Interrobang?!

Star Trek: TOS Season 2 Overview

2007-02-09T00:28:00.000-06:00

Hey, time to continue my nerd study in nerddom by me, a nerd.

I know most of you probably don't know the original series very well, but it's pretty much the best show ever made. So hopefully by listening to my rundowns you'll go and netflix them or buy the dvds. You could just buy me the dvds and watch them at my place, if you'd like. I already have season 2, though, so maybe you can borrow these.

Season 2 is considered by most people to be the best season of the original trek. It has a lot of classic episodes, and it doesn't have so many barf-inducing episodes as season 1 or 3. Also, Kirk kills more computers.

Top Three Episodes:

Amok Time - Spock gets really horny, as Vulcans do once every seven years. So he has to tap some Vulcan tail back home, but then ends up fighting Kirk to the death. He wins, killing Kirk, and ending Star Trek forever.

A Private Little War - This one is cool because it's a total downer of an ending. Made in the late 60s, which may or may not be relevent, the Enterprise comes across a primitive planet engaged in a tribal war. The Klingons have been providing the side they want to win with weapons, and in the end Kirk decides the Federation must provide the other side with weapons. It ends with Kirk really pissed off ordering the weapons to be sent to the planet, then they leave. No social relevance whatsoever to the late 1960s and cold war conflicts raging all over the third world.

A Piece of the Action - The Enterprise lands on a gangster planet. Basically, another starship crashed a hundred years earlier on this primitive planet, but the only book that survived the crash was one about Chicago gangsters. So the populace decided that's the way to be advanced, is to act like Al Capone. Then, two episodes later, they land on a Nazi planet for some reason. See? Totally weird and fucked up. That's why TOS is so great.

Bottom Three Episodes:

The Gamesters of Triskelion - Three glowing brains in a glass jar like to bet, so they pit people against each other in combat. Kirk teaches some alien broad about love, spends the whole episode with no shirt. Thumbs down.

Return to Tomorrow - Big fancy shmancy advanced aliens borrow Kirk, Spock, and previously unseen crewmembers bodies. Boring.

Assignment: Earth! - A suave, handsome galactic spy and his superintelligent cat go back to 1960s earth to engage in some really boring stuff. I never authorized use of my personal likeness for this episode, by the way.

Other Highlights of the Season:
- Kirk saves day by destroying supercomputer on five occasions
- Enterprise defeats big ice cream cone that eats planets
- Tribbles
- Halloween world, Greek world, Gangster world, Roman world, Nazi world, giant space amoeba
- Hyperintelligent robot calls Uhura, a woman, a "mass of conflicting impulses."
- Enterprise encounters completely alien planet that has somehow independently developed United States Constitution word for word. Yeah, totally believable.

Ahh, only one more season of TOS for me to review! I know you guys can't wait.

Star Trek: TOS Season 1 Overview

2007-02-02T01:30:00.000-06:00

Ok, everybody, so I've been watching a lot of Trek lately, and I've decided to share some of the high points and low points of each season, to me. See, I guess I really disagree with a lot of hard core trekkers (PS - just me using the word "trekker" makes me a trekker, by the way) on a lot of points regarding Star Trek and what it should be, and what episodes are strongest.

See, I like the episodes where trek is a little scary. Like where they go to some fucked up planet and nazi cowboys start shooting bow and arrows at the crew. Only they're giant bows and arrows that can destroy the ship. That's weird and fucked up, and awesome. Most Trekkers like episodes where somebody will rattle off a bunch of made up science words, or maybe it will be an episode of Voyager that references Star Trek V. Then they will like it automatically. Which is dumb. So let me start at the very beginning. I know only like three people who read this might even know anything about TOS (the original series), but bear with me.

Here's my rundown for Star Trek: TOS Season 1.

Top Three Episodes:

A Taste of Armageddon - The Enterprise encounters an alien race that has been at war for centuries. The thing is, they just simulate everything so as not to scuff up their pretty cities. The bad news? The Enterprise is "destroyed" in battle, and Kirk and co. are ordered into the disintegration chambers. The good news? Kirk don't play that. Falling in line with the tradition of Captain Kirk's long standing hatred of computers, he destroys the computer that runs the planets war simulation. Too bad for aliens.

Space Seed - I hate to be so obvious. But there's one thing that propels this episode into the top three: KHAAAAAAAN! You all saw that coming. But Ricardo Montalban just chews up the scenery, here.

The City On The Edge Of Forever - Another obvious choice. Sorry. Everybody loves this episode. McCoy, hopped up on space speed, leaps through a time portal and accidently erases the federation from history. Luckily, Kirk and Spock chase him, and wind up in 1930s earth, a time period we'll see a lot of in star trek. Maybe there's something that makes that time and place a crucial focal point for the space-time continuum, or maybe Paramount just had a standing 1930s city set. You decide. Anyway, Kirk falls in love with a woman, and then must let her die to save the future. Kind of a downer, but terrific.

Bottom Three Episodes:

The Alternative Factor - I'll give you an alternative: another channel. Burn!

This Side of Paradise - Zany flowers shoot spores at the Enterprise, causing them to be happy. Kirk gets mad and kills all the spores and makes everybody swab the decks, double time.

Operation: Annihlate! - Little fried egg looking aliens attach themselves to people making them crazy and/or dead. Sucks.

Other highlights of the season:
- Show Starts
- Romulans, Klingons, Humans introduced as recurring characters
- Show breaks down barriers of race in having black and asian bridge officers
- Show does not break down barriers of sex in having pretty much all women on show want to jump Kirk's bones or be obsessed with beauty and age
- Episode "Naked Time" wins award for most disappointing show based on title's expectations
- In 4 episodes Kirk must destroy supercomputer to save the day. Well, must is a strong word. Maybe I should say "enjoys."

Anyway, stay tuned for future nerddom.

Sanity?

2006-12-12T23:45:00.000-06:00

Ha! Just checking to see if you're paying attention. This post won't be very long, because my hand is wrapped up in a million bandage units of bandages from finger surgery the other day, and typing is tough. Well, obviously not so tough that I didn't need all this explanation, but you know.

