|
 |
|
Monday, May 31, 2004
the economics of deadwood. this guy has quite a few posts. not sure he's saying anything that you wouldn't figure from just watching the show, but it's nice to see more people recognizing deadwood's brilliance.
pros and cons of kerry's potential vice-presidential candidates...
4. Bill Clinton, former President
Pro: Oh man, that would be awesome—could you imagine? He'd be all like Yeah, I'm back, so suck on this, y'all and everyone would be all No way and he'd be all Way
Con: None
via mike d: i've been meaning to link to this letter for awhile. it's from a high school friend of mike's who is over in iraq with the navy.
one more from opinion journal: a discursive instruction on the geneva convention as it applies to terrorists.
finally. p.j. o'rourke comes out swinging.
One thing to whine about will be the fate of Israel. Without American safeguards that nation is certain to be militarily attacked. To judge by previous Israeli wars, in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, the result will be serious headaches for Israelis as the Knesset furiously debates the status of Jewish settlements outside Damascus and on the west bank of the Euphrates.
via instapundit: more firsthand accounts from iraq.
Friday, May 28, 2004
interesting
another onion infograph. this time on electronic voting machines.
machines themselves get 26 electoral votes.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
considering all the noise we hear about polls from seemingly all sides, it's interesting to look at the trend lines of gallup poll approval ratings from the 1980s. in july 1988, dukakis was ahead of bush by 16 points?!! does anyone remember that? it must've been right before they took that goofy picture of him on top of the tank. or maybe the whole willie horton thing? if kerry were 16 points ahead, people would be making a shrub-sized coffin for bush.
well, it was the last day of school for thomas today. no more first grade. he bought his teacher a pack of roach traps because, in his words, "she doesn't like roaches." he also gave her his tooth fairy money. i thought she was going to cry. roach traps and tooth fairy money. i bet she doesn't forget that kid. they also had the talent show. thomas went towards the end. the teacher mispronounced his name. magnoooooson. he didn't blink. just sat down and went through his medley that he's been practicing for the past six weeks. smooth as a whistle. thomas' guitar instructor showed up to boot, which was damn classy. after he was through, william shouted, "is it over, dad?"
"this part," i said. "this part is."
balanced wsj article on the FCC, indecency regulations, michael powell vs. michael copps, and how it might all lead to cracking down on political speech as well. plus, an agreeable quote from sean hannity of all people:
""The solution to indecency," Mr. Hannity says, "is technology and choice."
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
a great post on a blog run by and for iraqis.
of course i can't wait to hear everyone's (read joey's) response. they're all CIA schills!!! they don't know what they're talking about!!! cheney is really writing this blog!!!
sullivan's fisking sontag.
the academy awards of movie trailers
rock star
cowboy
Monday, May 24, 2004
interesting article that takes cosby ruckus as its leaping off point. i read in another article today that michael moore actually has his kids in a private upper west side school in manhatten. it seems that everyone wants to talk the good talk about public education, but the reality is you don't want to sacrifice your kid to the gods of political correctness.
sometimes it seems memories come at you like dreams, possibly put there for a reason, possibly dredged up so you can simply be confused all over again. i remember my grandfather telling me about knocking out a take-all-comers boxer at a fair. he was a big man, my grandfather. earle powell. english stock through and through. but i never really thought of him as tough or even particularly strong. i couldn't imagine him bouncing around a boxing ring. but he knocked this guy down and took the money. years later, as he lay dying in a hospital bed in houston, i saw it. he shook and rattled the bed like an old bull, coughing up the cancer and scaring me half to death. it took several nurses and doctors just to hold him down. i remember going down to the hospital cafeteria with my grandmother. she wanted a cigarette badly and was nervously picking her lips. "i don't know what i'm going to do without him," she said to me. she was a blunt, hard woman and she'd often talk to me like i was an adult. he died shortly thereafter and she didn't have a ceremony for him. nothing. no memorial service. no gathering of the relatives. they lived on lake houston near crosby and she simply dumped his ashes in the lake without telling anyone. i'm not sure what gets me thinking about my grandparents like that. a certain melancholy i guess. a certain knowledge that life is crazy and we all make it that way, but some more than others, more broadly and with strokes the size of whale fins.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
slate link gifts and one journal shot
via steve: a local writer takes on the roller derby scene. has it been over a year since kyle and jenny and me and lonanne and nadav went to this thing? does it take that long for the culture vultures at slate to pick up on it?
for joey: i think this is what you were saying about colonial house. only perhaps you weren't as sympathetic toward the guvner. hmmmm. they must have spies out there reading your blog.
for kyle: looks like critics are starting to notice the linguistic brilliance of deadwood.
for blu: since michael moore's just won the palm d'or at cannes, it's useful to look back on his deliberate inaccuracies and distortions in bowling for columbine.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
every once in awhile i'm reminded of the old web. you know the one. where everything wasn't a blog or a commercial. where you'd find something so completely unexpected that you'd laugh your ass off for hours. or minutes. you'd laugh your ass off for minutes.
exhibit A: The Official Ninja Webpage: REAL Ultimate Power!!!!
