A Concise History Of MTV (1989-Present)

E's List Of "People Who Have Been Kicked Out Of Marilyn Manson"

This list is not from E! the cable network, but E the singer/songwriter and leader of Eels. The following was cribbed out of the liner notes for his Useless Trinkets rarities compilation:

1. Fiona Hinckley
2. Ladybird Bundy
3. Baby Jessica Speck
4. Alanis Mussolini
5. Hilary Rodham Berkowitz
6. JonBenet Hitler
7. Lady Diana Dahmer
8. UnaBarbara Bush
9. Mother Theresa McVeigh
10. Son Of Sally Jessy Raphael
11. Anita Hillside Strangler

Too Long For A Tweet

Three teenagers are in the store, milling about at the front, picking out sticks of incense with some degree of difficulty (one repeatedly asks her boyfriend: "baby, help me?") . There might be a 100 IQ between the three of them.

"How much for incense?" one asks after a moment or so.

"$1.75 for a pack of ten" I reply.

The teen hands me a packet of sticks. "OK, I think this is ten."

I count the sticks in the pack. "Well, this is actually eight."

"So ... I can get more?"

"Yes. Two, in fact."

"Suh-weet!"

As my friend Andy is so fond of saying: "doomed, doomed."

RIVERBOTTOM NIGHTMARE BAND!

While this has never been a family blog per se, I still almost feel the need to apologize for the truly vulgar and tastelessly named band in the Youtube link below. If you can somehow get around their name, dig on this hilariously faithful (if you squint your ears) grindcore cover of an old chestnut from that gentle 1977 Christmas special Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas.

For the sake of comparison, I first offer you the original version:



And now the same filmed performance, with the, uh, revised version dubbed in:



For those who wish to be even more offended/titillated, some additional info and a complete discography (including song samples!) on the band who covered this song can be found here.

Proof positive of some remaining immaturity still rattling around inside this grumpy old man's heart: I giggled myself completely sore while watching this.

People Of Wal-Mart

Here's a new photo blog that should appeal to those of you seeking more visual proof of just how doomed we are as a species.

Lords and saints preserve us.

(Youtube): Why Everything Sucks

Den Vignettes

Just when I was thinking that this year's batch of high-profile April Fools Day jokes were so stupid that they weren't even jokes, I get hard evidence that at least one of them worked: I actually had a 20-something person come into the store Friday afternoon and ask me for the "new Nine Inch Nails album," which, if none of you have heard about it, can be looked at here.

I almost felt bad setting the poor bastard straight: not because I'm sure he didn't actually see the above webpage (he told me that a friend of his e-mailed him about this "release," and I wonder if his friend bothered to read anything past the title), but because he mentioned that he had been to like five other stores around the county looking for it and my explanation at least made clear why he'd had so much trouble locating it. Oof.

In the department of "non-April Fools Day related inanity", I can tell you about the two teenagers who asked Greg if we carried any Metallica "vinyls" in the store. I used the quotes there because they pronounced the word "VIN-yulz," which for a moment had him completely baffled as to what the hell they were talking about. Dear lord ...

When Pets Attack

It's always fun in a disconcerting way to watch as your rascally, cuddly, lovable furball pet instantaneously transmogrifies into a fuckin' terminator.

Sarah was holding Moe as we talked in the office yesterday afternoon while it rained steadily. Sarah noticed a flutter of motion by the window and spied a pigeon who had just landed on the sill to escape the miserable conditions. She mentioned it to me and then asked Moe if he could see it, lowering him slightly so that it was in his sightline.

At first, he didn't seem to process it, but once he did, it was like this electric current just shot right through him. He immediately did that "turn to jellyfish" trick of his and squirmed out of Sarah's grasp and, in one motion, fell to the floor and then sprang straight for the window (which is about chest-high to me).

BWAP! The window was, of course, closed, and Moe flew face-first right into it. The surprise of this impact knocked him back down to the floor into a tangle of wires, but he barely noticed. In another spring-like motion, he threw himself back at the window. BWAP! Same result. Down to the floor he went again. Duh.

By this time, Sarah and I were pretty much incapacitated with laughter, while the pigeon, who probably watched its life flash before its eyes, took off in a hurry once it realized it was not going to be Moe's dinner.