Anyway, I'm done with grading and schoolwork, which is pretty sweet. I'm in a phase of relative boredom right now. Anybody can feel free to bring this up whenever I'm complaining about work again. As I'm sure I mentioned anybody could bring up my complaining about work whenever I start complaining about being bored. Anyway, I got a lot of work done on po-po this semester, which I guess is good, although I'm frequently pretty certain that no matter how good you are, it's really all about how much you network and sell yourself to people. I mean, there are lots of good poets in the program here, but there are also lots of people who are just obsessed with knowing a lot of people who can help them get ahead. Big deal, Richard Siken knows your fucking name. That doesn't make you a rock star, buck-o. Meanwhile, even if I pick up a poet from the airport and he tries to tell me how much he likes my poetry, I just feel awkward and change the subject.

But there's this whole literary conference dedicated to these career dudes and dudettes. I mean, I guess every literary conference, but Breadloaf in particular. Pretty much no grad student can afford this conference, so there's this "waitership" you can get to help with the cost. Basically you get to be a waiter and get insulted by prima donna famous poets and rich kid poets who can get daddy to pay for the conference. Fuck that, Jeeves! Just so I can hope to sneak my manuscript under Louise Gluck's Duck a l'orange? No thanks. But I guess that is why I fail.

Anyway, I was reading up on astronomy today, and I really hope at some point in my life I see
1 - a supernova
2 - a total solar eclipse
3 - well, I could only think of those two.

Also, the best fucking name we could come up with for our galaxy is the Milky Way? I think we can work on that. How about "Awesoma" or "Rocktothemaxia?" I don't know why these have to end with the letter "a," but they do.

Sanity?

2006-11-09T01:07:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been quite some time, folks, since either Nick or I have posted a blog. I figure, since sometimes the slant of this blog is political (courtesy of Nick. I brought a bag of chips.) I'd blog about something political.

By now as everybody knows, the Democrats have won majority in the House, and it looks like they're going to take a majority of the Senate, assuming no crazy machine vote mishap happens with the Virginia receipts. I'd like to think that this move to the left by Americans symbolizes a return to sanity. By the way, my definition of insanity is right wingism. Did I ever tell you guys the story of how I'm a big socialist? Anyway, I'm just not so sure how much this vote reflects a shift in the beliefs American people. Most of the Democrats who won in conservative areas did so by moving to the center, and coming down strong anti-gay marriage and anti-immigration. True, those abortion bans were overturned, which is one good thing, but Democrats are basically turning into Republicans on several key issues here. I mean, come on people. In twenty years we're all going to be extremely ashamed of this homosexual oppresion thing we've got going right now. What's the big deal if gay people can marry? Who can that possibly hurt? (Hint: The answers are nothing and nobody.)

Additionally, the Republicans pretty much fucked everything up in every way possible for six straight years, so if it was largely a vote against garbage. If it was Republican party (more death and war) or Vampire party (just occasional virgins killed for sustenance) then I'm pretty sure the Vampire party would have won. So again, I just don't see this as a shift in the American people's beliefs.

Then again, maybe I don't have my finger on the pulse of what the real American people do believe. For five years now we've all been told that if we don't support the government in every way then we are not patriotic. People probably believed that claptrap until finally they just couldn't take it anymore. Enough people died or became homeless that finally people said "If not liking my government is unpatriotic, then fuck patriotism. This blows." Or some translation of that. I didn't check my sources.

Here's some things I hope the Democrats don't do:

1 - Pull out of Iraq all of the sudden with no kind of plan - That will just fuck everything up permanently. I mean, more than things are already fucked up. It sucks for the Democrats, because it's a situation that if they had a time machine they would never have gotten into, but you really can't just leave. The Bush administration ruined that country forever, and the Democrats just have to figure out the least harmful way to get our troops out.

2 - Impeach Bush - I know there's enough provable illegal stuff he's done to do it, but I feel like impeaching two presidents in a row whenever Congress is controlled by the other party sets a bad precedent that would cause all future presidents to be impotent. Or maybe it would just cause all future presidents to try their best not to flagrantly break the law.

I don't want anybody to think I'm just nervous about any of this. Every time I think about the election results I feel kind of happy and giddy, and not terrified and nervous that at any second troops with machine guns are going to smash into my home and demand that I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior while simultaneously training me to take part in a military action against Iraqi abortion clinics.

Yikes! I better write something funny next time. Unless you want to take care of that, Nick.

No internet

2006-10-24T23:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry, guys. I have not had internet for a week. Consequently, I have gotten a lot of work done in the past week. I really need to figure out a way to stay away from this junks when I need to. Also, I don't have anything funny or interesting to say right now. Sorry.

Mmm...steak

2006-10-20T20:42:00.000-05:00

To compliment your typo, Glenn, in Lake City at some restaurant sign listed their special prices for the day or week or whatever, and that week, the special was stake. Maybe you could just trade.

My apologies for not blogging lately. (Though, Glenn, MySpace wouldn't help; I tried to log in recently to see if I had any new messages, and it not only took several minutes to get it to log in, it eventually crashed my browser.) I have been extremely busy with my new position, which means I work a little longer and often bring some work home with me, and school as well, which gets progressively harder (which, I believe, is how it's supposed to work). Also, I have not much to report.

We just got back from seeing Al Franken: God Spoke. It was hilarious. I would recommend the movie to anyone who can see it, if it is playing near you.

There's been no politics on this blog for a while, so I will have to post something political later. I'm too tired right now. Two weeks until the mid-term; I hope everyone is planning on voting! Politics in Florida has definintely got interesting; with the Mark Foley case, that district is now leaning Democratic. Plus that sex scandal might spill over into the Governor's race, as it has always been rumored that Charlie Crist is gay (some say bisexual). That doesn't matter much in South Florida (it might actually get him some more votes down here), but in good old North Florida, it might cause some Republicans to stay home on election day. Now, I'm not at all for "outing" someone; I think someone's sexual orientation is their own business, and I could really care less. But when you belong to a party that uses homosexuality as a political weapon (not to mention a party that has no regard for anyone's personal business, such as details of Bill Clinton's private parts), maybe people deserve to be shown to be hypocrites. But anyways, I think this sex scandal might help the Democrats win in just over two weeks. I'll take a win any way that I can, but I will say that I would rather we win because we articulate good ideas and inspire people to vote for us, not just because we are simply the better alternative. I think these "To Catch a Predator" shows that are all the rage lately does not help this Foley case.

