran every few days has been telling friends Beltran will wind up staying in Houston.

I'm not going to get into the whole "This could be our year" business, but things don't look that bad for the Astros' chances.

Posted by Matt at 1:30 PM

It seems the subversive wreckers have left me off the map...

At least, that's the story I'm going to stick to.

This blog is destined for greatness! It has achieved greatness before! I've been linked and quoted by Instapundit!

And Steven Den Beste! Twice. (Yeah, I know he's retired au moment, but shut up.)

(And actually, I've been anonymously quoted on Taranto's Best of the Web... I was the commenter who suggested the Beatles tunes.)

And Ace. And several others.

Putting me on the map now saves the cartographer embarrassment later. Think about it, Commissar.

Shame-level update: Hovering right about a 3 on a 10-point scale.

Posted by Matt at 12:39 PM

Nerf-Coated World

Ladies and gentlement, an announcement:

It's come to my attention that the name of this blog is teh suck. (Oh wait, I really should write that in H4X0R-language: teh suX0rs. Ah, much better!) And when I say "come to my attention," I mean that people like Ian noted the need for change as recently as about a year and a half ago.

It took me a week to name my cat. But I wanted to watch him, and pay attention to him, so that I could know him before naming him. And when I finally settled on Bryan, it was perfect. Everyone says: He looks like a Bryan. Of course he does; I paid attention to him. I listened. I found out what his name was instead of foisting an arbitrary name on him.

Choosing a name is like building a house. You have to consider every option carefully. You have to pick something that fits. Because, after all, that is the exact purpose of a name: to identify the thing it names, and once it's done, you've got to live with it.

It's all about branding. You name a job-search site monster.com, and you end up having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to force people to change their natural perception of what "monster.com" might represent. You brand a newborn baby Aswipé and you're asking for trouble.

People react to names. Their reactions shape the thing that's named. (You won't catch me naming my kid Bruce, or Lance, no matter how many upstanding straight-as-an-arrow Bruces and Lances there are out there. I ain't puttin' my kid through an unneccesarily harsh middle-school experience.)

So finally, after long and deliberative John-Kerry-like consideration (as in, the man took a month to decide on the font face for his campaign logo), I have finally settled on a permanent name for this site:

It's a good name! I mean, the cast of Silver Spoons likes it! Just look at how thrilled they are!

And I've even got matching domain name to go with: nerfcoatedworld.com! Although since my Google PageRank here is about a 3, and any new domain has to be built up from scratch, I'll announce a switch-over date at the right time.

And... speaking of the right time, I've got a new style for this blog that's in the pipe. So, you know, I got that going for me. Anyway. I think there's only one way to end this entry.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!

Posted by Matt at 12:27 PM

November 3, 2004

Foreign leaders weigh in...

...at the rather inaptly named – yet in an ironic, irreverent way – Demure Thoughts.

How have I missed this blog before? She's hilarious!

(Hoping it's a "she", given the graphic up top.)

Posted by Matt at 12:43 PM

Objective, fair, balanced, etc

Kerry has called to concede, but the media's still holding out.

CNN's got New Mexico (Bush up by 12,000+), Iowa (Bush up by 13,500+), and Ohio (Bush up by 136,000+) still in play.

Whereas they've got Wisconsin (Kerry up by 13,500+) clearly decided, you know, because that kind of Democratic lead is enough to call a race.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse's reader schools us on why Wisconsin's been called for Kerry. But it still doesn't explain why Iowa and New Mexico haven't yet been called for Bush.

I think the main lesson here is that CNN, FoxNews, NBC, ABC, CBS — they don't ultimately matter all that much, if the American people can be persuaded to just vote, do their thing, and not allow the erratic behavior of the networks' decision desks affect their vote. Of course they are supposed to be plugged into the process and report accurately about the returns; however, if there's one thing this year has taught us, it's that the information fed to us by the MSM should be always taken with a teaspoon of salt.

Posted by Matt at 11:27 AM

Posted by Matt at 10:57 AM

Quote of the Night

I turn on CBS. It's Dan Rather, discussing the latest electoral vote count.

Before I can finish a thought, he looks into the camera:

Do you hear that knocking?

(pause... pause...)

That's President Bush's re-election at the door.

Posted by Matt at 12:05 AM

Build your own South Park character. Why not?

September 2009

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