If you don't believe that ninjas have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.
easy indeed. there's no site like this anymore. not really. you might find something that you smile at or you may nod knowingly at a link someone sends you. ah yes, that reminds me of...but it's never coming from left field anymore. left field's been mapped out and occupied. people are in the stands clicking on pop-up windows and hoping the filtering device on the firewall doesn't flag maxim.
or am i wrong? is it simply the fact that these things are always out there and you (or possibly just i) have become too lazy to search them out, having dug around enough and found my fill? or is it like the good doctor said? "when the going gets weird, the weird go shopping."
exhibit B: adventures of confessions of st. augustine the bear
in either case, it's rare that i find something which makes me laugh out loud. slight smile? yeah. nod knowingly? sure.
in unrelated news, i was an extra (a cop) the other night on the set of this movie by mike judge. i was there for about three hours. everyone says there's a lot of standing around and waiting on movie sets, but you really have no idea. for those three hours, they probably shot 10 seconds of film. they did three rehearsals and took four actual takes to essentially get a shot of several emts and me carrying out dead soldiers from the american legion hall. i guess the most interesting thing to me was the way everyone really doesn't look at you when they talk. they sort of are looking just past you, either at other actors or the director or trying to find where the camera will be so they can get "face time." you're not a person anymore. you're an image.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
file under "wish i had thought of this"
Brutally Honest Personals
Saturday, May 15, 2004
ridiculous movies about global climate disaster (where's tommy lee jones when you need him?). the lakers still in the playoffs. a christianity-as-cult thriller that shoddily diminishes faith and makes millions. an american's beheading getting less play in the traditional press than a picture of a woman with a dog collar around an iraqi. bush's approval ratings dropping. ah well. at least there's a nobel peace prize winner worth his stones.
i'm already sick of hearing about this super size me movie and it just came out. that's b/c we've been hearing about it (and hearing about it) for months now. i don't disagree with its general premise. fast food is worse for you than other food. um, duh. the problem i have is that it lays all the blame of everyone's unhealthy eating habits on a few evil corporations and, you guessed it, meat (they slide this one in the back door via his vegan chef girlfriend). gimme a fucking break. you think mcdonald's is owned by krispy kreme or that coke only peddles its wares inside the golden arches or that chinese fast food isn't just as bad? the simple fact is that there are more choices in dining out now than there were two, five, ten or fifteen years ago and they ain't all great and they ain't all bad. go to an average grocery store and tell me you couldn't find everything for whatever the latest diet fad is (atkins? south beach? blood type? we got you covered.) i also love how it seems that everyone who mentions the movie already has the readily handy quote about how it's like michael moore only not so...fill in your favorite backpeddling phrase...exaggerated? shrill? obnoxious? what, do they hand these sorts of comparisons out in press kits now? prolly. still, i want a little formal announcement of when exactly the liberal punditry abandoned michael moore and i want it in fucking writing. was it when over half the so-called "facts" he peddled in that last propaganda flick of his were found out to be false or was it (yeah, i think this is it) when he verbally abused poor old doddering charlton heston for the sheer pleasure of it?
anyway, i went looking and, of course, some other moron is doing the same thing, only attempting to prove the exact opposite of what spurlock does in his flick.
can our choices at the movies get any more depressing? oh yeah, the chronicles of riddick is coming up. i'm pulling for a pepsi product placement in that one. i really am.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
why the internet generation loves to play poker. i've certainly seen or perhaps am just now noticing a rise in poker tournaments in and around austin. i was all too willing, like most folks, to concede the resurgance to the travel channel and all those poker series on tv. but entertainment follows a zeit and a geist as well.
Monday, May 10, 2004
things i should've realized earlier
there's something fundamentally wrong with dr. phil having a diet program. the guy is like 30 lbs. overweight. that's minus the mustache.
backing up your computer is never really a "wasted evening."
you shouldn't pick a profession where 8 out of 10 of said profession's professionals are lame-ass geeks and the other 2 are wannabe lame-ass geeks.
nobody knows what they are doing. i mean nobody. well, team ropers. those guys know how to throw a mean rope. that's the only exception. them and musicians. ok, team ropers, musicians and dentists. dentists are solid.
volunteering for the school PTA (and being the only guy) covers a multitude of sins. these would include showing up for parent-teacher conference hungover, forgetting teacher appreciation day, and insulting the cafeteria cook by asking her if she can count to twenty.
poetry stinks. i mean have you read some of this shit?
if you hate your boss, quit immediately...the moment you realize it. either that or tell them and ask to be transferred. if you don't, every single minute after that will be filled with regret and a loss of steam.
either both and/or neither.
you really should laugh about everything. there is nothing so important that it can't be laughed at. either that or cry all the time. i think you know which sort of person people like to be around.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
allman brothers. ain't wastin' time no more
Last sunday morning, the sunshine felt like rain.
Week before, they all seemed the same.
With the help of God and true friends, I come to realize
I still had two strong legs, and even wings to fly.
And oh i, ain’t wastin time no more
’cause time goes by like hurricanes, and faster things.
Lord, lord miss sally, why all your cryin’?
Been around here three long days, you’re lookin’ like you’re dyin’.
Just step yourself outside, and look up at the stars above
Go on downtown baby, find somebody to love.
a fairly decent review of koppel's nightline listing of the dead. i tend to agree. no matter how objective he claims it all to be, koppel is making a political statement. it's impossible not to. and for those who view these soldiers as victims of a wrongful campaign, i suppose that's ok. but say it. which sort of makes me think of my other pet peeve. most of my friends are liberal to moderate when it comes to politics. invariably, one or all them will eventually comment on the conservative media. fox news. all the cable shows. limbaugh. they run the media. then, i'll get with some conservative individual (my mom, for example) and she'll rail on the liberal media bias. the new york times. katie couric (suprisingly, a favorite bogeywoman). cnn. viacom. etc. they're dogging bush and giving kerry a free pass. or, if you're liberal, they're dogging kerry and giving bush a free pass. they're opposed to iraq. or they're jingoistic and blindly supportive. it seems like at any moment, the media will be taken over by dark evil forces, either liberal or conservative, depending on who you ask. i think most folks can see that it's not one or the other. bush didn't get a free pass from russert. i think kerry did. but he got raked over the coals by others for his "ribbons" statements. not sure i have a point here. more "party of the confused" fodder. this, but not that. that, but not this.
top
|
|