That's all for now; I must finish reading a few chapters for one of my classes so I can do my essay this weekend. I will try to think of something humorous that can stand up to Glenn's post; or else something serious to balance him out.

Holiday Cheer

2006-10-17T00:21:00.000-05:00

Or should I say "Holiday Fear," motherfuckers? Because I'm talking about the best holiday. Halloween. Also, sorry for calling you guys motherfuckers. I didn't mean that. Well, it's more than halfway through October, and I don't think I've been really having enough of that Halloween spirit that I always swear I'm going to have and then never really do. See, I love Halloween more than any other holiday. Ghosts and skeletons and rotting corpses and junk are really tubular to me, and have been since I was a wee lad and my father gace me a model of a foot skeleton. Then I got scared of it and had to bury it in the closet. But still. Halloween is the best, but I can't remember the last great Halloween I had.

Last year, for instance, I dressed up in a pretty sweet zombie costume and got wasted at a party we stayed at for 30 minutes that was packed with loser undergrads who drank all my beer the moment I set it down. Then I got hit on by an old dude at House of Pies, who put his arm around me and sultrily said "I hope you win the contest." That was weird/cool.

The year before that I was hung over at Publix after drinking too much at Bryan's birthday. Then I watched Dawn of the Dead. Which I just watched tonight for the 500th time, and it's a really solid movie. Man, fuck running zombies. America doesn't need that shit in these trying times. Slow zombies are for patriots.

Then the five or six years before that I pretty much did nothing for Halloween. Lame. For instance, when I taught in Kissimmee I put on a costume and hoped some kids would come trick-or-treating, which they didn't, and I ate three big bags of candy.

But I get so stoked. There's scary movies on tv. Ghosts are in the air. Pumpkin is the best seasonal flavor there is. And it's always a bust. Well, fuck that shit. My Halloween this year is going to be the best. I'm going to

A - See a ghost for real this time. I don't care if it's seance, cemetery, or bloody Mary, I'm seeing one.

B - Have a killer costume (maybe zombie, but with a twist. Ahh, who am I kidding. It's going to be a zombie) and go to an excellent party that I don't get all my beer stolen from immediately.

C - Have a big horror movie fest next weekend at my place and you guys are invited. Well, I don't think any Houston people read my blog over here anymore, but all you scattered other people are definitely invited.

D - Kill a Wolfman, a Mummy, a Frankenstein, and a Dracula. Silver bullet, magic spell, hubris, and steak through the heart. I know the score.

I ain't writing scary poems this year, though. That project turned out to be total bunk. Though I guess I got one of the "scary" poems published, so that was cool. But I wanted people to be puking their eyes out they were so scared with my poems, not publishing them. Ah well. I'll take what I can get.

By the way, BOO MOTHERFUCKERS! I'M AN INTERNET GHOST LIKE THE MOVIE PULSE! NOW YOU ARE HAUNTED!

Blade

2006-10-11T22:13:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the first Blade movie, and you know, it's actually pretty excellent. Probably one of the top 5 comic movies. With Spider-man 2, X-Men 2, Batman Begins, and Superman. Well, maybe not Superman. I mean, it's good, but it's a tough call. Maybe Hellboy instead. I don't know. Anyway, whenever I was a kid, me and my friends used to pretend we actually were vampires. Every day we would say "Oh, I bit so-and-so last night. Now she's a vampire." I always thought it would be excellent to be a vampire, probably because it was like a really exclusive club. But then in high school, my girlfriend at the time would always go on and on about how she would really like for her dream vampire to come and whisk her away. She played Vampire the Masquerade, etc. I was sort of jealous of said dream vampire, even though it's kind of lame. (See? I'm not naming names or anything right now.) So I started hating vampires, and just insulting them and calling them zombies with good table manners. But the point is, watching Blade right now, I starting thinking to myself again that it would be cool to be in the vampire club, and I would definitely want to do that. Except I wouldn't be lame like Stephen Dorff.

Florida was pretty good, even if it was kind of stressful driving to a bunch of different places. Also, there were lots of people I didn't get to see. Well, I'll probably be back in a year or so.

The Departed was a great movie, and I really recommend it to everybody. I did learn (for the billionth time) that I hate seeing movies in the theater. I mean, the big screen and sound is great, but motherfuckers who've got to act like comedians blow. There was this gigantic group of people who sat in the front and yelled at the movie the whole time. For instance, when a group of Chinese gangsters were speaking cantonese, these guys had to go "ching chong ching chong ching! ha ha ha ha ha!" Yes, hilarious. Also, one dude kept yelling "slow clap!" and clapping slowly at every dramatic part. God damn! I can't fight, but I totally wanted to fight those dudes. And the guy next to me had to open up his cell phone and text message somebody every five minutes, so this gigantic blue sun blinded me to the left. Jesus. I think they need to start having theater snipers.

Also, ghosts

2006-10-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

Also, in another new york times article (see? fancy linking and crap.) that Laurie alerted me to, apparently scientists in Switzerland have been able to stimulate areas in the brain and cause the patients to have out-of-body experiences, or believe there was a shadowy presence in the room with them. Well, goddamn it! That certainly saps the fun out of the season. Stupid science. All of you who know me (or all of you, to be more specific), know that I have a little obsession with hearing true ghost stories, and kind of want to see a ghost in person. Not all of the sudden, because that would be terrifying, but you know, from a distance. But now it's all a trick of the brain? That's total bunk.

Ginny did bring up the good point that scientists can also stimulate an area in the brain and make you smell chocolate, but that doesn't mean chocolate doesn't exist. But I don't know. Now I'm kind of thinking maybe stupid science, fresh off of knocking Pluto off the Solar System's roster has had the follow up kick in the nuts of saying there's no such thing as ghosts. And just in time for Halloween. What's next? Thanksgiving turkey causes cancer? Presents are debilitating to one's psyche? Drinking and driving is harmful?

Fuck you, science. Fuck you.

Grab Bag

2006-10-03T10:30:00.000-05:00

Speaking of schools (like from last week [sorry]), I read this article a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times discussing the falling rate of students graduating college. Well, says me, that's understandable. High schools focusing on standardized testing is really hurting students. But then, instead of addressing the possibility that the problem might be with high school education, the article presented the idea that universities should be held accountable for graduation rates. The students enter into a contract with the university, and it's up to the university to ensure they finish. If not, the university should have funds taken away, if it is a public institution. Wha? I say shenanigans! That's total garbage. Then university would be transformed into high school part 2, moreso than it is even now. When I taught middle school, the principle told me I had to pass students to 8th grade (even if they could barely read), because the school would have funding taken away if they didn't meet a certain pass/fail rate. Totally lame.