One can almost imagine the thought processes involved in these few seconds of action:

Moe: purr purr ooo I wuv you guyz so much I just love being fussed over and cuddled and the center of attent-HOLY SHIT A FUCKEN BIRD!!! YOU ARE DEAD, BIRD!! DEAD!!! I AM GOING TO FUCK YOU UP RIGHT NOW!!!

*BWAP!*

Pigeon: AAUGGGHHHHH HALP O GOD O GOD

*BWAP!*

Pigeon: oh. heh. lol. *flies away*

Moe, of course, spent the rest of the afternoon keeping a very watchful eye on the windowsill. I tried to impress upon the boy that even if the window had been opened, and there had been no screen in it, he would have possibly nabbed the Mr. Pigeon in a flying tackle, yes, but then it would have been a 20 foot drop to the sidewalk afterward.

I don't think he cared.

(Youtube): Everything Is Amazing, Nobody Is Happy...

Comedian Louis C.K. sits down with Conan O'Brien and offers up some thought-provoking commentary on modern society with a dose of laughs.

(Youtube): Ah L'amour

Submitted for your approval: a vicious, dispirited, disturbed, and absolutely hilarious piece of stick figure animation for the perpetually lovelorn (or cynical):



Thanks for the heads up, Keith. :-)

Ahhhh ...

The Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog

Have you ever noticed while reading news that after any day that is even moderately shitty on Wall Street, you will always see a photo of some poor trader looking like he needs a couple Excedrins? Well, this guy has, and with events in the world's financial markets being as dire as they've been recently, a great idea for a new photoblog was born.

End Of Discussion. For Now.

Not that you would ever notice it here since I rarely go political on this blog, but my complete avoidance at all costs of the vice-presidential debates the other night made me realize that I've reached my personal fill of political discourse for this term. My mind is made up, and I'm dead tired of this subject coming up several times a day every single day at work. It's time to step back, affect an air of blissful ignorance, and let whatever happens happen at the polls.

Thus, with one month to go until Election Day, I hereby state for the record that I am taking a break from all discussion, comment, and riffing on political affairs in all forums, whether we're talking about e-mail lists, blogs, shooting the shit at work, or any other public venue where the subject can possibly come up.

Ohhhh, damn. Almost forgot. One last thing before my promise officially goes active ...


Hee hee. Don't forget to vote on November 4!

Experts Predict Man Who Plays Once Every Five Days Probably Won't Save Team

While we're in a humorous mood, here's a goodie from the Onion...

Experts Predict Man Who Plays Once Every Five Days Probably Won't Save Team

May 24, 2006 Onion Sports

NEW YORK—Several leading baseball experts sent shockwaves throughout the sport Monday, making the bold—and some say outlandish—prediction that Roger Clemens, a 44-year-old man who will appear in a maximum of 130 of the 1,100 innings remaining in the Yankees' season, may not in fact be able to single-handedly vault his sub-.500 team into first place. "I am going to go out on a limb and say that this player who will perform in approximately 20 games for the rest of the year will, at the absolute most, have a positive impact on roughly 20 games," said ESPN's Rob Neyer, turning the sports world on its head. "Of course, there is always the possibility that several other Yankee pitchers and position players may begin improving in a manner coinciding with Roger Clemens' return, allowing the team to perform at a higher caliber on a daily basis and give the illusion that a man who plays once a week has saved the team. This would simply be happenstance." Some experts, however, disagree with Neyer's analysis, as New York Post columnist Joel Sherman recently claimed that Clemens will "win 30 games, mold [rookie starter] Tyler Clippard into a young Roger Clemens within a week, bat over .300 with 20-plus home runs, and make everything all better."

(Youtube): "Ya Gotta Respect The Ice, Georgie"

We haven't really had to deal with winter yet, though it appears some people on the West Coast are having one hell of a lousy time with it.

Here is some footage of a few people who can't seem to maneuver their SUV's very well on a very icy hill in Oregon the other day.

Watch the tail lights: one guys rides his brakes all the way down the damn hill. Derrrr.

Amazing. Not to mention more than a little sad.