The other day me and the GF were at the Alabama Ice House (an outside bar), and a roach fell on my back. Luckily I didn't see it, and it didn't move around at all before Ginny got it off, because I very well could have died immediately. I hate roaches. Once in Orlando I walked to the grocery store across the street to pick something up, and when I was standing in the aisle I glanced at my shoulder to see a big motherfucker sitting there, saying "Hiya, pally!" I'm pretty amazed I didn't die right then and there. I flicked it off and it crawled away, but in retrospect, Gagh!

In a couple of days I'll be leaving for Florida. It should be fun, except I have to spend a large part of my trip driving around to different places in Florida to hang out with various people. It would be nice if everybody lived in the same place, but I guess that's not the case. Oh well. You guys can feel free to visit me in Houston someday, if you like.

It's october, and that means Halloween season, the best season of them all. Me and my friend Chris are trying to do a horror movie marathon a week type thing. Week 1 is going to be gorey movies. Here's my list so far. Suggestions?

Dead Alive
Return of the Living Dead
Day of the Dead

Plagiarism

2006-09-27T07:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been posting. I think it's been well established that I'm a blog slacker. Anyway, I've been grading student papers this week, and as it happens, I sometimes come across key words or phrases that make me think "plagiarism." So then I plop down at the computer and do a little search. In the past, I've only ever had two plagiarisms (three, now, but I don't want to talk about those specifics while I'm still going through the filing process). One, a student who had recently claimed her mother died turned in a paper discussing how her sister had recently died, too. At first I thought "Oh, wow, this is terrible," but when I read her "revision," she only changed three words, and I did an internet search. Turned out she copied the whole thing from some grief management site. Pretty terrible. I never got to call her out on it because as soon as I told her I needed to set up an appointment about her paper she never came back to class. The other plagiarism story is boring.

But this time I was searching for some key phrases from a student paper (it didn't end up being plagiarized), and I came across one of those "buy an essay" sites. I knew these existed (they're really expensive, though! Like $22 a page), but on this site in question, it had a link to www.essayfraud.org . I followed the link, and it's a site that purports to want to "stop plagiarism now!" Basically, it's a forum for people who have bought essays from various websites to complain about how these places just copied articles from wikipedia, or their grammar was terrible. Apparently the worst offenders are based in the Ukraine and Pakistan. All of these people in these forums were bitching about missing their deadlines, or getting zeroes on papers because these essay sites didn't send them their sites on time, or getting bad grades because of poor grammer. Well, wah wah, motherfuckers!

Is it just me, or don't these people kind of deserve to get zeroes and bad grades because of this stuff? I couldn't believe that these people were actually complaining about this crap. They acted like they were entitled to have these fraudulant papers. I mean, I guess they paid for them, but jesus. You don't set up a "Child Porn Fruad" website to complain about the kids in the pictures being really over 18 or something. Well, maybe that analogy is extreme. In conclusion, fuck people who can't bother to write their own goddamn essay. It's not that hard.

Re; Glenn's Post

2006-09-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

Glenn, it is in the Bible. But, so are many other things, such as selling your daughter into slavery/prostitution, owning slaves as property and being able to beat/torture them since they are not considered human beings, that it is illegal to touch pigskin (which would have ruined that football game I went to yesterday, but seeing how bad the Dolphins played, I wouldn't have minded the banning of pigskin), etc. So the point is, you can't pick and choose what you are going to believe in and still not be a hypocrite; it really has to be all or nothing. How can you pick one thing from the Bible and say "you are sinning if you do this" but ignore other things. But I believe Jesus came along and sort of nullified all of those laws that humans couldn't really totally abide by, but that conservatives these days pick and choose from to try to force on the rest of us. Also, I always like to point out that taking care of the poor occurs about 3,000 times in the Bible but there are very few instances bashing on gays (and Jesus of course did not bash on gays). As Caitlin politely pointed out, Paul did the gay bashing. But Christians don't worship Paul as far as I know.

I'm glad to hear you got rid of that spinach, jackass.

And I wouldn't balk at the "not having kids" thing: read this article.
More "liberal" people (I use that term in its most broad sense, as in people who don't want to make legislation based on a narrow interpretation of religious writings, who care about all people and not just those who are rich, who care about individual liberties, etc.) like us need to maybe at least think about adopting children or something. But if that article is to be believed, we're screwed.

Reasons Gay People Should Not Get Married

2006-09-18T00:28:00.000-05:00

According to my students, at least. And to be fair to them, since you can't privacy protect Blogger blogs, they were sort of asked to play devil's advocate, even though I probably didn't have to ask them to play devil's advocate.

1 - Then AIDS won't be spread around - Ahh, what a relief! I'm glad straight people can't get or spread AIDS. Also, apparently gay people started AIDS. I'm sure they were like "you know what will show straight people? If we start a debilitating disease that takes the lives of many of our number! Kudos!"

2 - Bible - I guess it must be in there, though I'm sure zero percent of my students could quote me a passage.

3 - If gay people can get married, then nobody will have kids anymore - Because I suppose everybody is secretly gay, and as soon as gay marriage is legalized all the straight people in America will go "Just kidding guys! I've been gay the whole time." Other people say that this will take time, because children of gay people will learn to be gay from their parents, and not know there are other options. I guess that's scientifically sound. After all, gay people are only born to gay parents.

4 - They can't have kids naturally, so it's not right - Therefore, any straight couple who are infertile or don't want to have kids also should not be allowed to get married.

5 - Any other great arguments you guys have heard from students or elsewhere? I can't think of any right off the bat.

Also, Nick, I threw out that contaminated spinach, even though I think if I finished the bag I would be fine. I'll risk e-coli for the sake of not having to eat nasty lettuce.

Hollywoodland is boring, although I guess the acting is ok. I just want everybody to know that I called Adrian Brody being a good actor after Killian and I saw Summer of Sam in the theater. I said "That Adrian Brody guy is going to be the next Robert Deniro." I also called Jamie Foxx after a bunch of us Orlando people saw Bait in the theater. I was like "Wow, that movie sucked, but that Jamie Foxx dude is a pretty good actor." I guess that's probably more of a feat.

Gaytarded, or Spontaneous Generation

2006-09-14T21:35:00.000-05:00

All you people who know me (and who am I kidding? Only three people read the blog here at blogger, and you all know me) know that in 1999 I made up the word "gaytarded." See, the thing was, I had for a long time called things "gay" or "retarded" to signify that they were bad. But then eventually I realized that they were pretty offensive, and I didn't want to bother my gay friends or friends who might secretly be retarded. So whenever something sucked, I started calling it "Nazi." "Oh, you have to get up at 6 am? That's so Nazi." I figured nobody would get offended if I used Nazi as a term for bad things, except for Nazis, and well, fuck those guys. They're Nazis. But then the problem was that every time I used this phrase, I had to explain this whole story all over again. A phrase you need to explain every time is scientifically fucked.

Anyway, the point is, I just decided I would be as offensive as possible, and I combined "gay" and "retarded" into "gaytarded." If I was ridiculously offensive, people would be able to tell that I obviously didn't hate gay people or retarded people. And it got into pretty good use among me and my friends. Flash forward to last fall, I was reading a comics column written by comedian Brian Posehn in which he used the word "gaytarded." I had always wondered how long it would take for a word to get around from when it started, and here was my proof. 6 years.

But then when I looked it up on the internet, it sort of seems to be everywhere. I even found some lame high schooler's page in which he claims his friend invented the word this past January. So basically I think that probably I came up with it on my own in 1999, and other people in other places came up with it simultaneously. After all, we're all exposed to pretty much the same cultural exposition, right? If somebody somewhere comes up with something, chances are somebody somewhere else is also coming up with the same thing at the same time. So I guess what I want to say is that I don't think I can claim responsibility for the word "gaytarded" anymore. It was borne of society, and society is it's only parent. True, I'm part of society, but so are we all.

But I still want to claim cockasaurus.

That's all.

World War 8

2006-09-12T12:24:00.000-05:00

You know something I hate? Whenever you have an expert in some political field on the news, and then they bust out with one of these gems: "You know, we're probably looking at World War 8 right now." And then they look like they just said the most brilliant fucking thing in the universe. Come on. It's like these guys just want to count any international conflict as a World War. The Cold War? World War 3. The War on Drugs? That's number 4. The Cola Wars? 5 and 6.

I don't understand why the news has to be so sensationalized. I think that in my dream world I would like to be an expert. Then I could just say ridiculous shit and look really smug about it all the time. Well, I guess I can do that now, but if I was an expert I could do it on the news. Do they often interview poetry experts? Ahh, who am I kidding. I don't even know that much about poetry.

Did you guys see that ABC mockumentary about 9-11? It sounded pretty ridiculous. I like when people try to place the blame of September 11th on various political figures. It was not the Clinton administration's policy that caused it. That's just what people (republicans) want everybody to think. Democrat=death. In fact, didn't the Republicans criticize Clinton for attacking Iraq and supposed Al Qaeda strongholds? On the other hand, as much as I dislike the Bush administration, there was probably nothing they could have done to stop the attacks, either. Me, I place the blame on the hijackers. That's probably crazy talk, though.

OK, I'm sorry everything I've been writing on this blog is political. I guess Nick is sort of influencing me in that direction. So blame him. I promise zero political blogs for the next week. Of course, if I keep my posting regularity, I can probably promise zero blogs for the next week.

Liberal and kind of weird

2006-09-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

In describing this blog, Jane has also come up with probably the best short description of me possible (and probably Glenn too, though for him I would change it slightly to "liberal, Canadian, and kind of weird"). Although these days being liberal is pretty much anyone that disagrees with the Bush administration and their policies (especially the war).

This post will probably be short because I have lots to do before I leave for Lake City tomorrow morning, and I also want to catch a quick nap as I was up in the middle of the night checking election returns. Speaking of which, I am pleased with the Democratic candidate for Governor (Jim Davis). So now, here is my prediction: It will be a somewhat close race between Jim Davis and Charlie Crist, but unless Jim Davis runs the absolute perfect campaign and Charlie Crist does something to kinda mess up along the way, Crist will win. I correctly predicted that Charlie Crist would run (though I wasn't sure if it would be Senate or Governor), because he placed his maw in front of any TV camera or on any radio station every single time they thought there might be something in the tropics, since he is Attorney General and he had to tell us about "price gouging." Which is good, but it was obvious that he was positioning himself for a run, and that he has massive name recognition in Florida now. Jim Davis, not so much. I am hoping though and I will likely volunteer for Davis. I'm also very pleased that Katherine Harris won the primary for the GOP run for senate. You don't need a prediction about who will win that; Harris will lose big (polls have her losing to Nelson by something like 20-30 points). I am following that race closely, not because it is competitive, but because she is the single most entertaining candidate ever, even here in Florida. She recently claimed that only God chose who got elected; looks like God is voting for Nelson in this race.

And here is one thing that bothers me; I saw somewhere that in Florida, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Likely due to south Florida, which is much more "blue" than north Florida. But still, in the state as a whole, there are supposedly more Dems. Yet Florida is a red state. That is the single most infuriating thing about politics to me.

I will be in Lake City until Sunday, so I won't be blogging (not because I won't have computer access, but because I'll be in Lake City, therefore, I won't have anything to write about).

I don't know if anyone has paid attention to the upcoming ABC "docu-drama" about the 9/11 attacks to be played on Sunday night and Monday night (the 5th anniversary of 9/11) but it sounds pretty awful. It looks like some aspects of it have been fictionalized (that may be an understatement) to place the blame of 9/11 on the Clinton administration and not on Bush where most intelligent people know it really goes. They have already been using terror for political gain, and now it seems they are trying to rewrite history. I won't go on and on about it, but I will direct you here and here to read more about it.

I told Glenn that I don't have nightmares, at least not about "skeletons appearing by my bed" (a Glenn nightmare suggestion) or ghosts or the supernatural, because I don't really care about that stuff, but I think that after talking with Glenn about it yesterday I might have had a nightmare last night. I don't really remember, but I did wake up freaked out and with the feeling that I'd had a nightmare. So thanks, Glenn.