"Let's Play Global Thermonuclear War"

And now, a post for those of you who came of age in the era of Fail Safe, "Russians," The Day After, "Two Tribes", Threads, The Cold And The Dark, "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," Testament, "Christmas At Ground Zero," Alas Babylon, "Forever Young," Warday, Miracle Mile and all those other wonderful, high-cultural paeans to the ideal of Mutual Assured Destruction ...

Ever really wanted to know what a nuke strike would do to your backyard (but were afraid to ask)? Fear no more! There are a couple of family-safe, non-radioactive ways to find out courtesy of your best friend and mine: The Internet!

First up, courtesy of meyerweb, we have the High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator, which blends Google Maps technology with publically-available weapons data to create a graphical simulator of the effects of a nuclear detonation over just about any location you can bop in terrestrial coordinates for (you'll probably need to Google your own locale's longitude and latitude unless you have this shit memorized), as well as a few preset named locales like New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle (but not Las Vegas? Boo!).

Adding more fun to the fracas, you can also adjust the yield of your desired airburst anywhere from 1 kiloton (boooring) upwards to 99,999 kilotons (holyshit), with a shaded bullseye indicating different levels of overpressure (which indicates the radius of total vs. partial destruction) radiating from your hypothetical ground zero. Put another way: the former setting knocks down a few square blocks of downtown Los Angeles, while the latter pretty much wipes the entire region from the map.

While this is certainly a very interesting exercise, the 99,999 kiloton limit (that's basically 100 megatons, if my brain serves me well) may seem a hindrance to the more boredom-crazed individuals out there who wish to destroy whole continents at a shot. For those sociopaths, another site exists called the Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator. Sadly, the NWEC lacks the ability to plot your weapon's effects on a city map, but it more than makes up for this deficiency by giving you the ability to ramp up the firepower of your theoretical nuke: taking it, in effect, from a merely catastrophic "destroy Los Angeles basin" scale event to an Ultimate Superweapon on a similar level as the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

While the Calculator (located, appropriately enough, on stardestroyer.net) may look boringly plain-Jane in comparison to the Detonation Effects Simulator, it thinks on a much larger scale: the lowest setting is 1 megaton and it spirals up to truly dizzy heights from there. So, what is a healthy American male to do but try and throttle the bastard?

Filling the little white box with nines, I decided to witness the effects of a nuclear weapon with a yield of 999 trillion 999 billion 999 million 999 thousand 999 megatons.

*Click*

Oh dear.


Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns): 16475727.4 kilometres

Yes, everyone in a 10,238,016 mile radius of this blast is in for a really bad day.

Air blast radius (widespread destruction): 643694.5 kilometres

Oh jeez, that's 400,000 miles.

Well, I was getting sick of looking at the damn moon anyway...

Fireball duration: 25305359.6 seconds

Woof. Let's see, that works out to... 421,756 minutes, which is 7029 hours, which is 293 days. A little short of an NBA season, isn't it? That's one pretty amazing fireball.

Fireball radius (airburst): 528297.7 kilometres

The fireball radius for an airburst is 328,284 miles. You could roast smores n' weenies on Mars just by waving 'em up in the air for a few. I suppose the radiation would kill you dead as Elvis in a few moments, too, but that would be one tasty last meal.


Pretty amazing number-crunching on an epic scale, eh? Here's the kicker: what I thought was the biggest number you can possibly enter for megaton yield isn't even close. Lots of decimal points in this sucker. Hours of potential amusement.

Anyway, have a nice Sunday, all. I'm headed back to that site to calculate the yield specs on a 100 octillion megaton warhead.


NP Various Artists No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion

Shafts Of Murky Light

Well, the black curtain has started to lift...just a bit.

The car is now finished. Will be getting it from Conrad's early tomorrow morning and then it's off to get it E-checked again and then (assuming even one goddamned thing goes right this week) it's off to finally get a new sticker and be legal and driving again. So, the nightmare is almost halfway over. The "paying back of loans" parts starts up in earnest next week and continues for as long as it takes to do and also keep my own bills and rent and etc. afloat. Wheee.

Anyway, I've been treasuring the laughs when I get them these past few days, and Doonesbury has been really stepping up to the plate lately in that regard. Here is a series of strips that ran last week that caused me much amusement...

1

2

3

4

5

6

Ok, off to bed. Here's hoping tomorrow goes without incident...

NP U2 Vertigo Tour Los Angeles (4.6.05)