Blog Pressure, or Glenn's Deepest Fears

2006-09-04T01:46:00.000-05:00

Ever since Nick and I have started this new blog, I've felt a certain pressure to make all of my blogs coherent. And half of them so far have even been socially relevant. Well, one. But one is half of two.

Anyway, my friend Jane, who runs a very good blog, ran a link to us today, so now there's even more pressure. Man, I've got to be smart, witty, and some third word I can't think of! (PS - I would also link Jane's blog, which is great, but I don't know how to put links in the entries. Nick probably can figure that out. It's on the left, anyway, under "Glenn Reads.")

Well, instead of writing something smart or witty, here's some crap about stuff that scares me. See, the other night I had a crazy and terrifying dream. I'm not going to describe it, because you can have the freakiest dream in the history of dreams, and when you try to put words to it to somebody it comes out like "I was walking in the mall, and there were stuffed teddy bears everywhere. And chocolate chips, man. Chocolate fucking chips."

But the point is, I had a scary dream and I woke up and couldn't sleep without turning the television on. (See? This is how good a blogger I am. This is an embarrassing story, and I don't hesitate to tell it.) Now, I know people who know me pretty much associate my bravery with Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, but I play up that fear of ghosts thing. I don't actually get freaked out about too much. Maybe one or two dreams in the past 5 years. Definitely The Sixth Sense, but that was because I was also sleeping out in a wide open room. Ghosts like wide open rooms. I mean, I assume.

All of this brings me to the most terrifying thing that ever kept me from the most sleep: the 2nd and 3rd volumes of "The Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard." These aren't the creepy ones with the illustrations, mind you, but the cheap-o knockoffs bought from the book fair. In childhood I suffered from a medical condition that still afflicts me to this day. I don't talk about it too much, but those of you who are close to me know that I am a life-long victim of the condition "Nerdabetes." As a carrier of this disease, the book fair was something I always looked forward to. Other kids were looking forward to christmas or smoking cigarettes or some such shit, but for me it was the book fair. And on this fateful book fair, as I was tossing aside the latest Ramona bore fest (Dear Ramona, it's God. Shut your cakehole.), I came across this book with a creepy old man with with two teeth and a lantern on the cover. I think there might have been a spider, and maybe a gravestone or something too. And lightning. Killer. It was so mine.

And after waiting the two weeks or whatever for the books to show up (and I lucked out and got two of the series), I read all of the stories within in one night. Bad move. I was terrified. I tried to convince my brother to sleep with the light on, but he was not down with that. Eventually, I had to convince my mother to throw the books away they were so scary. For years, if I recalled the ending to one or two of the stories, I would still get chills. And I'm talking about years as in through college and crap.

Flash forward to fifteen years later, when amazon exists. It's halloween season (which doesn't start until October, but that's subject for a different entry), and I am basically game to do anything to get in the creepy spirit of the season, apart from drinking human blood ever again. I remember these terrifying books, and decide to order them online for about fifty cents each. When they arrive, I am so stoked to be petrified again (because it's ok in October), and crack open the books. Instead of being terrified by a fucking ghost leaping off the page and strangling my neck or barfing spider webs into my face, I get terrified by poor prose style. These books are terrible in a million ways! They all start out somewhat differently, but then end in pretty much the same exact way every time. Example.

Suzie meets a new girl and becomes her best friend. Endings include:

A) The girl has been dead for twenty years, which she finds out from the neighbor or from her new friend who turns into a skeleton with beetles for eyes or some such shit. The end.

B) The girl is actually the escaped axe murderer man in disguise that Suzie heard about on the radio earlier. The end.

C) When the girl is supposed to meet her at dead man's curve, she never shows. Turns out she has been killed by the axe murderer, which Suzie finds out with some pool of blood somewhere or bloody axe or maybe a car that the axe murderer chopped up. Ok, I don't know why I said "dead man's curve" if I wasn't going to run with that idea.

You get the point. I guess the lesson is you can never go back or something. Also, it's tought to get scared these days. The Descent is pretty scary, though. You guys should check that out. Sorry this post is so long.

You(Boob)Tube

2006-08-31T17:51:00.000-05:00

I'm always a bit behind when it comes to the new hip thing; I've only recently discovered YouTube and this whole "viral video" phemonenon. And I've found some hilarious things on there, as well as some helpful things (such as segments of shows I have missed, etc.). Mostly hilarious things. And I've noticed that, like the huge big thing of a few years ago, blogs (which are still getting bigger and more important in the world of politics and public opinion), there are a lot of good things...and a lot, LOT of shit. Because every single idiot that films anything puts it on YouTube. It is truly a democracy, whatever that means. But I think it is more than that; I think it has the potential to be as big as blogs, and I think we can count YouTube and viral video (as well as things like Flickr) are all huge parts of what people like to call "netroots." Already, because of YouTube, we get to see things, over and over and over, such as Senator George Allen's "macaca" incident, Conrad Burns falling asleep on the job as well as his own racist and idiotic comments, and we even see these things on the news, straight from YouTube. Couple that with the fact that, these days, you don't have to even own a big camcorder or video camera, video cameras are smaller than ever, most digital cameras record video, and fucking cell phones now record video, so all someone has to have is their damned phone, and they can (and DO) record just about anything, no preparation needed. Will this keep politicians honest and accountable, knowing that at any time someone is video taping them? Or will it just make them become even more fake? Does it matter? Also, beyond politics (which is hard for me), what about things such as crime or harrassment? All someone has to have is a cell phone, which most people have, and most phones at least have cameras, if not video recording capability as well as audio. Does this make us sort of a reverse Big Brother? Instead of the government watching our every move, we are all watching each others every move? I'm going to choose to be optimistic about this phenomenon. Since anyone with internet access can see YouTube, as well as read blogs, (no subscription required, such as newspapers or magazines or even TV; and you don't necessarily have to pay for internet service, since you can go to your local library or internet cafe', etc.); and blogs seem to have taken the place in many ways of regular media, since regular media these days seem to not really do their homework when it comes to news; I find these days that I read much more on blogs than I do anything on "traditional" news outlets. Not only does this stuff bring us all even closer together, it really epitomizes the power of the internet; it's instant, and one video on YouTube, within 5 minutes, travels everywhere, gets seen by hundreds, and becomes news- they get talked about on blogs, on websites, on TV news shows. And it doesn't only benefit one side of the debate; it's non-discriminatory (though the Right, thus far, have been hit much harder with YouTube, because they seem to make the most ignorant and racist statements). People anywhere can see the outrageous thing that was said on a TV news segment the night before, or a politician make a racist slip, or read on a blog the truth about something that the regular news media got wrong (one example: the Connecticut primary- one candidate's website crashed, and they blamed their opponents supporters for hacking and crashing their website. All of the "traditional" news outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox, local news, etc., just seconded that: they went along and quoted the candidate saying his site was hacked and the other guy should apologize. Well, they didn't do any actual reporting! Very quickly, the blogs did some very easy research, found that the candidate whose site crashed was not hacked but rather had a very cheapy and poorly run website that crashed on election day because of the heavier internet traffic to their site. Long story, but a good one about why these days blogs seem to trump traditional media). And it's not only good in the world of politics and public opinion: Miss your favorite actor/comedian/whatever on some show last night? Find it on YouTube. Want to see pitcures from an event that you couldn't make it to? Look at someone's pictures on Flickr.

Before I go, here is, so far, my favorite clip I've seen on YouTube. I could watch this a million times.

Re: Revenge

2006-08-31T07:44:00.000-05:00

I was going to post this as a comment to Glenn's last post, but it was getting long so I'll post it here:

I think also that people don't understand what the basic intent of terrorsits are: to cause terror. Hence the name: terrorists. Their goal is not so much to just kill people, it is to cause terror. In that, they have achieved and continued to achieve their goal. And that is why they are always releasing their audio and video messages. And America is terrified. Why are we terrified? Because our current president and his administration uses the terrorist threat for political gain and keeps us terrified. It's not the first time (the Gulf of Tonkin comes to mind) but it seems to be the worse its ever been done. George W. is the best thing that could have happened to the terrorists.

I can understand wanting to find those responsible for 9/11; obviously some of the people (or at least one of them) who helped plan the attacks are still out there, and we can't let someone attack us wihtout at least trying to do something about it, within a proportional response; but attacking a country that didn't have anything to do with it is not the right way to do it. Terrorists are not a country; they can't be attacked with the military. But, of course, the people who are running the Bush white house wanted to attack Iraq long before 9/11. You also can't win a war on terror- there will always be terrorists. The way to win is to do what other great wartime presidents have done: rally the country together, make them feel strong (not weak and scared) and ask them to get involved and make sacrifices (not tell them to go shopping and stock up on duct tape in case of terrorist attacks), and to make sure our country is safer: not by taking away any civil liberties or keeping people terrified so you can win elections, but by actually checking cargo (for something like one day in Iraq we could check every single piece of cargo coming in to the US), having competent airport security systems, and better border security, as well as good relations with other countries throughout the world. Instead, we invade a country that had nothing to do with anything, and have bred more terrorists.

This is why it is so important to vote this year; including in the primaries (the Florida one is next Tuesday for those reading this in Florida).

Revenge, wha?!

2006-08-30T23:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I feel like sort of a slacker, since I've only had one post and Nick's had two. But I posted the first entry, so that's worth more than one, right? Anyway, I hope some of you myspace people are coming over here. There's no number tracker, so it might just be Jane, Melissa, and Stephanie who are reading. You guys can post comments without being registered to blogger, I guarantee.

With politically cogniscant Nick on board for this blog, I feel like there's a sort of pressure for me to be smart. Although maybe we can work out a deal where he's the Laurel and I'm Hardy. I mean, I'm the skinny stupid guy who people laugh at and he's the fat smart guy who hits me. Except in real life I'm kind of pudgy and Nick weighs 84 pounds or something.

Here's my political post, though. I've always felt there's been this culture of revenge in this country that's become perverse in recent times. The other day when I was teaching I came across the perfect example. We had on the board the broad topic of "The War In Iraq," and I was asking students to brainstorm possible specific arguments they could write papers on. Most said things like "We were lied to to engage in the war," or "It kills our troops and gains us nothing," or variations thereof. Anyway, this girl in the back got really flustered, and offered the opinion "How about how people don't care about getting revenge on the people who did 9-11 anymore?"

Now, that's a flawed argument in a number of ways. Firstly, we can't get revenge on the people who did 9-11, because they're all dead. They died in the attacks. I understand that it's frustrating, and maybe we can't get closure because of it, but that's what they wanted. Secondly, it's not as if the Iraqi Marines hijacked those planes and flew them into the building. It was an ethically diverse group of militant arabs who did this, from all kinds of different backgrounds. You can't just lay waste to a random middle eastern nation in the name of revenge against a bunch of dead middle easterners who weren't backed by a legitimate government.

(On a side note, that brings me to my problem with saying 9-11 is our generations pearl harbor. Well, a lot of people died in both attacks, and both were atrocities. But Pearl harbor was perpetrated by the military of a foreign nation, whereas 9-11 was perpetrated by extremists representing an idea. How do you drop two nukes on an idea?)

But my third point is that even if the hijackers were all from one foreign nation, what good would it do to to invade that nation and kill more people? Revenge? Well, revenge is a pointless act that will only create more terrorists down the line. I remember the onion had a headline once that said "New Bomb Can Create 1000 New Terrorists In One Blast." But it's easier to simply say we need to bomb the fuck out of some people in the name of something. We were wronged, and the world must serve its penitence. How could we ever just stand back and see the devestation and death and simply say "That's a terrible thing. We must be more careful in the future."

We are the country of death penalties and shooting trespassers. If somebody kills our aunt, we want that person dead immediately. Where does this come from, this desire for revenge? And how could it possibly ever end?

In conclusion, Munich is the best movie of last year.

Kirk out, bitch.

Tranya

2006-08-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

1. Ernesto was nothing. I stayed up as late as I could waiting for at least some good gusts, but nothing. Just some rain and a little wind. But, I got out of a day-and-a-half of work. Our local TV weatherman, looking very depressed, last night finally had to proclaim Ernesto "a dud," and the local TV anchors with their sad faces on had to tell us they were switching back to normally scheduled programming...and today, they are already scouring the tropics looking for anything that has any remote chance of being something. I love South Florida.

2. I guess this has been under the radar somewhat, or maybe nobody else would be worried about this, but black boxes recording information in our cars? I think it is shitty for you to be able to get a speeding ticket from cameras in intersections (they send you the ticket and bill in the mail!), but having a box in your car that they can use to get information, not only your speed, because I can't really argue that speeding is a "good" thing, but to have something that can record information such as where you are at any given time, etc., I think it is obvious in our world that something like that wouldn't always be used for "good" (wiretapping comes to mind). I wouldn't be comfortable with one of those in my car.

3. I finally watched the roast of William Shatner. I have never watched one of those roasts because they always look really stupid (likely because they are usually roasting really stupid people), but this was pretty hilarious. Sulu was by far the funniest (and I'd say the nastiest) of all of them. Even Andy Dick was hilarious. And they brought back Balok (with some tranya - Glenn you'll appreciate that). If you get a chance to watch it, I'd recommend it.

4. I don't understand why so many people are so upset about having to read a blog somewhere other than MySpace. MySpace is more frustration than it is worth. It is a good way to keep in some sort of touch with people that are scattered and don't get to see each other, and have them all in one place, but to actually go anything, such as send messages or blog, it's awful. It takes forever to load because of all the advertisements, which are more annoying than fuck. Then it eats posts and messages. And when you get a message from someone on MySpace, you get an email in your regular email inbox telling you that you have a message on MySpace. Why not...just get a fucking email message in your fucking email inbox?!? Lastly, is it really a hardship to click over from MySpace to another website? I thought that, now that I buy most things online, that it was total laziness. But to not even want to move the mouse and click it or (gasp!) type something in the address bar...

REO Speedwagon

2006-08-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my condo with no A/C. I'm waiting for the A/C guy. It went out last night. So I'm writing this and I'm extremely pissed (and hot). Also, there's a hurricane coming. Ernesto. I hate hurricane names, by the way. It doesn't convey the feeling of what a hurricane actually is and what it does, with all of the damage and gas shortages and grocery lines, etc. I've lived in South Florida for almost three years, and I've seen probably at least 8 or 10 hurricanes that have hit in some way, with two really big ones (Charley and Wilma). "Ernesto's coming." Or "Wilma's coming." That just doesn't do it. "Damn you, Charley!" It should be identified in a more fitting way. "Hurricane Lucifer's coming! Flee!" "Hurricane Satan is almost here! Hide!" But we've got Ernesto. Which means everyone has freaked out, and a normally 20-25 minute ride home from work today took me more like 40-50 minutes, because people are sitting in gas lines that block the streets. Lots of idiots are going to the beach to hit the gnarly pre-storm waves. The radio and TV stations are loving it; they have been playing up the drama and sensationalism since hurricane season began, and they seem literally crushed every time they look to the tropics and nothing is brewing...but now we have Ernesto. All the radio stations are playing the requisite hurricane anthems; this morning it was "Riding the Storm Out," by one of the most ridiculously named bands, REO Speedwagon. Tomorrow when we start to get rain, it's going to be "I'm Only Happy When it Rains." I just want to get this damned A/C fixed so I can have at least one cool night before the storm hits and possibly knocks our power out.

So anyways, I'm glad we switched to blogspot. I had given up on the MySpace blog a lot sooner than Glenn. I have always hated MySpace. I resisted until it seemed that there was absolutely no other way to be in touch with anyone. I couldn't get anyone on the phone or by email, but goddammit, they were on fucking MySpace. But by the time I got through the extremely slow sign-in process every day, then the singles website ads, and then denied twenty women who were asking to be added as a friend so I could see their awesome webcam, I didn't even give a fuck anymore and just logged right back off- and looked at a few more ads. Plus, it's all kids that use MySpace; I am a C-Span addict, and late one night they had a program about MySpace and pedophilia, and at the end of the program I felt like I was a dirty old fuck because MySpace was for kids and teenagers. I can't say I dealt with any drama, because I couldn't have given a shit about the top 8, and nobody that I know cares whether they are in my top 8 anyway. So hopefully, no suicidal S&M nude guy will commandeer our blog this time. I did have to dragoon Glenn, as he was pretty attached to his MySpace, but I hadn't read his or anyone else's blog in a long time because I just couldn't stand it anymore.

Now I am going to go sit in front of two fans, watch hurricane coverage, and wait for the A/C guy. I might do some real-time hurricane blogging; until the power goes out, at least.

Long Time Coming, or Fuck Myspace

2006-08-27T11:20:00.000-05:00

As much as I love myspace, and I do love me some myspace (like dopeheads love smack, see?), I felt it was time to leave my blog there and start anew here at Blogger. While I do enjoy seeing some woman's cleavage from True.com every time I sign out, Myspace just sucks. In the tradition of me having no transitional writing skills, here's a list of some reasons why I hate myspace so much.

1 - I will write the best and longest blog entry ever, and then when I try to publish it it will get totally lost to the god damn ether. Well, maybe most of those lost entries are me complaining about things in an annoying manner, since that's what most of the not lost entries are, but you know. It's the thought that counts or some lame thing.

2 - All those fucking banners. Who actually believes if they catch the baby they will win an iPod nano? Jesus. It has to work sometimes or else they wouldn't be everywhere, right? It's the same thing with those emails you get from some Nigerian millionaire who wants to deposit a million dollars in your account in exchange for your bank info. Some dumb fucker has to fall for this crap, right?

3 - Whatever crappy band Fox likes being on the front page, or whatever crappy movie Fox likes being on the front page, or whatever crappy porn star Fox likes trying to add me as a friend so I can go check out her roommate's hot web cam.

4 - Myspace drama. Bump that. I know everybody says they're joking when they complain that they're not on my top 8, but really, nobody's completely joking. I'll be honest - I feel bad when I don't make a friend's top 8. So fuck all that top number jazz.

5 - Well, maybe I just got the 1 year itch or something. I can't think of a number 5. Why can't it just be 4?

Anyway, I'll still be checking myspace, because I like keeping in touch with friends of mine, but the blogging will be here from now on. It's sort of like moving into a new apartment. I'm excited now, but in three months when the toilet's backed up and there's pizza crust stuck to the kitchen sink maybe I'll move to livejournal.

But hey, Nick is here to keep things interesting. It's sort of like the rebirth of our classic Full-On Idle blog that was somehow deleted and replaced by some crazy suicidal naked dude. So we'll have some discussions, and maybe some intelligence, and maybe one or two fights. So keep checking back, and remember this, you myspacers: The same people who have Bill O'Reilly on contract have you on contract, too. Except you don't get paid.

Kirk out, bitch.